What follows is an excerpt from an article that suggests that being abused by clergy often leads to substance abuse and addiction. Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Stephen Huba, a reporter for Trib Live, writes:
A group of Catholic lay people and clergy is calling on Greensburg Bishop Edward C. Malesic and other church hierarchs to acknowledge that the clergy sexual abuse scandal is feeding the opioid epidemic.
“He’s got to take some responsibility,” said Tom Venditti, founder of Faithful Catholics Against Pedophilia.
Venditti of Bolivar said he founded FCAP earlier this year to help victims of clergy sexual abuse and encourage them to stay in the Catholic Church.
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Venditti said he wanted to address “Malesic’s failure to acknowledge clerical sexual abuse as a doorway to heroin abuse and death.”
“We’re here specifically because one of the things you’re not going to hear tonight … is that the majority of victims of clergy sexual abuse become addicts, whether it’s to alcohol or heroin or other hard drugs,” he said.
Venditti said he supports Malesic’s push to involve the Catholic Church in solutions to the opioid epidemic but that more is needed. He said bishops should call on priests accused of sexual abuse to repent and resign.
“These men are not going to get to heaven if they don’t repent,” he said.
Malesic did not respond to Venditti’s claims, but diocesan spokesman Jerry Zufelt said, “The diocese is doing everything it can to protect its children, young adults and vulnerable adults from the evils of abuse.”
About FCAP, Zufelt said, “We support anybody who is working to help abuse survivors.”
Venditti cited two recent cases — one involving a retired priest in the Diocese of Greensburg and one involving a priest in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown — as proof that the problem of clergy sexual abuse is still not being handled effectively.
He alleged that a recent overdose victim in Johnstown had been sexually abused by Brother Stephen Baker, a Franciscan friar accused of abusing students at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown from 1992 to 2001. Three Franciscan superiors were indicted in 2016 in connection with the case.
Baker was found dead of apparent suicide at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Jan. 26, 2013, days after the announcement of a multimillion-dollar settlement with his accusers. He was first accused of sexual abuse in 1988, but his superiors never reported allegations to police.
“All of the victims of clergy sexual abuse that I’ve dealt with are either suicidal or addicted to drugs or alcohol — every single one of them,” Venditti said.
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