FALL RIVER (MA)
South Coast Today
By Curt Brown
cbrown@s-t.com
May 13, 2014
FALL RIVER — A New Jersey-based group for sexual abuse victims offered its support today for two men, who are charging in a lawsuit that former Fall River Bishop Daniel A. Cronin did not properly supervise a priest they said assaulted them.
“We are supporting two men who have said ‘enough is enough,” said Robert M. Hoatson, co-founder and president of Road to Recovery, Inc., a New Jersey nonprofit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families.
The victims have accused the late Rev. Monsignor Maurice Souza, a New Bedford native, of sexually abusing them when they were altar boys, beginning when they were 9 and 10 years old, and Souza was assigned to St. Anthony’s Parish in East Falmouth.
The lawsuit, filed in January in a Connecticut court, names Cronin and the Fall River Diocese as defendants. Cronin headed the Diocese for 21 years until he left in December 1991 to become archbishop of the Hartford Diocese.
In a separate press conference, John E. Kearns Jr., a spokesman for the Fall River Diocese, said the Diocese first learned of the allegations against Souza when it was notified of a possible claim in 2012.
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