Diocese, bishop sued over abuse allegations

INDIANA
The Indiana Gazette

August 15, 2020

By Patrick Cloonan

Lawsuits have been filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg by a Pittsburgh attorney on behalf of alleged victims of two priests, one deceased, the other defrocked by the diocese but perhaps still living in Indiana County.

Alan H. Perer of the law firm of Swensen & Perer filed those actions this week in Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas against the diocese and Bishop Edward C. Malesic on behalf of a former Blairsville resident now living in White Oak, Allegheny County; and a former Mount Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, resident now living in Pittsburgh.

He is asking for a jury trial in each case. Those filings coincided with 25 cases filed by Perer in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas for clients in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The former Blairsville resident claims he was sexually abused beginning at age 12 in 1968 by a maternal uncle, the late Rev. Giles L. Nealen, a Benedictine priest born in Nicktown, Cambria County, whose assignments included an old St. Benedict parish in Marguerit, Unity Township, Westmoreland County.

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