The South Parish Unitarian Church, locked
during a cold winter rainstorm, looked like so many other churches in
so many other towns. Its steeple and clock, standing tall at
the edge of Charlestown’s main strip, rose through the mist, a sign out
front attached to weathered brick reading “built in 1844.”
Recently, a man named Mark Fleming, a
former Catholic priest accused of molesting three young boys in the
1980s, worked at this historic site, perhaps breaking an agreement that
forbade him from having contact with children younger than 16.