2nd Fla. Catholic Altar Boy Accuses Foley Priest of sex abuse
Pastor Dale Morgan
Oct 25, 12:37 PM EDT
*
2nd Fla. Catholic Altar Boy Accuses Foley Priest of sex abuse*
By JENNIFER KAY
Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) -- Another former Catholic altar boy says he was sexually
abused in the 1970s by the same retired Catholic priest who acknowledged
fondling former Rep. Mark Foley when Foley was a teenager, the man's
attorney said Wednesday.
The new allegations against the Rev. Anthony Mercieca were made by a man
who lived in North Miami and was an altar boy at St. James Catholic
Church, where Mercieca worked, attorney Jeffrey Herman said.
Herman said he planned to file a lawsuit Wednesday against the
Archdiocese of Miami. His client, now 40 and identified in the lawsuit
only as John Doe No. 26, says Mercieca abused him when he was about 12
years old.
"He had been thinking about it before Foley came forward, and then when
Foley came out and the church encouraged other victims to come forward,
he decided to come forward," Herman said.
The man said "all of my nightmares came back" when Mercieca's picture
appeared on the news last week amid Foley's claims that the priest had
molested him. Foley had resigned amid accusations that he sent sexually
explicit messages to teenage boys who had worked on Capitol Hill.
Mercieca, 69, now lives on the Maltese island of Gozo in the
Mediterranean. No one answered the phone at his home Wednesday. His
lawyer, Alfred Grech, did not return calls to his cell phone.
Archdiocese of Miami spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta, asked about the
latest allegations, said: "Any of this type of behavior by Father
Mercieca was unknown to the archdiocese and we had absolutely no
information to indicate that the father did or would engage in any type
of inappropriate or abusive behavior."
The Miami Archdiocese barred Mercieca from all church work as it
investigates Foley's claim that the clergyman molested him when Foley
was an altar boy at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in 1967.
Mercieca is now retired and does not serve in any parish, but he
regularly celebrates Mass and hears confession in the cathedral on Gozo,
according to the Archdiocese of Malta.
In multiple interviews last week, Mercieca denied having sexual
intercourse with Foley, but he did acknowledge being nude with him when
Foley was a boy.
Mercieca also denied having sex with any underage children.
Herman said his client and Mercieca took a bicycle ride together one day
after altar boy practice and then returned to the church where the abuse
occurred.
"It was fondling and he performed oral sex on the boy," Herman said. "He
attempted on another occasion following altar boy practice, but the boy
declined to go on this bike ride and he never went back to the church
after that."
Mercieca served as an assistant pastor at the church from 1975 to 1985,
according to church records.
Foley resigned from Congress last month after he was confronted with
sexually explicit computer communications he had sent to male teenage
pages who worked on Capitol Hill. He has since entered a 30-day
rehabilitation program for alcoholism, according to his attorneys.
---
Associated Press writer Brian Skoloff in West Palm Beach contributed to
this report.