Former Dorchester priest who was convicted of molesting three boys now accused of molesting girl
A Vermont woman yesterday sued a convicted child-molester priest of molesting her when she was 11 and he was serving at St. Brendan Church in Dorchester.
The suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of victims when the Boston pedophile-priest scandal first broke, also names Father W. James Nyhan's superior at the time in the Archdiocese of Boston for not just failing to stop Nyhan but for allegedly allowing the conduct in the first place.
In her suit, Kelly Story, who now lives in Vermont, charges Nyhan molested her after his return in 1980 from South Carolina - where he would later be convicted of molesting three boys - and was assigned to St. Brendan Parish on Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester:
In approximately 1980, when Plaintiff was about 11 years of age, Defendant Father Nyhan brought Plaintiff to a beach house at Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts.
When Plaintiff was with Defendant Father Nyhan in the beach house at Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts, Defendant Father Nyhan engaged in explicit sexual behavior and lewd and lascivious conduct with the minor Plaintiff, including, among other things, Defendant Father Nyhan putting his hand on Plaintiff's upper inner thigh and caressing Plaintiff's upper inner thigh, skin on skin, close to Plaintiff's genital area.
Story says it took her years to even recognize the cause of the "severe and permanent mental distress and emotional injuries" she has suffered ever since, which she said include depression, sleep problems, substance abuse and thoughts of suicide - and that she wonders if Nyhan did even worse to her, but she has blocked that out.
The complaint charges that Msgr. Frederick Ryan, who now lives in Iowa, shares part of the blame because he was responsible not just for placing Nyhan at St. Brendan but for overseeing his work there, including with "minor children," in particular with Story, with whom he allegedly had "a special relationship," and that he "knew or should have known Defendant Father Nyhan was of bad character and reputation and unfit to properly interact with minor children, including, more specifically, Plaintiff, and that Defendant Father Nyhan engaged or was engaging in the explictly sexual behavior and lewd and lascivious conduct with Plaintiff."
In addition to a legal declaration that Nyhan and Ryan were wrong, Story is seeking payment for the treatment she has had and will continue to receive, lost wages and other damages.
Nyhan, now in his mid-70s, pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges of molesting three altar boys in Charlestown, SC. in 1979 and 1980, when he was on leave from Boston and serving there as a visiting associate pastor in charge of altar boys at one church.
Nyhan admitted he had fondled three boys, all in seventh or eighth grade, either during "wrestling" matches in the rectory at Charleston's Church of the Nativity or at a local beach. In exchange for his guilty plea, a judge changed his 30-year sentence to five years of probation.
The Archdiocese of Boston, which had closed an investigation into the South Carolina incidents earlier, had placed him on leave in 2002 due to an investigation involving another incident, in the 1970s involving a boy when Nyhan was a priest at St. Ambrose Church in Dorchester - a period when he also served as chaplain in Dorchester juvenile court.
Following his conviction in 2006, the Vatican ordered him "dismissed from the clerical state" - or defrocked.
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Comments
The greatest trick of the Devil
Was to disguise himself as Catholic priests.
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Nothing funnier than all covering religious slurs being allowed by Adam!
Just remember, if some people that you have be connected to through a shared dogma, do something bad, you are all guilty by association. That's at least good ol' Gaffy's take.
It's the institution
On one hand, it's pretty well established that Catholic priests are statistically not much more likely to be pedophiles than anybody else. On the other hand, it's also pretty well established that the Catholic Church, as an institution, went out of its way to enable and protect its pedophiles. Pointing out that the Catholic Church is, demonstrably, a pedophile-enabling and pedophile-promoting organization is not slamming Catholics nor is it slamming the Catholic faith.
What's the slur here, John?
Calling priests who abused children the devil sure seems appropriate to me, if that's not the work of the devil, then what is?
The Devil?
The fact that by your statement you believe in a supernatural being discredits most of what you say.
Wait what?
Now you've really lost me.
He's lost me, too.
He's lost me, too.
John, you're saying someone's belief in a supernatural being (The Devil) is reason to discredit most of what they say - in the same set of comments where you confidently state that pedophile priests are burning in hell?
How is one reasonable and the other not?
How do have Hell and not have a Devil?
Tax the churches. If these
Tax the churches. If these pedophile cults are going to be allowed to operate at least make them somewhat responsible for the bills they owe the taxpayers.
I'm Catholic
Not all priests are bad and Catholicism isn't a cult.
So what? 6,000 priests have been credibly accused in MA
It doesn't matter if "all priests aren't bad" when the institution functions as a transitional criminal pedophile ring.
Catholic people are (often) wonderful people. The church, however, is a criminal organization that covers up endemic clergy abuse of young boys, abuse of Irish orphans, nuns forced into sexual slavery by priests in Europe, nuns forced to abort priest's children in America, among other sins.
Yes, New England has a staunch tradition of anti-Catholic bigotry dating back to the Puritans, but me criticizing the church for its institutional criminality is not bigotry.
Ireland publishes report on 'appalling' abuse at mother and baby homes
Abuse scandal in the Sisters of Mercy
Abused nuns reveal stories of rape, forced abortions
Pope admits clerical abuse of nuns including sexual slavery
About 333,000 children were abused within France's Catholic Church, a report finds
Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Ireland
Grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania
Church allowed abuse by priest for years
Thousands of Canada’s indigenous children died in church-run boarding schools. Where are they buried?
Criticize away - there's
Criticize away - there's plenty of criticism that is well-deserved.
---
But - calling the Church a criminal organization IS bigoted.
...
By the way - "6000 priests credibly accused in MA"? That's a new one. Got a source on that?
6000 victims is, unfortunately, within belief. But- 6000 priests? I'm pretty sure you'd have to count every priest in MA going back nearly to the turn of the 20th century to have 6000.
How is it different than a criminal organization?
If you were to create a transnational organization to hide sex crimes, crimes at the level committed by the church in every US state and every country in the world, what would be fundamentally different than what the Catholic Church did?
Whoa there
Saying that Catholics are criminals would be bigoted.
Calling the Church a criminal organization is simply acknowledging a well-established pattern of facts.
The sin and the crime here isn't the abuse, it's the pervasive and deeply-rooted organizational cover-up.
Taking this in no special
Taking this in no special order...
A "criminal organization" would be one that exists for a criminal purpose. You don't present any of the "well-established" facts you think should be acknowledged.
If we stick (for the moment) with the decidedly incomplete notion that the Church is simply an organization? Then - the Church is (simplistically) an organization to spread the Gospel and attract souls to God to be Saved. With our demonstrate borderline inability to consistently do THAT well when we have (literally) the ultimate product and testimony (and demonstrated ability to screw other things up along the way) - if we were an organization that existed for criminal purpose, we wouldn't have lasted even as long as those guys from The Great Train Robbery that left all the fingerprints on the Monopoly set.
The fact is "the Church" isn't simply some organization. The Church is a body. Catholics ARE "the Church". When you say "the Church is a criminal organization", you are saying "Catholics are criminals".
Well established facts:
1. Priests in the Boston Archdiocese raped hundreds of kids.
2. The archdiocese, as an organization, moved troubled priests out of parishes to make the problem go away,
3. The archdiocese, as an organization, sat on incriminating documents and refused to report crimes to proper authorities.
4. Local parishes and the archdiocese gaslit victims, families, and parishioners in order to trivialize and dismiss credible allegations of crimes in order to protect the organization.
5. The archdiocese, as an organization, used its political clout to lean on police departments to make allegations go away.
6. The archdiocese, as an organization, used its political clout to lean on prosecutors' offices to make allegations go away.
7. The archdiocese, as an organization, used its political clout to lean on judges to make allegations go away.
8. The archdiocese, as an organization, leaned on elected officials to lean on cops, prosecutors, and judges to make the allegations go away.
9. This happened in a large number of archdioceses in every state in the country
10. This happened in virtually every country in the world.
11. These events were not separate, independent actions. Abuse and coverup ran from local parishes, to dioceses, to archdioceses, to national conferences of Bishops, all the way to the Vatican. It was a total organizational effort to remove priests, suppress evidence, block the testimony, gaslight, and cover up the widespread systematic rape of children.
12. Add to this that this is not the sole allegation of systemic abuse in the Catholic Church. Irish orphans, nuns, indigenous children at residential schools...that abuse all went on for decades and were covered up in an organized, institutional fashion by the church.
13. Oh...and the Catholic Church, as an organization, used its clout to lean on the press in every state/country to suppress this story and keep it a secret.
PLEASE tell me how these well-established facts about an organization that covered up endemic child sex abuse, nun sex slavery, and priests forcing (other) nuns to abort their child isn't using their organizational power to systematically cover up criminal activity.
Also:
No. I reject this premise.
Also:
Wow.
Denying peoples' identity and further - defining their identity on YOUR own terms - in order to not see the problem.
There are more check marks there than at a discontinued fabric store.
News Flash: bigotry and discrimination is more that just personal hate. It is (among other things) the denial of equal right to identity, and defining other peoples' identity and rights under your own terms. It's been tried again and again and again, and it is still BS.
I have to get to work, so I don't have time to take apart your other remarks this morning. Maybe later.
Have a nice day.
The Catholic Church has a governing body
There is a difference between priests and the humble parishioner who attends mass 3 times per week. The Catholic Church has a governing organization and and that organization is sophisticated and has a hierarchy.
You know that I am criticizing the machinery of the church’s governance and not the grandma who still walks to a Wednesday mass. You use bad faith to conflate the work-a-day people in the pews with the priests, bishops, and cardinals who committed countless sex crimes and conspired to cover it all up. It’s an obfuscation tactic to protect the powerful who committed heinous crimes.
If you choose to lump yourself in with pedophile priests, nun-rapists, and the vast network who conspired to undermine investigations, suppress evidence, and cover up habitual criminal behavior…well, that is a choice.
Define "criminal organization"
There are plenty of Christian churches (the Catholics aren't alone) that have, and often still do, take the position that some people are not deserving of human rights. Do you consider this to be not "criminal" as long as the state is on their side? Or are you willing to let history be the judge?
A religion
is just a cult with a tax exemption.
Spokeboy Always Says Tax The Churches....
He never says tax the synagogues, the mosques, or temples.
He's a pampered anti-Catholic bigot.
Tax them all
Nothing so rich as the tears of aggrieved white men. Nothing! Particularly the ones jumping to defend an institution that knowingly harbors pedophiles that prey on its children.
PS tax them all. And the universities, and the hospitals.
Not Defending The Catholic Church
Trust me. I knew some of the pedophile priests pointed out in Spotlight. I am glad they are burning in hell.
Just pointing out that you are allowed to spew anti-Catholic hate here with no sanction.
If you say anything bad about any other religion, or in the past here say anything pro-Palestinian, you are excoriated.
Fair is fair. No tears here. Go back to your selective hate and deal with that problem.
Sorry
I apologize. I should spend less time thinking up incendiary insults and more time thinking about nonprofit taxation policy.
Whoa there again
Nobody on here said anything bad about any religion. They said something bad about a giant global enterprise.
Catholics, the Catholic religion, and the Catholic church are three entirely different thing.
Don't
The grievance rocket has launched and it's a solid fuel booster. No point trying to shut it down.
I am certain that thousands
I am certain that thousands of girls were also abused in the care of the church but that that was considered “normal” and that the girls (i.e. children) were asking for it.
Bernie….
More painful memories of the days of Bernard Law and company.
So many young lives destroyed.
Gaffy
Just posting Anons to bolster his hate.
It's ok to hate Bernard Law
He was definitely one of the bad guys.
Of Course He Is Loathsome
It is just interesting to watch the Anons get posted 12 to 18 hours later that pile on to the core Anti-Catholic hatred allowed on UHub.
If someone said "All (insert group, save for Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, the UDA) are bad" here, the hatred unleased here would crack the internet.
I'm just not seeing it, John
I'm just not seeing this Anti-Catholic hatred that you keep talking about. I'd like to think that with a lot of Catholic family, I'd be sensitive to it, or at least notice it. But I don't see it.
There's a lot to fault
There's a lot to fault Bernard Law for, and to hate.
But it shouldn't be forgotten that he was part of what the Catholic Church in the USA was getting right in the late 80s and through the 90s with improved understanding of sex abuse and some improved protocols of handling new cases.
"Bernard Law made the trains run on time."
JFC. Come on.
I don't think it's quite that
I don't think it's quite that. But belatedly going along with and in some cases initiating a partial system of accountability for a problem that he had previously contributed to...that isn't going to cause him to be ranked among God's noblest creatures. He has a lot to atone for.
I amend…
“Bernard Law did some half-hearted cya maneuvers late in the game. Give the man his due!”
tblade, I did not say that
tblade, I did not say that and would never say such a thing.
I simply get tired of the ignorance. Refusal to understand all of what happened, including the progression of what was actually happening and changing, tends to hold us back from making real progress.