PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Weekly
January 10, 2019
By Andrea Cantor
Pope Francis chastised American Bishops in a complete mishandling of sex abuse by the clergy in a letter penned earlier this month.
“The Church’s credibility has been seriously undercut and diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the efforts made to deny or conceal them,” Francis wrote. “This has led to a growing sense of uncertainty, distrust and vulnerability among the faithful.”
Many outlets and critics were quick to note Pope Francis excluded any mention of punishment for those guilty of molestation, including the 301 members of the clergy in Pennsylvania an explosive court filing cited for more than 1,000 incidences of child abuse. Instead, the pope urged the church to internally strengthen and repair itself.
“Let us try to break the vicious circle of recrimination, undercutting and discrediting, by avoiding gossip and slander in the pursuit of a path of prayerful and contrite acceptance of our limitations and sins,” Francis wrote.
One of the people not buying into the words from the pope is Arthur Baselice Jr. He is a father who speaks on behalf of his son, Arthur III, silenced by a fatal heroin overdose in 2006 after years of mental anguish stemming from repeated clergy abuse.
In the mid-1990s, Arthur III was sexually abused by two Franciscan clergyman at Archbishop Ryan High School in Northeast Philadelphia. The perpetrators included the principal Rev. Charles Newman and Brother Regis Howitz, then a maintenance worker at the school.
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