YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
August 24, 2018
By Mike Argento
“The church was our life,” Bortz said. “We didn’t do anything that didn’t involve the church. It was our life.”
When she was in ninth grade at Allentown Central Catholic High School, her religion teacher was Father Francis “Frank” Fromholzer. She didn’t know him very well; she was more acquainted with the priests who were friends of the family. At one point, Fromholzer suggested taking Bortz and her best friend on a trip to the Poconos. It wasn’t all that unusual, Bortz said. Priests were always taking kids from the parish on outings, such as roller skating or bowling; for many of the kids from working-class and troubled families, it was a treat that their own families could ill afford.
While driving to the Poconos, according to testimony by Bortz and her friend to the grand jury, Fromholzer fondled the girls. In the Poconos, Bortz recalled, the priest laid out a blanket and started kissing her. He did other things. She recalled it hurt, she told the grand jury. “It was confusing,” she told the grand jury, “because – you were always told you were going to hell if you let anybody touch you. But then you’ve got father doing it…”
Fromholzer, according to her grand jury testimony, continued to harass her through the ninth grade. It stopped, she told the grand jury, when she entered 10th grade and was in a different building. She didn’t report the abuse immediately. It just wasn’t something you talked about, she said.
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