PHILADELPHIA (PA)
PhillyBurbs
Posted on July 10, 2012
by Margaret Gibbons
The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office is taking a second look at information first received in 2007 concerning alleged inappropriate conduct by a priest with a student at Lansdale Catholic High School in the 1970s.
The information alleging inappropriate contact between a student and Father Michael J. Bransfield, who is now bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese that serves all of West Virginia, had been provided to the DA’s office by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.
“Based on the statute of limitations and the victim’s unwillingness to talk to investigators, we did not have a sufficient basis at that time to move forward,” said Ferman. “Within the last month, new information has come forward to cause us to re-examine the older complaint. We are in the process of doing that now.”
Ferman repeatedly declined to answer further questions on the matter.
Bransfield, a Philadelphia native who began his pastoral service in Huntingdon Valley after he was ordained a priest in 1971, served as a teacher, chaplain, chairman of the religion department and vice principal at Lansdale Catholic High School from 1973 into 1979.
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