Thomas Dupre

Bishop Thomas L. Dupré (born 10 November 1933) is the former Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in Massachusetts.

He resigned in February 2004 and immediately left the Diocese, only hours before The Republican (newspaper of Springfield, Massachusetts) publicized accusations that he had allegedly molested two teenage boys when he was a priest in Chicopee, Massachusetts and West Springfield, Massachusetts several years earlier. After a lengthy investigation by a Hampden County grand jury, District Attorney William Bennett announced that Dupré had been indicted on child molestation charges, but the charges were immediately dropped because the statute of limitations had expired.

Dupré was also accused by Fr. James Scahill of covering up abuse charges against other priests. However the grand jury investigation failed to find any evidence to support Scahill's claim. Fr. Scahill was removed from the Presbyteral Council by Dupré's successor, Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell, allegedly for unrelated reasons. In 2004, an organization called Voice of the Faithful gave Fr. Scahill its "Priest of Integrity" Award for what they perceived to be his courage in confronting child sexual abuse. As bishop, Dupré removed admitted sexual abusers Edward M. Kennedy and Richard F. Meehan from parish ministry, sent them to treatment centers and later placed them in diocesan, non-parish, positions: Kennedy worked on annulment cases in the Diocesan Tribunal and Meehan organized Diocesan archives. In accord with Canon Law, the Diocese also provided financial support for all priests accused of molestation. Kennedy, Meehan, and other priests accused of child sexual abuse were eventually defrocked, at which time their financial support was terminated.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has called for the defrocking of Dupré, a process that would take place in the Vatican and not on a Diocesan level because, under Canon Law, the local diocese does not have the authority to initiate such a process. The web site Bishop-Accountability.org has documented what it sees as a repeated pattern of sexual predators being placed in "key diocesan positions."

Dupré was mired in controversy when, on the advice of diocesan building consultants, he ordered the closure of the buildings of Holyoke Catholic High School. The consultants deemed the existing buildings unsafe for the student body. Students were relocated to an unoccupied Franciscan seminary in Granby, Massachusetts. The school recently completed a failed capital campaign to raise money for a new school and will be relocating to Chicopee, Massachusetts, where the school will operate in collaboration with Elms College, a local Catholic college.

Dupré remains in residence on the grounds of St. Luke's Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, and, according to the Hampshire County, Massachusetts Register of Deeds, Dupre owns a residence on Beaver Lake in Ware, Massachusetts

External links

* [http://www.masslive.com/news/church MassLive.com 'Church in Crisis']
* [http://www.bishop-accountability.org BishopAccountability.org]
* [http://www.snapnetwork.org Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests]
* [http://www.voiceofthefaithful.org Voice of The Faithful]