NEW JERSEY
The Record
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITER
The second-highest official in the Newark Archdiocese has resigned in the wake of a scandal involving a former Wyckoff associate pastor who allegedly violated an agreement with law enforcement barring him from working with children, church officials confirmed Friday.
Monsignor John E. Doran will step down immediately as vicar general of the archdiocese as part of larger changes being implemented to protect children, Archbishop John J. Myers said in a letter that will be read in parishes across the archdiocese this weekend. In the letter, which church officials provided to The Record on Friday, Myers wrote that the move was being made “as a result of operational failures.”
Doran, who has been vicar general for six years, signed an agreement in 2007 with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that barred the Rev. Michael Fugee, a former associate pastor at the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Wyckoff who had initially been found guilty of groping an adolescent boy, from working with children for as long as he remained a priest.
Myers has faced heavy criticism over his handling of the case, with victims’ advocates and some politicians calling for him to resign. On Friday, a national victims’ advocacy group characterized Doran’s resignation as a face-saving move by Myers.
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