Allentown Diocese, former bishop, sued
Lawsuit is first since release of jury report
A 29-year-old man is suing Allentown Diocese Bishop Alfred Schlert, former Bishop Edward Cullen, a former diocesan priest and a treatment center for priests in a complaint alleging he was sexually molested between the ages of 10 and 12.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Lehigh County Common Pleas Court, alleges that former priest Bruno Tucci groped the man, identified in the lawsuit as “John Doe,” when he was an altar boy at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Nesquehoning between 1999-2001.
Attorneys Gerald J. Williams of Philadelphia, Michelle Simpson Tuegel of Dallas and Muhammad S. Aziz of Houston, who represent John Doe, said during a news conference in Philadelphia that the suit was the first seeking monetary damages that is based on information contained in the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy abuse released this summer.
“Tucci’s story is one of the worst outlined by the grand jury in August for a whole number of reasons,” Mr. Williams said.
Mr. Tucci was among the 301 priests named in the grand jury report that said more than 1,000 Pennsylvanians had been victimized by priests as children over
the past several decades. Unlike the vast majority of cases in the report, the new complaint appears to fall within Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations.
The Allentown Diocese in a statement noted that Mr. Tucci was removed from the priesthood more than 16 years ago. Since becoming bishop last year, Bishop Schlert has immediately removed priests accused of abuse and notified law enforcement, the statement said.
“Abuse is abhorrent and has no place in the church. Bishop Schlert has apologized to victims and has set a clear tone of zero tolerance, and of keeping children safe,” the statement said.
Former bishop Cullen could not be reached for comment Monday. A call to the Rev. David Fitzgerald, director of the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete, where Mr. Tucci was allegedly treated, was not returned. A number for Mr. Tucci could not be located.
The diocese became aware of allegations against Mr. Tucci in 1991, the grand jury report said. By then, he had been a priest for 20 years. The diocese sent Mr. Tucci to a treatment center that wasn’t qualified to treat pedophiles and returned him to ministry in Carbon County, where he remained until 2002, the suit says.
Mr. Williams said the grand jury report prompted his client to come forward after struggling with the effects of his abuse for nearly two decades. He has not reported his abuse to law enforcement.
“I can tell you he is a broken young man,” Mr. Williams said. “He veers from despair to anger to depression over his experience.”
The lawsuit claims John Doe’s sexual abuse resulted in chronic mental health issues, drug addiction and alcoholism. The trauma negatively affected his academic performance and caused him to act out in destructive ways, including conduct that led to his arrest and conviction on drug-related charges in 2012, the suit said.
Ms. Tuegel noted their client is unusual among victims of clergy abuse because his claims remain within the statute of limitations. She spoke about stalled efforts in the Pennsylvania Legislature to extend the time for victims to sue and to reopen the opportunity for those who missed their chance.
“It’s really unfortunate that he is 29 years old, and if he was just a few years older, we would not be filing this lawsuit without a change in the law,” Ms. Tuegel said.
According to the report, a man called the diocesan offices in 1991 and said he was 14 years old when Mr. Tucci sexually touched him at least three times.
When confronted by church officials, Mr. Tucci admitted the abuse, but downplayed it, saying it was “just touching” and not “sodomy,” said the report, which was largely based on the church’s once-secret archives.
“The diocese did worse than nothing in that case,” Mr. Williams said.
The diocese sent Mr. Tucci to a facility for priests with personal problems, the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, N.M.
Employees at the institution were not licensed professionals, the lawsuit said. The attorneys contend the congregation was negligent because it returned pedophiles like Mr. Tucci to places where they had contact with children.
“They facilitated what was really a kind of despicable cover-up by the diocese,” Mr. Williams said.
After a year, the diocese returned Mr. Tucci to two parishes in Nesquehoning, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Immaculate Conception, the grand jury report said.
Despite the man who spoke out in 1991 again complaining about Mr. Tucci’s public work for the diocese, Mr. Tucci remained in ministry during the time when John Doe says he was abused.
The lawsuit says Mr. Tucci had skin-to-skin contact with John Doe and once told the boy to put his arms out “like Jesus on the cross,” undid his pants and fondled him.
Meanwhile, Father Cullen had become bishop and knew about multiple examples of abusive priests but kept the information concealed.
At the same time, Bishop Schlert was vicar general, or chief assistant, to Bishop Cullen. As such, he was directly involved in investigations of sex abuse by priests, the complaint said.
Mr. Tucci remained in ministry until 2002, when he retired. He asked to be defrocked in 2005 and was formally removed as a priest in 2007, the report said.
According to the report, another victim wrote the diocese in 2002 after news about priest sex abuse in Boston went viral. He said Mr. Tucci molested him between 1977-78, when he was assigned to Most Blessed Sacrament parish in Bally and teaching at Holy Name High School in Reading.
A police investigation in 2013 found that Mr. Tucci took a boy to a motel or private residence in Ocean City, Md., in August 1981 and sexually assaulted him. That led to the filing of two sex assault charges against him, but charges were dropped in August 2013, court records in Maryland show.