Religion

Suit accuses Boston nuns of abuses

BOSTON - Nine former students at a Roman Catholic school for the deaf filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging they were raped, beaten and tormented decades ago by the nuns who ran the place.

They accused at least 14 nuns in the lawsuit, along with a priest and a male athletic instructor at the now-defunct Boston School for the Deaf, and a former top official of the Boston Archdiocese, said their lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian.

The case is the first to allege widespread abuse by nuns in the Boston area since the sex scandal that engulfed the archdiocese began in 2002.

The alleged victims - three women and six men - ranged in age from 7 to 16 when, they say, they were sexually and physically abused between 1944 and 1977.

The Boston School for the Deaf, in Randolph, was run by an independent, nonprofit corporation until it closed in 1994.

The nuns named in the lawsuit are from the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston - an order of about 550 nuns who serve in the Boston area and elsewhere.

Some of the defendants were accused of participating in the abuse; others, like Bishop Thomas V. Daily, who held several top posts in the Boston Archdiocese, were accused of negligence in supervising the others. Daily, now bishop emeritus of the Brooklyn Diocese, didn't return a call seeking comment.

The Rev. Christopher Coyne, spokesman for the archdiocese, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Last year, the archdiocese reached an $85-million settlement with more than 550 people who said they were abused by priests.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright