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	Former Salem Priest Defrocked by Vatican By Tom Dalton The Salem News March 18, 2006 http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/05/snstory.pl ?-sec-News+1k589g0+fn-priest20-20060318- SALEM — A former Salem priest who admitted making sexual advances on a teenage boy at St. Joseph's Parish two decades ago is one of eight Boston area Catholic clergymen defrocked yesterday by the Vatican. The Rev. Robert Morrisette, who served here from 1976 to '84, is "no longer in the clerical state," the Archdiocese of Boston announced yesterday. The group of priests and one lay deacon removed yesterday includes Monsignor Frederick Ryan, vice chancellor of the archdiocese from 1974 to 1995 and one of the highest-ranking clergymen charged since the priest sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2002. The banned priests will no longer receive financial support from the archdiocese and cannot perform public ministry, except to the dying, the archdiocese said. Morrisette, now in his late 50s, was forced to move out of St. Joseph's Parish in 1984 after admitting to sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy, according to church records released in 2002. The family of the boy went to the church to complain that the priest had taken their son, who was in his bathing suit, into his room in the rectory. Another family came forward to say that there had been "incidents involving the Boy Scouts," a charge the priest denied. A former pastor of St. Joseph's reported the allegations to high-ranking church officials, according to the priest's file. Cardinal Bernard Law, who had just arrived in Boston, approved Morrisette's transfer to a new parish in Bellingham and wrote he was "confident (Morrisette) will render fine priestly service." Law's letter was written after a doctor examined the priest and concluded it was "sound and reasonable" to return him to service. In 1993, a Bellingham pastor wrote a generally favorable report on Morrisette but told church officials that a teenage boy complained that the priest was "grabbing him on the butt." Morrisette was sent to an institute in Connecticut in 1984 for evaluation and received therapy for several years in the mid-1990s, according to the file. Law placed Morrisette on sick leave in 1993 after a church board recommended removing him from ministry. The priest then went on a voluntary leave and, in recent years, was a concierge at a Boston hotel, according to media reports. Morrisette also served at St. Mary's Parish in Lynn from 1975-'76. The other defrocked priests are Anthony Buchette, Paul Finegan, Thomas Forry, Ernest Tourigney and Patrick Tague. Former deacon Joseph Crowley also was removed from ministry. The scandal erupted in the Boston Archdiocese, prompting Law to resign late in 2002 under mounting pressure about his handling of the crisis and of priests who had been accused of molesting children. About a year later, the archdiocese reached an $85 million deal to settle lawsuits by about 550 victims of clergy sex abuse. An investigation by the state attorney general later found that about 1,000 had been molested by dozens of priests over about five decades. Many of the priests were shipped from parish to parish to try to conceal the allegations. "The violations of childhood innocence, under the guise of priestly care, are a source of profound shame," Archbishop Sean O'Malley said yesterday in a prepared statement. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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