Assignment Record– Rev. Charles J. Murphy

Summary of Case: Murphy was first accused in a 2004 lawsuit of sexually inappropriate behavior in the 1970s toward a 14-year-old female student at the Boston School for the Deaf, where he was the Director of Counseling. He was removed from ministry and unassigned for two years, then reinstated in 2006 when the archdiocese deemed the accusation to be without merit. He was suspended a second time in April 2010 when an accusation surfaced that he had sexually abused a boy over a period of a year in the early 1970s. Murphy was returned to Senior Priest status in September 2010, after the Archdiocesan Review Board deemed the more recent accusations unsubstantiated. He died the following June.

Ordained: 1959
Died: June 11, 2011

   

Start Stop Assignment Town/Accusations State Position Notes

1959

Boston archbishop was Richard James Cushing (1944-1970).

1964 St. Bridget's Maynard MA 3/3, 2/3  
1959 1961 Lake Boone (summer only) Stowe and Hudson MA   This was a station of St. Bridget's in Maynard.
1964 1969 Our Lady of Lourdes Revere MA 2/3, 3/3  

1969

Cushing was succeeded by Humberto Sousa Medeiros (1970-1983).

1972 St. Agatha's

Milton

• Accused in March 2010 of having sexually abused a 14 to 15-year-old boy in the 1970s. The boy was a St. Agatha parishioner. Incidents are said to have occurred inside a church or rectory bathroom, at Paragon Park in Hull, MA, and on a bus trip to a ski resort. (The Weymouth News
April 5, 2010)

MA   Although the Directories index Murphy as at St. Agatha's through 1977, news reports indicate he left there in the early 1970s. (The Patriot Ledger [Weymouth MA]
April 12, 2006)
1970s   Boston School for the Deaf

Randolph

• Murphy was accused in a May 2004 lawsuit of having exhibited "sexually offensive" behavior toward a female student while at this school. (Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
August 23, 2004) He is said to have walked in to a 14 year old girl's room while she was undressing. (May 12, 2004)

MA director of counseling

This assignment is per news reports. (Catholic Online
May 5, 2006)

Murphy was hearing impaired.

He was director of counseling at this school for nearly 20 years. (The Patriot Ledger [Weymouth MA]
April 12, 2006)

Thirty-one former students claimed that they were physically and sexually abused at the school by nuns between 1944 and 1977. In addition to Murphy, Rev. Thomas V. Daily, was named in the lawsuit because he was Murphy's surpervisor at he school. Daily went on to become bishop of the Brooklyn, NY, diocese. (Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
May 12, 2004)

1977

Medeiros was replaced by Bernard Francis Law (1984-2002).

1985         Murphy is not indexed in the 1978-1982 Directories.
1985 1986 Corpus Christi Newton MA 3/3 Listed as Rev. Charles Murphy, with no middle initial.
1986 1995         Murphy is not indexed in the 1987-1995 Directories.
    Norfolk State Prison   MA part time chaplain This assignment is per news reports.

1995

Sean Patrick O'Malley followed Law as archbishop (2003- ).

2004 St. Francis Xavier Weymouth MA

3/3, 2/2, 4/4

apostolate for the deaf

Parish had a school with 172 students.
2004 2006 Unassigned      

Murphy is not indexed in the 2004 Directory.

Murphy was suspended in August 2004 due to the accusation that he watched teenage girls undress at the Boston School for the Deaf in the 1970s. (Boston Herald
August 22, 2004)

2006 April 2010 St. Francis Xavier Weymouth MA 4/4, 3/3

Parish had a school with 471 students, and a religious education program with 471 students.

Murphy was reinstated at St. Francis Xavier in April 2006 after the archdiocese determined that the accusations were without merit. The accuser did not back down from her claims. (The Patriot Ledger [Weymouth MA]
April 12, 2006)

April 2010 Sept. 2010 Administrative Leave       Murphy stepped down from his post at St. Francis in April 2010, due to an accusation that he had sexually abused a boy over the course of a year in the early 1970s. (Boston Globe
April 3, 2010)
Sept. 2010 June 2011 Senior Priest Boston MA  

The archdiocesan review board deemed the more recent allegations "unsubstantiated," and Murphy was again reinstated, in September 2010. (Patriot Ledger
October 1, 2010)

Murphy's health declined and he moved into the Regina Cleri home for retired priests. He died June 11, 2011.


Source: Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1960-2009)

Priests in a Parish: We use the following convention to show a priest's place among the clergy of a parish: 1/2 means that he is the first priest listed in the Official Catholic Directory (usually the pastor) and that there is a total of two priests at the parish. The shorthand 3/4 means that the priest is listed third on a four-priest roster. See our sample page from the Directory.

Note: The Official Catholic Directory aims to report the whereabouts of Catholic priests in the United States on January 1 of the Directory's publication year. Our working assumption is that a priest listed in the Directory for a given year was at the same assignment for part of the previous year as well. However, Kenedy and Sons will sometimes accept updates well into the year of publication. Diocesan clergy records are rarely available to correct this information. The Directory is also sometimes misleading or wrong. We have tried to create an accurate assignment record, given the source materials and their limitations. Assignment records are a work in progress and we are always improving the records that we post. Please email us with new information and corrections.

This assignment record collates Murphy's career history as it is represented in the Official Catholic Directory with allegations as reported in the media. We make no representation regarding the truth of the allegation we report, and we remind our readers that the U.S. legal system presumes that a person accused of or charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, individuals who may be defendants in civil actions are presumed not to be liable for such claims unless a plaintiff proves otherwise. Admissions of guilt or liability are not typically a part of civil or private settlements. For more information, see our posting policy.

This assignment record was last updated on Feb. 22, 2012.