PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post-Gazette
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Three advocates for victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests met with Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. yesterday, asking for a grand jury investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.
The meeting came on the heels of a Philadelphia grand jury report that castigated the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for past failure to remove such priests, though the cases were too old to prosecute.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a national group, pointed out that Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, archbishop of Philadelphia from 1988 to 2003, was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1983 to 1988.
"Only the most naive would believe that abuse, deceit and cover-up in Pittsburgh's Catholic hierarchy suddenly and magically ended with Bevilacqua's departure," said a letter that activists presented to Zappala. They held a news conference outside the courthouse after earlier leafletting outside St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland, and Zappala invited them in.