MASSACHUSETTS
New York Times
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
JULY 26, 2017
BOSTON — When he was 21 and coming out as gay, John Harris was referred to a charismatic street priest, Paul Shanley, for guidance.
“He raped me, under the pretense of helping me,” Mr. Harris, now 59, recalled Wednesday. Since the episode, in 1979, Mr. Harris said he had had difficulty trusting people, which led to heavy drinking and depression so severe that he was hospitalized.
Mr. Shanley was defrocked by the Vatican in 2004 and convicted in 2005 of raping a boy repeatedly during the 1980s in a suburban parish. Sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison, he became one of the most notorious priests in the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church.
While the scandal of priests abusing children has faded somewhat from the explosive headlines of the early 2000s, the issue continues to play out here in Boston, the epicenter of the abuse.
Mr. Shanley is now 86. After 12 years of incarceration, he is scheduled to be released on Friday from the Old Colony Correctional Center, a medium-security prison in Bridgewater, Mass. His pending release has distressed his victims and their families, who on Wednesday said they hoped that residents of whatever town Mr. Shanley is released to will monitor him and report his whereabouts.
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