Priest accused of molesting teen boys in remote village

May 9, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

MAKANKA, Sierra Leone

A rutted, red dirt track leads to the “bar,” a couple of homemade wood benches in the shade of an old tree dripping with wild mangoes. Within easy reach, there’s a yellow plastic jerry can of the fiery palm wine the American priest loved.

A 40-year-old schoolteacher now charges that the Rev. James Tully gave the palm wine to teenage boys to make them more susceptible to his advances.

This faraway corner of West Africa — with no electricity or piped water — is where the Roman Catholic Church sent Tully, twice. The teacher told The Associated Press that Tully abused him and other boys repeatedly during his first stint in Sierra Leone, from 1979 to 1985. After a conviction in the U.S. for giving minors alcohol and groping them, the church sent Tully back to Sierra Leone for a second stint from 1994 to 1998.

Tully’s story is an example of how the church transferred abusive priests from country to country, in a scandal now emerging worldwide. But it also shows the deep reluctance to come out against a Catholic priest in many parts of Africa.

Catholic Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg cautioned this month that the scandals in the church were not particular to the United States and Europe.

“It simply means that the misbehavior of priests in Africa has not been exposed to the same glare of the media as in other parts of the world,” Tlhagale said.

The shade and occasional breeze are the only relief from the unrelenting 100-degree heat matched by 100 percent humidity that has men lifting their shirts to fan bellies, and black skin glistening with sweat. The only sound is the chirping of long-billed birds attracted to a nearby rice paddy.

It was in these villages that Tully demanded oral sex, called “lollipopping” in the Krio dialect, the teacher said.

Tully would not comment about these accusations when approached by The Associated Press in New Jersey, where he now lives. The Catholic Church says it never received any complaints about Tully’s behavior in Sierra Leone.

“No family member or friends or associates of any victim that was sexually abused has come forward to inform or report to me that he has been sexually abused by Father Tully,” said Bishop Giorgio Biguzzi of Makeni, who was bishop through all the years Tully was based in his northern diocese.

Such responses do not surprise the Sierra Leonean schoolteacher.

“Who would believe a young village boy over a white priest?” he asked.