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Calling the allegations "credible and consistent," Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett said yesterday he plans to bring before a grand jury a case that could make former Bishop Thomas L. Dupre the first U.S. church leader prosecuted on sex-abuse related charges.

The head of a national support group for clergy abuse victims called Bennett's action a landmark development in the church's sex abuse scandal, saying it could lead to more prosecutions nationwide and encourage more victims to come forward.

Bennett said at a press conference that an already sitting grand jury will soon begin considering a variety of possible charges, including sexual abuse, failure to report sexual misconduct to proper authorities, concealment of sexual abuse, and other matters regarding the reporting of abuse by the diocese while Dupre was in a position to influence reporting. Dupre retired effective immediately Feb. 11, the day after The Republican confronted him with the allegations he sexually abused two boys beginning more than 25 years ago.

"As a result of this preliminary investigation I have determined that there is probable cause to support these allegations," Bennett read from a prepared statement.

The district attorney also said his three-week investigation may reveal evidence of criminal acts in other jurisdictions where the prosecution of those acts is not barred by the statute of limitations.

"If that is the case, we will refer those matters to the appropriate jurisdictions," said Bennett.

Massachusetts State Police Lt. Peter J. Higgins headed the investigation into allegations against Dupre, the former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield. Bennett personally interviewed both alleged victims, now 40 and 39.

Collected evidence includes photographs, records, documents and other materials.

Roderick MacLeish Jr. of Boston said Bennett's office located the computer Dupre was using when an e-mail allegedly came in, reportedly outlining the allegations against the cleric. It is unclear what the e-mail said, or who received it, and Dupre had switched computers by the time he retired, according to diocesan officials.

But MacLeish maintains the note may have contained damning information, and said that Bennett has called upon computer experts to retrieve deleted e-mails from the machine's hard drive.

"It's amazing what can be recovered from a computer," MacLeish said yesterday.

The mother of one of the alleged victims told The Republican that she sent the bishop two letters last year in which she expressed her anger at him for abusing her son. MacLeish claims the diocese received three letters and the e-mail regarding the allegations, but diocesan officials say they have no record of any allegations ever being made.

The statute of limitations offers the biggest legal obstacle to any sex abuse charges. The law limits prosecution to cases made 15 years after an individual turns age 16.

"There are circumstances under which the statute can be extended. We don't have enough information yet to make that determination," Bennett said.

In a separate press conference in Springfield yesterday, MacLeish said, "There are many facts, which, quite frankly, I can't discuss, but that ... could (extend) the statute of limitations for rape."

Bennett said the case raises questions about the bishop's handling of sexual abuse records for the past several decades. In the past two years, Dupre has been criticized for his oversight of sexual abuse cases, particularly involving defrocked priest Richard R. Lavigne of Chicopee.

About a decade ago, Bennett reopened the investigation into the 1972 unsolved murder of Springfield altar boy Daniel Croteau. Lavigne, a convicted child molester, was the only suspect. DNA tests failed to conclusively link him to the crime.

One priest, the Rev. James J. Scahill, pastor of St. Michael's Parish in East Longmeadow, has been withholding a portion of weekly collections in protest of the bishop's handling of the Lavigne allegations.

Dupre's lawyer, Michael O. Jennings of Springfield, is the only person known to have had contact with Dupre since he left the diocese within hours of being confronted by The Republican. Dupre, who cited his health for retiring before the mandatory age of 75, is being treated at Saint Luke Institute, a Maryland institution that has treated priests who sexually abuse children.

Jennings said yesterday he would not comment on a potential indictment but would let the investigation run its course.

"The wisest things for us to do is to wait and see what results come from the grand jury investigation," Jennings said, adding he is open to communications with Bennett. The two were law partners before Bennett was a district attorney.

Jennings admitted he did not know Dupre's office at the chancery on Elliot Street had been searched with the consent of the diocese, and rejected Bennett's request that the diocese allow investigators to search Dupre's personal quarters.

"I believe that would be an illegal search and anything seized would be illegally seized," Jennings said.

Bennett would not comment yesterday on any plans to search Dupre's living quarters, though he acknowledged a search of the chancery offices. Springfield diocesan spokesman Mark E. Dupont said he did not believe Dupre's personal quarters had been searched.

Bennett refused to comment on any timetable regarding the grand jury's work on the case.

MacLeish praised Bennett's involvement as compassionate and aggressive.

"It is unusual for prosecutors to make the type of statement that the district attorney made today. We have been looking to the church to be making these statements," MacLeish said.

Dupont declined to comment on the news that the case against Dupre will go to a grand jury, but reiterated that a pall remains over the local diocese since Dupre's abrupt Feb. 11 resignation.

"The whole situation just continues to be disappointing," said Dupont, adding that the diocese will continue to cooperate with law enforcement officials.

MacLeish criticized Springfield diocesan and Boston archdiocesan officials involved in the investigation for their refusal to comment on the credibility of the allegations, "when everyone in the room believed what was being said there."

He said his clients fully support Bennett's efforts.

"My clients' whole attitude about this has changed dramatically since the disclosure," said MacLeish, adding that they are finally feeling like they are no longer passive participants in these allegations.

The men came forward only after The Republican published a story that the bishop resigned within hours of being confronted about the sexual abuse allegations.

"This may not have come out without the diligent and investigative reporting by the Springfield Republican," MacLeish said at the press conference that drew about 20 members of the media.

The two men said the abuse began when one was a 12-year-old refugee and that the second boy was a high school freshman. The abuse involved encounters in which Dupre showed them gay pornography and plied them with liquor, according to a statement by the alleged victims.

MacLeish anticipates one of his clients will soon come forward, identifying himself publicly and addressing the case.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said Bennett's action has national significance.

"It's tragic that this has to be considered landmark. It should be a no-brainer that whoever hides and enables abuse should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Clohessy said.

"It shows many prosecutors are relatively timid political animals who still find it safer to prosecute lowly shoplifters than church officials," said Clohessy.

Nine U.S. bishops have resigned following accusations of sexual misconduct since 1985. None have been prosecuted.

Clohessy said Bennett's decision could lead other victims to come forward and district attorneys to pursue charges.

"It reminds me of what Martin Luther King Jr. said: 'No lie lives forever,'" said Clohessy, crying. "Many days I don't believe it. Today I do."

Alleged clergy sexual abuse victim Susan F. Morris of East Longmeadow called the district attorney's action "remarkable."

"For survivors of abuse like me, we now know someone is listening," said Morris, who filed a suit last year accusing Lavigne of sexually abusing her when she was a child.

Bennett's action also legitimizes what many victims have been saying about a conspiracy to hide abuse in this diocese, Morris said.

"People are now going to stand and take notice. They are going to realize the scope of the abuse is much wider than they first believed," Morris said.

The diocese currently is negotiating settlements with about 40 people who have said they were abused as minors by clergy. Most of them are represented by Greenfield lawyer John J. Stobierski, who attended the press conference with MacLeish.

MacLeish vehemently urged the Vatican to address the allegations with an "immediate and impartial investigation."

"This is a test for Rome: Will it protect children or will it protect a bishop?," said MacLeish. "To remain silent under these circumstances would be to foster evil, which already exists."

"We have waited for two years in the United States for a clear strong statement from the Vatican about sexual abuse. It never came. We ask the pope and Vatican that they raise their voice and condemn this man - this apostle of the church - for what he has done to my clients," MacLeish said.

One of the men, who is gay, has said he came forward because he was angry about Dupre's public campaign against gay marriage. MacLeish ripped into the church for what he called its hypocritical teachings regarding sexual behavior.

"I think it is very ironic and tragic, and my clients believe this as well, that Bishop Dupre has spoken and written extensively of the will of God as it relates to sexual relations between men and women and men and men," MacLeish said.

He said this case is not about gay marriage. "It is about the bishop's own sexual behavior with men. It is impossible to reconcile his vitriolic and aggressive moral pronouncements decreeing that men who engage in sexual unions with other men and women with other women should not possess the same legal rights as men and women.

"He made it his mission to enter into the bedrooms of our society to tell them about right and wrong behavior," he said. "Does Bishop Dupre, the pope and others within the church's hierarchy believe that preying upon helpless children, refugees from other countries for his own sexual gratification are values that need to be protected?"

MacLeish said the Springfield diocese needs to legitimately address all issues of clergy sexual abuse.

"Only when it does will parishioners and children come back. Then we will decide whether there is any thread of moral authority left within this church," MacLeish said.