Priest in abuse lawsuit on leave

From: Framingham Metro West Daily News, MA - Aug 22, 2004

By Associated Press
Sunday, August 22, 2004

BOSTON -- A priest named in a lawsuit alleging abuse at a now-defunct school for the deaf has accepted a voluntary leave of absence while allegations against him are investigated, the Archdiocese of Boston said yesterday.

The allegation against the Rev. Charles J. Murphy, who is also a part-time chaplain at the state prison at Norfolk and part time chaplain to the archdiocesan deaf apostolate, was regarding an incident alleged to have taken place about 25 years ago, the archdiocese said.

Murphy was among nuns, priests and administrators named as defendants in a suit brought in May by former students of the Boston School for the Deaf. The Congregation of Sisters of Saint Joseph served as the faculty and administration of the school, which was operated by an independent, nonprofit corporation. The school, in Randolph, closed a decade ago.

Murphy, who was ordained in 1960, served as a chaplain at the school, archdiocese spokesman the Rev. Christopher Coyne said.

A message left at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Weymouth, where Murphy is in residence and has been serving a part-time assignment, was not immediately

In two separate lawsuits, 18 former students at the school claim they were beaten, sexually molested and emotionally tormented by the nuns who ran the school. On Tuesday, attorney Mitchell Garabedian said he has 80 clients altogether who claim they were abused at the school between 1936 and 1991, when they were between the ages of 4 and 17.

After the first lawsuit was filed in May, the Boston-based Sisters of St. Joseph promised an immediate, fair and sensitive investigation. Their attorney, William Shaevel, said Tuesday that the investigation has so far "found nothing to support these allegations."

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... was among nuns, priests and administrators named as defendants in a suit brought in May by former students of the Boston School for the Deaf.

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