Free Republic

TIES THAT BIND Against the advice of some of his campaign advisers, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has kept a suspended Catholic priest and childhood friend on the payroll of Giuliani Partners as a consultant. The priest has been caught up in the continuing sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Msgr. Alan Placa, who was suspended from his priestly duties back in 2002 and who has also served as a practicing attorney, has worked on a consulting basis with Giuliani Partners. In 2003 a grand jury in Suffolk County, New York, accused Placa of sexually abusing multiple victims....

Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani has close ties to a Catholic priest accused of sexually molesting boys and who also was the lawyer for a now-closed Whitinsville counseling house for troubled priests that has been described as the center of a pedophile sex ring. Monsignor Alan J. Placa, who works for Mr. Giuliani’s consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, was legal adviser in the 1980s to the House of Affirmation, where priests accused of sexual abuse were sent for psychotherapy and other counseling services. The center closed in 1987 amid a financial scandal. Monsignor Placa, who while an active priest arranged...

Giuliani has connection with accused priest Placa was legal adviser for Whitinsville center Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani has close ties to a Catholic priest accused of sexually molesting boys and who also was the lawyer for a now-closed Whitinsville counseling house for troubled priests that has been described as the center of a pedophile sex ring. Monsignor Alan J. Placa, who works for Mr. Giuliani’s consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, was legal adviser in the 1980s to the House of Affirmation, where priests accused of sexual abuse were sent for psychotherapy and other counseling services. The center closed in...

Many conservatives, including myself, continue to be surprised and impressed by Rudy Giuliani’s poll numbers. To be sure, he’s a very likable candidate, but conventional wisdom insisted that, once he entered the race, his liberal social stances would doom GOP Primary chances. In fact, a new poll shows Rudy Giuliani doing surprisingly well among Evangelical voters. Still, it's early, and fair to say that most conservatives don’t know the extent of Giuliani’s positions. Most conservative voters probably don’t know, for example, that, as Mayor, Giuliani supported -- not just abortion rights -- but partial-birth abortion. (So far, when it has...