WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin
Pastor under police investigation in Wauwatosa illustrates archdiocese control over religious orders
March 31, 2013
Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575
The removal from ministry Friday of Fr. Bob Marsicek, Pastor of Pius X parish in Wauwatosa, by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki illustrates perfectly and conclusively that the archdiocese has control over religious order clerics. Marsicek, a member of the Salvatorians, is under a current police investigation and has been ordered to stay away from Pius X parish and its school. The Salvatorians have their international headquarters in Milwaukee.
Why is this important?
Because over half the clerics working in archdiocesan parishes, schools and ministries are members of religious orders like the one to which Marsicek belongs. In fact, three of Marsicek’s fellow Salvatorians have been convicted of child sex crimes in Milwaukee: Fr. Dennis Pecore, Fr. Simon Palanthingal and Br. John Rice.
The Milwaukee Archdiocese has traditionally been a sanctuary for religious order sex offender clerics, actively concealing their criminal histories. A particularly glaring example was the notorious pedophile nun, Sr. Norma Giannini, a Sister of Mercy, who was convicted in Milwaukee of child sex crimes in 2008, even though the archdiocese had investigated and determined Giannini had committed multiple acts of child sex assault against several boys years earlier as the principal of St. Patrick’s Catholic Grade School on the South Side.
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