UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics
Mark Silk | Nov 11, 2013
Yo, Catholic bishops meeting today in Baltimore!
As you may not have heard, last Friday the Bergen County (N.J.) prosecutor announced a pretty amazing agreement with a priest charged with violating the terms of the deal by which he avoided being retried for sex abuse. The priest, Michael Fugee, pledged to seek to be laicized by Rome. The amazing thing was that his boss, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, was cut out of the arrangement.
How come? Prosecutor John L. Molinelli put it thusly:
By way of this agreement, the State of New Jersey need no longer rely upon cooperation by RCAN [the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark] in supervising Michael Fugee. It has appeared, based on many public comments by Archbishop Myers, that the Church had no intention of monitoring Fugee any further and, based upon this office’s review of the Archdiocese compliance with the terms of the original MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] dated July 18, 2007 wherein the Church committed to monitor Fugee, it does not appear that the Archdiocese made and significant effort to adhere to the terms of the MOU such that, at this juncture, we no longer have confidence in its ability as a signatory to honor the clear intent of the 2007 Memorandum of Understanding, which had placed direct oversight responsibility upon the RCAN.
I recognize that your excellencies are unaccustomed to being called out by officials of the criminal justice system, especially when they have names like Molinelli, and that you may find the language here a bit harsh. Indeed, you’ll probably not be surprised to learn that the Archdiocese of Newark took umbrage at the prosecutor’s remarks, issuing a defense of its conduct in re: Fugee via a statement from Vice Chancellor James Goodness.
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