Bevilacqua Arranges Post-Treatment Position
for Ferraro | Page 1
January 16, 1981
Auxiliary Bishop Anthony J. Bevilacqua, Chancellor of the Brooklyn diocese under
Bishop Francis J. Mugavero, writes to Auxiliary Bishop John N. Worm, Chancellor
of the St. Louis archdiocese under Archbishop John L. May, thanking Wurm for
"all of your assistance in finding an assignment for Father Romano Ferraro,"
who had been in treatment at the House of Affirmation in Webster Groves MO.
This will enable Ferraro to get the counseling he "still has need of."
Bevilacqua specifies the assignments that St. Louis is providing at two hospitals
and his residency at St. Joan of Arc church in St. Louis. The Senior Chaplain
and the pastor [Msgr. James E. Pieper, who was also archdiocesan vice-officialis]
will supervise Ferraro. Bevilacqua and Mugavero would also like to be of assistance
to Wurm and May.
Ferraro was known by the Brooklyn diocese to be a sex offender at least since his 1971 dishonorable discharge from a Navy chaplaincy, and has been accused of sexually abusing at least three boys in St. Louis at the assignments that Bevilacqua arranged.
For Bevilacqua and abuse cases in the Philadelphia archdiocese when he was cardinal archbishop, see the analysis of Bevilacqua in the Philadelphia Grand Jury Report. See also the report's analysis of Bevilacqua's handling of the Connor case when he was bishop of Pittsburgh. The report provides copies of 31 archdiocesan documents, many of them bearing on Bevilacqua's handling of abuse cases.
[See our detailed assignment record for Ferraro with links to documents and articles. See also a PDF of this Bevilacqua letter.]
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