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	A Vatican Panel Clears an L.I. Priest in a Sex Case By James Barron New York Times December 11, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/nyregion/12placa.html?_r=1 A Vatican disciplinary panel has cleared a Long Island priest who was once a high-ranking official in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre — and is a close friend of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor — of allegations that he sexually abused a teenager in the 1970s. The diocese said in a statement that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome had found the priest, Msgr. Alan Placa, 65, not guilty. Monsignor Placa, who declined to be interviewed on Friday, had repeatedly denied the accusation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal William J. Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, keeps watch over church doctrine. But it has also been responsible for overseeing investigations into priests accused of sexual abuse. The Rockville Centre Diocese said the Vatican review had confirmed the finding of a three-person tribunal in the Diocese of Albany and "renders the decision final and definitive." The Rockville Centre Diocese said that as a result, Monsignor Placa had been taken off administrative leave "and is now permitted to exercise priestly ministry freely in the Roman Catholic Church." "We have been instructed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to restore Monsignor Placa to ministry and to do what we can to restore his good name," the statement said. But the statement said that Monsignor Placa and the bishop of Rockville Centre, William F. Murphy, had agreed that Monsignor Placa would not be given a diocesan assignment. "Monsignor Placa's status is that of a retired priest in good standing," the statement said. Monsignor Placa had been placed on administrative leave in 2002 after the allegation surfaced. He had been a diocesan lawyer and the vice chancellor of the Rockville Centre Diocese, with oversight responsibility for its hospitals. He had also been closely involved in preparing the diocese's policies on sex abuse cases involving priests. He wrote a section of a 1990 book called "Slayer of the Soul: Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church," arguing that a diocese was obligated to treat victims with compassion. But he also said that an accusation could do lasting damage to a priest's reputation. He echoed that idea during an interview in 2003 but went further, calling a policy approved by American bishops for "zero tolerance" on sexual abuse "un-Christian." That policy stipulated that a priest found guilty of a single sexual offense would be automatically removed from the ministry. A Suffolk County grand jury issued a report in 2003 that mentioned a cleric — identified as "Priest F" — and accused him of repeatedly making improper advances to children. After the report was made public, Monsignor Placa acknowledged that he was the Priest F who had been accused. No priests were ever charged in the case. The report said that as a diocesan official, he had shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish. It also said that he had deliberately withheld the fact that he was a diocesan lawyer from parishioners claiming to have been abused when he questioned them. The grand jury report did not specify how many accusers had come forward. One who was widely quoted — and who appeared as a witness before the tribunal in Albany — was Richard Tollner, now 50. He attended a Catholic high school in Uniondale when Monsignor Placa was the dean of students in the 1970s. Mr. Tollner did not return a telephone call for comment on Friday.
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