PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PETER SMITH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
MAY 14, 2018
A 1983 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette feature article opens with heart-warming words that — 35 years later — now chill the blood:
“The Rev. Lawrence A. O’Connell, pastor of St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin Church in Whitehall, wishes only to live out his remaining years near his beloved elementary school and its children.”
The longtime parish pastor, officially retiring at age 77, said he hoped “to remain here to teach religion and stay active with the children. … I used to greet them all as they came in the door.”
O’Connell died of a heart attack in 1986, his public good name intact.
In 2004, a different narrative emerged.
That year, two women sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh to say that in those hallway greetings when they were young students in the 1950s and 1960s, O’Connell would for years put his arms around them, fondle their breasts and force them to kiss him.
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