MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe
By John R. Ellement GLOBE STAFF SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
A 79-year-old former Roman Catholic priest who supervised altar boys as a laymen in a Dorchester parish is now facing rape and indecent assault charges in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston Wednesday.
Michael Walsh is scheduled to be arraigned on two counts of rape of a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, according to Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office, which is prosecuting the case.
While a layman, Walsh served as the volunteer “altar boy coordinator’’ at St. Brendan’s Church in Dorchester from 1988 to 1991 and is alleged to have assaulted a boy during those years, prosecutors said.
Walsh also served as a layman in the same capacity at Saint Francis de Sales Church in Charlestown in the mid to late 1950s, prosecutors said.
Walsh retired, moved to Florida where he later entered a Maryland seminary and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in Grand Rapids, Mich. in 2002 when he was in his mid-60s, prosecutors said. That same year, two adult survivors alleged that Walsh abused them while he was working at the Dorchester parish, leading church leaders to revoke his ministry, prosecutors said.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.