Victims React To Priest’s Release From Prison

(26 Jul 2017) As a young priest in Boston in the 1960s and '70s, Paul Shanley was a popular "street priest" who counseled troubled youths and challenged the Catholic church's denunciation of homosexuality. Decades later, men who say Shanley raped them are urging the public to keep a close eye on Shanley after he is released from prison Friday. Shanley has completed a 12-year prison sentence for raping a boy at a Newton church in the late 1980s and early '90s. Prosecutors sought to hold him in custody beyond his sentence under a law that allows civil commitment of people who are deemed to be sexually dangerous. But two experts hired by the state found that he did not meet the legal criteria to continue to hold him. Shanley's impending release has prompted of firestorm of protest from sexual abuse survivors and their advocates. On Wednesday, two men who said Shanley sexually abused them, their lawyers and victim advocates took the unusual step of holding a press conference to warn the public about Shanley's release. John Harris, now 59, said he was a 21-year-old struggling with his decision to reveal his homosexuality in 1979 when someone suggested he go see Shanley for counseling. "My biggest concern is that there has been no rehabilitation of Fr. Shanley and he is being released to the public soon," Harris, "I just want to remind the public that he has abused all ages – children, adolescents and young adults, even older, and he has abused women, men and both sexes of children." Denis O'Connor said he was 14 when Shanley sodomized him in the late 1960s. "He still claims that he's not a child molester," O'Connor said. Boston attorneys Mitchell Garabedian and Carmen Durso said they represented dozens of men who alleged that Shanley sexually abused them as children. Durso said he was told by prosecutors that the two doctors who evaluated Shanley cited his advanced age as one of the reasons they concluded that he is no longer dangerous. Durso and other believe Shanley continues to be a threat. Shanley will be placed on probation for 10 years after he is released. Garabedian said Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan told him that Shanley will not be required to wear an electronic tracking device. He will be required to register as a Level 3, or high-risk, sex offender, a designation which means his photo and other information about him will be posted on the state Sex Offender Registry Board's website. Garabedian said Shanley's upcoming release has re-opened the wounds of many of his victims. Rodney Ford, the father of Greg Ford, a man who said he was sexually abused by Shanley as a child in the 1980s, agreed. The clergy sex abuse scandal exploded in Bostin in 2002 after a series of stories by The Boston Globe revealed that dozens of priests had molested and raped children for decades while church supervisors covered it up and shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish. Shanley was defrocked by the Vatican in 2004 after dozens of men came forward and said he had molested them as children. Internal church records that were made public during the scandal contained documents indicating Shanley had attended a forum with other people who later went on to form the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA, a pedophile advocacy organization. It was not immediately clear where Shanley will live after he's released. The state Department of Correction declined to comment. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...