BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun
Oct. 2, 2019
By Alison Knezevich
A prominent former Baltimore archbishop, the late Cardinal Lawrence J. Shehan, transferred priests accused of sexual abuse to new posts without disciplining them or warning parishioners when he led the Bridgeport, Connecticut, diocese decades ago, an independent report has concluded.
Shehan, who died in 1984 at age 86, is among several former Bridgeport bishops scrutinized in a report commissioned by the diocese there in response to the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis. He was Bridgeport’s first bishop, serving in the role from 1953 to 1961 before coming to Baltimore.
“The diocese’s practice of a bishop’s reassigning a priest following an abuse accusation began during Bishop Shehan’s tenure,” states the Bridgeport report, which was made public Tuesday. “He knew of multiple specific incidents of abuse by then-active priests in the diocese, and assigned the priests to new postings with no discipline, and no warnings to the communities to which the priests were reassigned.”
Current Bridgeport Bishop Frank J. Caggiano ordered an investigation last year into the diocese’s history of sexual abuse and church officials’ response. A retired Connecticut judge led the investigation and prepared the report.
Shehan served as archbishop of Baltimore from 1961 to 1974, becoming a cardinal in 1965. Baltimore’s Cardinal Shehan School on Loch Raven Boulevard is named for him.
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