Superior not told of complaints against priestVatican CrimesVATICAN CRIMES

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Superior not told of complaints against priest

10:38 AM

Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

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08-12-10

The Catholic priest who oversaw Patrick Joseph McCabe when the allegedly abusive Irish cleric was assigned to the United States in 1983 said Wednesday that he was not told at the time that McCabe was the subject of complaints from boys in his native country.

McCabe, a 74-year-old Alameda retiree, is now jailed as authorities seek to extradite him to Ireland to face charges that he assaulted six boys there from 1973 to 1981. Some of the alleged victims came forward recently, investigators said.

Records show McCabe was sent to California - to St. Bernard Catholic Church in Eureka, in the Diocese of Santa Rosa, which included a school - even after the Archdiocese of Dublin knew he was a diagnosed pedophile and had tried to rehabilitate him.

"I wish that I was told," said Monsignor Gerard Brady, who ran St. Bernard when McCabe was assigned there as an associate pastor. Brady now heads a church in Napa. "I would not have accepted him - it's as simple as that."

Brady, who worked with McCabe for about a year before transferring, said no one accused McCabe of abuse. Another former associate pastor at St. Bernard, the Rev. Thomas Diaz, said Wednesday that he worked with McCabe for three years and was aware of no abuse complaints.

"I think the only complaint I heard was from one parishioner who asked, 'Why does he hang out around the altar boys?' " said Diaz, who now heads a church in Yountville. He added, "You don't put a priest (accused of sexual abuse) around kids at all. You take them out of ministry. They give the church a bad name."

McCabe left the priesthood in 1987, after a brief stint in the Diocese of Sacramento, and then lived quietly in Alameda until he surrendered to authorities on July 30. The defense attorney handling his extradition said the evidence against McCabe is weak, and he plans to seek his release on bail at a federal court hearing Friday.