A Roman Catholic diocese has opened an investigation of a priest who said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida.

In interviews in the past two days, the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69, who is now with a diocese on an island off Malta, has given different details about his encounters with Foley four decades ago.

On Wednesday, he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune by telephone that he massaged the boy in the nude, was naked in the same room on overnight trips with him and had gone skinny dipping with him. On Thursday, he told the Associated Press that he was naked in a sauna with Foley.

Also Thursday, he told the West Palm Beach, Fla., television station WPTV that he touched Foley "once, maybe."

In all of the interviews, he denied having sexual intercourse with Foley.

"It's not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that, you know," he told WPTV in a telephone interview. "It was just fondling."

Resignation shakes Republican campaign

Foley, a 52-year-old Florida Republican, resigned from Congress last month after the release of his sexually explicit computer messages to young male pages.

His resignation from Congress sparked a firestorm over when Republican leaders learned of Foley's behaviour and whether they failed to take appropriate action. The controversy has taken centre stage in the mid-term election campaign before the November vote.

After Foley's resignation, his lawyer said 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 Florida state prosecutors.

A statement from the diocese of Gozo, a small Mediterranean island off Malta, said that its bishop, Mario Grech, contacted the Archdiocese of Miami on Thursday evening seeking further information about the case. The statement, issued late Thursday, said the diocese had learned of the case for the first time in the international press.

"Bishop Grech will instruct the response team to investigate these allegations according to the policies established by the Maltese Ecclesiastical Province with regards to cases of sexual abuse in pastoral activity," the statement said.

"Grech will pass all information he receives pertaining to this case to the response team as he has done in similar cases."

The Maltese Church instituted the team in 1999 to deal with any sexual abuse allegations.

No charges expected

A spokesman for the state attorney's office in West Palm Beach, Mike Edmondson, said that an e-mail from Foley's attorney was received late Wednesday identifying the alleged abuser. He said the e-mail was being forwarded to the Archdiocese of Miami.

Edmondson said law enforcement action is over, unless other alleged victims come forward, because Foley's attorneys have said that the politician doesn't want to prosecute.