PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Three current and former superiors of a Franciscan religious order face felony charges for allegedly conspiring to enable a serial predator to sexually assault more than 100 Catholic high school students in Johnstown and elsewhere as part of an even wider trail of devastation across multiple states and decades.
The state charges announced today represent one of the broadest-ever drives to hold the Roman Catholic hierarchy to account in any American criminal court for the sexual abuse of minors by those under their supervision.
Filed by the state attorney general’s office, the charges were recommended by the same statewide grand jury that released a report two weeks ago blasting the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown for decades of covering up sexual abuse by more than 50 priests and other church leaders.
But the Altoona-Johnstown report resulted in no criminal charges due to what prosecutors said were the time constraints of the statute of limitations. In this case, however, the grand jury did find cause to allege a years-long conspiracy on the part of leaders of the Blair County-based Province of the Immaculate Conception of the Franciscan Friar, Third Order Regular.
The trio are each charged with one count of endangering the welfare of children and criminal conspiracy, which are third-degree felonies.
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