Diocese removes online video containing abuse victim’s photo
Image was included in promotional piece for St. Paul Seminary
When John Lestitian saw the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s online story this week detailing a former Catholic priest’s years of sexual abuse of Tim Bendig, a former fellow seminarian with Mr. Lestitian, he was enraged.
His anger was not only because of the details of the abuse but also because about two months earlier, after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s report on clergy sexual abuse was released, Mr. Lestitian stumbled upon a video the Pittsburgh Diocese had on its website and on YouTube promoting St. Paul Seminary in East Carnegie.
As he was watching the yearold video extolling the virtues of the seminary’s 53-year history, at the 1 minute and 50 second mark, he saw a familiar black-and-white picture taken in fall 1987 of thenBishop Anthony Bevilacqua and bishop-in-waiting Donald Wuerl, standing in a posed photo with all the diocesan members of the seminary.
Not only did Mr. Lestitian see himself in the photo, standing just above Bevilacqua — who died in 2012 — he saw his former classmate, Mr. Bendig, standing two people to the left of Bevilacqua.
“I found it cold. I found it improper. I found it callous that the diocese would put together and post a promotional video of the seminary and use a photo that includes a boy who had been victimized by a priest,” said Mr. Lestitian, who left the seminary before graduating and now works in local government in Maryland.
Mr. Bendig said he did not know about the diocese using the photo in the video until the PostGazette called to ask him about it after Mr. Lestitian first pointed it out. He, too, was enraged.
“I’m offended” by the diocese’s
use of the photo, Mr. Bendig said. “I feel like it’s another smack in the face by the church.”
As detailed in the PostGazette’s story this past week that looked at the abuse of three men by the late former priest Anthony Cipolla, Mr. Bendig was abused by Cipolla more than 100 times over four years in the 1980s. He finally sued the diocese in 1990 and later settled out of court with the church for nearly $1 million. Ever since then, he has been a proponent for victims of sexual abuse, speaking out regularly against the diocese’s treatment and pushing it to be more open.
Asked about the video Friday morning, diocese spokeswoman Ann Rodgers said it was an “inadvertent” mistake by the makers of the video.
“We are deeply sorry for any hurt that it has caused,” she said.
The diocese took the video off its website immediately Friday morning after the Post-Gazette asked about it, and also removed it from YouTube, where it had been viewed nearly 600 times since it was first posted in October last year.
Ms. Rodgers said the video was produced last year by seminarians at St. Paul who had no idea who was in the photo beyond the two future cardinals, and simply got the photo from the diocese’s archives.
Mr. Bendig did not accept that explanation.
“I don’t buy their story,” he said Friday. “Someone at the diocese approved using that photo. You can’t tell me they don’t know who everyone was in that photo.
“I’m pleased to know they removed it immediately,” he said. “But it never should have been up in the first place.”