PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
By Hal Marcovitz
Of The Morning Call
A Bucks County priest told his parishioners at a Mass on Saturday that he tried to alert officials at the Philadelphia Archdiocese that a fellow priest was obsessed with child pornography, but despite his warnings the clergyman was simply transferred to other churches and permitted to remain active in the priesthood.
The Rev. Frederick J. Riegler made his comments three days after a Philadelphia grand jury report condemned Cardinals Anthony J. Bevilacqua and John Krol, the former archbishops of Philadelphia, for concealing reports of sexual misconduct by priests. Riegler, pastor of St. Isidore's Roman Catholic Church in Milford Township, said archdiocese officials were well aware of the Rev. Edward K. DePaoli's obsession with child pornography, yet during the 1990s Riegler encountered him on the clerical staff of a church in Philadelphia.
''How did he get here?'' Riegler recalled asking himself at the time. ''What were they thinking?''
Riegler and all other priests in the archdiocese were instructed by Cardinal Justin Rigali to address the findings of the grand jury report this weekend and distribute copies of a letter Rigali wrote to Catholics in the archdiocese condemning the abusers, but defending the responses by Krol and Bevilacqua to the scandal. The letter says the archdiocese responded properly when it learned of abusive priests.