Boston Archdiocese Is Ordered to Surrender Files of 11 Priests

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has been ordered to turn over personnel files of 11 more priests suspected of sexual misconduct with minors.

Superior Court Judge Raymond L. Brassard gave church officials until Friday to deliver the records to attorney Roderick MacLeish Jr., who represents a family suing the archdiocese and Cardinal Bernard Law. Gregory Ford, 24, has contended that for six years, beginning when he was 6, Father Paul Shanley raped him after weekly religious education classes. MacLeish contends that the archdiocese records will show Boston church officials routinely moved priests suspected of child abuse, including Shanley, from parish to parish.

MacLeish is scheduled to depose the cardinal next week. (Law was questioned earlier this month in connection with a lawsuit involving former priest John Geoghan, who was convicted in January of fondling a child.)

In the Shanley case, MacLeish also will depose Bishops John B. McCormack of New Hampshire and Thomas V. Daily of Brooklyn, N.Y. Both prelates oversaw Shanley at various times.

Brassard’s ruling late Tuesday requires that written and audiovisual transcripts of the three church leaders’ depositions be made public as soon as they have been certified by a court clerk.

While individuals who are deposed normally are granted the right to review transcripts, Brassard ruled that “the standard on depositions is different when the defendant is an important public figure. Such a figure has a diminished privacy expectation. There is a vital public interest involved.”

Archdiocese lawyer Wilson D. Rogers III, speaking in court Tuesday, branded the request to release the transcripts as an attempt to “harass, annoy and embarrass the diocese.”

Shanley, now retired, for decades was well-known as a priest who worked with drug users and street people. He also served as pastor at a now-defunct parish in Newton, Mass., where the Ford family worshiped.

Boston church officials recommended Shanley, now 71, as a priest “in good standing” when he transferred to St. Anne’s parish in San Bernardino in the early 1990s. After he was arrested May 2 in San Diego, he was extradited to Boston. Shanley has pleaded not guilty to three charges of child rape involving another plaintiff.

More than 1,600 pages of previously released church documents concerning Shanley contained shocking revelations about his endorsement of man-boy love, his history of venereal disease and his apparent threats to blackmail church officials.

The 11 priests named in Tuesday’s ruling all are dead or have been removed from their posts.