ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call
December 2, 2019
By Emily Opilo
A woman has sued the Allentown Diocese over what she alleges was 16 years of sexual abuse by diocesan priest Joseph A. Rock, one of 300 Pennsylvania priests named in a 2018 grand jury report and the subject of numerous complaints made to the diocese.
The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court of Atlantic County, New Jersey, alleges that Rock, a priest who worked at churches in Lehigh, Northampton, Berks and Schuylkill counties between 1972 and 2001, abused the unnamed woman beginning when she was 13. She’s 58 now and living in North Carolina.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified punitive damages, was one of at least two filed Monday in New Jersey courts that involved Pennsylvania dioceses. A New Jersey law that took effect Sunday allows victims of child sex abuse to sue until they turn 55, or within seven years of their first realization the abuse caused them harm. The previous limit was two years.
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