Albany and Boston Dioceses Sex Abuse Connection Established

BOSTON -- Bishop Howard Hubbard assigned a priest to churches in the Albany Diocese throughout the 1980s after the priest was forced to leave a Boston parish under a cloud of concerns about his relationships with young boys, newly released internal documents of the Boston Archdiocese revealed Thursday.

Hubbard was in regular contact with Auxiliary Bishop Thomas of Boston in 1978 and 1979 as church officials wrestled with how to handle the concern about the Rev. Dozia Wilson's alleged sexual abuse of children. Hubbard and Daily exchanged letters, spoke by phone and met in person about Wilson, according to his 280-page personnel file released under a Massachusetts court order.

Wilson was ordained in the Albany Diocese in 1972, served at Sacred Heart parish in Albany and spent three years in Boston before returning to his home diocese for a decade. He left the priesthood in 1993.

In a handwritten note to Cardinal Humberto Medeiros in 1978, Daily said: "I spoke to Bishop Hubbard on 11/15 in Washington, D.C. He is appreciative of everything we can do for Father Wilson. ... I told him I would keep him informed."

In early 1979, Hubbard contacted the House of Affirmation, a treatment center for pedophiles in Whitinsville, Mass., on behalf of Wilson. Hubbard offered to have the Albany Diocese cover the cost of Wilson's treatment, and ultimately assured Boston church leaders that Wilson would not return to the archdiocese, according to documents in the Wilson file.

The Boston church documents appear to contradict a statement issued by the Albany Diocese earlier this month. The Feb. 14 statement read: "From 1976 until 1990, the Albany Diocese received no reports of misconduct on Wilson's part."

A spokesman for the diocese, Kenneth Goldfarb, declined to comment Thursday beyond the earlier statement, saying that Albany church leaders had not seen the newly released documents.

Wilson had been transferred to Boston in 1976 to help avoid criminal charges in Albany after prosecutors received a complaint involving the priest and young boys at an Albany motel, church officials and former District Attorney Sol Greenberg said recently.

In August, Massachusetts Superior Court Justice Constance Sweeney ordered the Boston Archdiocese to release files on all priests accused of sexual misconduct. The file made available on Thursday was the latest in a series stemming from numerous lawsuits filed since the scandal erupted 13 months ago. At least 135 Boston priests have been accused of abusing children.

Wilson and his transfer to Boston are at the center of a claim filed by a 42-year-old Capital Region man who is demanding a $2 million out-of-court settlement from the Albany Diocese.

The man, who grew up in Albany and came forward for the first time in 1997, said Wilson met him in Albany in the 1970s, became his guardian and moved him to Boston, where, as a teenager, he lived in a rectory and was sexually abused by Wilson for two years. The man alleges that the Albany Diocese's failure to warn Boston church officials about Wilson's previous problems was an underlying cause of his abuse.

Wilson's file is filled with correspondences containing intense discussion of vaguely worded concerns about the priest's "personal and pastoral problem" and his need for "immediate assistance" of residential therapy. One document indicates worries about Wilson's care for foster children creating "a scandalous situation."

While the Feb. 14 statement from the Albany Diocese said Boston officials were notified about the complaint against Wilson at the time of his transfer, former Albany Bishop Edwin Broderick said earlier this month in a Times Union interview that he did not recall doing so.

Broderick's letter to Cardinal Medeiros on May 10, 1976, carries no direct reference to Wilson's problem with law enforcement. "I am most grateful to Your Excellency for your kind assistance in this matter," wrote Broderick, who was the bishop of Albany for eight years until 1976 and was succeeded by Hubbard.

The first indication in the file that Boston church officials knew about the earlier allegation against Wilson in Albany came two years after his transfer. In 1978, the Rev. John Rooney, who had worked with Wilson at Sacred Heart in Albany, told a Boston priest about the incident. In May 1978, the cardinal was notified about the deal between Broderick and the district attorney's office.

Later that year, Boston church officials asked other dioceses to accept Wilson's transfer, never mentioning concerns involving children. The efforts were unsuccessful. Wilson was rejected by the Diocese of Tulsa, a college campus ministry in Virginia and the U.S. Military Ordinariate.

Meanwhile, Wilson, who is black, drew a great deal of attention from the National Office of Black Catholics in Washington, D.C. The group spoke often to Boston church officials about helping Wilson and his predominantly black parish in Roxbury.

"I am not talking about the ramifications of persons who are homosexuals. ... I am talking about a person who is sick," said the Rev. James Lyke, a board member at the Black Catholics' organization, referring to Wilson during at a September 1978 meeting in Washington.

"This is a very scandalous situation," said James McConduit, another board member, according to a transcript of the meeting included in Wilson's file.

The group discussed allegations about Wilson's work with a local foster care agency. "He has contracted with a given organization to bring in boys, predominantly fair-skinned, almost white-looking boys, to live in, and then in a week or so, they are transported out."

Also in 1978, Wilson hired a Boston attorney and strenuously denied the allegations, according to his file.

In November that year, a priest who worked with Wilson at the Roxbury parish confronted Wilson about his problems.

"I asked him to resist blaming others and looking for accusers and to ask the Lord to give him strength to look himself in the face and admit that much in his life and lifestyle needs to be changed," wrote the Rev. Michael Groden of Roxbury.

When Wilson refused to voluntarily enroll in residential treatment, Medeiros notified him in November 1978 that he would be stripped of his pastoral responsibilities.

In May 1979, Daily notified the cardinal in a memo that "Most Rev. Howard J. Hubbard ... phones this morning and informed me that he had spoken with Rev. Dozia J. Wilson and has assured that father will not be back in Boston."

Wilson returned to the Albany Diocese and served over the next 10 years at St. Ann's in Fort Ann and St. Mary's in Hudson. He also worked as a part-time chaplain at the Columbia County jail and Columbia-Greene Community College.

"In 1990, the bishop received a call from the Hudson area expressing unease about Wilson's interaction with minors," the Albany Diocese said two weeks ago. It said Wilson was sent to a residential therapeutic facility and never reassigned. Hubbard said he asked and received Wilson's resignation in 1993, according to the diocese.

A lawyer for the man who has accused Wilson of sexually abusing him in Boston said Thursday that the file "really does reinforce how bad the case is looking for Albany." Bernard Gueguekzian, of Boston, said, "In a sense this really validates the story my client has been telling since he first walked into my office."

Last summer, Wilson's history of alleged sexual abuse came to the attention of local police in Westchester County, where Wilson was beaten at his home in Dobbs Ferry on Aug. 31. Wilson, who had worked at a residential drug treatment center for boys, had gone to Manhattan and picked up a homeless 18-year-old man who beat him up, Dobbs Ferry police said. Wilson declined to press charges.

Hubbard removed six priests from the ministry last year and placed two more on administrative leave this month because of credible allegations of sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.

You want a shocker? Do a google search on "house of Affirmation" - it appears tons of these sickos were sent there, and heading up the whole cesspool was another sick abusing priest.

Rev. Kane located at teachers' school
Published Wednesday, February 13, 2002
By Richard Nangle
Telegram & Gazette Staff
The Web site for the Worldwide Teachers Institute's operation in Boston has removed all photographs and references to its director, the Rev. Thomas A. Kane.
Rev. Kane, who left the Catholic Diocese of Worcester in 1993 after he was accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy, has spent the past five years as director of the international training institute for teachers, which is headquartered in Boston and also has teacher training programs in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
The priest has been based at the Guadalajara program, but is known to make periodic trips to Boston.
He was co-founder and director of the former House of Affirmation in the Whitinsville section of Northbridge, a treatment and counseling center for priests, including those suspected of sexual abuse. He left the post in 1986 amid allegations of financial misconduct, and the House of Affirmation was closed in 1989.
Questioned in recent years about Rev. Kane's whereabouts, Worcester Diocese officials had said they didn't know where he was.
Diocesan spokesman Raymond L. Delisle said last week that Rev. Kane remains listed on the Worcester Diocese's directory of priests because his last clerical assignment was in the diocese. He said Rev. Kane has not been defrocked, but cannot administer sacraments or celebrate Mass.
The spokesman also said that Rev. Kane does not receive any payment from the diocese. In a story in yesterday's Boston Herald, however, Mr. Delisle is quoted as saying Rev. Kane is receiving a stipend from the diocese.

Also there is a lot of wacky stuff here, but a lot of it is verifiable information tying the "House of Affirmation" with a ton of the massive nationwide cover-up of the homosexual abuse of boys who make up 85% - 90% of the victims.

A bit more information from today's Boston Herald.

Abuse allegations surface against ex-Roxbury priest

by Robin Washington
Friday, February 28, 2003

In the mid-1970s, members of Roxbury's St. Joseph's Parish appealed to Humberto Cardinal Medeiros to assign an African-American priest to the mostly black congregation.

In response, he inquired to Albany, N.Y., Bishop Edwin B. Broderick, who offered the Rev. Dozia J. Wilson, noting the priest ``has expressed a desire to work among his own people.''

What Broderick's letter did not say, however, is revealed on another note in Wilson's file: ``Ultimatum from police to Bishop Broderick - get him out of Albany.''

The records on Wilson and additional pages from the previously released personnel file of the Rev. James D. Foley were unveiled in court filings yesterday.

For former St. Joseph's parishioner Elaine Maddox, the disclosure of sexual misconduct allegations against Wilson - including that he molested teenage boys who lived with him at the Roxbury rectory - is not surprising, but long overdue.

``I have been waiting for this man's name to appear once this whole thing broke out,'' said Maddox, one of many parishioners who immediately ran into difficulties with Wilson shortly after his 1976 arrival.

Many of those issues concerned financial matters and control of the parish school, which today is slated for closure by the archdiocese. St. Joseph's Church, which has already been shuttered, suffered a roof collapse and faces demolition.

``I know when he first came (parishioners) had high expectations because he was black. But he was hostile almost from the beginning,'' said Joyce King, the wife of former state Rep. Mel King, who was one of several non-Catholics involved with the school.

Maddox said she took her concerns to Medeiros, though she didn't know of the alleged abuse. ``We said, `We can't put our fingers on it, cardinal, but something's not right,' '' she said.

After three years, Wilson was sent to priest treatment centers, then back to Albany. He left the priesthood in 1993 and became spiritual director at St. Christopher's Inc., an adolescent residential program, until allegations surfaced last fall.

Though his name remains on the center's Web site and a voice mail box, Luis Medina, St. Christopher's executive director, said ``He's not involved with us at all.''

Wilson did not return a call for comment.

Also yesterday:

The Rev. Ronald Bourgault was welcomed back as pastor of St. Zepherin's Parish in Wayland, after an alleged victim said he mistakenly identified Bourgault as his abuser. The man's lawyer praised Bourgault for promising to help find the actual molester.

The Rev. Joseph Maguire, who was arrested Wednesday in Yarmouth on a fugitive from justice charge, is expected to be returned to New Hampshire today to face 28 charges of sexual assault and rape, state police said. Maguire, 71, of Dennis, had refused to waive rendition until yesterday, when a superior court judge set bail at $20,000.

Oh my! Check this out!!! An editorial on sex abuse, published by the National Catholic Reporter in 1985. That's nearly 20 years ago.

EDITORIAL: Pedophilia problem needs tackling

I truly believe that we are living through an historical moment in the history of the catholic church. Many catholics have thrown in the gauntlet, preferring to flee. It takes strong faith, convictions and determination to ride out this storm. God willing, we will live to see the outcome. In the meantime, the Holy Spirit is at work, purging the weeds and feeding the wheat that will sprout into the next generation of pastors, bishops and cardinals. May God have mercy on the souls of those who have used their priestly ordination to abuse, deceive, and mislead their flocks.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.