BishopAccountability.org
	Giuliani Priest Friend Cleared of Abuse Charge By Greg Kandra Beliefnet December 7, 2009 http://blog.beliefnet.com/deaconsbench/2009/12/giuliani-priest-friend-cleared-of-abuse-charge.html NEW YORK -- This bit of news slipped under the wire over the weekend, but it's worth noting: A Long Island priest with close ties to Rudy Giuliani has been cleared of allegations he molested a teenager in 1975, church officials said Saturday. Msgr. Alan Placa was the Diocese of Rockville Centre's pointman on sexual abuse until 2002, when he was hit with sex accusations. Stripped of his priestly duties while church authorities investigated, he was found not guilty after a canonical trial. Throughout the probe, Giuliani stood by his life-long friend, even putting him on the payroll of his firm. Placa was best man at Giuliani's first wedding and the priest at his second, and he officiated at the ex-mayor's mother's funeral. A spokeswoman for Giuliani said he had no comment. "He's not going to weigh in," she said. Meantime, however, a victims group is not pleased: "While not surprising, it's still heart-breaking to see that a victim deemed credible by virtually everyone else -- prosecutors, grand jurors, journalists, survivors, relatives and lay Catholics -- is deemed not credible by a couple of Vatican bureaucrats thousands of miles away," said David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountablity.org, a group that tracks sex abuse allegations against Catholic priests, called the decision a "slap in the face to survivors and all Catholics who want to believe the Church can change its ways."
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