BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW
March 4, 2018
By Charlie Specht
Says public deserves to know the truth
“It’s been such a whirlwind that this has broken as big as it has.”
Michael Whalen is talking about the sexual abuse he first revealed last week in the Catholic Church — and what he calls the “tsunami” of victims who say they have also been abused by Catholic priests through the years in the Diocese of Buffalo.
“It’s been unbelievable the victims who have contacted me,” Whalen said in front of the diocesan headquarters Sunday morning. “I am proud of all of you.”
Two more of those victims came forward Sunday in a front-page story in The Buffalo News that detailed abuse at St. John’s church in Alden. James McCarthy told the newspaper he was sodomized as a boy in the 1960s by Father Norbert Orsolits — the same priest who Whalen says abused him.
“I was a victim and they wouldn’t tell me anything about what’s being done,” McCarthy said in The News about reporting the abuse to the diocese eight years ago. “The church, in every situation it could, there was always an intention to cover it up as much as possible.”
Whalen said now is the time for the diocese to finally come clean — and to release the names of any priests who have been credibly accused of abuse. The names have been locked away in diocesan headquarters on Main Street in downtown Buffalo for decades.
“I think the priests that have been accused should be out in the public eye,” Whalen said.
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