PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
ALTOONA — The large purple banners, in the symbolic color of penitence, and the subdued music fit the tone of the service Wednesday night at Altoona’s Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament.
Before scores of worshippers got up to make confessions to one of numerous priests who fanned out across the cavernous cathedral, Bishop Mark Bartchak offered a short homily, reflecting on how often people compound their sins by trying to hide them rather than confess them. “Playing hide and seek with God really doesn’t work,” he said, urging penitents to “seek the Lord while he may be found.”
There was no mention at the communal penance service, an annual Lenten observance, of the news roiling the diocese in recent weeks. But it was very much on worshippers’ minds.
The service came a day after the state announced charges against three priests from a Hollidaysburg-based Franciscan province for endangering the welfare of children for assigning a known sex offender to work with youth at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown and other settings over nearly two decades. That offender, Brother Stephen Baker, committed suicide in 2013 as the enormity of his crimes became known.
The charges, including criminal conspiracy against each man, were recommended by the same grand jury that two weeks ago issued a report denouncing what it called a decades-long coverup of abusive priests by previous bishops of the eight-county Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.
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