NEW YORK (NY)
Newsweek
August 21, 2019
By Jake Maher
A retired bishop in New York State announced he was taking a leave of absence two days after a lawsuit was filed alleging he molested an teenage boy.
On August 16, Bishop Emeritus Howard Hubbard of the Diocese of Albany took an absence from the Diocese of Albany. In a suit filed August 14, a plaintiff identified only as P.R alleged Hubbard sexually abused him repeatedly in the mid-1990s, when P.R. was 16.
Hubbard “used his position as a priest to groom and to sexually abuse” the then-teen between 1994 and 1998, according to WNYT.
The lawsuit was filed the first day New York’s Child Victims Act (CVA) went into effect. The statute, which will remain in effect for one year, removes the statute of limitations on filing a lawsuit alleging child sex-abuse. It’s already been used to sue the Governing Body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses for covering up abuse, and legal experts expect more religious institutions and community organizations to face similar suits.
Hubbard, who notified current bishop Edward Scharfenberger of his decision to take a leave of absence, maintains his innocence.
“With full and complete confidence, I can say this allegation is false. retired in my life,” he said in a statement. “I have been a priest for 55 years. My ministry is my life. But stepping aside temporarily now is the right thing to do.”
He added that Catholics—and the larger community—”must be assured that our church leaders, active or retired, and indeed all clergy are living in accord with the highest standards that our sacred ministry requires.”
It’s not the first time Hubbard has been accused of sexual misconduct: In the early 2000s, a California man alleged his brother had a sexual relationship with Hubbard before his brother’s death by suicide in 1978, at age 25. Another man claimed Hubbard had solicited sex from him when he was a teenage sex worker in Albany in the 1970s.
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