NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press
Written by
Mark V. Serrano
An old proverb says that while success has many fathers, failure is an orphan. This comes to mind when considering the now infamous case of the Rev. Michael Fugee.
Fugee is the admitted sex offender whom Newark Archbishop John J. Myers allowed to serve in ministry around children in direct defiance of a 2007 memorandum of understanding between the Bergen County prosecutor and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark.
So let’s consider the many fathers of this failure, lest it be orphaned, and then let’s address the steps necessary to avoid such a preventable crisis again.
For starters, it should be no surprise that Fugee exploited the opportunity he saw in the deal with the prosecutor. He confessed to being “sexually excited” when he “groped” the genitals of a teenage boy twice, for which he was found guilty before the ruling was vacated on a technicality.
You have to wonder how many sex offenders get to sign a memo with a prosecutor promising they will stay away from kids. We know Fugee can’t control himself, so someone in a position of authority — notably Archbishop Myers — had to stop him and did not.
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