Church strips accused priest’s name from parish center

NEW YORK
Watershed Post

By Julia Reischel
1/6/15

For four years, the name of a priest found responsible for sexually abusing minors has adorned the front of his parish’s community center in the Delaware County village of Margaretville. Even after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany removed Robert H. Purcell from the ministry and forbade him from using the title “Reverend,” the imposing metal letters that spelled out “Very Rev. Robert H. Purcell” remained set in stone.

Until Sunday, Jan. 4, six months after Purcell’s death, when church officials announced the sign would be removed. Steven Scarmozzino, Sacred Heart’s current priest, made the announcement at Mass on Sunday morning at the Sacred Heart Parish in Margaretville. By the end of the day, the letters were pried off, leaving only a rusty shadow on a blank stone behind.

Church officials did not give a specific reason for the sign’s removal, and have not linked it directly with Purcell’s stained legacy.

Six years, two sex abuse scandals

The small Sacred Heart Parish, which says on its website that it has 300 registered members, has endured back-to-back sex abuse scandals involving its priests.

In 2010, another priest, James McDevitt, pled guilty in Middletown Town Court to two counts of forcible touching for spanking the bare bottoms of six area boys while he was a priest in Margaretville in 2008 and 2009.

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