MAINE
Church Militant
by Joseph Pelletier • ChurchMilitant.com • January 7, 2016
PORTLAND, Maine (ChurchMilitant.com) – The diocese of Portland, Maine is being sued over allegations that a former bishop covered up a sex abuse scandal.
In seperate civil complaints filed in November, six men claim they were sexually abused by Fr. James Vallely, a Portland diocesen priest, between 1958 and 1977 and that the bishop worked to protect the abusive pastor.
The victims, who were between the ages of 8 and 15 at the time, allege the abuse occured in three different parishes while they served as altar boys of the respective churches.
According to four of the victims, the abuse occured while Fr. Vallely was a priest at St. Michael Catholic Church in South Berwick; a fifth claims he was sexually abused by Vallely in Portland’s St. Dominic Catholic Church; the last asserts Vallely molested him while acting as visiting pastor at St. John Catholic Church in Bangor in 1969.
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