A priest at the heart of the clergy abuse scandal that rocked the American Church is back in court, challenging a key part of the case that convicted him:

Paul R. Shanley was convicted in 2005 of raping and assaulting a 6-year-old boy while serving as a priest in suburban Boston, in a case that hinged on memories of abuse the accuser said he had repressed and recovered decades later.

Now Mr. Shanley, 78, a defrocked Roman Catholic priest at the center of the clergy abuse crisis here, is challenging his conviction, the accuser’s recollections and the science of repressed memory.

“You have prominent scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists saying this is not generally accepted. So why allow it in a court of law in a criminal proceeding?” Mr. Shanley’s lawyer, Robert F. Shaw Jr., asked the state’s highest court Thursday.

The debate over repressed memory — the idea that some memories, particularly traumatic ones, can be inaccessible for years — has simmered since the 1980s, when some patients in therapy described long-past scenes of sexual abuse. Some of those experiences turned into high-profile legal cases. The scientific controversy boiled over in the 1990s — as experts raised questions about many claims — and then died down.

Recently, scientists have begun to spar again over the theory. New studies suggest, and many scientists argue, that what people call repression may just be ordinary forgetting; memory is not “blocked.” Others say the process is more complex and may involve a desire to forget.

You can find more details about the Shanley case at the link.