The Foley scandal

Gozo is in the world media spotlight following the case revealed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune of an intimate relationship between a Gozitan priest and former congressman Mark Foley. The case goes back forty years and is being reported prominently by the American press and the international media. From the International Herald Tribune:

A diocese in Malta said it is opening an investigation of a Roman Catholic priest who said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida. In telephone interviews in the past two days, the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69, who is now living on the Maltese island of Gozo, has given different accounts of his encounters with Foley four decades ago.

On Wednesday, he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune by telephone that he massaged the boy in the nude, was naked in the same room on overnight trips with him and had gone skinny dipping with him. On Thursday, he told The Associated Press in Rome that he and Foley used to go naked in saunas. Also Thursday, he told WPTV of West Palm Beach, Florida, that he touched Foley "once, maybe."..

Charles Buttigieg, a spokesman for the archdiocese of Malta, the main island of the archipelago, said Friday that so far he is not aware of any other complaints involving Mercieca. "I don't know of any other complaints about this priest," he said by telephone from Malta. Buttigieg said the archdiocese's response team has yet to meet on this matter, as Mercieca's case was just being referred to it.

Mercieca, a Maltese citizen, is retired and does not serve in any parish on the island, the Rev. Anthony Refalo, the Gozo diocese spokesman, told The AP. However, he regularly celebrates Mass and hears confession in the cathedral, one of two main churches on the island. Gozo, 60 miles south of Sicily, has a population of about 32,000 and is one of Malta's three inhabited islands — filled with vacation homes and holiday resorts.

"Bishop Grech, conscious of the gravity of pedophilia, reiterates that he will cooperate with those responsible for investigating such cases so that justice is done to the victims, the perpetrators are reformed and the common good is safeguarded," the Maltese statement said. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune published an interview with Mercieca on Thursday in which the priest described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate...

How the Sarasota Herald-Tribune got the story: Interview with reporter Matthew Doig; The Mark Foley scandal: A chronology