PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A Pittsburgh lawyer is blasting the Altoona-Johnstown bishop, saying his public silence about a sexually abusive friar wrongly shifted blame to his client — a high school principal — and contributed to his leaving his job in 2013.
The comments about Bishop Mark Bartchak by George Bills, attorney for former Bishop McCort Catholic High School principal Ken Salem, came days after a state grand jury report that led to criminal charges against three Franciscan priests. They are charged with endangering the welfare of children and criminal conspiracy for allowing Brother Stephen Baker to work at the Johnstown school and elsewhere despite warnings about his behavior.
The priests, the Very Rev. Giles Schinelli, Robert J. D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli — who between 1986 and 2010 led the Hollidaysburg-based religious province that Baker belonged to — were placed on leave from ministry by the order after the charges were announced. D’Aversa had been a pastor in Florida, Schinelli had led a retreat center in that state, and Criscitelli was a pastor in Minnesota. They are expected to be arraigned today.
Baker committed suicide in January 2013 at the province’s Hollidaysburg monastery when the enormity of his crimes began to become public with news of legal settlements with his victims. Soon afterward, the school’s board suspended Mr. Salem. He resigned in mid-2013.
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