Ex-Priest Convicted of Child Rape

Paul Shanley, already removed from the priesthood, has been convicted of child rape and could be sentenced to life in prison. Some will see this as a victory for the many who were abused by priests, but the fact that this case rested upon claims of "recovered" memories makes it troubling to say the least.

MyWay reports:

"There are no winners today. There are only losers," his niece, Teresa Shanley, said as her uncle was led from the courtroom. "We're no closer to finding out the truth about this scandal or finding out what happened." During the trial, the accuser broke down on the stand as he testified in graphic detail that Shanley pulled him out of Sunday morning catechism classes and raped and groped him in the church bathroom, the rectory, the confessional and the pews starting when he was 6. "It felt awful," he testified. "He told me nobody would ever believe me if I told anybody."

The defense called just one witness - a psychologist who said that so-called recovered memories can be false, even if the accuser ardently believes they are true. A lawyer for Shanley argued that the accuser was either mistaken or concocted the story with the help of personal injury lawyers to cash in on a multimillion-dollar settlement resulting from the sex scandal. The accuser, now a firefighter in suburban Boston, was one of at least two dozen men who claimed they had been molested by Shanley. The archdiocese's own personnel records showed that church officials knew Shanley publicly advocated sex between men and boys, yet continued to transfer him from parish to parish.

It seems likely that Shanley molested some young boys during his time as a priest, but "recovered" memories are too unreliable to base much on — certainly not a life sentence for rape. It would be a shame if Shanley were convicted for the right crime, but with the wrong person.

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