PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
August 15, 2018
By Andrew Goldstein
Former Pittsburgh resident Rich Westwood remembers attending a Catholic service in Florida a number of years ago when the priest began a homily about forgiving church leaders of sexual abuse.
Mr. Westwood walked out of the church and never came back.
“When the priest is up there talking about other priests and says nothing about the victims, that’s where I draw the line,” he said. “Unless you walked in my shoes for 40 some years, you don’t know what it’s like.”
Mr. Westwood, 59, who now lives in North Carolina, said Tuesday in a phone call to the Post-Gazette that the Rev. Ferdinand B. Demsher sexually assaulted him in the late 1960s and early 70s when he served as an altarboy at St. Mary of the Assumption in Lawrenceville.
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