Monsignor Charles Coen is one of four monsignors and a priest "who had an allegation of sexual abuse of minors brought against them in the Archdiocese's Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program," according to Catholic New York, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of New York.

A native of Dublin, Ireland, Coen was assigned to St. Joseph-St. Thomas R.C. Parish in Pleasant Plains for about 10 years beginning in 1975. Previously, he served at St. Paul's R.C. Church in New Brighton, according to Advance records.

Coen taught and conducted Irish music for children during his time on the Island, according to Advance records.

The allegation was found "credible and substantiated," and "it is certain that Msgr. Coen will never serve as a priest again," the Archdiocese said in the St. Joseph-St. Thomas bulletin.

No criminal charges were filed.

In an interview with Irish Central, the accused priest, now 84, said: "I am not only denying the charge, but it couldn't possibly have happened. One thousand percent, I didn't do this. And not only that, I never got a proper chance to defend myself from the Archdiocese."

In a letter to the Holy See, his lawyer said Monsignor Coen maintained his innocence, but "given his advanced age and weak health... did not wish to pursue his defense any further," Irish Central reported.

Monsignor Francis Boyle, the former longtime pastor at Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church in West Brighton, "will never serve as a priest again" after a church panel substantiated sex-abuse allegations against him, according to a notice posted by the Archdiocese in the Blessed Sacrament bulletin.

The allegation marks a stunning turn of events for the man who served crucial leadership roles on the Island and throughout the archdiocese during more than 60 years in the priesthood.

He was an administrator at seminaries and held sway on archdiocesan organizations that determined the job assignments for priests and finances for parishes.

"The Holy See will decide an appropriate penalty, which could include dismissal from the clerical state or imposing a life of prayer and penance," the Archdiocese said. "However, it is certain that Msgr. Boyle will never serve as a priest again."

No criminal charges were filed against Monsignor Boyle, who, according to public records, is now 89.

When a New Jersey man went public in January 2004 with allegations he was abused by Monsignor Thomas Gaffney, the pastor of St. Charle's R.C. Church in Oakwood, it marked the beginning of a legal battle that lasted the rest of the priest's life.

Ordained in 1950, Monsignor Gaffney was widely credited for keeping  St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School in Huguenot open after he became principal in 1973 during a financial crisis that could have shuttered the school. 

Monsignor Gaffney was assigned to head St. Charles in 1982, and he focused his attention on the school and boosting its enrollment. 

Dan O'Dougherty said in 2004 that he was abused for three years while he was an altar boy and student at the parish school, according to Advance records.

O'Dougherty said the assaults against him often took place where altar servers would vest for mass.

"At the time I felt like it was my fault," O'Dougherty said, "like how could I let this happen?"

Monsignor Gaffney maintained his innocence and filed a lawsuit against his accuser seeking $2 million in damages for defamation of character. 

He was allowed to maintain his position.

Church leaders and many parishioners rallied around the priest.

In March 2004, protesters from two support groups for sex abuse victims demanded outside St. Charles Church that Monsignor Gaffney be removed immediately as pastor, according to Advance records. 

Monsignor Gaffney was hospitalized at the time with liver problems and colitis.

Among the protesters were the parents, aunt and brother of O'Dougherty, then 29.

"(Daniel)'s not here. He's too emotional," said Cathy O'Dougherty, Daniel's mother, in 2004. "Even I can't even look at the church right now." Members of the groups Voice of the Faithful and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests picketed across the street from St. Charles.

In this photo from March 2004, Marianne Cuddy, an aunt of Dan O'Dougherty, holds up a sign outside the church, according to Advance records.

Monsignor Gaffney died that March at the age of 79.

Archbishop of New York Cardinal Edward Egan celebrated the funeral mass and commended the priest for the way "he handled the failed attempt to damage his reputation."

Cardinal Egan said, "I count it as a privilege to have known this wonderful priest."

His remarks were met with thunderous applause from parishioners of St. Charles.

A former Roman Catholic priest who served on Staten Island received a $500,000 settlement from the Archdiocese of New York to resolve a sexual abuse claim, according to The New York Times.

Stephen Ryan-Vuotto was known as the Rev. Stephen Ryan when he was pastor of St. Rita's R.C. Church in Meiers Corners.

In this photo, he is seen giving a homily at Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church in West Brighton when he served in the late 1990s and early 2000s prior to heading St. Rita's.

Ryan-Vuotto claimed that he was violated more than 50 times beginning at age 14 with sex acts that ranged from fondling to sodomy between 1975 and 1985 by the Rev. Robert V. Lott, according to the report in the New York Times.

Ryan-Vuotto was 14 and his father had died from lung cancer when Father Lott allegedly started inviting the teen to sleep over at a church rectory in Greenwich Village, according to the New York Times. 

A paid obituary for Lott published in the New York Times in March 2002 makes no mention of the sex abuse allegations.

"Father Lott was a visionary who saw outside of normal boundaries," his obituary read.

"He dedicated his life to teaching others to help themselves and their communities. Driven by the social gospel to serve those in need, he was a vigorous advocate for programs benefiting the elderly, and a prolific developer of low-income housing. Father Lott asked others to reach for goals that would intimidate most, and his sermons and liturgies inspired those around him to put God's words into action."

Ordained on 1965, Father Lott served at St. Joseph's R.C. Church of Greenwich Village, according to the obituary.

A New Jersey priest who worked in Staten Island schools for more than 20 years as a layman was put on a leave of absence this February after allegations of sexual abuse connected to his time in the borough surfaced,.

The Rev. Patrick Kuffner "has been accused by three individuals of sexual abuse while they were minors," according to a letter from Bishop James F. Checcio of the Diocese of Metuchen.

"We're waiting while the matter is being investigated by law enforcement; he remains suspended," said a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Metuchen on Nov. 7.

The allegations date to Father Kuffner's service as a layman and teacher on the Island more than 30 years ago, according to the letter.

The Advance learned that at least some of the allegations involve his duties as a teacher and basketball coach at Sacred Heart School in West Brighton in the early 1980s.

After his time as a teacher at Sacred Heart, he became an assistant principal at Moore Catholic High School, and went on to serve as principal of St. Peter's Elementary School in New Brighton from 1993 to 1998, according to Advance records. In addition to his role at St. Peter's Elementary School, Kuffner served as the interim principal for St. Peter's Girls High School in the 1997-98 school year before deciding to take holy orders, according to Advance records.

Father Kuffner was initially under investigation by three law enforcement agencies, but two determined that the statute of limitations foreclosed the possibility of sanctions, according to the letter.

"The investigation by one agency is ongoing," the letter says. It was not clear where that investigation stood.

In 2001, the Rev. John Albino, an assistant at St. Patrick's R.C. Church in Richmond from 1998 to 2001, was one of four priests accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing a Bronx teenager. Father Albino had been assigned to St. Simon Stock R.C. Church in the Bronx at the time. 

He was sent to a treatment facility after the lawsuit and later removed from ministry, according to Advance archives.

Ordained in 1990, he was shuffled around to various parishes. According to BishopAccountability.org, Father Albino's work history was:

·  1990-1993 at St. Elizabeth's R.C. Church in Manhattan;

·  1993-1995 at St. John the Evangelist R.C. Church in Beacon;

·  1995-1997 at St. Margaret Mary's R.C. Church in the Bronx;

·  1997-1998 at St. Simon Stock R.C. Church in the Bronx;

·  leave of absence from 2001 to 2002.

In 2003, the Rev. Morgan Kuhl pleaded guilty for the second time in three years to sex-related charges involving minors.

The priest was sentenced to 45 days in jail on sex charges in 2003 after he was accused of fondling a 16-year-old boy's genitals in August 1999 in the basement of the borough teen's home. 

In 2000, Father Kuhl admitted he attempted to arrange a sexual rendezvous in New Jersey with an undercover FBI agent posing as a 15-year-old boy in an internet chat room.

Father Kuhl was arrested by the FBI in October 1999 after he allegedly showed up for a meeting at a Perth Amboy ball field, only to learn that the "boy" he had been chatting with was actually a government agent. 

During a hearing in federal court in Trenton in 2000, Father Kuhl pleaded guilty to a charge of traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor. Father Kuhl was nabbed as a result of an ongoing FBI sting operation code-named "Innocent Images," in which government agents pose as youngsters while policing the Internet in search of child predators.

Father Kuhl was ordained in 1993 and assigned to Holy Child R.C. Church in that same year until 1998, according to Advance records. He served at St. Mary's from 1998 through 1999, according to BishopAccountability.org. 

After being listed on a leave of absence from 2001-2002, Father Kuhl didn't have any known religious assignments, according to BishopAccountability.org.

In these photos, Father Kuhl talks to the police officers and their families during the sixth annual law enforcement mass at Holy Child in September 1998.

The Rev. Keith Fennessy, a former Midland Beach pastor, was not charged by the district attorneys in Manhattan or Staten Island after he allegedly had access to a computer where child pornography reportedly was found, according to a lawsuit that the priest filed against the Archdiocese of New York and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York.

Despite a lack of criminal charges, Father Fennessy was booted from his position as pastor of St. Columba's R.C. Church in Manhattan and banned from serving as a priest, the defamation lawsuit said.

The sanctions approved by Dolan followed the recommendations of the Archdiocese's Lay Review Board, according to the lawsuit.

A Catholic New York article in March 2016 announcing Fennessy's termination said that the priest "was discovered with pornographic material on his computer that violated the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," according to the lawsuit.

The Catholic New York article made no mention of the fact that Fennessy wasn't criminally charged, the lawsuit claimed.

The lawsuit also references an article published in the Advance based on information supplied by the archdiocese and Catholic New York. The Advance was not named in the lawsuit.

The statements in the articles have "rendered Plaintiff unable to practice his profession as a priest, imputes a lack of chastity, and has injured Plaintiff's reputation by exposing Plaintiff to public hatred, shame, contempt, ridicule, degradation and disgrace, and has induced an evil opinion of him in the minds of right-thinking persons," according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit still is winding its way through Supreme Court in Manhattan, according to public records.

Ordained in 1984, Father Fennessy first served on Staten Island at St. Peter's R.C. Church in New Brighton from 2004 to 2005. He was at Our Lady of Mount Carmel-St. Benedicta from 2005 to 2006 and St. Margaret Mary's R.C. Church, where he was the pastor, from 2006 to 2010.

In this photo, Father Fennessy celebrates mass at St. Margaret Mary's R.C. Church in Midland Beach.

A visiting priest was convicted of sexually abusing a rectory worker at Sacred Heart R.C. Church, West Brighton. In May 1995, he was sentenced to a conditional discharge that required he be deported to India no later than Sept. 1 of that year, according to Advance records.

The Rev. Alfred Fernando, then 50, of Bombay, was sentenced by Justice Norman J. Felig on his previous guilty plea to the charge of sexual abuse in the first degree.

Authorities accused the priest of subjecting a 30-year-old woman to sexual contact by forcibly touching her breast, Advance records said.

The victim reportedly went to Father Fernando's room at about 1:30 p.m. May 4, 1995, when the priest allegedly grabbed her breast and then forced her to the ground after pulling his pants down. He then allegedly held her arm while trying to remove her undergarments, according to Advance records.

Police said Father Fernando committed a lewd sex act during the struggle but was unsuccessful in the rape attempt and released the woman.

Father Fernando arrived on Staten Island that February from Bombay and was scheduled to stay for a year before returning home.

John Murphy Jr. and his client, Father Fernando, are seen in this 1995 Advance photo.

The Rev. Stephen Valenta, a former resident of the defunct St. Francis Center for Spirituality in Todt Hill, was accused of sex abuse in Texas.

Valenta was indicted April 16, 2009, by a Milam County grand jury on third-degree felony sexual assault in connection with an incident May 21, 2008, in which a visiting priest at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Rockdale forced a Rockdale woman to perform oral sex in the church rectory, according to the Temple Daily Telegram in Texas and BishopAccoutability.org. Under terms of the plea agreement, Valenta pleaded no contest in 2010 to first-degree felony injury to the elderly, one of three charges named in his indictment. He died in December 2014.  

In 1987, the Rev. John Lugowski, a Franciscan priest, pleaded guilty to felony counts of sexual abuse and sodomy of a 10-year-old boy. He served eight months in the Broome County jail, according to the Syracuse-Post Standard.

Lugowski served at St. Joseph Church in Endicott, near Binghamton, from 1981 to 1984. He left the priesthood in 1989 after serving eight months in jail for sodomizing the boy, the Post-Standard said.

Lugowski spent several months living at a Franciscan order residence on Staten Island, hoping to be assigned to do ministerial work. He said he figured he wouldn't be put back into a parish. He hoped he would be allowed to be a prison chaplain, the Post-Standard said. But his Franciscan supervisors and the Catholic bishops he contacted did not want him mixing with the public, he told the Post-Standard. So Lugowski left the Franciscan community in 1989.

In a 2002 article in the  Post-Standard, Lugowski gave his personal account of his sexual exploits, including sexual contact with five boys in the Binghamton area between 1981 and 1987.

Four former Staten Island priests were among six reverends from theArchdiocese of New York defrocked by the Roman Catholic Church in 2005 due to accusations of sex abuse, according to Advance records.

The decision, handed down by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, stripped the laicized priests of their titles, abilities, pensions and other forms of financial support from the church.

The Rev. Patrick Quigley, ordained in 1981 before he was assigned to a church and high school on Staten Island, pleaded guilty in 1994 to a misdemeanor charge after admitting he had offered three young boys money for oral sex in Haverstraw Village in Rockland County, according to Advance records.

The incidents took place within an hour and the teens, none of whom knew Father Quigley was a priest, declined his offers, prosecutors said.

Father Quigley served at St. Teresa's R.C. Church from 1981 to 1987 and St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School from 1987 to 1988, according to BishopAccountability.org.

He died in 2010, according to BishopAccountability.org.

The Rev. Daniel Calabrese, ordained in 1987 a few years before he moved to Staten Island, pleaded guilty in 1992 to charges he had performed oral sex on a teenager after getting him drunk on vodka in the rectory of St. Mary's R.C. Church in Poughkeepsie. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years' probation, according to Advance records.

Father Calabrese was a parochial vicar of Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church in West Brighton from 1990 to 1991 and, while assigned there, was known for his work leading groups of teenagers to an impoverished rural area in Pennsylvania.

Father Calabrese was transferred to St. Mary's in Poughkeepsie in 1992 after being ousted from St. Paul's Church in Dutchess County, where he was allegedly caught viewing pornography and drinking with teenage boys, according to Dutchess County authorities, Advance records said. 

Also defrocked was Rev. David Carson, ordained in 1984, who served at Holy Child R.C. Church in Eltingville from 1988 to 1993 before being transferred to Our Lady Star of the Sea R.C. Church in Huguenot from 1994 to 1996. In 1992, he submitted a column to the Advance titled, "Clergy Should Live Their Lives as Examples to the Faithful."

He served with the Department of Veteran Affairs at the Soldiers' Home and Veterans' Hospital in upstate Bath from 1997 to 2002 and was a Franciscan friar until at least 2000, according to BishopAccountability.org.

Also defrocked was the Rev. Ralph W. LaBelle was ordained in 1978 and known as "Father Ralph" when he served at St. Clare's R.C. Church in Great Kills from 1979 to 1985 and St. Roch's R.C. Church in Port Richmond from 1990 to 1992. He also was assigned to Visitation R.C. Church in the  Bronx from 1986 to 1989, according to BishopAccountability.org.

Settlements were given by the archdiocese to some of his alleged victims in 2017,  according to BishopAccountability.org.