PENNSYLVANIA
The Intelligencer
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
By State Rep. Thomas P. Murt
First, it was Penn State. Then it was the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Now, just when you thought that scandals involving the sexual abuse of children couldn’t get any worse, we learn about yet another one.
After a prolonged and extensive investigation, law enforcement professionals have uncovered literally mounds of evidence detailing countless cases of child sexual abuse and a multiyear cover-up by Roman Catholic Church officials in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.
The diocese was found to have willingly protected priests who were known child molesters. Through church connections and pathetic public officials, the diocese protected the child-molesting priests from law enforcement and prosecution.
Perhaps the worst crime they committed was never taking subsequent action to protect children from these child-molesting priests. In the diocese, when a priest was found to have sexually abused a child, the normal protocol was to simply move the priest to another parish, offer a cash payment to the family and/or send the offending priest on retreat, only to have him returned to ministry in the future.
The grand jury report reads even more graphic, sickening and disgusting than the grand jury report that concerned the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. If you have the stomach for it, you can find it on the Internet. The link will caution you about the graphic nature of what you are about to read.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.