PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Centre Daily Times
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA -- A Roman Catholic priest who reported to a church official in the early 1980s that a fellow priest was molesting boys said he was told that the Philadelphia Archdiocese's "highest authority" warned that he should keep quiet.
The Rev. James Gigliotti told The Philadelphia Inquirer for Sunday's edition that he received a stern warning after he reported the accusations against the Rev. James J. Brzyski.
"This comes from the highest authority: You're to keep your mouth shut," Gigliotti said an assistant chancellor told him.
Gigliotti is the first priest to say publicly that the archdiocese told him to keep quiet.
"I take full responsibility for this, but those words, 'You're to keep your mouth shut,' made a big impression on me because it came from high authority," said Gigliotti, 57, who now leads a parish in Arlington, Texas.
Gigliotti identified the man who warned him as the Rev. John W. Graf, an assistant chancellor under then-Cardinal John Krol.