Free Betrayal by The Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe Page A

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    When news stories about Porter began appearing, Cardinal Law's first response was to declare the retired priest an “aberration, ” insisting that priests who sexually abused minors were the “rare exception.” To victims he also appeared to evince an excess of sympathy for abusive priests. At a Mass for priests celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary with the Boston archdiocese, Law said, “We would be less than the community of faith and love which we are called to be, however, were we not to attempt to respond both to victim and betrayer in truth, in love, and in reconciliation.”
    Behind the scenes, Law was hearing plenty of evidence, if he needed any, that Porter was anything but an aberration. As with the earlier publicized cases of clergy sexual abuse in Louisiana and Minnesota, news accounts of Porter's crimes were encouraging victims to step forward with further tales of sexual abuse committed by still more priests — and many of those victims were stepping forward in the Boston archdiocese.
    Among them were Raymond Sinibaldi and Robert Anderton. Sinibaldi and Anderton were cousins who had grown up in Weymouth, south of Boston, where they were molested in the early 1960s by Rev. Ernest E. Tourigney, when Tourigney was a recently ordained priest at Immaculate Conception Church — the same church that would offer Law the enthusiastic welcome in 1984.
    Like so many other victims of clergy sexual abuse, Sinibaldi and Anderton had for decades kept their stories secret. But after the Porter story broke, they realized Tourigney was still working, as copastor of a church in Revere, north of Boston, where he was spiritual director of its elementary and middle school. Worried that he might still be molesting children, they decided to confront the priest and report him to Law.
    At their meeting with Tourigney in the parking lot of an area hotel, Sinibaldi nearly lost his temper. “I believe you are worse than a purveyor of child pornography,” he said, sneering. Concerned that he might attack Tourigney, Sinibaldi had written down the remainder of what he wanted to say: “A person who would wrap themselves in God and weave themselves into the very fabric of a family who came to know, love and trust him for the purpose of molesting their children is the incarnation of evil.”
    When they visited the chancery of the Boston archdiocese a few days later, Sinibaldi and Anderton had their tempers in check. But they also made it clear to Rev. John B. McCormack, then Law's top deputy for handling allegations of clergy sexual abuse, that they would tell their story to a television reporter if Law would not listen to them. Within days Sinibaldi and Anderton were seated at the long, deeply burnished mahogany table in the conference room of Law's residence, recounting the years of abuse they had suffered at the hands of Tourigney when they were between thirteen and sixteen years of age. Law appeared to listen attentively, but Sinibaldi and Anderton wanted more than a sympathetic ear. They wanted Law to remove Tourigney from his ministry and formulate an aggressive policy for ridding the archdiocese of all priests who had been credibly accused of molesting children.
    Law did pull Tourigney from active ministry, and in the wake of the Porter case had already been moving quietly to put in place a policy for handling claims of clergy sexual abuse. As work on a first draft moved forward, two critical questions emerged: Should accused priests who receive treatment for their sexual disorders be allowed to return to parishes in the archdiocese, and should Church officials be required to report allegations of clergy sexual misconduct to state authorities?
    Sinibaldi, who had worked with sex offenders at Bridgewater Stale Hospital, a facility for the criminally insane, wrote Law to recommend that Church officials report all allegations of sexual misconduct by priests. “The crime of sexual abuse of a minor is one of such heinous