WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette via MetroWest Daily News
By Elaine Thompson
October 2, 2020
The Diocese of Worcester and retired priest the Rev. Thomas E. Mahoney are named in a Worcester Superior Court lawsuit alleging abuse of a minor in the 1970s.
“Because of the serious nature of the allegation, and consistent with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, Fr. Mahoney was notified that I have relieved him of his faculties as a priest,” Bishop Robert J. McManus stated in a press release on Thursday.
Mahoney, who lives at 5 Daniel Drive, Unit 5 in North Oxford, retired as co-pastor of St. Gabriel, the Archangel Parish in Upton in 2012. He was ordained as a priest for the Worcester Diocese in 1968. He also served at St. Mary in North Grafton; Our Lady of the Angels and St. Andrew the Apostle in Worcester; St. Mary in Uxbridge; and St. Michael the Archangel in Mendon.
According to the complaint, Mahoney used his position as a priest to groom and sexually harass the minor boy from 1971 until 1974. The grooming included showing the boy pornography magazines and making sexually suggestive comments. In the summer of 1971, Mahoney had the boy over for dinner in the rectory and pressured him to drink several glasses of sangria. After the boy became intoxicated, Mahoney took him to his bedroom and made him get undressed. Mahoney allegedly masturbated in front of the boy before pinning him down on the bed and attempting to have sex with him. The boy fought the priest off, gathered his clothes and left. But the sexual misconduct continued.
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