BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News
August 14, 2019
By Jay Tokasz
Retired parole officer Angelo J. Ervolina said he first met Bishop James A. McNulty in 1965 on his newspaper route, which included the bishop’s mansion on Oakland Place.
Ervolina said he proudly told the bishop he was heading soon on a trip to New York City with his parish pastor, Monsignor Michael J. Harrington.
But when the bishop asked him later about the trip, Ervolina wasn’t so cheerful. Instead of telling McNulty about the sites he had visited, Ervolina said he revealed that Harrington had fondled him while he took a bath in the hotel room he shared with the priest. Ervolina said he was about 10 years old at the time.
McNulty promised he would “take care of it,” Ervolina recalled. The bishop then handed him a generous tip for delivering the newspaper: $5 on a 55-cent subscription bill, he said.
As a boy, Ervolina said he assumed the bishop would take care of it. But in hindsight he believes McNulty dismissed his claim. Harrington spent 25 years as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church on Edward Street, retiring in 1985. The diocese didn’t identify Harrington as a child molester until March 2018.
Ervolina refuses to be dismissed any longer. More than a half-century after the alleged abuse, he filed a lawsuit early Wednesday morning against the Buffalo Diocese, saying he wanted to make certain what happened to him doesn’t happen to another child. He’s being represented by Amherst attorney Steve Boyd and the law firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates in Minnesota.
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