One-time top-ranking NYC priest accused of sexually abusing underage sisters over five years

BRONX (NY)
New York Daily News

January 9, 2019

By Marco Poggio and Larry McShane

Two Bronx sisters accused a high-ranking Catholic Church official of sexually assaulting them across five years after he was welcomed into their neighborhood as a parish priest.

The allegations were made public Wednesday outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Robert Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, a charity assisting abuse victims and their families.

The older girl was in her early teens and her kid sister just age 7 when the abuse by Msgr. Charles McDonagh began in their home in 1972, according to Hoatson.

McDonagh had just arrived at Our Lady of Refuge, a heavily Irish parish in the Bronx. The priest, who died in 1999, was later promoted to serve as secretary to Terence Cardinal Cooke and his successor John Cardinal O’Connor, spending about six years in the position.

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