WORCESTER (MA)
The Boston Globe [Boston, MA]
October 28, 2026
By Mike Damiano
The father of a teenage girl who accused a priest of inappropriately touching her had reported the priest’s “increasingly disturbing” behavior to Bishop Robert Joseph McManus earlier than was previously known, police records show.
The father of the girl had sent a letter to McManus complaining about then-reverend Alan J. Martineau on Aug. 22, 2021, weeks before another priest reported other questionable behavior by Martineau. The letter did not describe the alleged abuse of the girl. But it described a pattern of bizarre behavior by Martineau, including an alleged nighttime entrance into the family’s house.
“My wife was so distressed when hearing about Father clandestinely entering our home with our sons there that she was physically shaking . . . and this is only the most recent in a long series of spiritually, socially, and psychologically abusive behavior,” the girl’s father wrote in his letter, which was addressed to McManus, the bishop of the Diocese of Worcester, and two other Worcester clerics: McManus’s deputy, the Rev. Richard Reidy, and another priest, the Rev. James Mazzone. Reidy, who did not respond to requests for comment, is now the bishop of the diocese of Norwich, Conn.
The police records also reveal new details about what the girl’s family later described as a campaign of retaliation by Martineau and they suggest the bishop had direct knowledge of the matter as early as April 2021, nine months before McManus suspended Martineau and launched an investigation.
Earlier this month, the Globe reported that McManus had learned in September 2021 of “boundary violations,” including hugging, hand-holding, and kissing by Martineau, but that the diocese initially sought to transfer him to a different parish, before reporting the allegations to state authorities five months later. The handling of the case had echoes of the clergy sex abuse scandal that rocked the Boston archdiocese in the early 2000s.
The diocese has said it reported Martineau to prosecutors after it received “a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor” in January 2022, which included Martineau allegedly hugging the girl in such a way that their groins touched. Investigators also found Martineau exchanged approximately 80,000 messages with the girl when she was 14 to 16 years old.
Martineau was ultimately referred to prosecutors, and was charged. In 2025, he struck a plea agreement in which he admitted that sufficient facts existed to convict him of assault and battery, but he did not admit to a crime and the case was then dismissed.
[Photo Caption: Terence McKiernan, of Bishop Accountability held a protest sign during Mass at Christ the King Church in Worcester on Oct. 18. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe]
McManus is now facing a so-called vos estis complaint filed with the Vatican over his handling of the case. The complaint, submitted by the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org based on the Globe’s reporting, may obligate the Archdiocese of Boston or another authority designated by the Vatican to investigate the matter.
Ray Delisle, chancellor and director of communications for the Diocese of Worcester, said in a statement that, “We will cooperate fully with the Vatican in their investigation of the complaint.”
The Worcester diocese maintains that it handled the Martineau case properly. In response to the Globe’s previous reporting, Delisle said that the initial concerns raised ”were about boundaries and poor judgment, but not sexual in nature.”
“It was finally revealed in late January 2022 to our victim assistance coordinator, a licensed social worker who specializes in child abuse, that there was something sexual that took place,” he said. That triggered reports to state officials and law enforcement.
But the August letter from the girl’s father and other police records show that McManus was made aware of the family’s concerns about Martineau months earlier, even if the original allegations were not sexual.
In his letter to McManus, Reidy, and Mazzone, which is quoted in police records, the victim’s father details howMartineau “clandestinely” entered the family’s home.
It was just after midnight on Aug. 22, 2021, the father wrote, when his teenage son, who was sleeping on the couch, spotted Martineau creepingaround the house in the dark. The son noticed the priest’s cassock, which was the only reason, the man wrote, that “Fr. Martineau was spared any self-defensive actions that might have otherwise been visited upon such an intruder.”
Confronted by the victim’s brother, Martineau said he had entered the home to close windows before a predicted rain, according to court records. The family lived in a house on church property. But the family didn’t believe this story. Martineau had their phone numbers and could have called, the parents later told police. At the time, the victim and her parents were out of town.
In his letter, sent later that day, the victim’s father described the alleged entrance into the home as “the most recent occurrence in a seemingly endless series of increasingly disturbing behavior.”
Martineau had an unusual amount of power over the family because of the family living and workingon church grounds, making Martineau effectively the family’s landlord, employer, and pastor.
“[P]lease know that whatever you have been doing to correct his behavior is not working,” the girl’s father wrote in his letter.
By then, it had already been seven months since the first notice of inappropriate behavior by Martineau. In January 2021, a seminarian who was living at the church told the girl’s father about the text messages between Martineau and the girl.
The victim’s father confronted Martineau and told him to stop messaging his daughter and to stop spending time alone with her, according to court records.
Then the alleged retaliation began.In the spring, Martineau threatened to evict from church premises a small school the victim’s father ran at the church, according to court records. Martineau then changed the locks, trapping the school’s belongings inside. The victim’s father “could not gain access until the Bishop cleared it up and let the school stay until the end of the school year,” the records state. “However, once the school opened back up, Father Martineau shut off the electricity and water.”
Delisle said this incident shows that “Bishop McManus was intervening either directly or through intermediaries and not ignoring the issues that were being brought to him.”
He would not comment on the pattern of abusive behavior the father described. “All the issues you are asking about appear to be about handling personnel matters. . . . As a matter of policy, we do not comment on personnel issues whether it involves clergy or laypeople.”
Martineau has not responded to multiple requests for comment. His lawyer, Louis P. Aloise, said the criminal case against him, which initially included three counts of indecent assault and battery, was weak.
As part of Martineau’s plea agreement, the prosecution asked the presiding judge, Maura K. McCarthy of East Brookfield District Court, to order Martineau to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. McCarthy declined that request.
Mike Damiano can be reached at mike.damiano@globe.com.