Questions raised about investigation into clergy sex abuse in PA.

By John Clay
WTAJ
October 26, 2018

https://www.wearecentralpa.com/news/questions-raised-about-investigation-into-clergy-sex-abuse-in-pa/1553336989

SNAP, the Survivors Network, representing victims of sex abuse at the hands of Catholic priests is interested in a Department of Justice investigation. They are particularly interested in the actions of Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh. 

Here's the release from SNAP:

Today it was learned that the U.S. Department of Justice has put every US diocese under notice to not destroy, discard, dispose of, delete, or alter any? documents related to the sexual abuse of children as they investigate ?possible violations of federal law.?  The letter, addressed to Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is significant because it covers not only the state of Pennsylvania, where the D.O.J. has officially launched a federal probe, but across the entire U.S.

One Pennsylvania bishop likely at the center of the current federal investigation is Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh. Zubik has a long history in Pittsburgh.  According to the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, as Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar of Clergy under Archbishop Daniel Wuerl, Zubik was involved in covering up child sex abuse.  

Zubik was promoted to bishop of the Green Bay diocese in 2003. While in Wisconsin, court records show that Zubik systematically destroyed nearly all criminal evidence of abuse and cover up from that diocese relating to at least 51 known sex offenders. In fact, Zubik?s reissued the order for the shredding the day before the Vatican announced he would leave Green Bay and return to run the Pittsburgh diocese in 2007.  At the time SNAP issued a letter for a federal investigation of the document destruction.

The Wisconsin document destruction was clearly timed around a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that dioceses in Wisconsin could be sued in civil court for fraud for covering up child sex abuse.  Among the most critical records Zubik destroyed were from church run ?treatment? facilities, which often contain the most detailed evidence and admissions of criminal conduct and the administrative decisions to cover up of those crimes and reassign offenders.  Treatment records are among the specific documents the Federal Prosecutor in Pennsylvania has ordered the dioceses not to destroy and turn over to federal authorities.

Zubik?s conduct raises a set of troubling questions that need answers: Did Zubik destroy documents in Pittsburgh? If not, why did he do so in Green Bay? It is difficult to believe that in destroying criminal and civil court evidence of child sex abuse that Zubik did not violate federal laws, since many of these offenders were moved across state lines. That is why a federal investigation needs to be launched not only in Pennsylvania concerning Zubik?s conduct but also in Wisconsin.