JACKSON (MS)
Mississippi Clarion Ledger
March 19, 2019
By Sara Fowler
For more than 70 years, Father Paul Canonici has been a prominent figure in the Mississippi Catholic community. Tuesday, he was one of more than a dozen priests identified by the church Tuesday who has been credibly accused of sexual abuse.
In his Madison home Monday afternoon, Canonici, 91, spoke for over an hour about the allegations against him.
“I’m not aware that I have abused, that I have done anything that was sexually abusive to people,” he said.
A native of Shaw, Canonici joined the priesthood when he was 30 years old. Over the course of his tenure, he served as the diocesan superintendent of education, assistant principal and then principal of St. Joseph High School in Madison as well as the priest for multiple parishes throughout the Jackson metro area.
He retired when he was in his mid 70s, he said, but remained active in the church. Despite his five decades with the diocese, he’s not listed on the church’s website of retired priests.
Canonici said he’s “devastated” to be named on the list of accused priests and feels like the process is “unfair.”
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