Rights panel says diocese discriminated

BIDDEFORD – An investigator from the Maine Human Rights Commission said the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland discriminated against a disabled boy by telling him he could not continue to attend a school.

The investigator found that school employees exaggerated Matthew Denger’s problems to justify his removal from the St. James School last year. School officials contended they could no longer accommodate the boy’s needs.

The investigator, Barbara Lelli, also chastised church officials for turning down $33,000 raised by a community group to install a wheelchair lift.

“The fact that the school district would not allow the Friends of Matthew to install the lift is very revealing,” Lelli wrote, because it effectively denied access to the school for anyone with a disability.

The diocese has 17 days to respond, and spokesman Marc Mutty said the diocese plans to do so.

“We do have concerns about some of the material in the report,” Mutty said. “We do have faith in the process, but we will have more to say after the findings of the full commission are known.”

The investigator’s report, along with written objections expected to be filed by the diocese, will be the basis of the commission’s full hearing on the case on Oct. 29 in Augusta.