BishopAccountability.org
 
  Jury Selection Continues in Shanley Rape Trial

By Denise Lavoie
The Associated Press, carried in Boston.com [Cambridge MA]
January 19, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) Potential jurors were questioned about their views on the Catholic Church and whether they had been victims of sexual abuse as the child rape trial began for defrocked priest Paul Shanley.

Seven jurors were seated by late Wednesday morning, among them a man who is Catholic and does landscaping at his church. Others were sent home because they'd seen pretrial media coverage and didn't think they could be objective.

Twelve jurors and four alternates will hear the case against Shanley, one of the most notorious figures in the clergy sex abuse scandal. He is accused of child rape and indecent assault and battery of a child and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The criminal case against Shanley now hinges on the allegations of a single alleged victim after prosecutors formally dropped another accuser on Tuesday. Opening statements in the trial are scheduled for Monday.

Prosecutors already had dropped two other accusers from the case. They removed the third because they have been unable to find him since a hearing in October when he had difficulty remaining composed to testify.

The remaining accuser is 27 and says he was sexually abused by Shanley between 1983 and 1989, when he was between the ages of 6 and 11. Prosecutors said they plan to call the man's father and wife to testify.

Shanley, once a long-haired priest in blue jeans who reached out to Boston's troubled youth, is now 73. He was defrocked by the Vatican last year after being charged with sexually abusing the four boys at a Newton parish between 1979 and 1989.

Shanley's lawyer, Frank Mondano, has said he will argue that the accuser made up his story to win a monetary award in a civil lawsuit.

All of the alleged victims settled civil lawsuits with the Boston Archdiocese in April 2004. The exact monetary terms were not disclosed, but an attorney for the men has said each received more than $300,000.

The trial is one of a handful of criminal cases prosecutors have been able to bring to trial against priests accused of molesting their young parishioners decades ago.

Most of the priests accused in civil lawsuits avoided criminal prosecution because the alleged crimes were committed so long ago that charges were barred by the statute of limitations. But because Shanley moved out of Massachusetts, the clock stopped. He was arrested in California in 2002.

Internal church documents showed church officials knew about allegations against him as early as 1967 yet continued to transfer him from parish to parish.

His accusers told stories of being taken out of religious education classes and raped by Shanley, in the church rectory, confessional and restroom.

Shanley supporter Paul Shannon met the former priest when Shannon was a Jesuit seminarian in the late '60s and early '70s. Now a librarian and teacher who lives in Boston, he said it will be impossible for his friend to get a fair trial because of all the publicity.

"These notions that Paul Shanley would deliberately hurt kids ... that is simply preposterous for anybody who knows him," Shannon said.