WASHINGTON (DC)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
August 27, 2018
By Tracie Mauriello
He wanted to put the Pittsburgh Diocese on the map.
That’s what Donald Wuerl, now a cardinal, said when he became bishop of the diocese that baptized him and shaped his earliest views of what it meant to be faithful, to be moral, to be Roman Catholic, and to be good.
Thirty years later, everyone is talking about the diocese, but not for any of the reasons he envisioned. Pittsburgh is on the map now because of a sex scandal involving 99 priests accused of abusing hundreds of young parishioners over seven decades.
Cardinal Wuerl had become known as a gutsy but introverted leader who saved the diocese from financial disaster, elevated women in the church, created a well-read adult catechism, withstood downturns in Catholic school enrollment, held his flock together through tumultuous parish mergers, engaged with parishioners in ways predecessors had not, and handled delicate assignments.
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