JERSEY CITY (NJ)
Jersey Journal
February 14, 2019
By Rev. Alexander Santora
Growing up in Catholic Jersey City – Holy Rosary Grammar School, its church, St. Joseph’s up the hill, St. Peter’s Prep and College – I knew many priests.
Never once did I suspect that one of them, or any, would ever be involved in abusing a minor. I would never even link the words “priest” and “abuse” in the same sentence.
Not until I was assigned to St. Aloysius Church did I gradually learn about a priest – Carmen Sita, whom I replaced. He had been removed and sent to a rehab for his abusive behavior and was then assigned to a parish in Missouri under a pseudonym, Gerald Howard.
His name appeared on the list released yesterday of 188 priests in New Jersey with credible accusations of a sexual abuse of minors against them. From the list, I also learned of priests I had crossed paths with in ministry, though I’d never lived with them in a rectory. And priests I knew as fellow seminarians at Darlington. Probably about three dozen in all.
I was particularly shocked that a Trenton priest who has worked in a Vatican office in Rome for 30 years was on the list. I knew him and his family from a Toms River parish I assisted on weekends for 12 years.
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