> Catholic Church asks Foley to name alleged molester
> By Kathleen Chapman
>
> Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
>
> Wednesday, October 11, 2006
>
> The Catholic Church has sent a formal letter asking Mark Foley's
> attorney to name the clergyman who allegedly abused the former
> congressman and report the crime to law enforcement.
>
> Foley's attorney David Roth said during an Oct. 3 news conference that
> a clergyman molested Foley when he was between the ages of 13 and 15,
> but did not identify the person, church or religious denomination.
>
>
>
> "Until such time as you identify the alleged perpetrator," Church
> attorney J. Patrick Fitzgerald wrote in an Oct. 5 letter to Roth, "all
> clergy that served in Palm Beach County have been needlessly placed
> under suspicion."
>
> Foley, whose behavior with underage pages in the House of
> Representatives caused national scandal, grew up in a devout Catholic
> family.
>
> He served as an altar boy at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth
> and attended Catholic high school at Cardinal Newman for his freshman
> year in 1969-70.
>
> The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, which oversaw Palm Beach
> parishes in the 1960s, and the Diocese of Palm Beach have said they
> cannot investigate Foley's charge until they have a name.
>
> A church policy adopted nationwide in 2002, called the Charter for the
> Protection of Children and Young People, encourages victims of child
> abuse to "come forward, identify the alleged perpetrator and report the
> abuse to the proper criminal authority," Fitzgerald wrote in the
> letter.
>
> The Diocese of Palm Beach has not received an answer to its letter, a
> spokeswoman said.
