PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record
Brandie Kessler, bkessler@ydr.com December 9, 2016
For 25 years, Sharon Tell didn’t know why she got no response after reporting she had been sexually abused by a priest.
As an adult, she told a priest at a Lancaster County church that a priest in the Allentown diocese had abused her for two decades, beginning when she was 12. Although Tell eventually notified the Allentown diocese herself, she said she never heard from anyone in the Harrisburg diocese, which oversees churches in Lancaster County.
A York Daily Record investigation published in August offered a clue about what might have happened, said Tell’s son, Patrick Conlin.
The article detailed accusations of sexual abuse against 15 priests with ties to the Harrisburg diocese. Among them was William Geiger, who was at Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Ephrata when Tell disclosed her abuse.
A light bulb went off. Tell said Geiger, whose name she had forgotten over time, was the priest she told of her abuse. Conlin said the family now believes that Geiger didn’t pass along Tell’s report because he was allegedly an abuser.
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