PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA-TV CBS Channel 2
July 19, 2018
When Jim Van Sickle was a boy, he suffered serial sexual abuse at the hands of a priest named David Poulson, but it would be 36 years before Van Sickle would come forward.
“Deep shame. Guilt. Fear of exposure,” he said.
In May, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro criminally charged Poulson with the assistance of the Diocese of Erie, which has been in the forefront of exposing the actions of its own priests and lay educators.
Erie Bishop Lawrence Persico is the only bishop to testify in front of Shapiro’s grand jury investigating decades of sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Greensburg.
While a dozen priests are fighting to block the release of the grand jury report to protect their identities, Persico hasn’t waited.
To that end, the diocese has posted on its website a public disclosure list with the names of all 64 priests and religious with credible allegations of sexual abuse lodged against them.
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