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	Ex-priest Says Sorry for Abuse The Sun Chronicle September 29, 2009 http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2009/09/29/news/6185602.txt Paquette served in Mansfield A former Mansfield priest has apologized for sexually abusing boys over his 30-year career. The defrocked priest, Edward Paquette, 80, who now lives in Westfield, told The Burlington Free Press that he prays for the boys and their families and is sorry for what he did. "I'm very apologetic," he told the Vermont newspaper. "It's hard to explain why I did it. I don't know." Paquette was assigned to St. Mary's in Mansfield from 1957 to 1960, said John Kerns, a spokesman for the Diocese of Fall River. Paquette then went to St. Kilian's in New Bedford where he was accused of "improper behavior," Kerns said, and later worked in Westfield. The Burlington newspaper said Paquette was caught by police having sex with a teenage boy in a car. Bishop James Connolly, who led the Diocese of Fall River at the time, ordered Paquette to undergo treatment, removed him from his post and said he could no longer be a priest in the diocese. Paquette, however, was somehow able to get an assignment in Fort Wayne, Ind., despite the negative recommendation from Bishop Connolly, Kerns said. He was also accused of abuse in Indiana, the newspaper said. Later Paquette went to Vermont and was a priest at parishes in Rutland, Montpelier and Burlington in the 1970s, where he was caught abusing altar boys. Last year, the Burlington diocese lost an $8.7 million lawsuit by a former altar boy who accused the diocese of negligence in supervising Paquette and preventing his abuse.
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