Former Maplewood Priest Appears On 'Credibly Accused' List

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The journalism site ProPublica, a Patch partner, recently released the most comprehensive list so far of Catholic clergy "credibly accused" of sexual abuse. The list includes one accused abuser who had worked in Maplewood and Kearny.

The searchable database — which includes nearly 200 priests accused from the dioceses of Newark, Metuchen, Trenton, Camden and Paterson — comes on the heels of newer news reports identifying hundreds of "predator" priests across the state.

This is the priest on the list with Maplewood ties:

Thomas Mousley

Status: Permanently removed from ministry
Appeared under the heading: “List of Credibly Accused Clergy”
Birth Year: Not reported
Ordination year: 1976
Reported assignment history:

• Boys Town, Kearny
• St. Joseph, Maplewood

long after such widespread abuse became known. The database is a collection of 178 lists released by U.S. dioceses and religious orders as of Jan. 20. There are still more than 40 dioceses and religious orders that have not released information, including five out of seven Florida dioceses.

New Jersey enacted a law last month that extends the statute of limitations in civil actions on sexual abuse claims, creating a two-year window to file cases for which the statute of limitations had previously expired. A number of law firms have announced they were filing lawsuits.

Attorneys from Rebenack, Aronow & Mascolo, LLP and Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC (PCVA) said they planned to file 38 lawsuits on behalf of dozens of abuse survivors.

The ProPublica project was prompted by a massive grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania that was described by Associated Press as the "biggest and most exhaustive ever" into priest sex abuse by an individual state. The investigation revealed many priests admitted to their actions and were allowed to continue in the ministry for years despite having confessed to molesting children.