SEX ABUSE VICTIM: SAGINAW BISHOP IGNORED MY REQUESTS

SAGINAW (MI)
Church Militant

March 28, 2018

By Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D.

Brad Sylvester asked for multiple meetings with Bp. Joseph Cistone, which went ignored

A victim of sex abuse claims Bp. Joseph Cistone of Saginaw, Michigan refused to talk or meet with him after multiple requests.

Brad Sylvester, a Saginaw local, hand-delivered a letter to the diocese in 2012 detailing his abuse at the hands of Fr. Stanislaus Bur when he was a child, and requested a face-to-face meeting with Bp. Cistone. It was one among multiple letters he had sent to the diocese that went ignored by the bishop.

Because the abuse took place nearly three decades earlier, it was beyond the statute of limitations.

Instead, the diocese sent Sr. Janet Fulgenzi, victim assistance coordinator for the diocese’s Office of Child and Youth Protection. “She was just sitting in, listening to my sessions, like a bystander,” Sylvester told Church Militant of his meetings with his social worker, where Fulgenzi was present on several occasions. According to the victim, Fulgenzi asked no questions and offered no helpful advice.

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