NASHUA (NH)
Nashua Telegraph
June 1, 2018
By Damien Fisher
A review of Associated Press articles by The Telegraph indicates the Roman Catholic religious order behind Bishop Guertin High School, named in a recently filed sexual abuse lawsuit, is linked to a long history of sexual abuse victims in New Hampshire.
“They did a lot of work and a lot of damage in New Hampshire,” said Terry McKiernan with the nonprofit Bishop-Accountability.org, which tracks cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
A former Bishop Guertin student, Larissa Troy, filed a lawsuit against the order earlier this month, accusing a former teacher, Shawn McEnany, of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s. According to the lawsuit filed in the Hillsborough County Superior Court in Nashua, the school hired McEnany as a teacher despite knowing he was already a convicted sexual offender in Maine.
Several brothers with Sacred Heart involved with Bishop Guertin were accused of abuse on the early 2000s, including former headmaster Leo Labbe. A class-action lawsuit resulted in numerous settlements with purported victims. McKiernan said religious orders such as Sacred Heart are often overlooked.
“Religious orders in general, an the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in particular, succeed in being under the radar,” he said.
According to information from Bishop-Accountability.org, every Sacred Heart school in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island was staffed at times by alleged or admitted sexual abusers.
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