Priest pleads innocent to rape counts

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A retired Roman Catholic priest charged with repeatedly raping a young boy, sometimes in the church confessional, pleaded innocent Tuesday and was ordered held on $750,000 cash bail.

The Rev. Paul Shanley, 71, who is charged with three counts of child rape, had recently left the country and might flee, prosecutor Lynn Rooney said during the arraignment in Newton District Court.

Defense attorney Frank Mondano had asked that Shanley be released on his own recognizance and immediately requested that a higher judge review the bail decision. The review will take place Thursday.

In addition to setting bail, Judge Dyanne Klein ordered Shanley to surrender his passport and avoid contact with children under age 16.

Shanley, shackled and wearing a collared red shirt over a red T-shirt and gray pants, indicated he was struggling to hear Klein when she entered pleas of innocent on his behalf.

"I'm having trouble," he said, motioning to a hearing aid in his right ear.

Shanley was arrested in San Diego on Thursday, weeks after police first began searching for him. He was returned to Massachusetts on Monday, under tight security and wearing a bulletproof vest.

Shanley is one of the priests at the center of a the scandal that has rocked the Boston archdiocese and led to calls for Cardinal Bernard Law's resignation.

Rooney noted Tuesday that Shanley had recently been in Thailand. She read excerpts of several letters to church officials in which Shanley talked about fleeing the country.

"It might be cheaper and it might allay the concerns of the victims," Shanley wrote in a January 1994 letter proposing moving to Costa Rica.

Rooney also read letters she said referred to apparent past attempts by church officials to help Shanley hide. In one letter, the Rev. Brian Flatley detailed a September 1995 conversation with Shanley in which he discussed living in another country with a post office box in the United States to preserve his anonymity.