WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post (via Philly.com)
September 19, 2018
by Shawn Boburg and Aaron C. Davis
A dozen years before he became a top leader in the Catholic Church, Donald Wuerl was weighing a fateful decision. It was 1994, and Wuerl, then a bishop, had removed a priest accused of child sex abuse from a Pittsburgh-area parish. But the priest refused to get psychiatric treatment, and instead asked Wuerl for time off.
Wuerl – now a cardinal and the archbishop of Washington, District of Columbia – granted the leave of absence, allowing the Rev. Robert Castelucci to relocate to Ohio without alerting authorities or parishioners, law enforcement records show.
Only after police in Ohio began investigating a 16-year-old boy’s allegation that “Father Bob” plied him with pornography and performed oral sex on him did Wuerl tell Castelucci he could no longer present himself as a priest in public, according to internal church documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The case, one of hundreds mentioned in a groundbreaking Pennsylvania grand jury report released last month, sheds light on how Wuerl handled sex abuse claims in the Pittsburgh Diocese from 1988 to 2006 – a period that now threatens to rewrite his legacy and hasten the end of his career. Wuerl, 77, announced recently that he would go to the Vatican to discuss his possible resignation with Pope Francis and, although it is not clear when that meeting will take place, Wuerl is scheduled to be in Rome this weekend.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.