MADAWASKA – Two St. John Valley parish councils have recommended that their parish priests, who admit abusing two teen-agers, remain with their churches.

Officials from the Diocese of Portland wouldn’t verify Tuesday reports that the parish council of the St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Madawaska and the pastoral council for the parishes of the St. Joseph Church in Sinclair, St. Luce Church in Frenchville and St. Agatha Church had recommended that the two priests remain in their present positions.

Parish council leaders also wouldn’t state what the recommendations were.

Sources close to both councils, however, confirmed that the recommendations were to keep the two priests in their positions.

“What transpired was in executive session, and what you’re saying could be true in possibility or actuality,” Kevin Lavoie, acting chairman of the St. Agatha parish council, said Tuesday.

The decision from Bishop Joseph Gerry on the future of the Rev. Michael Doucette and the Rev. John Audibert will be made known to parish members before it is made known to the general public, diocesan officials said Tuesday.

The decision could be made as soon as this weekend, according to Sue Bernard, diocesan spokeswoman.

Lavoie said he hoped that the bishop’s decision would come by this weekend.

“Personally, I think it will come by this weekend,” he said.

The St. Thomas Aquinas parish council made its recommendation on Audibert on Feb. 17, about one week after Audibert told his parishioners about his abusing a minor 26 years earlier.

Sister Rita Bissonette, co-chancellor of the Diocese of Portland, met with the parish council and parishioners after weekend Masses in Madawaska.

The pastoral council members for whom Doucette is pastor made their recommendations last Sunday. The council members also heard from David Gagnon of Ottawa, Ontario, who said he was Doucette’s victim 22 years ago.

“The recommendations of those two groups were made for the bishop, and we are not going to discuss those,” Monsignor Marc Caron, co-chancellor of the diocese, said Tuesday. “I will not discuss the recommendations I have given the bishop.”

Caron met last weekend with parishioners at Masses in Sinclair, St. Agatha and Frenchville and with the pastoral council there Sunday.

Bernard also would not verify the report.

“The recommendations have been made to the bishop, and he is taking time to make his deliberations slowly,” she said. “He is trying to be deliberate and fair, not wanting to rush his judgment.”

The revelations by the two priests were made to parishioners at weekend Masses on Feb. 9 and 10.

The names of the Maine priests were released after the Boston archdiocese released the names of priests in Massachusetts who reportedly had abused minors for decades.

Last week, the diocese reported that two more people had come forward with allegations that they had been abused as teen-agers more than 30 years ago by Roman Catholic priests in Maine.