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Diocese: Priests with sexual abuse accusations were not monitored
By Daveen Rae Kurutz
A spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh said there was no formal process for monitoring priests accused of sexual abuse prior to the release of the grand jury report earlier this month. Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct church that the Rev. Ernest Paone served at in the 1960s. Dozens of Roman Catholic priests who had credible accusations of sexual abuse against them were not monitored by the Diocese of Pittsburgh once removed from the ministry during the past 70 years, diocesan officials admitted. After a grand jury report detailed how more than 300 Pennsylvania priests in six dioceses — including 102 from the six-county Diocese of Pittsburgh — sexually abused more than 1,000 children, Bishop David Zubik, an Ambridge native, announced plans to begin monitoring the 22 living priests who were removed from ministry since 1976. “There was no formal process for monitoring,” the Rev. Nicholas Vaskov, executive director of communications for the Diocese of Pittsburgh said. “This is a step that needed to be taken in keeping the safety of children in mind.” An additional 24 priests were removed from ministry who have since died. Those priests were not monitored either by the diocese. According to the diocese, priests were removed from ministry if they had a “credible and substantiated allegation of child sexual abuse made against them.” The diocese defined a credible allegation as one that “was proven to be supported by either an admission by the individual to the abuse or by an examination of the evidence through a comprehensive canonical, civil or criminal investigation.” In total, 46 priests in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which includes Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Greene, Lawrence and Washington counties, have been removed from the ministry, dating back to 1970. According to a list provided by the diocese, two of those priests were arrested, both in the 1980s — the Rev. Robert Wolk and the Rev. Richard Zula. “Priests who are removed from ministry are forbidden from dressing as a priest, celebrating the sacraments in public, calling themselves ‘Father’ or otherwise presenting themselves as a priest in good standing,” Vaskov said. Other priests, such as the Rev. Ernest Paone of St. Monica church in Wampum and St. Theresa Church in Koppel, were turned in to authorities, but charges were never pursued. Former Beaver County District Attorney Robert Masters declined to prosecute Paone in the 1960s out of deference to the Catholic church, according to the grand jury report. Paone moved to the West Coast and regularly received letters of good standing from diocesan officials until the early 1990s. He retired from the ministry in 2003, and died in 2012, never facing charges, according to the report. The vast majority of priests named in the report have not had charges brought against them. Current Pennsylvania law limits child victims of sexual abuse to pursuing criminal charges against their abusers until age 50. Civil lawsuits can be pursued until age 30. The report details how many allegations of abuse were made to the diocese, rather than law enforcement. Priests were regularly assigned to receive evaluations at church-run psychological facilities, according to the grand jury report. Those facilities regularly relied on “self-reports” of the accused. Church officials often referred to the abuse as “inappropriate contact” or “boundary issues,” and temporary removal of a priest from the ministry was filed as “sick leave” or “leave,” according to the grand jury. Priests were regularly transferred after an accusation, rather than being removed from ministry. And in numerous cases, service dossiers show that accusations of abuse would occur at the new assignment as well. According to the grand jury’s report, diocesan investigations were “conducted by untrained clergy or teachers (who were) given authority to make credibility determinations about fellow clergy members.” Practices have changed, Vaskov said. “We are constantly evaluating and improving our processes,” he said. “We turn all allegations of abuse over to the district attorney in the county where the abuse was alleged to have occurred, whether the offender is alive or deceased.” The diocese is in the process of reviewing resumes for someone to oversee a monitoring program, he said. The diocese already has hired Shay Bilchik, the former president of the Child Welfare League of America and a former state prosecutor from Florida specializing in children’s issues, to review the diocese’s practices and make recommendations on how they can be improved. Vaskov said the diocese encourages anyone who has been abused by a priest or someone representing the church to call its abuse hotline at 1-888-808-1235. But a nationally recognized attorney who has litigated rulings to expose the personnel files of priests who were accused of sexual abuse in California said that move doesn’t help the problem. Timothy Hale, who has represented dozens of sexual abuse victims and speaks on institutional sexual abuse, criticized the fact that the diocese is still monitoring accusations of abuse. “They aren’t qualified to monitor this — only one entity is qualified and that’s law enforcement,” Hale said. “You don’t call the institute that has spent decades, if not centuries, covering up these crimes. There’s no effort they can take that can result in these men being incarcerated and being forced to register as a sex offender.” Hale pointed out that there is no mechanism that allows parents to know if those priests who have been removed from ministry but have not been convicted of sexual abuse are living down the street or volunteering with a youth organization. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey agrees. He has introduced federal legislation that, among other things, would require mandated reporters report suspected abuse directly to the state authorities responsible for investigating child abuse and neglect, rather than other entities such as the diocese. “The kinds of abuses that took place over decades in Pennsylvania should be the subject of continued scrutiny, review and transparency, and anyone who has abused a child or has been involved in covering it up must be held fully accountable.” Casey said in a statement. “Congress can and must act to make sure the types of abuses reported by the Grand Jury never happen again.” Attorney General Josh Shapiro supports the legislation and said in a statement that child sexual abuse by clergy is often unreported or covered up. Since the release of the grand jury report, his office has received more than 600 phone calls on its hotline. “We’re returning every call — with trained agents, listening to callers, gathering facts, and then making decisions where further investigation is warranted,” said Joe Grace, spokesman for the attorney general’s office. “A sizable number of calls concern allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy in Pennsylvania.” Grace said the attorney general’s investigation into both the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and its coverup is ongoing.
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