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WORCESTER, Mass. --A Roman Catholic priest arrested in Las Vegas last year for allegedly performing a lewd act on another man inside an adult bookstore was removed from his post as pastor of a Worcester parish. Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Bishop Robert McManus told parishioners on Sunday that the Rev. James Aquino was being relieved of his duties at Our Lady of Loreto parish, where he'd been pastor since 1986. McManus, who called the situation "a grave scandal," had known of Aquino's October 2004 arrest for several months. But the bishop had allowed him...

BAMBERG, Germany -- A U.S. Army chaplain has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of forcible sodomy against enlisted men. Capt. Gregory Arflack, a 44-year-old Roman Catholic priest, apologized at his court-martial in Germany. He sobbed and said, "I've had a lot of time to pray and consider what I've done as a priest and an officer and I'm ashamed." One of the victims, whom Arflack had been counseling about homesickness and family troubles, told the court, "I don't understand how a person of the cloth could do something like that." He added,...

More than 140 priests in four dioceses have been accused of sex abuse but more revelations could be on the way as the scandal rocks the Catholic Church in Ireland. The Ferns inquiry involved 21 priests, but since the report's publication, dozens more allegations have been confirmed by bishops. They include Dublin (67 priests), Derry (26) and Tuam (27). Some of the allegations go back to the 1940s, but the diocese in Tuam could turn out to be "on a par" with Ferns, given the similarity of the population of each diocese, said Colm O'Gorman, director of "One in Four,"...