Catholic Priest Claims Relationship With Foley By MATTHEW DOIG and MAURICE TAMMAN Sarasota Herald-Tribune
A Catholic priest told The Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Wednesday that he had an intimate two-year relationship with former Representative Mark Foley of south Florida when Mr. Foley was a teenage altar boy.
Mr. Foley resigned from Congress last month after his suggestive electronic messages to young male pages surfaced. Soon after, he said he was an alcoholic and said he had been molested as a boy by a clergyman.
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 have perceived 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.
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."
Father Mercieca's description of his relationship with Mr. Foley is similar to details provided to The Herald-Tribune by people close to Mr. Foley's family. Those people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Father Mercieca is the priest who Mr. Foley has claimed sexually abused him.
On Tuesday, Mr. Foley's lawyer, Gerald Richman, told reporters that the purported abuser was a Catholic priest whose name he planned to share with church officials this week. He and another lawyer for Mr. Foley, David Roth, refused further comment.
In 1966 and 1967, when Father Mercieca served as a priest at Sacred Hearth Catholic Church in Lake Worth, Fla., Mr. Foley was an altar boy there and attended the parish school. The Foleys were active members of the congregation. Father Mercieca, 72, told The Herald- Tribune that he and Mr. Foley became fast friends when Father Mercieca moved from Brazil to Florida in 1966 and "loved each other like brothers."
Father Mercieca said he taught Mr. Foley "some wrong things" related to sex, though he wouldn't specify what he meant. He also said they were naked together in a sauna twice.
Father Mercieca said that, at the time, he considered his relationship with Mr. Foley innocent. But he now says he sees that his actions may have been inappropriate.
Father Mercieca said his encounter with Mr. Foley was an aberration, and that the Catholic Church never had to send him for counseling during his 38 years in the priesthood in Florida.
"I have been in many parishes, and I have never been" accused, he said.
As of midday today, neither Mr. Foley's lawyer nor the Archdiocese of Miami had released the name of the priest that Mr. Foley says abused him.
Michael Edmondson, a spokesman for the Florida state attorney's office in Palm Beach, said that Mr. Foley's lawyer was expected to submit the name, but that it had not arrived when the office closed Wednesday.
Father Mercieca said that during his two years in Lake Worth he ate dinners with Mr. Foley's family and that Mr. Foley's grandmother "was delighted to see me all the time."
Father Mercieca said he was confused about why Mr. Foley had decided to come forward after almost 40 years.
"Why does he want to destroy me in my old age?" Father Mercieca asked.
Jon Ombres, 52, a former altar boy at Sacred Heart Church with Mr. Foley in the 1960's, said he and Mr. Foley were close friends until eighth grade.
Mr. Ombres said that he and Mr. Foley spent many Sunday afternoons with the priest, but that he was never propositioned and did not know of any intimate contact between Mr. Foley and Father Mercieca.
"He took us to the movies and would tell us to call him 'Tony.' He taught us to drive in his '57 Chevy," Mr. Ombres said. "He taught us to drive a stick-shift in a light-blue Volkswagen, driving around the church parking lot."