Church documents showed that diocesan authorities were aware of dozens of abuse accusations against Shanley but shuttled him, and other accused priests, from parish to parish without notifying the communities involved. He was arrested in California in 2002.
"Only 2 percent of [abusive] priests ever get inside a courtroom," said Anne Hagan Webb, co-director of the New England chapter of the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests. "So many of us have had to rely on this case for justice."
Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley speaks after a jury convicted defrocked priest Paul R. Shanley of raping an altar boy in the 1980s.
(Bizuayehu Tesfaye -- AP)
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The trial centered on Shanley's sole accuser, a burly, 27-year-old local firefighter, who said the former priest began assaulting him in 1983.
The man described in graphic detail being pulled out of religion classes and molested in pews, a church basement bathroom and in the confessional. In three days of testimony and combative cross-examination, he said that he first recovered memories of being abused by Shanley in 2002, after reading early news reports about the emerging scandal in Boston.
Mondano portrayed the accuser as an opportunist motivated by money and the desire to be a hero, and seized on apparent inconsistencies in his statements. He called in a nationally known expert who said there was no scientific evidence that memories of traumatic events can be stored in the subconscious for many years.
"There is not just reasonable doubt in this case," he said in his closing argument. "There is massive doubt."
Prosecutors said that because the victim had won the civil settlement, he was not motivated by financial gain. They said at a news conference Monday evening that after one particularly contentious day of testimony, the accuser had considered discontinuing the case.
Asked for the victim's reaction to the verdict, Coakley said, "If you had a chance to see the expression on his face, he thought it was worth it."
Others who said they had been abused by Shanley said they felt vindicated and relieved. "When we first started talking about our abuse . . . nobody wanted to touch it," said John Harris, 47, of Norwood, Mass., who attended much of the trial and said that Shanley had raped him almost 30 years ago. "Finally it feels like somebody heard us, and it turns out to be a jury."
