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	Rev. Gary J. Mercure—assignments and Sources of Information Bishopaccountability.org February 13, 2011 http://www.bishop-accountability.org/assign/Mercure_Rev_Gary_J.htm Summary of Cases: Mercure was placed on paid leave (announced on 1/19/08), after the Albany diocese received on 1/11/08 an allegation that Mercure had sexually abused a boy at Our Lady of the Annunciation in Queensbury NY in the mid-1980s. On 1/28/08, four other men came forward, two more from the Queensbury parish, and two from St. Teresa of Avila parish in Albany who alleged abuse in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then on 5/23/08, John Watkins filed suit alleging that as a vulnerable adult, he had come to Mercure for counseling help regarding earlier sexual abuse, and had been abused by Mercure in turn. Watkins also alleged that Mercure discussed with him the priest's sexual interest in children, and gave him pornographic photographs. Watkins claimed that he apprised the diocese of all this in 1994 and 2000. On 8/15/08, the diocese announced that Mercure had been removed from ministry for the first Queensbury allegation because there "were reasonable grounds to believe he sexually abused a minor ... Subsequently, other people made similar allegations." Mercure has not been laicized or defrocked, which are the technical and popular terms respectively for being "reduced to the lay state" by the Vatican. He is still a priest but is not in ministry. On 10/30/08, the Berkshire County DA confirmed that Mercure had been indicted on charges of taking two altar boys from New York to Massachusetts and raping them there in 1986 and 1989. Prosecution in Massachusetts was possible because while Mercure was out of state in New York, the statute of limitations in Massachusetts did not run. It is not clear whether these alleged victims are new allegations, or are two of the three men who have already come forward about abuse allegedly done while Mercure was working in Queensbury. Victims' advocates put the number of known accusers of Mercure at 13. After three adjournments, the jury selection for Mercure's trial in Berkshire County Superior Court, before Judge John A. Agostini, began on 1/31/11. The first details of allegations against Mercure emerged during trial testimony. (See below for articles about the trial.) In addition to his seven parish assignments, Mercure was campus minister at Adirondack Community College for at least 17 years (1982-1999), and was on a diocesan personnel committee concerned with Ongoing Formation and Continuing Education for Priests (2005-2008). When he was promoted to pastor at two Troy churches on the retirement of the previous pastors, Mercure was also given a three-month sabbatical to the North American College in Rome in Fall 2000. Mercure's 2000 promotion in Troy was a restoration of the pastor status he lost in 1995, when he was demoted from pastor and principal at St. Mary's in Glens Falls and was transferred to a junior position at St. Mary's in Clinton Heights. This demotion in 1995 presumably resulted from the allegations made by John Watkins. As part of the transfer from Glens Falls to Clinton Heights, the Vice Chancellor of the Albany diocese, Rev. Martin Fisher, was moved into St. Mary's in Glens Falls as pastor, presumably to do damage control. At two of Mercure's assignments, another priest now accused of child abuse was living in the same rectory: Rev. David G. Bentley at St. Teresa's in Albany (1978-1982), and Rev. Mark Haight at St. Mary's in Glens Falls (1991-1995), where Mercure was also head of the regional school. He'd graduated from St. Mary's in 1966. Ordained: 1974 Incardinated: Diocese of Albany; sabbatical in Rome in Fall 2000
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