NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By Karen Horton/Parental Guidance
on February 03, 2013
I went to mass today, as I do most Sundays. I am not Roman Catholic but my family is, and I am happy to accompany them and support their commitment to their faith.
We watched a video of Archbishop John J. Myers, of the Archdiocese of Newark, making his annual request for parishioners to support the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal so that the archdiocese can continue its good works in Essex, Bergen, Hudson and Union counties. We’d already sent in our money.
Then I got home and read the The Star-Ledger’s account of a priest who confessed to groping a 14-year-old boy 12 years ago. Pretty bad, right? The priest, Michael Fugee, admitted he did it. Afterwards, he recanted his confession. There was a trial, he was convicted, then the verdict was overturned on a technicality.
Later Fugee was given the position of chaplain at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark. The hospital wasn’t told about his trial; it was told he was a priest in good standing. Therefore he was granted access to children, patients or visitors, in direct opposition to his legal agreement. He was pulled from that post as soon as the hospital found out it had not been told the truth about the chaplain.
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