ERIE (PA)
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Michael G. Barletta was ordained in 1966 for the Diocese of Erie. He spent the bulk of his career as a high school teacher while residing in local parishes. Early on he was at Kennedy Christian High in Sharon, where he established a service club called the Teenage Action Club (TAC). He was transferred in the mid-1970s to Cathedral Prep, again establishing a TAC. Barletta was reportedly a charismatic, popular teacher, nicknamed “Barts,” who would take some of his students on overnight trips, including to Toronto, Niagara Falls, and his camp at Punxsutawney.
In 1994 a man told Bishop Trautman that Barletta had molested him when he was a Prep student in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Trautman removed Barletta from the school within the year and transferred him from St. Luke’s parish in Erie to St. Patrick/St. Hedwig’s. He was assigned to work in the diocesan office of Catholic Charities and as chaplain to Holy Family Carmelite Monastery. Also at St. Patrick/St. Hedwig’s during Barletta’s time there were, among others, accused priests Thomas E. Smith and Leon T. Muroski, and retired Bishop Michael J. Murphy.
In the Spring of 2002 the man who reported Barletta to the diocese in 1994 and two other men approached Bishop Trautman, all three alleging sexual abuse by Barletta in the late 1970s-early 1980s when they were Cathedral Prep students. Barletta was finally removed from active ministry in 2003. He is not indexed in the Official Catholic Directory after 2002. He is noted in 2012 and 2017 news articles to have been living in Erie and functioning as a priest at his high school reunions.
Ordained: 1966
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