ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call
April 3, 2018
By Tim Darragh
A grand jury that has been hearing testimony about sexual abuse by priests in six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania, including Allentown, will soon conclude its work and issue a report this spring, according to two sources.
The grand jury, which was impaneled in 2016, was extended from late 2017 until the end of this month, said State Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, who testified before the panel. He said he hopes a report will be forthcoming in May or June.
Rozzi did not disclose the source of his information about the grand jury, which operates in secret. A second source also told The Morning Call the grand jury was reaching the end of its term. Under state code, a grand jury has a term of 18 months that can be extended to 24 months. The source said the grand jury began hearing testimony soon after an earlier grand jury issued a report in March 2016 outlining decades of sexual abuse by priests that went unpunished in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.
Rozzi, a Catholic who says he was molested by an Allentown Diocese priest as a boy, said victims have reached out to him because he has been working to extend the statute of limitations for abuse victims. At least 20-30 people from the Allentown Diocese, he said, told him they had been abused by a priest.
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