MANCHESTER (NH)
New Hampshire Union Leader
November 6, 2018
By Mark Hayward
A New Hampshire priest officially has been defrocked, 32 years after Catholic church officials suspended him over allegations of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct, the Diocese of Manchester announced on Tuesday.
Philip A. Petit, who was ordained in April 1980, worked at parishes in Manchester, Dover, Berlin, Merrimack, Nashua and Plaistow, as well as at Portsmouth Regional Hospital. He was removed from the ministry in 1986 and had no permission to function as a priest since then, the diocese said.
In the early 2000s, the diocese suspended the faculties of numerous priests as a priest-sexual abuse scandal exploded in Boston and New Hampshire.
But officials stressed that the suspended priests were still technically priests and could only be defrocked by the Vatican.
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