Reilly's office says archdiocese misleads on role with priests

Concerned that the Archdiocese of Boston may be suggesting that the attorney general's office is an enforcer of church financial policies, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly is demanding that archdiocesan officials not attribute to his office any decision to audit or discipline priests.

Reilly's office, which has become increasingly engaged in both adversarial and cooperative ways with the archdiocese since the clergy sex abuse scandal erupted three years ago, has become concerned by reports that priests are saying they have been threatened by the archdiocese with prosecution, according to a letter sent to the archdiocese.

The attorney general's concerns were intensified by the ouster of the Rev. Walter H. Cuenin, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Newton, for alleged violations of diocesan financial policy.

''We continue to receive reports that archdiocese representatives have asserted that the recent actions taken against Father Cuenin and other priests are the result of an agreement with this office," Jamie Katz, chief of the public charities division in Reilly's office, wrote in a letter to Wilson D. Rogers Jr., an attorney for the archdiocese. ''These reports suggest that the Archdiocese is scrutinizing the financial affairs of priests and parishes at the direction of this office, and that certain priests have been fired based upon an agreement with this office. These misrepresentations must stop."

Archdiocese spokesman Terrence C. Donilon said church officials had not seen Reilly's letter. ''We have not seen any letter yet," he said. ''The archdiocese has a cordial professional relationship with the attorney general's office. We greatly respect the enormous responsibilties of the office. Legal counsel will certainly respond to the letter once they have had a chance to review it."

Reilly's relationship with the archdiocese is complex. In 2003, the attorney general issued a blistering report on the clergy abuse scandal, decrying what he described as an ''institutionalized culture of acceptance of the sexual abuse of children."

But over the last 18 months, the attorney general's office and the archdiocese have been attempting to work more cooperatively on the complex issue of how to handle millions of dollars in gifts given to Catholic parishes that have been closed by Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley.

The archdiocese plans to seek approval later this year from the state Supreme Judicial Court of a plan for handling those gifts and the archdiocese's legal team has been working with Reilly's office, which is charged with enforcing public charities laws, to try to win Reilly's endorsement of the plan.

At the same time, however, O'Malley's administration has begun intensified scrutiny of parish financial management. This year, the archdiocese has audited 20 parishes, and several priests have told the Globe that the archdiocese has been threatening pastors with prosecution for alleged violations of church financial policies that may or may not be violations of civil law. Reilly's office has been getting similar reports, which prompted the drafting of the letter.

''This office does not dictate personnel policies to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and we do not specify who it should hire and fire," Katz wrote to the archdiocese attorney. ''Nor do we have authority to oversee or direct the operations of the church. Our authority over church assets is quite narrow. We focus on making sure restricted funds are used as the individual donors intended and on determining whether particular individuals involved in the church may have engaged in financial mismanagement or financial abuses, often for their own benefit. We have never had any agreement with the archdiocese as to how it handles priests or its finances, apart from its restricted funds."

Katz asked Rogers to forward any allegations of misappropriation to his office, but also ''make it clear to the archdiocese that its representatives should not be sending a message that the attorney general has required any particular scrutiny of individual priests, nor have we required any personnel actions."

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.