PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
JEREMY ROEBUCK, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
POSTED: Tuesday, March 11, 2014
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will end its eight-year practice of providing parochial school tuition to children of clergy sex-abuse victims at the end of this school year, citing low participation and a desire to refocus its spending on efforts that directly aid the abused.
The news, quietly announced to participants last spring, has drawn the ire of beneficiaries who count the decision as yet another betrayal by church officials. And it has come as a surprise to people who were potentially eligible for help but say they were never told about the program.
“It was the least they could do for me,” said Matthew Woodruff, 49, who testified before a Philadelphia jury in 2012 about his childhood abuse at the hands of his parish priest in Bucks County. “I never got a nickel or an apology for what happened to me as a kid.”
Since 2010, Woodruff’s 15-year-old son and daughter have attended parochial schools in Levittown, most recently Conwell-Egan Catholic High School – a school he says he never could have afforded without the tuition assistance offered to victims.
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