Support Group for Those Abused by Priests to Protest Reported Move of Bishop Thomas Dupre to a Less Secure Facility, by George Graham, The Republican, May 25, 2010

Support Group for Those Abused by Priests to Protest Reported Move of Bishop Thomas Dupre to a Less Secure Facility

By George Graham
The Republican
May 25, 2010

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/support_group_for_those_abused.html

Bishop Thomas L. Dupre has moved from a church-run treatment center in Maryland to a retirement home in Washington, D.C., according to a support group for those abused by priests.

Dupre was accused of sexually abusing two minors years before became head of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Springfield in 1995.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests will hold a press conference Tuesday to disclose the move and urge the Pope and others in the church hierarchy to move Dupre back into a more secure facility.

The press conference will be held at 12:30 p.m. outside the Springfield Catholic Diocese at 65 Elliot St.

SNAP, in a press release, stated it will blast church officials for letting Dupre move into a less secure facility and for what it describes as their continued secrecy surround the his whereabouts and status.

SNAP will also urge that the whereabouts of more than 20 other accused sex offender prelates across the country be disclosed.

According to SNAP, Dupre has moved from the St. Luke's Center in Silver Springs, Md. and now lives in the Bishop O'Doyle Residence, a Washington, D.C. retirement facility.

Dupre was indicted by a Hampden County grand jury in September 2004 on two rape charges stemming from the abuse accusations. Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett chose not to pursue the charges because the criminal statute of limitations had expired.

William J. Nash, a Western Massachusetts spokesman for SNAP, said Tuesday that Dupre's new address was discovered last week when a Michigan engineer included Dupre in a lawsuit, claiming he was sexually assaulted by now-defrocked priest Richard R. Lavigne while living in North Adams in the 1970s.

In a complaint filed in Franklin Superior Court last Wednesday, Peter J. Caffrey, 47, of Chelsea, Mich., accuses Bishops Joseph F. Maguire and Dupre of negligence, saying they allowed him to be molested by Lavigne in 1976 and 1977.

Nash said St. Luke's is a private facility and has never acknowledged that Dupre has been a resident there.

SNAP will hold a simultaneous press conference in Washington, D.C. outside the Bishop O'Boyle Residence.