Records show U.S. priest was fired from Calgary diocese amid adultery charges

Boston, Massachusetts -

A Roman Catholic priest who fathered two children and failed to call for help while their mother overdosed in Massachusetts was later dismissed from his post at a Canadian diocese when a married woman said she'd had an affair with him, church personnel records made public Wednesday said.

Rev. James Foley, a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston, was on loan to the Diocese of Calgary when the accusation surfaced in the late 1960s. "We have come to the conclusion that you can no longer work as a priest in the Diocese of Calgary," Msgr. Paul O'Byrne wrote to Foley in May 1968.

"The double life you have been leading is known much more widely than you realize and will become known to many others, especially if you return."

Foley was in Massachusetts at the time but apparently was planning to return to St. Mary's Cathedral in Calgary.

Read the article at CNEWS World dated January 29, 2003

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