DUNKIRK (NY)
Observer Today
September 9, 2019
A former student at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic School in Dunkirk claims she was sexually abused by a Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church pastor starting at the age of 5.
In a Child Victims Act lawsuit filed Monday in state Supreme Court in Erie County, the plaintiff, referred to as PB-5 Doe, has filed a civil suit agianst the Diocese of Buffalo, Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church and Holy Trinity School. The lawsuit claims Monsignor Valerio Bernardo, then a pastor at the church, allegedly began abusing the girl when she was 5 and continued to abuse her for several years. The plaintiff, now 60, lives in Springville, N.Y., and was a student at the school in the 1960s during a time when she and her family were parishioners at Holy Trinity Church.
Bernardo became the seventh pastor in Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church’s history in July 1945 and remained at the church until February 1974, according to the church’s website. Bernardo was the driving force behind purchasing land on Central Avenue in Dunkirk for a school and convent in the 1960s with a new church and rectory built on the site in the early 1970s.
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