MASSACHUSETTS
Daily Mail (UK)
By Ap and Daniel Roth For Dailymail.com
A disgraced former priest convicted of repeatedly raping a boy in the 1980s was released from prison on Friday after serving a 12-year sentence.
Massachusetts prison officials say Paul Shanley, 86, was released from the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater on Friday. They did not provide an exact time.
Convicted in 2005, Shanley’s crimes were finally brought to light after The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team published an in-depth report in 2002 on pedophile priests the Catholic Church was helping to protect.
The report led to thousands of accusations from alleged victims, providing evidence that the abuse spanned over decades.
It was later discovered that senior Church members helped cover-up the scandal and shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish.
Originally believed to be only a few isolated cases, the Spotlight investigation sparked an international crisis within the Church, with victims coming forward from numerous countries across the world.
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