Ex-harlem Pastor Living under Close Supervision

CBS New York
February 3, 2012

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/02/ex-harlem-pastor-living-under-close-supervision/

Msgr. Wallace Harris (Credit: Church of St. Charles Borromeo)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – The ex-pastor of a Harlem church accused of sexually abusing children in the 1980s has been assigned to “a life of prayer and penance.”

Archdiocese of New York spokesman Joseph Zwilling tells the New York Post that Wallace Harris is living “under very, very close supervision” in a Catholic-run residence.

Harris arranged Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 Mass at Yankee Stadium and gave the invocation at Gov. David Paterson‘s swearing-in that same year.

The Vatican recently approved the archdiocese’s recommendation of “a life of prayer and penance.”

Harris was pastor of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo. The archdiocese suspended him after the allegations surfaced in 2008.

He resigned in September 2010.

Ten men accused Harris of molesting them when they were children.

No criminal charges were filed because the statute of limitations had expired.

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