Bridgeport Diocese Disputes Darien Church Employees Claims, by Monica Potts, The Advocate, August 6, 2009

Bridgeport Diocese Disputes Darien Church Employee's Claims

By Monica Potts
The Advocate
August 6, 2009

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/ci_12990434?source=most_emailed

A day after a memorandum was filed in a lawsuit against the Diocese of Bridgeport over the Rev. Michael Jude Fay, the diocese issued a statement disputing assertions contained in the legal document.

In the statement, published on the diocese's Web site Tuesday, the diocese said the church's former bookkeeper, Bethany D'Erario, had not been pushed out of her job or retaliated against after revelations that Fay embezzled $1 million, but had instead left voluntarily.

Rev. Michael Jude Fay, former pastor of St. John's Roman Catholic Church in Darien, Conn., leaves U.S. District Court in New Haven in 2007.

In a lawsuit filed last year, D'Erario claims her employers created a hostile work environment after she reported Fay to a private investigator. The diocese says D'Erario did not take action against Fay until he had already been removed and was being investigated at their request.

The statement also said D'Erario's "allegations are an attempt by her attorney to use inflammatory rhetoric as a substitute for evidence."

Among these were D'Erario's claim, in a memorandum submitted Monday in state Superior Court in Waterbury, that Bishop William E. Lori threatened to send the Rev. Michael Madden, another pastor at the church, to a nunnery after he and D'Erario hired a private investigator to look at Fay and that Fay had been sleeping with a church finance board member.

"Other than Ms. D'Erario's self-serving and unsupported statements, the Diocese is not aware of any evidence that would support her allegation," the statement said.

D'Erario's attorney, Mark Sherman, said, "No amount of Diocese spin is going to veil the fact that Beth D'Erario and Mike Madden were thrown under the bus. The truth will come out at the appropriate time."