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  Furfaro Name Taken off Site Parish Center of St. Joseph Church, Oswego, Was Named for Accused Monsignor

By Mike McAndrew
Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
August 5, 2002

The Monsignor Francis Furfaro Parish Center is missing something.

Furfaro's name was quietly removed over the weekend from the facade of the St. Joseph Church parish center in Oswego.

Danielle Cummings, spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, said the St. Joseph parish council made the decision to remove Furfaro's name.

Bishop James Moynihan permanently barred the retired monsignor in July from any public ministry because the diocese had received a credible allegation that he molested a child during his 40 years as the St. Joseph pastor.

This spring, five men publicly accused Furfaro of abusing them as children and called on the Syracuse Diocese to remove Furfaro's name from the parish center.

The Rev. James Cesta, pastor at St. Joseph, and Ingrid Fernandez, president of the parish council, could not be reached for comment Sunday night.

"I'm going to hang up. I don't want to talk," Furfaro said Sunday when contacted.

Marianne Barone-Trent, who received $150,000 from the diocese to settle a sexual abuse suit against a different priest, said victims of Furfaro have been hoping the monsignor's name would be taken off the parish center for years.

"It was one of our goals. One of the things that needed to be done for the victims," Barone-Trent said.

Peter Losurdo of Oswego said hearing that Furfaro's name was removed was a big relief.

"Every time I looked at it, it was a slap in the face," said Losurdo, 43, who said he was molested by Furfaro in the late 1960s when Losurdo was about 10 years old.

"I think it's great," said former Oswego resident Daniel Donahue, who said Furfaro molested him in the early 1960s.

Donahue said the church should not honor someone like Furfaro. "He did a lot of evil acts."

 
 

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