LAFAYETTE (LA)
The Acadian Advocate
August 16, 2018
By Ben Myers
A former priest named this week in the sweeping Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse in Catholic Church was transferred to the Diocese of Lafayette in the 1990s.
Details concerning the transfer and other key points of Father John Bostwick’s tenure are sketchy, and the grand jury report leaves some to the imagination. Foremost among the unresolved questions are whether church officials knew about the allegations prior to the transfer.
What’s certain is that Bostwick transferred to Lafayette in 1992, and that he was removed in 1996 while serving as administrator at Assumption Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Franklin. Bostwick’s removal came just as sexual abuse allegations against him surfaced from the previous decade.
Three years before the transfer to Lafayette, Bishop Walter Sullivan of the Richmond, Virginia, diocese recommended that Bostwick receive psychological counseling. The recommendation came in a letter to the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Bostwick was a member of the Diocese of Richmond but worked part time in Harrisburg from 1976 to 1990, according to the grand jury report. He refused to get counseling, but nonetheless received official permission to minister outside Richmond in 1990. He was transferred to Lafayette less than two years later.
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