PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
July 26, 2018
By Liz Navratil and Angela Couloumbis
[The article includes a PDF of Shapiro’s letter to Pope Francis.]
Harrisburg – Amid a still-boiling legal battle over a secret grand jury report into clergy sex abuse across Pennsylvania, Attorney General Josh Shapiro has appealed to Pope Francis to step in and persuade opponents to drop their bid to block the report’s release.
In a letter sent this week, Mr. Shapiro petitioned the pontiff to “direct church leaders to follow the path you charted … and abandon their destructive efforts to silence the survivors.”
Mr. Shapiro’s request to the worldwide leader of the Catholic church — in effect the boss for most everyone expected to be assailed by the grand jury — comes as the state Supreme Court weighs arguments on whether it should block the release of the report or, in some form, let it become public. The delays, put in place while the state Supreme Court considers legal issues surrounding the report, have left some victims fretting that their voices will ultimately be silenced once again.
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