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	Archbishop to Lead Prayer Service for Abuse Victims By Erin Clossey Needham Times [Needham MA] May 18, 2006 http://www2.townonline.com/needham/atGlance/view.bg?articleid=496233 St. Joseph Church in Needham is one of nine parishes directly affected by the clergy sexual abuse crisis that Cardinal Sean O'Malley will visit during the last week in May to "ask forgiveness" of those hurt by the Church, according to the Archdiocese of Boston. O'Malley will lead a prayer service at St. Joseph's on Tuesday, May 30, 7:30 p.m., as part of a "Pilgrimage of Repentance and Hope." The Novena services will be held in nine communities "that have experienced an especially painful history of sexual abuse of children by priests, and at one parish, by a lay youth worker," according to the archdiocese. Lawsuits were filed in Suffolk Superior Court against Paul J. Mahan, a defrocked priest who served at St. Joseph Parish from 1979 to 1982, alleging that Mahan molested more than 13 children from the 1960s to the 1990s. Two of those lawsuits were filed by former Needham residents who alleged Mahan repeatedly molested them in 1980 and 1982, while the priest served at St. Joseph's. Prior to his serving in Needham, Mahan reportedly was accused of molesting an 8-year-old girl in Dorchester. Elsewhere in Needham, the Rev. James Foley, a priest who briefly served at St. Bartholomew's Parish in the early 1960s, according to published reports, confessed to carrying on a longtime affair with a Needham woman, Rita Perry, and fathering two children by her. Those children later filed a wrongful death suit against Foley, who, church records showed, was present the night in 1973 that Perry overdosed on barbiturates. The archdiocese reached a settlement in the suit. The prayer services and Masses being led by O'Malley constitute a "public acknowledgement of the sins and crimes committed and an act of reparation," according to the archdiocese. Survivors, clergy, parishioners and members of the broader community are invited to the service to pray together. "Publicly acknowledging the Church's faults and failures is an important element of asking forgiveness of those who have been harmed by the Church," said O'Malley in a press release. "The sexual abuse crisis has caused intense suffering for survivors and their families, and has been a source of shame and sorrow for our entire Church community. The sexual crimes against children by priests and the Church's initial failure to respond have fractured the essential spiritual connection necessary for the bonds of faith to flourish in our parishes and community." The pilgrimage will begin with a Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Ascension Thursday, May 25, and end with a procession of prayer and remembrance, starting at the Chancery in Brighton, and ending with a Mass celebrating the Vigil of Pentecost at St. Columbkille Parish, also in Brighton. Other parishes on the tour include St. Patrick in Stoneham, St. Agnes in Middleton, St. Edith Stein in Brockton, St. Michael in Lowell, St. Julia in Weston, St. Paul in Hingham and St. Blaise in Bellingham. Material from the Boston Herald was used in this report.
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