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Victims' advocates urge caution in Newton case
Victims' advocates urged caution yesterday in the case of a man whose allegations against a popular onetime Newton pastor have drawn intense fire, saying it is not uncommon for abuse plaintiffs to have checkered emotional pasts. "A lot of people who are abused have psychological damage as a result of it," said David Clohessy, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests. "One important thing to recall about small factual discrepancies in a story is that these are recollections not just of kids but of traumatized kids," he said. "So if a kid has a month or year wrong it does not automatically discredit him." Clohessy spoke out in the case of Paul R. Edwards, 35, of Winchenden, whose suit against Monsignor Michael Smith Foster, a judicial vicar with the Archdiocese of Boston, has been assailed by dozens of people who say they have known both men since the early 1980s. Some 23 of the skeptics issued a letter this week casting doubt on many aspects of Edwards' past. Edwards, a 1998 member of the U.S. Paralympic ski team, charges Foster molested him numerous times from 1980 to 1985 inside his private quarters at the rectory of Sacred Heart Parish in Newton Centre. In their letter, the skeptics wrote: "Paul was charming, good looking and outgoing, but we perceived him as troubled. . . . As his peers and friends during this time, we grew frustrated with his stories and felt he deceived us one too many times. He was the classic example of the boy who cried wolf." In interviews in recent days, Edwards' doubters have cited serious inaccuracies in his lawsuit. Edwards claims, for example, he was anally raped by a separate priest, the late Rev. William J. Cummings, in a hotel room on an overnight Catholic Youth Organization trip to Radio City Music Hall in 1982. The doubters say they recall the visit to Manhattan as a day trip, with no hotel stay, although they do not contest that Cummings, a founder of the Singing Priests who died of AIDS in 1994, was there. The doubters also note Edwards' claims he told Foster about the alleged rape in 1988 "at St. Jean's Parish in Newton." But in 1988, Foster was studying at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He maintained a small residence at Sacred Heart but had no ties then to St. Jean's, church records show. Doubters further recall that the Sacred Heart rectory, where Foster lived from 1980 to 1987, was strictly off-limits to youths. They find it inconceivable Edwards and Foster could have been there together unseen on many occasions. Citing those conflicts, as well as questions they have long had as to the true extent of Edwards' spinal injury, the doubters wrote, "We believe Paul's allegations are false and that he is smearing the reputation of a truly gifted minister." Clohessy and other advocates, however, note clergy molesters go to great pains to hide their actions, which explains why the full extent of the Catholic Church's abuse crisis remained hidden for so long. Accusers often have troubled pasts, advocates say. In recent months, at least three priests have been put on leave by the Archdiocese of Boston as a result of claims by men with criminal histories. One, Monsignor Frederick J. Ryan of Kingston, is being sued by Garry M. Garland of Hanover, an admitted alcoholic who was involved in a severe criminal assault in 1984. Another, the Rev. W. James Nyhan of Billerica, was suspended based on allegations by Dennis LaCorte of Quincy, who was jailed multiple times on drug and other convictions before accusing Nyhan. A third, the Rev. Paul W. Hurley of Sandwich, was indicted Aug. 8 in Middlesex County on charges he raped a youth in the 1980s. The accuser is serving five years for bank robbery. |