Prosecutor's Investigation Shouldn't Stop at Fugee: Editorial

The Star-Ledger
May 21, 2013

http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2013/05/prosecutors_investigation_shou.html

Rev. Michael Fugee appears in court on charges of violating a court-sanctioned agreement that bars him from working with children.

It’s a relief to see the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office step in and do what the Catholic Church could not: protect children from a priest who confessed to sexually groping a 13-year-old boy.

The Rev. Michael Fugee, whom Newark Archbishop John J. Myers allowed to take kids on retreats and hear their private confessions, was arrested this week for violating a binding agreement that bars him from working with minors. Fugee is now charged with contempt of a judicial order, a fourth-degree crime that carries a maximum prison term of 18 months.

But remember, he wasn’t the only one who signed off on this agreement and then broke it. The archdiocese did, too. The prosecutor should press forward with this investigation and consider charging Myers with contempt, as well. This, however, would require a finding that Myers knowingly violated the agreement. Has he been questioned? He should be.

So should others in his inner circle. There can be no free pass for the hierarchy here. At the very least, Myers should step down. His behavior has prompted widespread outrage even within the church, because he repeatedly protected Fugee.

The priest’s confession that he fondled this boy was never called into question. But the archdiocese and Fugee entered into this agreement to avoid a retrial, after Fugee’s conviction was thrown out because the jury improperly heard testimony about his sexual orientation.

The agreement committed all parties, including Myers, to keep Fugee away from children: The priest was not to work in any position involving minors, or have any affiliation with youth groups. He was not to attend youth retreats, or even hear the confessions of minors.

And yet Fugee did all of this.

Did Myers approve of it? He’s remained silent on the issue. He first trotted out his spokesman to insist Fugee never violated the agreement because he was supervised — and then, to reverse himself and say Fugee did violate it, but without the archbishop’s knowledge.

Here, Myers is squirming around a central truth: As head of the archdiocese, it’s his job to enforce the zero-tolerance policies on sexual abuse that the church adopted more than a decade ago. Not to quietly side-step them.

A priest is supposed to be removed from the ministry if there is even a single credible act of admitted sexual abuse. Yet in this case, a secretive lay group concluded that no abuse occurred — impossible when you consider Fugee’s confession: that he’d repeatedly grabbed a boy’s crotch while wrestling, because he had “a sudden urge to do it,” and it sexually excited him.

Myers, who has final say over the group’s decisions, did not raise any objection. In fact, he later placed Fugee at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark as a chaplain without informing hospital officials of the criminal case. After inquiries from The Star-Ledger, the hospital immediately requested his removal.

Fugee was given clearance without even hearing testimony from the victim or his parents, who vehemently deny receiving any letters informing them of the church investigation. The lay group’s website says it can “undertake a meaningful investigation” only if the victim will testify. The archdiocese had the mother’s phone number. Why didn’t someone use it?

The fact that this group operates in secrecy is only more evidence of bad faith. Fugee’s re-arrest confirms what we knew already: The decision to allow an admitted sexual predator around children was a criminal one. We applaud the prosecutor’s action, and the courage and conviction of the Catholic Whistleblowers, a newly formed alliance of priests and nuns who pressed for justice in this case.

Now it’s time to focus on Myers: He must be held accountable, too.