ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Express-Times
Saturday, September 24, 2005
By TOM QUIGLEY
The Express-Times
The leader of the Allentown Diocese on Friday said he cooperated fully with a grand jury investigating a cover-up of sexual abuse by priests and never told any of his assistants victims weren't to be believed.
Bishop Edward P. Cullen made his first public remarks about his grand jury testimony in Philadelphia in a letter posted on the diocese's Web site and to be read at Masses tonight and Sunday.
"I cooperated fully in giving information to the investigation," Cullen writes in the letter.
Cullen, bishop in Allentown since 1998, had been vicar general in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia -- a top aide to Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.
A grand jury report released Wednesday accused Bevilacqua, the late Cardinal John Krol and top officials in the archdiocese of covering up repeated sexual abuse allegations against priests and transferring them to new assignments.
The report alleges Cullen instructed his assistant during his tenure in Philadelphia never to tell sexual abuse victims that he, the assistant, believed them.