But last August, when Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley published a long-awaited official roster of 159 clerics publicly accused of abusing minors, Burns’ name was not on it. The reason: Burns, who served as a parish priest in Boston for nearly a decade, was originally a priest of the Youngstown Diocese in Ohio.
O’Malley, facing opposition from some in the church to publishing such a list at all, in the end released a very selective accounting, limited to priests originally from the Boston Archdiocese - and thus directly under its supervision - and excluding members of religious orders, including O’Malley’s own Capuchin friars.
The result is that 70 accused clerics, including some with notorious reputations and many alleged victims, are not listed at all, a Globe review of church records has found. To critics of the church it is a disheartening sign that nearly 10 years after Boston became the epicenter of the global sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, the Boston Archdiocese is still struggling to face its troubled past.
The cardinal’s decision has also undercut his reputation as a reformer among some victims of clergy abuse, who worry that omitting any accused abuser’s name from the official list, which is published on the archdiocese’s website, only lowers the chances of further victims summoning the courage to come forward. It puts him at odds with most of the 33 dioceses that have released more complete lists of accused priests, though it compares favorably with the vast majority of the nation’s 195 dioceses, which have released no official lists at all.
Among those left off the Boston list are Fidelis DeBerardinis, a Catholic brother completing an eight-year prison term for preying on altar boys at an East Boston parish; the late Rev. Paul M. Desilets, a one-time Bellingham priest who served 17 months for molesting more than a dozen altar boys; and the Rev. James F. Talbot, who served a six-year sentence for raping two Boston College High School students.
