Sixth sex abuse lawsuit filed against priest

By Daniel Tepfer
CT News
March 18, 2015

http://blog.ctnews.com/connecticutpostings/2015/03/18/sixth-sex-abuse-lawsuit-filed-against-priest/

BRIDGEPORT – A Shelton man claims, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, that he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a priest while he served as an altar boy at the former St. Patrick Parish here in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court, brings to six the number of men who have claimed in lawsuits to have been sexually abused by the Rev. Walter Phillip Coleman since the 1970s.

“Father Coleman was sexually exploiting, assaulting and abusing minor children in his parish for years, with impunity,” said Jason Tremont, of the Bridgeport-based law firm Tremont Sheldon Robinson Mahoney.  “Parents and guardians entrusted their children to the care and protection of the church. Rather than protect them, Father Coleman violated them physically, morally and spiritually.”

Brian Wallace, director of communications for the diocese, said case is now in litigation and it would not be appropriate to comment on it.

Diocese records ordered to be made public by a federal court five years ago showed the diocese had been receiving complaints of abuse against Coleman since 1976.

Coleman, who now lives in Pompano Beach, FL., retired from the diocese in 1995 citing health reasons.
But a short time later, Coleman turned up at St. Ann’s Church on Naugatuck Avenue in Milford, and also taught at the parish’s school.
Archdiocese officials there told the Connecticut Post said they assumed Coleman had permission from the Bridgeport diocese to work there. They said they had never been notified he was accused of abuse.
His faculties to practice as a priest were removed by Bishop William E. Lori in 2002.

Coleman served at St. Teresa’s Church in Trumbull from 1960 to 1966 and at St. Maurice’s church, Stamford 1966 to 1968.  He then served at St. Joseph’s Church in Danbury, St. Aloysius Church, New Canaan, St. Thomas Church, Fairfield, before joining St. Patrick’s Church in Bridgeport in 1976.

From 1983 to 1987 he was at St. Joseph’s Church, Brookfield, then Immaculate High School, Danbury, Central Catholic High School, Norwalk, Sacred Heart Church, Georgetown and then St. Joseph’s Manor, Trumbull, from 1991-1993 when he was assigned to St. Margaret Mary Church, Shelton.

In 1976 the diocese received a complaint that Coleman was renting an apartment in New Canaan that was frequented by teenaged boys, the diocese records showed. The diocese subsequently received a complaint from a mother that Coleman had abused her two sons.

After he was suspended Coleman moved to Florida where he continued to minister.

In 2009, the Connecticut Post learned Coleman was regularly celebrating mass at churches in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach in Florida and called the Archdiocese of Miami for comment. The archdiocese subsequently sent out a bulletin to all its churches warning that Coleman was not authorized to serve as a priest.