BOSTON -- Needham, Mass., police and the Attorney General's Office are investigating a priest who may have fathered two or three children and may have been involved with several married women.

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Documents Detail Allegations Against Priest

NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that the Rev. James D. Foley had two children in 1965 and a relationship with a married woman who overdosed on drugs while he was present, according to church documents.

The documents were recently turned over to lawyers representing alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests earlier this week. The documents relating to Foley were examined Wednesday night.

The documents show that New Hampshire Bishop John McCormack and Cardinal Bernard Law met about Foley and discussed Foley's relationships and the incident in which a woman overdosed on drugs in Needham.

The notes show that Foley called 911, but the woman then died. It is not clear from the records whether the overdose was the cause of her death.

"The woman died," attorney Eric Macleish said. "This is not just an issue of someone having consensual relations with women. This is a question of what happened on that day and then what happened at the Archdiocese of Boston after father Foley provided Cardinal Law and Bishop McCormack -- two of the most senior people at the Archdiocese of Boston -- with this information."

When contacted, Foley denied the story and indicated he was mystified by the whole thing.

A letter written in March 1994 by Foley confirms the Dec. 23 meeting with Law in which he reviews the cardinal's top concerns:

• scandal, or potential harm to the church;
• concern for Foley personally;
• and concern for Our Lady of Fatima parish in Sudbury.

Other documents reveal the woman was mentally ill and had had a lobotomy. There is nothing in the documents about Law or anyone else going to the authorities.

"I feel very strongly that it's a blatant disregard for the legal law," said Paula Ford, the mother of an alleged victim of abuse. "And the attorney general should have had his hands on these months ago."

In a 1994 letter from Foley to the cardinal, he wrote: "You likened my condition to a boil that needed to be lanced. You said it would be painful, but after the poison was out, I would feel much better and there would be greener fields."

According to the documents, after that time, Law reversed his opinion that Foley spend his life in a monastery doing penance. Against the advice of doctors, Law lifted all restrictions on Foley and returned him to parish ministry in 1996, the documents show.

The documents also indicate that Foley was also involved with a married woman in Vancouver, British Columbia, and a third woman in Haverhill, Mass.