PA--Ex-Pittsburgh cleric sentenced for abuse

For immediate release: Friday, July 24

Statement by Judy Jones of St. Louis, Midwest Associate Midwest Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 974 5003, [email protected])

A Catholic cleric who abused in Pittsburgh has been sentenced for other child sex crimes in Australia. Now, Pittsburgh church officials should insist that his religious order publicly disclose other child molesting clerics. And they should do more to find and help others he’s hurt.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/catholic-brother-bernard-hartman-jailed-for-three-years-over-sex-attacks-on-children-in-1970s-and-1980s/story-fni0fee2-1227455355954   

http://www.thepublicopinion.com/news/associated_press/national/asia/cleric-suspected-of-child-abuse-in-us-jailed-in-australia/article_f0be3a90-5681-57bd-aace-f43dfa8071e6.html

Brother Bernard Hartman, a member of the St. Louis-based Marianists, will serve three years in jail for assaulting girls in Australia. He also faces a credible accusation of molesting a Pittsburgh child.

Hartman is one of nine clerics accused of molesting kids at a Pittsburgh school and one of at least 31 US Marianists who are accused of molesting 157 victims.

Catholic officials are still hiding the names of most of those nine who hurt kids at North Catholic High School (which recently became Cardinal Wuerl High School).

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/6254673-74/catholic-north-abuse#axzz3CcmtI7Tu

We strongly suspect there are other boys and girls sexually victimized by Hartman and other Marianists – in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri and Australia; and we suspect that some of them are still suffering in shame, silence and self-blame.

That’s why Bishop David Zubik should reach out aggressively to anyone who may have experienced, witnessed or suspected abuse by Marianists, a notoriously secretive Catholic religious order. He should personally visit every parish where they worked to ask Catholics to ask their loved ones if they have been harmed by clergy.  Church officials recruited, educated, hired, ordained, supervised, transferred and shielded these predators for decades.  Their obligation to warn parents about and protect children from these men does not end if or when the criminals are jailed for a short time.

We beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Pittsburgh – by Marianists or others – to call police, protect kids, expose wrongdoers and deter cover ups.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Dorris (314-503-0003 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747,[email protected])