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Alleged victim demands apology from monsignor

By Michael S. Rosenwald, Globe Staff, 4/30/2002

arry M. Garland, who has accused Monsignor Frederick J. Ryan of molesting him as a minor, said yesterday that Ryan's resignation last week from a Kingston parish was a veiled admission of guilt.

Speaking to reporters at his lawyer's Boston office, Garland said he will feel closure - and the Catholic Church will begin to heal - only when Ryan and other accused clergy publicly take full responsibility for their actions and apologize.

However, Garland and his lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, who has negotiated millions of dollars in sex abuse settlements with the Archdiocese of Boston, said an apology would not stop them from pushing ahead with a lawsuit against the archdiocese.

Ryan ''recognizes that he hurt people,'' Garland said of the priest's resignation, but ''it's just not enough.''

''I'm just trying to get on with my life,'' Garland said. ''It's there every day. There has been no closure. Until that happens, I don't see myself truly moving forward without being affected every day.''

The former star athlete at Catholic Memorial High School in Boston has filed a lawsuit alleging that in the late 70s, Ryan got him drunk at a restaurant, then introduced him to the late Cardinal Humberto Medeiros. Garland said he was then orally raped at the chancery of the archdiocese.

Garland has also said that Medeiros groped him on the second floor of the chancery before Ryan led Garland to his room and molested him. Garabedian was hired after Garland made the allegations.

On March 28, Garland was arrested by Chelsea police after allegedly trying to confront Ryan where he had been living since he was placed on administrative leave. Garland led police on a brief car chase before being apprehended at gunpoint.

Garland said he did not intend to harm Ryan and wanted only to obtain a confession he had been told that the priest had written.