Priest Denies Sexual Relationship With Foley ...

... but says he "taught him some wrong things related to sex" while the two were galavanting around nude together in the 1960s.

And get this - now it's the priest who is claiming that his behavior was influenced by a substance-abuse problem:

"I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown," the newspaper reported Mercieca as saying from his home on the island of Gozo, south of Italy. "I was taking pills - tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit."

I guess he'll soon be going into rehab and then claiming to have been abused by a priest as well.

And the cycle continues.