Filing: Delaying release of report by grand jury adds to trauma

Investigation of alleged sexual abuse by clergy

HARRISBURG — By delaying release of a long-awaited grand jury report, the state Supreme Court is retraumatizing victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, according to a Friday court filing by a Lancaster County man who said he testified to the grand jury on being abused by a priest.

Todd Frey filed a petition with the top court on Friday, seeking to intervene and urge the court to reverse its June 20 order keeping a seal on the voluminous report into decades of abuse in six Catholic dioceses.

The court delayed the scheduled release of the report last month while it hears challenges from about two dozen people, including current and former clergy members. They claim they are falsely accused in it and are being deprived of due process to defend their constitutional right to a good reputation.

“The emotional trauma of being silenced as a youth is now exacerbated by the [Supreme] Court’s June 20 order, which replicates and continues that silencing,” said the court filing on Mr. Frey’s behalf. “For his sake and other victims like him, Mr. Frey now seeks to intervene in order to pursue a lifting of the stay” on the report’s release.

Mr. Frey is seeking court permission to intervene alongside media organizations seeking release of the report.

He said he was abused as a boy by the Rev. Guy Marsico in the 1980s and told the Diocese of Harrisburg about it, “but the diocese did not report that abuse to legal authorities,” said the filing submitted Friday on Mr. Frey’s behalf by Philadelphia attorney Charles Becker. “Members and employees of the diocese instead told him to stay quiet.”

Mr. Frey quoted Pope Francis from his 2015 visit to Philadelphia, apologizing to victims of abuse and pledging such crimes should “no longer be kept secret.”

The grand jury report is based on a two-year investigation into decades of alleged clergy sexual abuse and cover-up in six Catholic dioceses — Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Erie, Harrisburg, Allentown and Scranton.

In a busy day of Supreme Court filings on Friday, lawyers for nine news outlets argued that state law requires the public release of the report. And the court set a series of deadlines in mid- to late July for the petitioners and the attorney general’s office to make their cases in writing.

In his filing, Mr. Frey said he testified before the 40th statewide grand jury and now worries that the exercise was for naught.

“While the statutes of limitations ran [out] long ago on any criminal or civil remedy for what was done to him, Mr. Frey found testifying to be a validating and important experience — proof that the levels of power had heard him and were taking seriously ... what had been done to him and so many others,” the petition said.

He said he was a shy boy of about 13, considering the priesthood himself, when Father