PA- Pittsburgh Catholic officials must do more

By David Clohessy
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
May 7, 2014

http://www.snapnetwork.org/pa_pittsburgh_catholic_officials_must_do_more

We admire and appreciate the courage of North Catholic alums who are reporting having been sexually assaulted as children by four Catholic clerics. Their bravery is to be commended. Because they spoke up, three names of predators have now been exposed. 

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2014/05/06/abuse-allegations-prompts-diocese-to-send-letter-to-north-catholic-alumni/

While we are glad Pittsburgh Catholic officials did outreach to alums, diocese staff should immediately:

– disclose the name and whereabouts of the fourth accused cleric, and

– post on their website the names of dozens of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics – especially those who are still living and may be hurting other kids right now.

It's easy to disclose allegations against deceased child molesting clerics. It's much harder-and more important-to disclose who and where living child molesting clerics are. Pittsburgh's bishop should do this immediately, and post this information on his website, as 30 of his colleagues have done.

One of the accused from North Catholic allegedly now lives in Australia. He almost certainly lives or works among unsuspecting and vulnerable families (because child molesting clerics are rarely jailed or kept away from kids). We urge Pittsburgh Catholic officials to use every means possible to warn those parents about this cleric. The first step in this process is simply to disclose his name.

It's worth noting that this action by Pittsburgh Catholic officials was taken only after SNAP publicly prodded them to reach out to victims of Brother Hartman.

Before we raised concerns and contacted journalists, the bishop and the diocese apparently said and did nothing about Brother Hartman.

We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Pittsburgh – whether in a school or parish 0 – will come forward, get help, call police, expose wrongdoers and start healing.

Finally, we find it very hard to believe that Pittsburgh Catholic officials had no records about the conviction of a child molesting cleric in their diocese.

A copy of the most recent letter sent by the Diocese of Pittsburgh is below.