HARRISBURG (PA)
The Daily Item
August 9, 2018
By Rick Dandes
A former altar boy, alleging sexual abuse by a priest over a three-year period beginning in 1999, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against John G. Allen, a defrocked priest who formerly served in the Valley, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg.
The altar boy, now a 29-year-old Maryland man identified only as “John Doe,” contends in the lawsuit that former Bishop of the Harrisburg Diocese, William Keeler, “failed to take any meaningful action to prevent Allen from having access to children. … and was allowed to remain a priest in the Harrisburg Diocese where he continued to sexually assault children over the course of several years.”
The lawsuit, filed in Dauphin County Court, comes in advance of a soon-to-be released Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Allen is one of 72 priests and church personnel — some of whom are now dead — already publicly reported by the Harrisburg diocese as having been accused of sexually abusing children.
Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Mike Barley, spokesman for the Diocese of Harrisburg said on Thursday, “We are still reviewing a copy of the lawsuit, so it would not be appropriate for us to comment on it at this time. With that being said, John Allen was included on our list of Clergy & Seminarians Accused of Sexual Assault of a Child released last week. The Diocese of Harrisburg would again pass on our most sincere apologies to the survivors of child sexual abuse, the Catholic faithful, and the general public for any abuses that occurred.”
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