Family’s Wrongful-Death Lawsuit Settled by Church

Acknowledging “the inherently exploitive and harmful nature of sexual relationships between priests and parishioners,” the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston on Thursday settled a wrongful-death lawsuit with the family of a woman who bore two children by a priest who later left her to die of a drug overdose.

Church files uncovered in 2002 showed that the Rev. James Foley told Cardinal Bernard Law, who at the time was archbishop of Boston, and other church leaders that he had a long affair with Rita Perry in the 1960s and 1970s.

Foley also admitted that he was with Perry in 1973 when she overdosed on barbiturates.

Rather than seeking help, Foley left the house, he said in a series of memos made public in the course of the sexual abuse scandal that began in Boston and gripped the Catholic Church worldwide for almost two years.

Perry’s four children -- two of whom were fathered by Foley -- released a statement Thursday saying their mother first sought pastoral counseling from Foley in 1960.

“Father Foley breached the trust placed in him by our mother and took advantage of her for his own sexual gratification,” said the children, now in their 30s and 40s.

Outrage over the Foley case fueled the clerical abuse crisis in Boston and helped lead to Law’s resignation in December 2002.

Foley was removed from active church ministry after personnel files released in 2002 showed that he had affairs with Perry and several other women, who, like her, were married. He could not be reached for comment.

The amount of the settlement was not disclosed. But as part of the agreement, Law must meet privately with the Perry children.

James Perry, 39, pieced together the story of his paternity late in 2002 when he saw a Boston television story about Foley. The children knew their mother died of a drug overdose, but did not know until then that Foley had fathered two of them.

Perry said in an interview Thursday that previous requests by the family to meet with Law had been denied. Perry recalled attending Mass with his wife in their hometown Middleboro, Mass., several years ago when Law officiated.

“We were pretty impressed with the man at the time,” he said.

“Now we find out that even then he knew more about my family than I did.”

Law presided over the nation’s fourth largest archdiocese for nearly two decades. In court depositions related to the abuse crisis, he repeatedly insisted that lower-ranking church officials were responsible for the cover-up that often sent priests known to be sexual predators from parish to parish.

But church documents made public during the abuse crisis revealed that Law and his chief of staff, the Rev. John McCormack, authorized psychological counseling for Foley in 1993 after he confessed to his relationship with Rita Perry. Foley then was allowed to return to parish work at a church in Salem, Mass.

James Perry said he wanted to “look the cardinal in the eye and tell him he made some pretty poor decisions” about protecting a priest rather than helping the family he victimized.

The Perry family already has met with Law’s successor, Archbishop Sean Patrick O’Malley.

O’Malley said Thursday that he “sincerely regrets that a sexual relationship existed between a priest of the archdiocese and Rita Perry, as well as the involvement of Father Foley in the tragic circumstances of her death.”

O’Malley said that in October the archdiocese issued a ministerial code that “prohibits such relationships in the strongest possible language.”

Much of the attention in the global sexual abuse scandal centered on pedophile priests and the molestation of children.

But lawyer Roderick MacLeish Jr., who represented the Perry family, said Thursday that “there has always been this other secret, which is that priests are freely engaged in sexual relations with their [adult] parishioners.”

“It is inherently nonconsensual; it is about the abuse of power, not celibacy -- and the Perry case exemplifies this.”

Father Christopher Coyne, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said Thursday that Foley had been placed on administrative leave but remained a priest.

He said the archdiocese was giving Foley financial support.