New Mexico lawyer alleges boys abused by Worcester priest

By Stephen Kurkjian
Boston Globe
December 16, 1992

A New Mexico lawyer said yesterday that he plans to file suit this week against the Worcester Catholic Diocese for allowing one of its priests who had been under treatment for sexually abusing children to serve in a small parish where he allegedly molested at least two boys during the early 1970s.

Bruce E. Pasternack of Albuquerque said he will file the suit as early as today charging the Worcester Diocese and others with negligence and conspiracy for allowing Rev. David A. Holley to be assigned to parishes when they knew he had been sent to New Mexico for treatment for pedophilia. The case invites comparison to that of James R. Porter, who is alleged to have molested dozens of youths while a priest and was allowed transfers from one parish to another in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Texas and Minnesota.

While assigned to St. Jude's Parish in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1973 and 1974, Father Holley allegedly molested two youths on whose behalf Pasternack is filing the civil suit. Pasternack said he also intends to file suit against the New Mexico treatment center and the Diocese of El Paso, where St. Jude's was situated.

Father Holley, 72, retired in Denver, could not be reached.

James G. Reardon, attorney for the Worcester diocese, said Pasternack had informed him last week of the allegations but had no comment until the suit is filed.

Ordained as a priest in the Worcester diocese in 1958, Father Holley served at Our Lady of Fatima, Worcester, 1968-1972; St. Mary's of the Hills, Boylston, 1966-1968; St. Denis, East Douglas, 1964-1966 and St. Philips in Grafton, 1962-1964. He also served a year at Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham in the late 1950s.

Joseph A. Hafermann, one of the two plaintiffs, said in a telephone interview that Father Holley molested him on three occasions at St. Jude's.

"I remember him telling me that I should consider myself lucky to have such a special relationship with a priest," said Hafermann, who is now a certified public accountant in Minneapolis. "I didn't tell anyone what he had done to me, but in my mind there had to be a lot of others."

Pasternack said that the Worcester Diocese had sent Father Holley to a center run by the Order of the Paraclete in Albuquerque in 1971 for treatment for pedophilia. A source close to the diocese confirmed he was sent there after allegations surfaced in Worcester that he had molested youths there.

The Paraclete center was also where Porter was sent from the Fall River diocese in the late 1960s.

Father Holley was treated there for several years, according to Pasternack, but was periodically allowed to serve as a fill-in priest at nearby parishes.

Rev. Wilfred Diamond, who was the full-time priest at St. Jude's, said last night that he had sought Father Holley's removal as a fill-in pastor after he had been told by the parents of a third youth that Father Holley had abused the boy. Father Diamond said Father Holley acknowledged the assault.

"I told his superiors at the Paraclete what he had done and that he was no longer wanted here," Father Diamond, now retired, said in a telephone interview.