As recently as 1998, Cardinal Bernard Law assigned a priest accused of pedophilia to work as a hospital chaplain, new documents from the sex scandal roiling the Catholic Church show.
Rev. Ronald Paquin, 59, is the third priest this year whose alleged history as a child abuser was described in Boston archdiocese personnel records. Paquin, like Rev. Paul Shanley and former priest John Geoghan, was reassigned rather than removed from duties in the face of complaints.
All three priests received psychiatric treatment for sexual problems, and in each case Law, the senior Roman Catholic prelate in the U.S., appears to have approved new jobs for the priests in which they might have contact with children.
Paquin was indicted May 15 on three counts of child rape. He is being held on $500,000 bail in a Massachusetts jail.
Shanley, 71, was extradited from San Diego on May 2. He has pleaded not guilty to child rape and also is in jail, with bail set at $300,000. He has been named in a series of civil suits against Law and the archdiocese.
Geoghan, 63, was sentenced in January to up to 10 years in prison for fondling a child. More than 200 people have accused Geoghan of sexual abuse; 86 alleged victims have filed a civil suit against Law and the archdiocese, and many others are expected to join the suit.
Asked to comment on the Paquin matter, archdiocese spokeswoman Donna Morrissey said in a statement Thursday, “Due to ongoing litigation, there are many documents in the public domain … [and] under the advice of legal counsel we will not be commenting on the specifics of those cases outside of the courtroom.”
Lawyer Jeffrey Newman, who represents several alleged Paquin victims, said Thursday he would not comment on the new documents because depositions are in progress in suits against the archdiocese.
The complaints involving Paquin are detailed in documents released to The Boston Globe. The newspaper in January helped ignite the church sex abuse scandal by publishing previously confidential church records that demonstrated a pattern of protecting Geoghan at the expense of parishioners.
Excerpts of the Paquin documents published in Thursday’s Boston Globe show that Paquin was assigned to ministerial duties in parishes north of Boston despite 13 complaints from 1990 to 1996 that alleged sexual problems over the previous 20 years. According to the Globe, the archdiocese made substantial payments to several of Paquin’s accusers.
The records contain accusations that Paquin showered boys with gifts and served them liquor before molesting them. They also refer to reports that Paquin sometimes took boys to his rectory bedroom.
A church review board and a top aide to Law recommended that Paquin be removed from the priesthood. Later, the records show, the adviser and review board had a change of heart and allowed Paquin to stay on.
The records also show that in 1981, while Paquin was driving four teenage boys to a New Hampshire ski chalet, he lost control of his car, killing one of the youths. Paquin was treated in 1990 and 1991 at a residential facility for pedophile priests in Maryland.
In assigning Paquin in 1998 to work as a chaplain at the Youville Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Cambridge, Law wrote, “I know that there have been some very difficult moments for you. I trust that your own continued vigilance and support of competent professionals will allow you to begin a new phase of ministry in the archdiocese.”
Paquin was stripped of his rights as a priest in 2000, following a letter from Law to the Vatican.
