NEW JERSEY
The Record
MONDAY MAY 27, 2013, 9:05 PM
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
NORTH ARLINGTON — Newark Archbishop John J. Myers came to Holy Cross Cemetery to celebrate a Memorial Day Mass on Monday, a day after a letter bearing his signature, in which he defended the archdiocese’s handling of a snowballing controversy involving a former Wyckoff associate pastor, was read to parishioners.
At no point, however, did Myers mention the Rev. Michael Fugee, a former associate pastor at the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Wyckoff who allegedly heard the confessions of minors over the past three years despite a legal agreement barring him from ministering to children.
Fugee, whose decade-old conviction for groping an adolescent boy was overturned on a technicality, was arrested last week and charged with seven counts of violating a judicial order. John L. Molinelli, the Bergen County prosecutor, said Fugee heard confessions from children at least seven times between 2010 and 2012, including twice at Sacred Heart Church in Rochelle Park, where archdiocesan officials allowed him to live for two years, and once at Our Lady of Visitation in Paramus in violation of an agreement that Fugee signed with Molinelli’s office to avoid a second trial.
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