Free Republic

ROME - A Roman Catholic diocese has opened an investigation of a priest who said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida. In interviews in the past two days, the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69, who is now retired and lives on the Maltese island of Gozo, has given different details about his encounters with Foley four decades ago. On Wednesday, he told the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune by telephone that he massaged the boy in the nude, was naked in the same room on overnight trips with him...

PAPER PUBLISHES WRONG PHOTO OF ALLEGED FOLEY SEX CLERGY Fri Oct 20 2006 08:13:31 ET Editors at the SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE on Friday issued a correction over a photo that ran with their exclusive Foley sex story. "The HERALD-TRIBUNE published the wrong photo with its story identifying the priest who may have sexually abused former Rep. Mark Foley," the paper said. "The photo was not of Anthony Mercieca, the Malta priest who Foley's lawyer says abused Foley." The correction was issued after the photo aired worldwide on TV and on the web. [CNN: 'You are looking at the preist who...'] The...

SARASOTA, Fla. - A Roman Catholic priest said he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with former Rep. Mark Foley in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude, but he did not specifically remember having sex, a newspaper reported Thursday. The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.