WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
November 1, 2018
By Mark Pattison
When Father David Poulson of the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty Oct. 17 to felony counts in connection with sexual assaults against one boy and the attempted assault of another boy, Jim VanSickle was there to witness it.
VanSickle, 52, said Poulson assaulted him when he was a teenager.
“It was very rewarding for me in the sense that I was able to look at him (and) watch him plead guilty to sexual charges,” VanSickle told Catholic News Service in an Oct. 31 telephone interview from Pittsburgh, where he now lives.
According to VanSickle, Poulson was one of just two priests – out of 301 clerics and other church workers named in the August Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sex abuse claims in six Pennsylvania dioceses – to be subject to criminal charges for abuse committed within the state’s statute of limitations.
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