MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican
By Fred Contrada, The Republican
on July 11, 2013
NORTHAMPTON – The Rev. Paul Archambault, whose suicide in 2011 drew crowds of mourners to his funeral Mass in Northampton, has been named in a law suit alleging he sexually abused a boy beginning when the boy was 13.
The plaintiff, a Chesterfield man who is now 20, said in the complaint that Archambault cultivated his friendship while the priest was assigned to St. Patrick’s Parish in Chicopee and sexually assaulted him for nearly four years in multiple locations, including the parish, a shrine to the Virgin Mary in Vermont and the Northampton home of the priest’s father. The alleged victim is not identified in the filing.
Archambault shot himself in the head in July of 2011 at Sacred Heart Parish rectory in Springfield. His body was found after he failed to appear for Sunday Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Hampden.
He had served as the chaplain for the Hampden Police Department. Officers from that department carried his casket out of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Northampton at the end of his funeral.
Archambault was also the chaplain at Baystate Medical Center. Some 50 priests and deacons and a color guard from the Knights of Columbus attended his funeral Mass, which was presided over by The Most Rev. Timothy A. McDonnell, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
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