NEW JERSEY
Spiritual Politics
Mark Silk | May 6, 2013
What are they thinking over at archdiocesan headquarters in Newark?
In last Thursday’s self-exculpatory announcement of the departure of Fr. Michael Fugee from the “public exercise of priestly ministry,” they assert:
Following the Memorandum of Understanding, the Archdiocese did not assign Fr. Fugee to any post involving ministry with minors. His assignments were supervised administrative positions located at the Archdiocesan Center in Newark.
That’s not true. As was reported four years ago, and recalled in the Star-Ledger‘s stories about Fugee’s recent employment with parish youth groups, after his term of probation was over in 2009, Fugee was assigned as a chaplain to St. Michael’s Medical Center, over a mile away from the Center.
This untruth comes in the wake of the archdiocese’s turnaround on the issue of whether, according the memorandum of understanding negotiated with the Bergen County prosecutor’s office, Fugee was permitted to engage in supervised ministry of, and work with, children. When the Star-Ledger‘s Mark Mueller reported two weeks ago that Fugee was indeed doing ministry with minors, the archdiocese said that he was. Last week, they confessed that he wasn’t.
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