Accuser Says Abuse Went on for Years

Taking the stand against a central figure in Boston’s clerical abuse scandal, a 27-year-old firefighter tearfully testified Wednesday that former priest Paul Shanley had repeatedly molested him in a church bathroom, rectory, pews and confessional.

The man -- who asked not to be named publicly -- said the abuse began when he was 6 years old and enrolled in religious education classes at St. Jean’s Roman Catholic Church. Shanley, he testified, continued to molest him at the church in Newton, Mass., until he was about 12.

While in the bathroom, the accuser said, the priest “would kneel down and try to teach me how to perform oral sex.” In the confessional, “we would just talk about all the sins a second-grader could have,” the man said. And then, he testified, Shanley would digitally penetrate him.

During cross-examination, defense lawyer Frank Mondano sought to discredit memories that the accuser said he had repressed for 15 years. His account, the lawyer noted, bore striking resemblance to those offered by three other alleged Shanley victims who either withdrew from the case voluntarily or were dropped by prosecutors.

“It’s fair to say that at various points in time, you came to remember pretty much what they came to remember, correct?” Mondano asked.

“Yeah,” the man replied. “But they were my memories.”

Mondano also suggested that Shanley’s accuser, who last year received a $500,000 settlement from the Boston Archdiocese, had been motivated by greed.

Shanley, 74, is charged with three counts of raping a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery of a child. If convicted, he faces life in prison. He was defrocked by the Vatican last year.

Wearing a green sports jacket, Shanley sat calmly Wednesday as his accuser offered explicit details of the alleged sexual encounters. The former “street priest” who ministered to troubled youth in Boston stared straight at his accuser.

On the witness stand, the man -- who wore a dark blue shirt and tie, his dark hair cut military short -- at first did not look directly at his former parish priest. But when prosecutor Lynn Rooney asked him to identify the person who had molested him, the man broke into tears, covered his face with his hand and pointed in the direction of the defense table. Their eyes locked.

“Shanley,” he said.

The man said memories of the alleged abuse did not come back to him until his girlfriend called him in January 2002 to tell him about a Boston newspaper article on Shanley and the Boston sexual abuse scandal.

At first, said the man -- who was then in the Air Force and stationed in Colorado -- he was puzzled, telling his girlfriend: “I remember him. That’s weird. Everybody liked him.”

Ten days later, he said, his girlfriend told him about another article -- this one involving a man named Greg Ford who said he was abused by Shanley at St. Jean’s. Ford and Shanley’s current accuser were classmates.

“As soon as she told me what happened to Greg, I started crying,” the man testified Wednesday. “I dropped the phone. All sorts of memories started coming back.... I felt like my world was coming to an end.”

In opening statements Tuesday, Mondano said that “the theme here will be memories.” He said he would call expert witnesses to challenge the validity of repressed or recovered memories.

On Wednesday, the lawyer asked Shanley’s accuser about contradictions in his recollections.

“My memory is a roller coaster. Some things come and go. Some things are clearer than others,” the man said.

“And some things just plain go, is that right?” Mondano shot back.

Most of the alleged clerical abuse in the Boston Archdiocese occurred so long ago that it could not be prosecuted. But prosecutors said Shanley stopped the clock on the state’s 15-year statute of limitations when he moved to California in 1990. He was arrested in San Diego in 2002.

His trial is expected to last two weeks.