Now-deceased Priest Who Had Elk Co. Ties Accused of Abuse

Bradford Era
March 30, 2018

http://www.bradfordera.com/news/now-deceased-priest-who-had-elk-co-ties-accused-of/article_1fef4732-33af-11e8-961e-4f47e701c018.html

A former priest has publicly named a now-deceased priest, who served in Elk County, as having sexually abused him when he was a teenager in the Erie area.

James Faluszczak, 48, of Buffalo, N.Y., told The Courier-Express of DuBois that the Rev. Monsignor Daniel J. Martin abused him. Martin served as pastor of St. Boniface Parish, Kersey, in 1962, and as headmaster of Elk County Christian — now Elk County Catholic — until 1970. Martin died in 2006 at age 88.

Faluszczak says he was one of many witnesses to testify before a grand jury around September 2016 to investigate sex abuse allegations in dioceses throughout Pennsylvania, according to the Erie-Times News.

Faluszczak said that Martin molested him when he was 16 to 19 years old at St. George and Mount Calvary churches and Mercyhurst College, now Mercyhurst University, in the Erie area. Martin relied on knowledge of the Faluszczak family’s hardships in the 1980s “to groom” him for the alleged abuse, according to The Courier-Express.

“Most people would see this as irony but it’s really pathology,” Faluszczak told the newspaper.

Even though he was abused, Faluszczak became a priest in 1996 and served nearly 20 years in the ministry. He also served, as Martin did, at Elk County Catholic and the St. Boniface Parish in Kersey. Faluszczak also served as a campus minister at Clarion University.