Four Jesuits who served in Pittsburgh accused

By Peter Smith
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
December 17, 2018

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/faith-religion/2018/12/17/Four-Jesuits-who-served-in-Pittsburgh-accused/stories/201812170096

Four priests who served in Pittsburgh, including the founding headmaster of the former Bishop’s Latin School, are among Jesuits accused of past sexual abuse whose names were listed Monday by the Maryland Province of their order.

The province is the latest of numerous Catholic jurisdictions around the country to list the names of accused priests in the wake of the Aug. 14 release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report into sexual abuse here.

Those listed include two Bishop’s Latin staff members from the 1960s and two others who served at Pittsburgh parishes into the 1990s, one of whom also served earlier at Bishop’s Latin.

The province listed 13 Jesuits, including current, former and deceased members, against whom credible or established accusations were made.

It listed another eight Jesuits who were subjects of accusations considered to have a semblance of truth. Four other Jesuits who served in different provinces and were accused there also served at some point in the Maryland Province.

“We are deeply sorry for the harm we have caused to victims and their families,” said the Rev. Robert M. Hussey, the provincial (leader) of the Maryland Province. “We also apologize for participating in the harm that abuse has done to our Church, a Church that we love and that preaches God’s care for all, especially the most vulnerable among us.”

The province said the abuse happened decades ago, before it launched reforms to prevent and respond to abuse. The accused would equal about 1 percent of the more than 1,700 Jesuits who have belonged to the Maryland Province since 1950, it said.

The accusations against the four priests who served in Pittsburgh are not alleged to have occurred here, but the order listed the full assignment histories of all of them.

The Rev. Nicholas Vaskov, spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, said the diocese had no records of allegations of abuse against the four during their time here.

Among those named was the Rev. William J. Walsh, who was the founding headmaster at Bishop’s Latin School from 1961 to 1965. The school was located in Homewood and then in East Liberty. It closed in 1973.

His alleged abuse of minors occurred in Maryland, eastern Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., according to the province.

According to the province, Father Walsh was removed from ministry in 1996 and is “living in a restricted environment on a safety plan.” 

The province would not say where he is but said he is in a “restricted, monitored environment with no access to minors.” It included him on a list of those with “credible or established” accusations.

Father Walsh was born in 1923, entered the Jesuit order in 1942 and was ordained a priest in 1954. He also served in eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and China.

In 1998, five of his nieces went public, saying he had sexually abused them as minors and that they were dissatisfied with the Jesuits’ response at that time because he had continued working at the Jesuits’ Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C. until that year.

The Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, were founded in the 16th century and have served throughout the world, with a particular emphasis on missions and education. The Maryland Province covers eight eastern states and the District of Columbia. Its main presence locally was in the East End and, regionally, at what is now called Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.

Also named are three other priests with Pittsburgh connections. According to the province, the three of them are deceased priests with allegations against them which could not be fully investigated but have a “reasonable possibility” or “semblance of truth.”

They include:

• The late Rev. Robert B. Cullen, who died in 2005. He was born in 1926, entered the Jesuits in 1946 and was ordained in 1958. He was assigned to SS. Peter & Paul in East Liberty in 1991-1992, to the Corpus Christi Pastoral Center (which, like SS. Peter & Paul, had become part of the merged St. Charles Lwanga Parish) from 1992 to 1994 and to the St. Charles Lwanga Parish from 1994 to 1996. Earlier, Father Cullen worked at Bishop’s Latin from 1961 to 1962. He also worked at what was then called Wheeling Jesuit College in West Virginia from 1983 to 1990. The province said Father Cullen faced multiple allegations of sexual abuse in Maryland, where he had various assignments across the decades.

• The late Rev. Arthur Long, who worked at Bishop’s Latin from 1963-1964, before spending most of his career in eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland. He was born in 1924, entered the order in 1942, was ordained in 1955, left the order in 1992 and died in 2005. The province said he faced multiple allegations of abuse from his time in Danville, Pa., in the 1970s and 1980s.

• The late Rev. William Wehrle, who was assigned to Pittsburgh Hospital from 1971 to 1973 and resided at SS. Peter & Paul Parish. He later returned to the Jesuit community based at that parish from 1986 to 1992 and then went to the Corpus Christi Pastoral Center until his death in 1995, according to the province. (His obituary in the Post-Gazette, however, said his last place of residence was Wheeling.)

None of the four were mentioned in the Pittsburgh portion of the grand jury report, but Father Long’s case was highlighted in the Harrisburg portion. 

Other Jesuit provinces have released similar lists of accused priests since the grand jury report, as have many dioceses.