NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Herald News
IN THE wake of widespread sexual scandals involving its clergy, U.S. Catholic bishops established a series of procedures at a 2002 bishops’ conference in Dallas: The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Newark Archbishop John J. Myers should reread it.
As reported this week, the Rev. Michael Fugee, a former Wyckoff assistant pastor who admitted fondling a 13-year-old boy in 2001, is still serving as a cleric.
Fugee has been the director of the archdiocese’s Office of the Propagation of the Faith, which raises funds for missionary work. In October, Fugee was also named the co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests, an office providing educational material to clerics.
Fugee was convicted by a Bergen County jury on a count of sexual contact for groping the boy. But the verdict was overturned by an appellate panel because it found Fugee’s statement to police questioning his sexual orientation should not have been admitted as evidence. Fugee said at trial that he playfully wrestled with the boy, but had given a statement to police earlier in which he admitted grabbing the boy’s crotch to satisfy an urge.
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