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Priest Admits Foley Relationship

The Associated Press

Oct 19, 2006

SARASOTA, Fla. - A Roman Catholic priest said he had an
inappropriate two-year relationship with former Rep. Mark Foley
<http://www.examiner.com/Topic-Mark_Foley.html> in the 1960s
that included massaging the boy in the nude, but he did not specifically
remember having sex, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, described several encounters that he
said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate, the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune reported. They include massaging Foley while the boy
was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth
and being nude in the same room on overnight trips. Mercieca said
there was one night when he was in a drug-induced stupor and there
was an incident but he couldn't clearly remember, the newspaper
reported.

"I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown," the
newspaper reported Mercieca as saying from his home on the island
of Gozo, south of Italy. "I was taking pills - tranquilizers. I used to take
them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit."

Mercieca could not immediately be located for comment Thursday by
The Associated Press.

Foley resigned from Congress
<http://www.examiner.com/Topic-Congress.html> last month after
his sexually explicit e-mails to young male pages surfaced.

His lawyer said shortly after his resignation that Foley was an
alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a "clergyman."
Foley's civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a
Catholic priest whose name he shared with state prosecutors on
Wednesday.

Richman did not return phone messaged left Thursday by The
Associated Press. Foley's criminal defense lawyer David Roth declined
to comment.

Earlier this month, Roth said: "Mark does not blame the trauma he
sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate" e-mails
and instant messages. "He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever
for his conduct."

Mercieca had worked at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in
1967, according to church records. Foley would have been 13 at the
time.

The state attorney's office in West Palm Beach did not immediately
return a telephone message Thursday.

Archdiocese of Miami spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta declined to
comment Thursday about Mercieca "until we receive the name
ourselves." Agosta said she was frustrated with the way Foley's
attorneys had handled the matter.

Richman previously said the priest was still alive but that the statute of
limitations for criminal charges had expired in Foley's case.

Mercieca, 72, said he and Foley became fast friends when he moved
to Florida <http://www.examiner.com/Topic-Florida.html> from Brazil
<http://www.examiner.com/Topic-Brazil.html> and "loved each other
like brothers," the newspaper reported.

Mercieca said he taught Foley "some wrong things" related to sex,
though he wouldn't specify what he meant, the newspaper said. It
reported the priest said that at the time, he considered the relationship
innocent, but he now says he could see how his actions could be
called inappropriate.

Mercieca said although Foley plans to "expose him to the world," he
still has "great memories of our trips," the newspaper reported.

"I wish him well," Mercieca said. "Let bygones be bygones."

Mercieca was adamant that his encounter with 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, according
to the newspaper.

"I have been in many parishes, and I have never been" accused, he
said.

A Web site for the Diocese of Gozo lists Mercieca as one of its priests.
Joseph Calleja, a priest with the diocese, said Mercieca is still an
active priest but that he lives at his own home. Gozo, a Mediterranean
island, is part of the Republic of Malta.



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