WASHINGTON — Bishop Frank Rodimer and Father Peter Osinski were friends.
Father Osinski was a priest in the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey. Bishop Rodimer was bishop of Paterson, a nearby diocese, from 1978 until 2004.
WASHINGTON — Bishop Frank Rodimer and Father Peter Osinski were friends.
Father Osinski was a priest in the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey. Bishop Rodimer was bishop of Paterson, a nearby diocese, from 1978 until 2004.
For years the men rented a beach house together each summer on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island, south of Seaside and north of Atlantic City. There, for seven years in the 1980s, Father Osinski molested a young boy. The first year it happened, the boy was 7.
The priest was arrested in 1997. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In 1999, the victim settled a lawsuit against the bishop, the priest and the priest’s diocese. Bishop Rodimer was not alleged to have committed sexual abuse, but the suit charged that the bishop had been negligent in failing to recognize what was going on.
In 2002 Bishop Rodimer apologized for failing to prevent the abuse at the beach house. He also acknowledged that he had mishandled other cases of sexual abuse involving priests of his diocese.
At the same time, he defended his decision to allow an admitted child abuser, Father William Cramer, to serve as a hospital chaplain from 1991 to 2002.
For much of his tenure in Pat...
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Rich, MSW