Crime
According to Leon Podles in his book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, "In late 1993, Shanley was sent to the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, for evaluation. The Boston archdiocese has refused to release this evaluation, but other released files show that Shanley admitted to nine sexual encounters, of which four involved boys, and that he was diagnosed as 'narcissistic' and 'histrionic'. Shanley admitted that he was 'attracted to adolescents' and on the basis of this confession, the Boston archdiocese secretly settled several lawsuits against Shanley. The archdiocese of Boston in 1993 had to admit to the diocese of San Bernardino part of the truth about Shanley, and the bishop of San Bernardino immediately dismissed him."
In February 2005, Shanley was found guilty of indecent assaults and the rape of a male minor and received a sentence of 12 to 15 years in prison. Shanley's case remains controversial because the allegations of abuse came only after the victim (now an adult) alleged that he "recovered" memories of the abuse from approximately 20 years earlier. The notion of "repressed memory" is highly controversial and has been excluded from several courts of law. The manner in which the accusations against Shanley arose and enormous attention in the media also have given rise to questions about the validity of the convictions.
Read more about this topic: Paul Shanley
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