Newly Filed Lawsuit Alleges Abuse by Former Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard

Times-Union ^ | 3/24/21 | Edward McKinley

[marshmallow]

Legal action is the seventh to name former Catholic leader, who denies abusing anyone

ALBANY — Howard Hubbard, the former Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Albany, was accused of sexual abuse in a Child Victims Act lawsuit filed last week — the seventh such action containing allegations against him.

The lawsuit was filed anonymously on a male plaintiff's behalf by Herman Law, a large firm that specializes in abuse cases. The defendants are the Diocese of Albany and St. Edward the Confessor Roman Catholic Church in Clifton Park. The complaint alleges that in 1977 — the year Hubbard was appointed bishop — he approached an 11-year-old boy at a carnival put on by St. Edward the Confessor, told the boy to accompany him to the rectory and molested him there.

“At that age, you just don’t know. You don’t know how to deal with it. And I’ve done a lot of reflecting over the years trying to understand — was this my fault?" the plaintiff, anonymous in the court documents, said Thursday in an interview with the Times Union. (The Times Union generally does not identify victims of alleged sexual abuse.)

“For a period of time I experienced a lot of anger toward religion, towards God, my beliefs," he said. "And over a period of time I just realized that there's just bad eggs. There’s certain people that are just rotten people, and Bishop Hubbard is just one of those people."