A 14-year-old document in the archives of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh contradicts Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s claim to have known nothing until last year of rumored sexual misconduct claims against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick — the man he would replace as archbishop of Washington.
In fact, then-Bishop Wuerl knew of more than rumors.
In November 2004, a former priest came to Pittsburgh from New Jersey and presented a formal statement to the independent review board that handles accusations against the diocese’s priests. In it, he identified then-Cardinal McCarrick as having committed sexual misconduct against him as an adult.
Then-Bishop Wuerl learned about the allegation immediately and, within days, reported it directly to the Vatican ambassador to the United States, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has confirmed.
The former priest, Robert Ciolek, said by phone Friday that when he saw the 2004 Wuerl memo in a December 2018 review of his case file at the Pittsburgh diocese, his first reaction was: “My God, he actually did share this with the papal nuncio. He did the right thing.”
But Mr. Ciolek said Cardinal Wuerl is undercutting that record by “lying” since then about what he knew and when.
“All that is diminished by the fact that he spent the last five months denying any knowledge” of allegations against Archbishop McCarrick, he said.
Mr. Ciolek also questioned whether Cardinal Wuerl, after becoming Washington archbishop in 2006, ever followed up with the Vatican about the status of any investigation, or took any steps to safeguard other seminarians in the proximity of his predecessor.
“Now that we know you knew, what did you do about it?” Mr. Ciolek asked rhetorically.
The Washington Post first reported Thursday that Mr. Ciolek’s accusation did reach then-Bishop Wuerl in 2004.
Cardinal Wuerl is standing by past statements denying knowledge of rumored misconduct by Archbishop McCarrick, saying he was referring to alleged abuse of minors, not adults, although one such denial came in response to a question about both. He said his words were “not intended to be imprecise.”
In June, Archbishop McCarrick was barred from public ministry and soon relinquished his title as cardinal.
Church officials disclosed then that Archbishop McCarrick was credibly accused of sexually molesting a boy decades earlier and that two New Jersey dioceses had reached financial settlements with two men reporting sexual misconduct toward them when they were adults.
The scandal brought to the surface complaints that church officials had ignored years of rumors that Archbishop McCarrick was sexually exploiting and harassing adult seminarians.
The accusation against Archbishop McCarrick reached then-Bishop Wuerl in Pittsburgh — two years before the latter became archbishop of Washington in 2006 — by happenstance.
Mr. Ciolek, a former priest of the Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., and now a lawyer in New Jersey, visited Pittsburgh in 2004 to tell the independent review board that he had been subjected to sexual misconduct by a Pittsburgh priest when Mr. Ciolek was an adult seminarian in Maryland. That alleged perpetrator, who has not been publicly identified, was removed from ministry, the Pittsburgh diocese has confirmed.
In his statement to the review board, Mr. Ciolek also told of sexual misconduct toward him by two others not under the Pittsburgh diocese’s supervision: a New Jersey high school teacher when Mr. Ciolek was a minor and Archbishop McCarrick when he was an adult seminarian.
A statement by the Diocese of Pittsburgh, issued this week after Mr. Ciolek went public with what he learned from the diocese’s archives, confirmed that then-Bishop Wuerl reported the accusation to the Vatican’s nuncio (ambassador).
Mr. Ciolek again visited Pittsburgh in December after receiving diocesan permission to review files in his case.
It was in those files that he found then Bishop Wuerl’s internal memo, recording that he met with the papal nuncio, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, and presented the report on Archbishop McCarrick.
Questions about what Cardinal Wuerl knew, and when, about Archbishop McCarrick helped spur Cardinal Wuerl’s resignation as archbishop of Washington, accepted reluctantly by Pope Francis in October.
Cardinal Wuerl also was criticized in a Pennsylvania grand jury report, released Aug. 14, that assailed his reputation in Pittsburgh as one of the first Catholic bishops to crack down on sexually abusive clergy.
Cardinal Wuerl remains as administrator of the Washington archdiocese pending a replacement. He retains powerful roles on the College of Cardinals, which elects popes, and the Congregation for Bishops, which recommends appointments of bishops.
In July, Cardinal Wuerl gave an interview to the Catholic Standard, a publication of the Washington archdiocese. Asked specifically about the New Jersey dioceses’ settlements over Archbishop McCarrick’s misconduct with adult seminarians, and of further rumors of misconduct, Cardinal Wuerl said: “But in my years here in Washington and even before that, I had not heard them. With rumors — especially old rumors going back 30, 40, even 50 years — there is not much we can do unless people come forward to share what they know or what they experienced.”
Cardinal Wuerl also said then: It is important “to have the fullest picture of the claims against Archbishop McCarrick. We are seeing some brave survivors step forward to speak to the media, and share their stories. This is a good first step, but I would hope these individuals and any others with claims of abuse would come forward and speak with church authorities.”
Mr. Ciolek said there was no justification for such statements, given that he did indeed come forward and tell his story to church officials years before he went to the press, and that Cardinal Wuerl was replying to a question about his predecessor’s rumored conduct toward adults, not just children.
In a statement issued Thursday, the Archdiocese of Washington said Cardinal Wuerl’s “statements previously referred to claims of sexual abuse of a minor by Archbishop McCarrick, as well as rumors of such behavior. The Cardinal stands by those statements, which were not intended to be imprecise.”
Mr. Ciolek authorized the Pittsburgh diocese in November to respond to press inquiries about the matter.
Mr. Ciolek said Cardinal Wuerl needs to correct the record publicly about what he knew and when. He said he recently sought a meeting with Cardinal Wuerl but that the archdiocese’s legal team set numerous conditions, such as forbidding interview-type questions, and that it fell through.
He said he wanted the cardinal “to realize how his lying is hurting me.”
Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416; Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.
First Published: January 11, 2019, 11:53 p.m.