WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR Morning Edition
September 6, 2018
By Sarah Schneider
During the first Mass of the school year, two students at St. Bernard Elementary School in suburban Pittsburgh stand in front of the congregation and lead their classmates in prayer.
They pray for the leaders of the world, for the sick and suffering, and for the victims of abuse in the Catholic Church.
For some kids … parents don’t want them to be aware of this [abuse], and that’s the parents’ right.
It is the only time clergy abuse is mentioned during the service. It might be the only time it’s mentioned in the school. Principal Anthony Merante says he wants to leave that conversation up to parents.
“For some kids — and this is what I’m concerned about — parents don’t want them to be aware of this and that’s the parents’ right. So you’re going to bring something up and stir something up that isn’t there,” he says.
After the St. Bernard Mass, about a half-dozen parents decline to speak on the record because, they say, they either haven’t talked to their kids about the clergy abuse or they don’t know what to say. Some say they were unsure whether their young children even recognized they had prayed for victims of abuse.
The Pittsburgh Diocese oversees 64 elementary and high schools in six Western Pennsylvania counties. The grand jury report named 17 schools in the diocese where abuse took place. That number could be higher, though. In a handful of cases, the report noted that abuse happened in a school but didn’t specify which one. Sometimes children were molested and raped in their school. Other times students were groomed for abuse during the school day.
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