PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
February 24, 2019
By Ashley Murray
The day before a meeting of bishops convened Thursday in Rome to discuss clergy sex abuse, Jim VanSickle made his way to the front of Pope Francis’ weekly address and handed a letter to an aide.
“I wrote on it in Italian that I was a survivor of [clergy] sexual abuse in Pennsylvania,” Mr. VanSickle, 55, said Sunday from Rome. “Only time will tell if he actually reads it, or it finds its way to a garbage can.”
The Coraopolis, Pa., resident shared a collective disappointment with other survivors as Pope Francis concluded the four-day summit with “a lot of rhetoric” rather than concrete actions.
“Even though they’re now talking about [clergy abuse] as crimes, they’re not talking about changing internal procedures,” John Faluszczak, a former priest in the Diocese of Erie and a clergy abuse survivor who also was in Rome, said. “That’s kind of concerning.”
Pope declares ‘all-out battle’ against clergy abuse, but ends summit with no concrete reforms
The meeting called more than 100 top Roman Catholic bishops from around the world Thursday through Sunday for the unprecedented summit.
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