NEW YORK
DNA Info
By Maya Rajamani | May 22, 2017
CHELSEA — A former Chelsea pastor who was barred from the priesthood last year for allegedly possessing child pornography claims in a new lawsuit that the Archdiocese of New York falsely accused him.
Rev. Keith Fennessy filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling and the archdiocesan newspaper Catholic New York in Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday, claiming they made “defamatory statements” about him last year, the filing shows.
All of the defendants “falsely alleg[ed] that… Fennessy possessed child pornography with at least reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the statements,” the suit adds.
Fennessy, a former Community Board 4 member, was the pastor at St. Columba Parish, on West 25th Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, from August 2011 to June 2015. Before that, he served as pastor at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church on Staten Island.
Zwilling on Monday said the Archdiocese could not comment on the suit, as it had not yet seen it.
“Please note that our Lay Review Board carefully examined his case and recommended that Fennessy not be allowed to function as a priest,” he wrote in an email. “Cardinal Dolan accepted their recommendation and thus Fennessy will not ever serve as a priest again.”
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