Allentown Bishop Addresses Grand Jury Probe

By Steve Esack and Matt AssadContact Reporters
Morning Call
September 27, 2016

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-pa-allentown-diocese-priest-abuse-0927-20160927-story.html

A week after declining to address the question, Allentown Bishop John O. Barres acknowledged what his counterparts in five other Catholic episcopates already had: The diocese is being investigated by a statewide grand jury examining how church leaders handled decades of child sex abuse allegations.

In a letter to parishioners last weekend, Allentown Bishop John O. Barres confirmed that his diocese had been subpoenaed and is cooperating with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office.

"As your bishop, I wanted to let you know that the Diocese of Allentown is cooperating with a statewide investigation being conducted by the office of the state attorney general looking at how six Pennsylvania dioceses handled allegations of abuse," Barres wrote in a letter delivered to parishioners during Saturday and Sunday Mass and printed in the diocese newspaper, the AD Times.

The letter reminded parishioners that Barres' predecessor, Bishop Edward P. Cullen, in 2002 allowed prosecutors from the diocese's five-county territory to review personnel files detailing old sex abuse allegations against 23 priests. Since then, Barres said, the diocese has notified the counties' district attorneys of new abuse claims. Now, state authorities want records, he wrote.

"The state attorney general's office has subpoenaed our records on all possible abusers, and we are in the process of turning over that material," the letter states. "The Diocese of Allentown is committed to the protection and safety of the children and young people entrusted to its care. To this end, it is the policy of the Diocese of Allentown to cooperate with law enforcement. We will cooperate with the attorney general's office just as we have cooperated with the district attorneys. Abuse of minors is a grave sin and crime."

The letter came after a difficult two weeks that started with the Sept. 13 arrest of Monsignor John Stephen Mraz, pastor St. Ann Church in Emmaus, on charges of possessing child pornography. It led parishioners to question why Barres hadn't told them Mraz had been under investigation for six weeks, prompting some to pull their children from religious prep classes, while others contemplated changing churches.

Then The Morning Call reported on Sept. 19 that six of the state's eight Catholic dioceses, including Allentown, were under investigation. Allentown was the only diocese that would not confirm it had received a subpoena.

Asked on Tuesday why Barres waited to issue his statement, diocesan spokesman Matt Kerr said: "Until we had clarity on what we were permitted to say, we waited to discuss the investigation."

State prosecutors have been taking testimony in Pittsburgh for months in the wide-ranging investigation that started with a scathing March report detailing allegations of abuse by about 50 priests and other religious leaders in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and a cover-up by church officials. That diocese and the Philadelphia Archdiocese are not part of the current probe because of prior grand jury investigations.

On Tuesday, Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, led a news conference in the Capitol in which he again implored his colleagues to pass a bill that would allow him and other adult survivors of child sex abuse to sue their alleged abusers and any supervisors who may have covered it up.

In April, the House adopted a bill that would have treated future cases of child abuse like murder, prosecutable at any time, and would have allowed victims up to age 50 to retroactively sue their alleged abusers and any employers who protected them.

In June, the Senate stripped out the retroactive lawsuit allowance and inserted a preamble of reasons why they think such lawsuits are unconstitutional. The Senate replaced the retroactive lawsuit provision with one that would allow only future victims to sue abusers and their employers. The Senate also agreed to raise the age limit for those filing lawsuits from abuse in their childhood from 30 to 50.

Rozzi and his supporters — including Lehigh County Chief Deputy District Attorney Charles F. Gallagher III — want the House to reinstate the retroactivity portion of the bill and delete the Senate's preamble.

"We cannot choose to help one group of victims and ignore another," Rozzi said. "We must do the right thing by all of them."

Prior to joining the Lehigh County District Attorney's office, Gallagher was a longtime Philadelphia prosecutor who led grand jury investigations into child abuse and coverups in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, which until 1961 used to encompass the Allentown Diocese's region: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Schuylkill and Carbon counties.

Those Philadelphia investigations uncovered allegations of sexual abuse against hundreds of priests that church officials, including Cullen, never reported to law enforcement. Cullen, who was a top archdiocesan official before he was appointed in 1997 to lead the Allentown Diocese, was not charged. Charges were filed against three priests and a Catholic school teacher as well as the archdiocese's secretary of clergy, whose case was tossed and will be retried.

During Tuesday's news conference, Gallagher said those investigations showed the Catholic church systematically covered up abuse and used fear of employment reprisals to keep good priests from contacting law enforcement about abuse occurring within their brotherhood. The statute of limitations, Gallagher said, has to be changed because child sex abuse robs victims of innocence.

"All cases should be treated as soul murder," Gallagher said. "They want their day in court. That's what this law will do."

The House could take up the bill in October and amend it by adding back the retroactive lawsuit piece, said Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana.

If the bill comes back from the House, there is no appetite to take it back up in the Senate, said Jenn Kocher, spokeswoman for senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre.

The Senate version was passed 49-0, she noted, adding that senators are worried that the retroactivity part is illegal and that a successful lawsuit could render the entire bill unconstitutional.

"This all-or-nothing approach is handcuffing law enforcement," Kocher said.

The retroactivity part of the bill is opposed by the state insurance industry and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, a lobbying group in Harrisburg.

"The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference does not oppose the elimination of the criminal statute of limitations," said spokeswoman Amy Hill. "Sexual predators should be locked behind bars and removed from society so they cannot hurt anyone else. We do share concerns along with the business community about how a retroactive measure will conflict with the Pennsylvania Constitution."

If the bill is not passed by both chambers by the time the legislative session ends on Nov. 30, it will die.

It is unknown when the attorney general's office will complete its investigation of the six dioceses.

Contact: steve.esack@mcall.com