NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 05, 2016
Thirteen years ago, amid allegations he molested a 16-year-old boy, the Rev. Kevin Gugliotta was suspended from ministry in New Jersey, his case referred to the Vatican for guidance because of an unusual circumstance.
When the alleged sex assaults occurred in the mid-1980s, Gugliotta wasn’t yet an ordained Catholic priest. He was a private-sector engineer and Boy Scout leader.
In the eyes of the Vatican, the distinction appeared to be a critical one, regardless of the case’s merit.
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark told NJ Advance Media last week the Vatican ruled that church law, known as canon law, prevented Gugliotta from being punished for something he might have done as a layman. In December 2004, he was quietly reinstated, free of restrictions on his ministry, and served for years in various parishes, including a long stint as chaplain to a youth group.
That decision, which was not widely disclosed, is now being questioned by his accuser and others in the wake of Gugliotta’s arrest in October on 40 counts of possessing and disseminating child pornography.
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