Mass. priest pleads guilty to child pornography

BOSTON (Reuters) – A Massachusetts priest has pleaded
guilty to downloading 650 images of child pornography on a
computer and masquerading as a woman over the Internet to trick
a teen-age boy into performing a sex act.

Rev. Stephen A. Fernandes, 55, also admitted possessing 114
computer videos of children engaged in sex acts during a court
hearing on Monday in New Bedford, the state prosecutors’ office
said on Tuesday.

Bristol District Attorney Paul Walsh said Fernandes used an
instant messaging service to pretend he was a 19-year-old woman
in a teen-age chat room and trick a 16-year-old boy to film
himself performing a sex act and e-mail him the video.

The pornography was discovered after Fernandes sent his
computer to a repair shop, Walsh said.

Fernandes, pastor of a New Bedford church, has yet to be
sentenced, but Walsh said he expected a lighter punishment than
the 3-year state jail sentence sought by prosecutors because of
the priest’s past community service.

The case follows a scandal involving pedophile priests that
erupted in Massachusetts in 2002. U.S. bishops were found to
have moved priests known to have abused minors to new parishes
instead of defrocking them or reporting them to authorities.

The Boston Archdiocese, squeezed by the cost of settlements
with nearly 1,000 sex-abuse victims, has shut more than 60
churches since the scandal surfaced.