NEW JERSEY
The Record
Monday February 4, 2013
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF, KAREN SUDOL AND EVONNE COUTROS
STAFF WRITERS
The Record
Critics accused the Newark Archdiocese on Monday of violating a bishops’ agreement to bar abusive priests by allowing a former Wyckoff assistant pastor to serve as a cleric years after he admitted to fondling a teenager.
The Rev. Michael Fugee, 52, has been a priest in good standing since an archdiocesan review board determined several years ago that he could continue as a cleric as long as he has no unsupervised contact with children, said James Goodness, a spokesman for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.
Fugee, was an assistant pastor at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Wyckoff from 1997 to 2001, when he was charged with criminal sexual contact and child endangerment for allegedly groping a 13-year-old boy. He now works in the archdiocese’s administrative offices, where he is in charge of raising money for missionary work, Goodness said.
Critics said Fugee should be barred from working as a priest based on an agreement known as the Dallas Charter that American bishops reached at a conference in 2002 to remove from ministry all clerics credibly accused of sexually abusing a child. Goodness said Fugee is not allowed to work in a parish. He declined to say how the review board came to the conclusion that he could continue working at all.
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