A Boston-area Catholic priest who pushed for the ouster of the highly effective Bernard Cardinal Legislation in a church abuse scandal now faces his personal allegations of sexual misconduct, a brand new lawsuit claims.
Father Walter Cuenin is accused of forcing a 20-year-old male Brandeis College pupil to have oral intercourse with him in a Manhattan resort room a decade in the past on a visit to the Massive Apple, the Manhattan authorized submitting mentioned.
The priest rose to prominence greater than twenty years in the past when he helped lead a bunch of practically 60 Catholic pastors calling for Legislation’s resignation after a bombshell investigation uncovered systemic coverup of widespread sexual abuse throughout the church.
“Father Cuenin apparently forgot to look within the mirror when he referred to as upon disgraced Cardinal Bernard Legislation to resign amid the clergy sexual abuse disaster in Boston,” mentioned Mitchell Garabedian, the lawyer for the male sufferer, who requested that his shopper’s identify be withheld.
Cuenin informed The Submit that, whereas he recalled the journey to New York and the sufferer’s identify, he denied that any sexual contact occurred within the resort room.
“I didn’t interact in any sexual misconduct with him,” Cuenin mentioned from his Virginia nursing house, the place he’s now confined to a wheelchair. “I don’t know something about it.”
“They will see it nevertheless they wish to see it,” Cuenin mentioned in response to the seeming disparity between the brand new accusations and his previous advocacy.
The brand new lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court docket, claims that Cuenin invited the 20-year-old sufferer to hitch him on a prepare jaunt from the Boston faculty to New York Metropolis in December 2014 to attend a New York Philharmonic live performance.
Earlier than returning to the college the subsequent day, the coed and the clergyman shared a single-bed room on the Millennium Hilton resort, the place Cuenin drank alcohol and informed the 20-year-old about “utilizing Viagra to observe pornography,” the go well with claims.
That night time, “Cuenin sexually abused, sexually assaulted, and made sexual contact” with the sufferer, together with “forcing his personal erect penis into Plaintiff’s mouth, with out Plaintiff’s consent,” based on the authorized criticism.
Cuenin confirmed many of the particulars of the journey to The Submit — however denied consuming booze and claims of sexual discuss or contact.
Since then, the go well with claims, the previous pupil suffers from “extreme and everlasting emotional misery, and bodily manifestations of emotional misery,” and that he’s unable “to completely describe the entire particulars of that violence and the extent of the hurt he suffered consequently.”
Garabedian additionally waged a famous marketing campaign in opposition to church abuse in Boston, sending shockwaves nonetheless reverberating throughout the non secular group as we speak.
His work, alongside The Boston Globe, was chronicled within the hit movie “Highlight,” the place Garabedian was famously portrayed by actor Stanley Tucci.
Legislation was pressured to resign in 2002, after allegations he moved abuser clergymen round as a part of a pedophile scandal coverup. Moderately than being additional punished, Legislation was given a comfortable place in Rome and finally died in 2017.
“My shopper has come ahead not solely to empower himself and different sexual abuse survivors but additionally to make the world safer for youngsters,” mentioned Garabedian.
Along with his personal campaign, Cuenin was identified for his outspoken help for homosexual marriage and ladies clergymen whereas serving as a pastor on the Boston Archdiocese, based on the Nationwide Catholic Reporter.
He served as a “standard” Catholic chaplain at Brandeis for slightly below a decade, and abruptly departed his put up there a month after the alleged sexual abuse for medical causes, based on the faculty’s group newspaper.
Cuenin was ordained in 1970 and assigned at six different Boston-area church buildings, together with over a decade at Our Girl Assist of Christians in posh Newton, MA, based on his project historical past, earlier than being pressured out from the Archdiocese in 2005 in retaliation for his talking out in opposition to Legislation, he informed The Globe in 2014.
Shortly after, he joined the Jewish-sponsored Brandies College.
“The church removed me however the Jews took me in,” he informed The Globe.
Inquiries despatched to Brandies and the Boston Archdiocese weren’t responded to as of publication.