NEW LONDON (CT)
The Day
February 5, 2019
By Joe Wojtas
A group of people who say they were abused by Diocese of Norwich priests but are barred from filing lawsuits due to the statute of limitations are calling on Bishop Michael Cote to meet with them and establish a victims compensation fund.
In an open letter to Cote, John Timothy McGuire of New London said that while Pope Francis recently has instructed bishops to seek out victims, he and the others have not heard from him.
“We need to meet. Not for your ‘understanding’ of what happened to us, or to hear you again say you are sorry for us being abused. We are all aware of your efforts against future abuse within the Norwich diocese, and the zero tolerance policies the diocese has in place now.”
Instead, McGuire said the meeting “is for the diocese to directly address the need for justice and recompense.”
“We will settle for nothing less than a compensation program for us and all victims, not just for being sexually assaulted by its clergy but also for the role the diocese played in enabling the continuance of said crimes,” McGuire wrote, referring to the failure of the diocese to report accused priests under the state’s mandatory reporter law and transferring them to other parishes, where they sexually assaulted more children and teens.
McGuire told Cote that “your priests used the ultimate force to sexually molest children. God.”
The diocese did not respond to a request for comment about McGuire’s letter.
McGuire has alleged that on four occasions when he was an 8-year-old altar boy at St. Joseph’s Church in Noank, the late Rev. James Curry took him into the room next to the altar, where the priest undressed the boy and they fondled each other’s genitals. Afterwards, McGuire said he had to confess to Curry that he tempted the priest. On the fifth occasion, when McGuire told Curry he was not going to do it anymore, Curry allegedly told McGuire, “Then you’re not what God is looking for. You’re never going to be an altar boy.”
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