MAINE
Bangor Daily News
[Letter Regarding Early Notice of Vallely Abuse – BishopAccountability.org]
By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted April 06, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — A 2005 letter from a retired priest to an official at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland shows that Maine’s bishop knew that a priest was sexually abusing boys at a Bangor church in 1956, according to an advocate for victims and an attorney.
The late Bishop Daniel J. Feeney knew that the Rev. James Vallely , now deceased, abused children at St. John Catholic Church in Bangor before 1956, according to Robert M. Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery Inc., a New Jersey-based nonprofit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families.
Efforts to reach the diocese for comment late Monday afternoon were unsuccessful.
The handwritten letter, dated July 20, 2005, was written on stationery for St. Mary’s School in Bath. It was signed by the Rev. Richard P. Rice and is addressed to “Marc.”
Marc is believed to be the Rev. Marc Caron, who was co-chancellor of the diocese in 2005, according to Hoatson. Rice is retired but continues to say Mass in All Saints Parish, which includes churches in Bath and the Boothbay Peninsula, according to information posted on the parish website.
Efforts to reach Rice on Monday night were unsuccessful.
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