ROME Oct 19, 2006 (AP)— An elderly priest acknowledged Thursday that he was naked in saunas with Mark Foley decades ago when the former congressman was a boy in Florida, but denied that the two had sex. The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, speaking by telephone from his home on the Maltese island of Gozo, said a report in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune about their encounters was "exaggerated."
"We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers," Mercieca said. Asked if their relationship was sexual in nature, the priest replied: "It wasn't."
His comments came after the Florida newspaper published a story on Thursday that quoted him as saying in an interview that he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with Foley in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude.
Sarasota Herald-Tribune Executive Editor Mike Connelly said Thursday the story is accurate, including the reference to a night in which Mercieca said he was in a drug-induced stupor due to a nervous breakdown and couldn't clearly remember what happened.
"The reporter talked to the priest four times yesterday and carefully reviewed his account, especially of the one night," Connelly said. "The story accurately reports what the priest said."
The 52-year-old Florida Republican resigned from Congress last month after his sexually explicit e-mails to young male pages surfaced.
His lawyer said shortly after his resignation that Foley was an alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a "clergyman." Foley's civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a Catholic priest whose name he shared with state prosecutors on Wednesday.
Richman did not return phone messaged left Thursday by The Associated Press. Foley's criminal defense lawyer David Roth declined to comment.
Earlier this month, Roth said: "Mark does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate" e-mails and instant messages. "He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct."
