MASSACHUSETTS
SouthCoast Today
By Auditi Guha
aguha@s-t.com
September 25, 2014
In a Minnesota lawsuit naming the Fall River Diocese as one of the defendants, a 51-year-old woman is charging that ex-priest James Porter sexually abused her when she was in the first and second grades.
Porter, a convicted pedophile who died in 2005, was at one time assigned to the Fall River Diocese and the suit — filed Tuesday by Linda Carroll in Polk County, Minnesota — charges that officials there had covered up for his actions as he was moved on to other assignments.
The suit was made public Wednesday in a news release from SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) on the same day Edgar Moreira da Cunha was installed as the eighth bishop of the Fall River Diocese.
In its release, SNAP also called on da Cunha to visit all the diocesan parishes where Porter worked. According to the lawsuit, in the 1960s he served at the former St. James Church in New Bedford and Sacred Heart Parish in Fall River, as well as St. Mary’s Church in North Attleboro.
“What an inspiration it would be if Fall River’s new bishop started his tenure by personally going to every parish where Porter worked begging victims to step forward and get help. We doubt this will happen but it should,” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, in a statement
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