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	Molested by Priest, He Breaks His Silence The Star-Ledger August 25, 2009 http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1251165309286280.xml&coll=1 A man saying he was sexually abused by a Newark Archdiocese priest previously convicted of sexually abusing a minor in Jersey City criticized church officials yesterday for not alerting parishioners in Missouri when the priest relocated there. Mark McAllister, 39, received a $600,000 settlement earlier this summer from the Newark Archdiocese, the Jefferson City, Mo., Diocese, and the religious order Servants of the Paraclete. He claimed he had been abused while a teenager in Boonville, Mo. Yesterday, in the shadows of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, McAllister talked about what he said was five years of sex abuse by the Rev. Gerald Howard, who, unbeknownst to parishioners in Boonville, had changed his name from Carmen Sita after his 1982 conviction. Sita had worked at St. Aloysius in Jersey City. McCallister said, among other things, that Howard kept up his sexual relationship with the Jersey City victim even after the priest pled guilty to molesting him. At news conferences in Newark and Jersey City, McAllister stood alongside officials for the group Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. Together, they criticized the Newark and Jefferson City dioceses for not alerting parishioners, either in the 1980s or subsequently, about Howard's criminal background. "In Dallas, they (bishops) promised openness, truth and transparency," said Mark Crawford, leader of SNAP's New Jersey chapter, referring to the city where American Catholic bishops, embarrassed by revelations that many of them had let abusive priests stay in ministry, pledged in 2002 to respond more effectively to clergy sex abuse of minors. "We're still waiting." SNAP officials said that because word of McAllister's settlement became public 10 days ago, three people have contacted the victims' group to say the priest had abused them -- two in New Jersey and one in Missouri, said David Clohessy, SNAP's national director. Despite Howard's name change, McAllister was aware of the priest's old identity, because the priest told him about it, McAllister said in an interview. McAllister said the Howard spoke freely with him during those years about his court conviction in New Jersey and his sentence of five years probation. He said the priest told him that church officials had advised him to change his name.
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