ALLENTOWN (PA)
WHYY
August 19, 2018
By Shai Ben-Yaacov
Several hundred parishioners filled the bright and colorful sanctuary at the Cathedral Church of St. Catharine of Siena in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for Sunday morning mass. It was a worship service like any other, until Monsignor Francis Schoenauer produced a small red folder, opened it, and started reading from a letter. The congregation was expecting this moment, and all eyes were on Schoenauer as he spoke the words of his superior, Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert.
It was a scene that played out in churches across the Diocese of Allentown this weekend. Schlert’s letter, addressed directly to parishioners, is a response to the Pennsylvania grand jury report released Tuesday detailing years of alleged sexual abuse of children by hundreds of priests across six of the state’s eight dioceses, including Allentown.
The long-awaited report named 37 “predator priests” in the diocese, which put out its own list the same day including 15 additional names of priests “credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.”
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