Breakdown

Foley Priest-Lover Comes Forward

Yesterday, we reported that Mark Foley would soon reveal the identity of the clergyman he says molested him as a child..

Today, however, a priest has come forward, saying he had a two-year “relationship” with the then-minor Foley. The New York Times reports:

A Catholic priest told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Wednesday that he had an intimate two-year relationship with former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley when the congressman was a teenage altar boy.

From his home on the island of Gozo, a part of Malta off the Italian coast, the priest, Anthony Mercieca, described a series of encounters that he said Mr. Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate. Among them: massaging Mr. Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping with him at a secluded lake and being naked in the same room on overnight trips.

Pretty convenient that Mercieca’s in Italy, beyond the reaches of America’s legal arm – although, we suspect his holy leaders at The Vatican will have something to say about all this, and we’d much rather deal with some coppers than Catholic goons.

Also, what does he means “Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate…”? How could one not find that sexually inappropriate?

The report continues:

Father Mercieca said he was in a drug-induced stupor one night and cannot clearly remember what happened but that it may also have been inappropriate.

“I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown,” he said. “I was taking pills – tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit.”

Ah, the old drug-induced stupor write-off. Sounds a bit familiar. Oh, right, that’s the exact same thing Foley said before running off to rehab. We’ve done some dumb things when on drugs, but we can’t recall molesting any children. It seems to us that something else must have been lurking beneath the surface other than pills…

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