Faith in Their Father?

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I didn't have to. Father Spagnolia had given the same account of his years outside the priesthood to Thomas Farragher of the Boston Globe. When Farragher's story appeared, the reporter began receiving e-mails about Spagnolia's long-term relationship with Winston F. Reed of Boston. When Farragher put the question to Father Spagnolia last Thursday night, he was given another untruth: Yes, Father Spagnolia told him, he had had a five-year sexual relationship with Reed, but no other partners. At a frantic Friday noon press conference at St. Patrick's, Father Spagnolia admitted there had in fact been two sexual affairs. His lawyer, Eileen Donaghue, took pains to point out that being homosexual doesn't mean being a pedophile and that Father Spagnolia would continue his fight over that allegation. But, she added, he would now acquiesce to Cardinal Law's order to vacate the parish house while review of his case continues.

"I don't want to put these people here through having to defend me on this issue," Father Spagnolia told me later Friday afternoon. Did he think Lowell would continue to support him? "I really don't know." Was his credibility ruined? "We will find out." Why had he told me what he told me? "The only way I can respond to that is my overall attitude ..." He paused. "I wanted to cut off the private aspect of those four or five years. I wanted it kept to itself. I found myself saying those kinds of things. That does not mean I'm a liar kind of thing."

The week's events threatened to overshadow the far more consequential questions of child abuse. Wendy Murphy is a lawyer and the founder and director of the Victim Advocacy & Research Group in Boston, and it was her client, who she says is now a 45-year-old father and "a very respectable, responsible, highly regarded citizen," who brought the allegation against Father Spagnolia. She feels the Lowell priest's campaign has, if anything, damaged the search for justice. "By making himself the poster boy for false accusations, he did a great disservice to the very course he professed to be forwarding," she said Friday after Father Spagnolia's lie was revealed in the Globe.

On Friday, Father Spagnolia said he would persevere, and much of Lowell said the same. I talked with a friend of mine, Dave Perry, a reporter for the Lowell Sun, who said, "Lowell's such a huge fan of the underdog, and we do love our own. Even now, he's not down and out here. Of course, if it turns out there's truth to the allegation ..." Dave trailed off.

"I think he's done wonderful things for that parish, and what he did during the years he wasn't a priest is his own personal business," said Mike Donahue, another friend of mine. Donahue, from an old, prominent Lowell family, still lives in the city and manages a local country club. "Why he lied about being gay--he's probably embarrassed about it. Lowell's a blue-collar mill city, and that stuff still doesn't go down well with some people here. As for whether the allegation's true, I'm with Spags. Geoghan had 60 kids going, 'This happened to me too.' Spags had one guy coming at him in 31 years."

What if it is true? I asked Mike. How will the city, which put itself on the line for Father Spags, take it? "We'll get over it," said Donahue. "This city's taken a lot of lumps over the years, so what the hell."