By Sam Hemingway
Burlington Free Press
September 29, 2009
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090929/NEWS02/90928035/Cases-laid-out-in-priest-abuse-trial
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| Diocese defense attorney Tom McCormick asks questions of potential jurors Tuesday morning, September 28, 2009, in Superior Court in Burlington for another upcoming priest abuse case against the Roman Catholic Diocese involving former priest Edward Paquette. Photo by RYAN MERCER, Free Press |
A lawyer for a former altar boy who claims he was molested by the Rev. Edward Paquette in the late 1970s told a jury today the state's Roman Catholic diocese deserves to be punished for hiring and retaining a priest it knew was a pedophile.
"We will prove that the diocese was interested in protecting Father Paquette rather than the children," attorney Jerome O'Neill told the jury during his opening statement.
O'Neill said his client, now 44, was fondled between 20 and 25 times in the sacristy of Christ the King Church in Burlington, sometimes as other altar boys were forced to watch. In some instances, O'Neill said Paquette molested two of the altar boys simultaneously.
Diocesan attorney Thomas McCormick told the jury that church officials followed the advise of doctors and psychologists when they hired and then retained Paquette despite knowledge he had a history of sexually abused altar boys.
McCormick said the diocese does not deny that Paquette molested the former altar boy whose case against the diocese is the fifth to go to trial, or that then-Bishop John Marshall made a mistake in hiring Paquette.
But McCormick said the decision to employ Paquette was made during a time 35 years ago when conduct like Paquette's was looked at differently than today.
"Facts are stubborn things," McCormick told the jury.
The trial is the fifth priest molestation case to go before the jury in three years at the Burlington court.
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