A former altar boy who says he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest in Burlington told a jury on Thursday he didn’t fight the abuse because the man was “the next-closest thing to God.”
The 40-year-old mechanical engineer from Lakewood, Colo., served as an altar boy at Christ the King Church in Burlington in the 1970s.
He sued the diocese three years ago alleging officials didn’t properly supervise the Rev. Edward Paquette. The trial began this week.
Paquette was hired by the Diocese despite child molestation allegations against him in Indiana and Massachusetts. Paquette is not a defendant in the current suit.