BOSTON, June 21 (UPI) -- A former priest at the center of the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston faced new charges Friday that he regularly raped four boys attending religious classes.
Paul R. Shanley, 71, held on high bail since his arrest last month in San Diego on child rape charges from Massachusetts, is to be arraigned next week on the 16-count grand jury indictment announced late Thursday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley said the charges include 10 counts of child rape and six counts of indecent assault and battery on a minor.
The alleged crimes involved four boys and took place between 1979 and 1989 when Shanley was pastor at the now closed St. John the Evangelist Church in Newton, Mass., Coakley said.
Coakley said two of the boys were repeatedly attacked between the ages of 6 and 11, one between 7 and 12, and another between 10 and 15.
She said the boys were attending a weekly religious class when Shanley, their pastor at the time, took one or more of them from the class.
"That's when the victims alleged the abuse would occur" in a bathroom, rectory, and confessional, Coakley said.
Coakley said the assaults included oral and anal penetration.
Attorney Roderick MacLeish Jr., representing the four alleged victims, has filed lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and Cardinal Bernard Law.
The suits allege Law was negligent for failing to properly supervise Shanley, allowing him to transfer from one parish to another where he continued to have access to children.
When Shanley moved to San Bernardino, Calif., in 1990, Law failed to inform officials there of allegations of sexual misconduct against the priest. Law apologized for that failure to the San Bernardino bishop last week at the U.S. Bishops Conference in Dallas.
While Coakley did not identify the four alleged victims, two of them have come forward to speak out against Shanley, John Busa and Gregory Ford, both 24.
Ford's father, Rodney Ford, told reporters Thursday he hoped the indictment means, "Shanley will never abuse another child again."
Law, reacting to the indictment in a faxed statement, said: "As shocking and terrible as is the news of these indictments against Father Paul Shanley, all of us owe a debt of profound gratitude to abused persons who bring such acts into the light."
He said the new revelations "will undoubtedly open up the deep and painful wounds of those who have been abused in the past. ... My sorrow is compounded whenever such acts involve the betrayal of trust by a priest. For this I apologize from the bottom of my heart."
