Ex-pittsburgh Cleric Sentenced for Abuse

SNAP
July 24, 2015

http://www.snapnetwork.org/pa_ex-pittsburgh_cleric_sentenced_for_abuse

A Catholic cleric who abused in Pittsburgh has been sentenced for other child sex crimes in Australia. Now, Pittsburgh church officials should insist that his religious order publicly disclose other child molesting clerics. And they should do more to find and help others he’s hurt.

[heraldsun.com.au]

[thepublicopinion.com]

Brother Bernard Hartman, a member of the St. Louis-based Marianists, will serve three years in jail for assaulting girls in Australia. He also faces a credible accusation of molesting a Pittsburgh child.

Hartman is one of nine clerics accused of molesting kids at a Pittsburgh school and one of at least 31 US Marianists who are accused of molesting 157 victims.

Catholic officials are still hiding the names of most of those nine who hurt kids at North Catholic High School (which recently became Cardinal Wuerl High School).

[triblive.com]

We strongly suspect there are other boys and girls sexually victimized by Hartman and other Marianists – in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri and Australia; and we suspect that some of them are still suffering in shame, silence and self-blame.

That’s why Bishop David Zubik should reach out aggressively to anyone who may have experienced, witnessed or suspected abuse by Marianists, a notoriously secretive Catholic religious order. He should personally visit every parish where they worked to ask Catholics to ask their loved ones if they have been harmed by clergy. Church officials recruited, educated, hired, ordained, supervised, transferred and shielded these predators for decades. Their obligation to warn parents about and protect children from these men does not end if or when the criminals are jailed for a short time.

We beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Pittsburgh – by Marianists or others – to call police, protect kids, expose wrongdoers and deter cover ups.