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	Gozitan Priest Denies Sexual Relationship with Former Republican Lawmaker: Gozo Curia Tight-Lipped over Investigation By Francesca Vella The Malta Independent October 21, 2006 http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=40642 The Gozo Curia was tight-lipped yesterday, saying little more than what had been said in a statement issued late on Thursday night, a few hours after the international media reported that a Gozitan priest had denied having a sexual relationship with former US Republican lawmaker Mark Foley in the 1960s. When contacted yesterday morning, the Gozo bishop's secretary, Fr Eddie Zammit, said that Bishop Mario Grech had written to the members of the Response Team yesterday morning, asking them to investigate the allegations made against the Gozitan priest. The team will work according to the policies established by the Maltese Ecclesiastical Province with regard to similar cases of sexual abuse in pastoral activity, said Fr Zammit. On Thursday, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune had reported that the Gozitan priest, now in his 70s, had had several encounters with Mr Foley, when the latter was still a boy, which might have been perceived as being sexually inappropriate. Later, the Associated Press reported that in a telephone interview the priest had claimed that the newspaper report had been "exaggerated". The diocese of Gozo said in a press release late on Thursday night that it had learnt about the allegations made against a priest residing in Gozo for the first time through the international press. "Bishop Grech, conscious of the gravity of paedophilia, reiterates that he will cooperate with those responsible for investigating such cases so that justice is done to the victims, the perpetrators are reformed and the common good is safeguarded," the Curia statement said on Thursday night. Mr Foley, a 52-year-old Florida Republican, resigned from Congress last month after news of his sexually explicit emails to young male interns surfaced, AP said, adding that his lawyer has said that Mr Foley was allegedly molested as a boy by a Catholic priest whose name he shared with Florida state prosecutors. AP reported that the priest denied that the two had had sex. "We were friends and trusted each other as brothers." The priest admitted to AP that the two had entered saunas together unclothed and told AP that he did not think that going on overnight trips with a boy was unusual.
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