WASHINGTON -- The Diocese of Portland, Maine, has promised to give a district attorney all personnel records containing allegations of child sex abuse by priests.

Meanwhile, the Boston Archdiocese removed another pastor accused of sexual misconduct of a minor Feb. 20, and an ex-priest there received a jail sentence Feb. 21 for fondling a 10-year-old child.

Also, a suspended priest from the Diocese of Manchester, N.H., was fired from a prison counseling job in Massachusetts after the diocese revealed that he is a former sex offender.

And a parish council in Maine granted the request of its pastor's sex abuse victim to meet with the council before a decision is made whether to retain the pastor.

Those events Feb. 19-21 were the latest fallout of a burgeoning scandal over clergy sexual abuse of minors in New England.

The scandal has been gathering momentum since mid-January, when John Geoghan, a defrocked Boston priest, was convicted of indecent assault and battery in the fondling of a 10-year-old boy, and the Boston Globe published a series of investigative reports on questionable past practices of the Boston Archdiocese in the handling of priests who molested children.

Geoghan was sentenced Feb. 21 to nine to 10 years on the indecent assault and battery conviction. On Feb. 20 he was at a hearing in Suffolk Superior Court on a motion by his attorney to throw out child rape charges in a separate trial that originally was to have started that day. His lawyer, Geoffrey Packard, argued that the statute of limitations ran out before Geoghan was indicted for those crimes in 1999.

In the Portland Diocese, which encompasses the state of Maine, Bishop Joseph J. Gerry announced in early February that only two active priests in the diocese were known to have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors. The two pastors, Father Michael Doucette of St. Agatha Parish in St. Agatha and Father John L. Audibert of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Madawaska, publicly acknowledged their misconduct, which occurred more than 20 years ago, to parishioners at weekend Masses.

Bishop Gerry said he would accept recommendations from the parishes whether to keep the two in their posts or remove them, and the parents had a right to decide for themselves if they wanted to let their children come in contact with those priests. Both underwent treatment and were evaluated as no longer a threat to minors before they were returned to ministry.

Following Bishop Gerry's actions, Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson said retired, suspended or laicized priests who had molested children also could pose a threat to public safety, and their names also should be made public.

After consultations with Anderson, diocesan authorities agreed to turn over all records of inactive or former priests against whom such allegations had been made and leave it to her discretion to determine which allegations were credible. Anderson said she would release those names, even if they could not be prosecuted now because of the statute of limitations or other reasons.

Father Doucette's victim, David Gagnon, who now lives in Ottawa, wrote to Bishop Gerry asking for an opportunity to speak to the people of St. Agatha Parish before they decided Father Doucette's fate.

The Associated Press Feb. 20 quoted Gagnon as saying it was "kind of odd" to let the abuser address the congregation and not allow the victim the same opportunity. AP reported that Kevin Lavoie, acting chairman of the parish council, said the council would speak with Gagnon.

Under a new "zero-tolerance" policy announced by Boston's Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the archdiocese in late January and early February removed eight priests from all church work after a review of personnel records showed that there were previous credible allegations of sexual misconduct with minors against them.

A ninth priest, Father Joseph L. Welsh, pastor of St. Nicholas Parish in Abington, was suspended Feb. 20. Archdiocesan spokeswoman Donna M. Morrissey said he was removed "following allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor in accordance with our policy regarding clergy misconduct."

Noting that the Boston Globe had carried a report that morning that Father Welsh was being investigated and had quoted alleged victims of Father Welsh without naming them, Morrissey said the archdiocesan investigation had been initiated because of an anonymous tip "independent of the Boston Globe's article."

She added that the archdiocese "urges representatives of the Boston Globe and the unnamed alleged victims cited in the article to report the information to the proper authorities for possible criminal investigation."

The Boston Herald reported Feb. 21 that the Middlesex County district attorney's office on Feb. 20 received from the archdiocese two more names of priests, one new and one previously received.

In all, the archdiocese in recent weeks has given district attorneys in five counties more than 80 names of priests whose records include allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

The Manchester Diocese Feb. 15 released the names of 14 priests against whom credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors had been made. Seven had been out of ministry since they were accused. The other seven -- a pastor and six priests who were retired or on sick leave -- were suspended and ordered not to engage in any priestly ministry.

Among those named was Father Stephen Scruton of Dover, N.H., who has been out of ministry since he was accused in 1991 of molesting an altar boy. He had a secular job for the past five years counseling sex criminals at the Essex County jail in Middleton, Mass., but was fired Feb. 17 after Essex County Sheriff Frank Cousins Jr. learned of his background.