Gerald Fitzgerald

Who was Gerald Fitzgerald?

Gerald Michael Cushing Fitzgerald was an American Roman Catholic priest, who began his ministry as a priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and later became a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross. He is best known as the founder of the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete which operates centers for priests dealing with challenges such as alcoholism, substance abuse and sexual misconduct. In 2009 his papers were unsealed. He had asked American bishops and the Vatican in the 1950s and 1960s to not reassign priests who sexually assaulted parishioners. He said that they were effectively untreatable and at risk of committing additional sex crimes and tarnishing the church's reputation. Fitzgerald argued so forcefully for the defrocking of sexually abusive priests that it has been argued that the Catholic hierarchy would have been made aware of the dangers of allowing such priests to return to parish work where they would have contact with minors.