Thursday, October 5, 2023
SEXUAL ABUSE CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST MSGR. FRANCIS STRAHAN, BOSTON GLOBE IS SILENT
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has dropped criminal charges against Monsignor Francis Strahan, after his accuser declined to testify. Strahan, 90, was scheduled to go on trial on October 2nd.
Strahan was the longtime Pastor of Saint Bridget’s Parish in Framingham, serving there as Parish Priest from 1983 to 2019.
In October of 2019, only a few months after celebrating the 60th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, an allegation of sexual molestation was made against Strahan.
The Archdiocese of Boston immediately removed Strahan as Pastor, deprived him of his faculties, placed him on administrative leave, and barred him from public ministry. It then referred the matter to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
In November of 2022, a Middlesex County Grand Jury indicted Strahan on three counts of indecent assault upon a child and on one count of child rape. The purported incidents, which were said to have occurred between 2004 and 2008, were alleged by a former altar server.
That former altar boy now claims that his mental and emotional health would be impaired by going forward with the trial.
The Archdiocese, which stated it suspended its canonical investigation of Strahan after the matter was taken up by civil authorities, has now said that its own investigation would resume.
Ryan’s decision to drop the charges was reported in the MetroWest Daily News, Worcester’s Telegram & Gazette, and The Pilot.
The Boston Globe published a news story on the investigation of Strahan in October of 2019 and again on his indictment in November of 2022.
Now, despite its celebrated and longstanding propensity to provide intensive coverage of any allegation of misconduct against the Catholic clergy, the newspaper is silent about about the end of the Strahan case.
Nearly twenty-two years after breaking the story of clerical molestation in the Boston archdiocese, the Globe continues to wave the bloody shirt of historic sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
Just last month, Globe readers were treated to yet another formula column maligning the Church–complete with a quote from “Catholics For Choice”–by Associate Editor and embittered apostate, Joan Vennochi.
That was followed by an editorial demanding that the statute of limitations for abuse victims be extended. In case anyone in the third gallery was not paying attention, the editorial was thoughtfully accompanied by a prominent photograph of Holy Cross Cathedral.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Apparently, the only time The Boston Globe does not cover allegations against a Catholic priest is when the priest is not convicted.
Like the Cardinal Pell travesty, the Strahan case had numerous red flags.
Homosexual molesters in the clergy are serial predators and compulsive recidivists. Prudence requires that isolated claims made by single accusers merit heightened scrutiny.
After an unblemished record of more than six decades, Monsignor Strahan was implicated by a single accuser in 2019, who waited fifteen years to make his charge. If we are to believe his claims, then we must accept that Strahan had the strength and physical capacity to commit an act of rape while he was in his seventies.
Strahan was 86 when the charges were made, 89 when the indictment came. A cynic might suggest that a man of his age would be an easy mark, unable to forcefully defend himself.
In the legal profession in Britain and Ireland, there is a term ‘dodgy witness,’ which refers to someone unlikely to withstand cross examination. Whether the refusal to testify was because of problems with the accuser’s health, or problems with the accuser’s story, we may never know.”
FULL DISCLOSURE: Many years ago, Monsignor Francis Strahan, a conservative, pro-life priest, was an occasional contributor to the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.
