An Oyster Bay parish is dissatisfied with its pastor, assigned after a former pastor was removed for abuse accusations. The present pastor was a diocesan official implictated, some say, in reassignment of abusing priests, and they don’t like some of the other decisions he’s made. But the former pastor still hangs around.

After months of private and sometimes confrontational discussions with Msgr. John Alesandro over his leadership of St. Dominic parish in Oyster Bay, a group of influential members is organizing an extraordinary public forum to question what the former top church administrator knew about the priest sex abuse scandal in the Diocese of Rockville Centre and to review some of his controversial decisions as pastor.

The dramatic development, a sign of how the scandal has emboldened Catholics nationwide to seek a greater role in their local church, stems mainly from lingering concerns parishioners have about the still not fully explained departure of the former pastor two years ago and about why Alesandro has been unable to move the parish beyond the problems that have enveloped the North Shore enclave…