Pittsburgh Tribune(pittsburghlive.com)
06 October 2011
By Jeremy Boren, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Jeremy Boren is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-320-7935 or via e-mail or on Twitter.
“I’ve never heard of a more convoluted series of stories in order to justify these allegations against the bishop,” Beaver County District Attorney Anthony J. Berosh said on Wednesday after Zubik called a morning news conference to simultaneously announce and dispute the allegations.
Zubik, 62, called the accusation “false, offensive and outrageous” and said the man is retaliating against him because church officials rejected his application to participate in liturgical services such as offering Holy Communion and gospel readings.
“The fear of every priest is that someone, sometime, somewhere, somehow, will level a false accusation against him,” Zubik said, referring to the string of lawsuits the Catholic church has found itself defending over the past decade involving charges of sexual assaults by the clergy. “That nightmare has been realized for me.”
According to Zubik, the accuser alleged: “He was the most violent with me. He forced me up against a wall in the chapel and tried to tongue kiss me.”
The Tribune-Review does not identify accusers in sexual assault cases.
Zubik said he decided to speak publicly about the accusation after it appeared in two online blog posts. He said unless he hears otherwise from Vatican officials reviewing the matter at Zubik’s request, he doesn’t plan to alter his daily duties of running the diocese of more than 700,000 Catholics.
The author of the blog entries, who identified himself as a 45-year-old married man, responded to Zubik’s comments in an e-mail to the Trib.
“I stand by my blog!” he wrote. “It is really tough for me and my family right now. I have nothing more to say at this time.”
The man told authorities that he suddenly remembered the incident when he smelled the bishop’s aftershave during a meeting with him on June 1 to discuss other abuse accusations he made against two former priests, including Robert Wolk.
Zubik said he doesn’t believe those allegations, either. He said both priests were guilty of misconduct and removed from the ministry many years ago. Wolk and Richard Zula were convicted of sexually abusing children in 1987.
Instead of discussing the allegations, the man asked Zubik to intercede in a background check so he could serve in the ministry. Zubik refused to interfere, saying the background check turned up “red flags.”
One of those might have occurred in 2004 when the Aliquippa man pleaded guilty to indecent exposure. He faced other charges in the early 1990s including disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and theft. In the 2004 case, New Sewickley police said they caught him masturbating in his car parked outside Freedom Middle School.
“I believe my accuser saw me as part of the process of denying his authorization to serve,” Zubik said.
Zubik worked at Quigley between 1980 and 1987. Several former students in lawsuits accused John Hoehl, the school’s headmaster from 1971 to 1985, of sexually abusing them at the priest’s home and in a cabin on the Youghiogheny River. Officials removed Hoehl from ministry in 1988 and permanently dismissed him in 2004.
In 2010, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a victim support group, accused Zubik of destroying medical records of priests accused of sexually abusing children. The group said it happened when Zubik was bishop in Green Bay, Wis., from 2003 to 2007.
Zubik denied those charges, saying he followed diocesan policy not to destroy priest records.
In the case that came to light yesterday, Zubik said he followed diocesan policy and turned the matter over to Berosh’s office, which interviewed the man last week.
Zubik said he informed the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See of the United States during a meeting last month in Washington, D.C. Information from that meeting was sent to the Vatican and has been turned over to the Diocesan Review Board.
He said making the accusation public was a relief after getting up each morning for the past six weeks with the feeling that a train was bearing down on him.
“That something like this cast a shadow over me is a sad situation, I can’t do anything about that,” he said. “All I can do is come before everybody and hope that people will believe what I have said to be true.”
Brad Phillips of Phillips Media Relations in Washington, D.C., applauded Zubik’s decision to detail the accusation for the public before the story was widely known.
“Generally speaking, people are conditioned to believe people who come out on a story first,” Phillips said. “He got in front of the story, so he helped to control the narrative by making his perspective the controlling one.”
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Details emerge about Bishop Zubik’s accuser
CatholicCulture.org
06 October 2011
The man who has accused Bishop David Zubik of sexually abusing him in the 1980s has the same name, age, and residence as a man convicted of DUI, theft, burglary, and public drunkenness, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette search of criminal records. In 2004, that man also pled guilty to indecent exposure.
“In my opinion there is no basis of law or fact to substantiate the allegations,” said the local district attorney, who called the accusations against Bishop Zubik “offensive.”
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Bishop Zubik ‘emphatically’ denies accusation
Pittsburgh Catholic
Friday, September 30 (?), 2011
by: Robert P. Lockwood
E-mails discussed at news conference Oct. 5
Bishop David Zubik has strenuously denied an accusation made on a website that he had sexually assaulted a student decades ago while he served at Quigley Catholic High School in Baden.
“I emphatically state that no such behavior occurred, nor any semblance of such behavior,” Bishop Zubik said in a statement released at a news conference Oct. 5. “The accusation is false, offensive and outrageous.”
The accusation against Bishop Zubik was made public in a blog that came to the attention of the Diocese of Pittsburgh on Oct. 3, posted by a Beaver County man. He also accused a religious sister of molestation. In addition, he accused his pastor of violating the seal of confession. All of the allegations are vehemently denied.
The accuser first sent two e-mails Aug. 21 to his pastor, in which he began to make a series of progressive accusations. In one of these e-mails, he accused Bishop Zubik of attempting to forcibly kiss him decades ago in the chapel atQuigleyCatholicHigh School. Bishop Zubik served at Quigley Catholic High School from 1980 to 1987.
After the pastor delivered the contents of the e-mails, Bishop Zubik instructed the diocesan assistance coordinator, Rita Flaherty, to contact the accuser after his pastor related the contents of the e-mails to the bishop. The accuser did not respond to phone messages or a letter from Flaherty concerning this accusation.
Even though the accusation was received second hand, Bishop Zubik insisted that it be turned over to the district attorney of Beaver County in accord with diocesan policy. The information was received by the district attorney Sept. 1. Bishop Zubik also directly informed the apostolic nunciature of the Holy See in the United States of the accusation at a meeting in Washington, D.C., Sept. 12. That information was then forwarded to the Vatican. In addition, the accusation has been turned over to the independent Diocesan Review Board.
The diocese had previous contact with the accuser Sept. 10, 2010, when Flaherty responded to the accuser’s allegations that he had been assaulted by two priests, one in 1979 and the other in 1989. The two priests named by the accuser had been dismissed from ministry decades ago. The accuser was offered the opportunity to meet with the bishop at that time. He said he would think about it and only called for an appointment with the bishop in May 2011.
Bishop Zubik’s practice is to meet pastorally with any person claiming to be a victim of abuse by clergy. Bishop Zubik and Flaherty met with the accuser and his wife on June 1, 2011. At that meeting, instead of discussing those accusations, the accuser asked Bishop Zubik to intercede on his behalf in the clearance process required of any person who wishes to volunteer in a Catholic parish in the diocese. The accuser was concerned that, in light of a police record against him, his liturgical service might be in jeopardy. Bishop Zubik stated that he was unable to interfere in that process.
The accusation against Bishop Zubik that was made in late August came after the accuser was informed by his pastor that he was deemed ineligible for liturgical ministry by the Diocesan Examination Board.
In his statement in response to the accuser’s accusation, Bishop Zubik also asked for prayers for his accuser and for himself.
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DA: Zubik allegations have ‘no basis in law or fact’
Beaver Country Times
By Michael Poundmpound@timesonline.com
Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik spent Wednesday morning denying allegations that he tried to kiss a Quigley Catholic High School student while Zubik worked there in the 1980s.
And on Wednesday afternoon, Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh said the accusations, made by Aliquippa resident Michael Rock, were without merit.
Berosh said the diocese contacted his office about Rock’s accusations; an investigation showed that the alleged incident would have occurred outside the established statute of limitations at the time and that there were no facts to support Rock’s contention.
“There is no basis in law or fact to substantiate the allegations,” Berosh said. “(This information) was brought to us by the Diocese of Pittsburgh itself; I believe that says a lot about the integrity of the system.”
Both Berosh and Zubik said Rock’s accusations appeared to be made in retaliation after the diocese turned down Rock’s request to serve a volunteer position at St. Blaise Church in Midland. Rock initially reported he had been molested by two other priests — both now defrocked — and, as per diocese policy, Rock was invited to meet with Zubik in June to discuss those allegations.
“When we met, though, he didn’t appear to be concerned about those incidents as much as he was interested in serving in his parish,” Zubik said. “We were aware that there were some red flags that could come up in the background checks for that position, and he asked me, as the bishop and as a former teacher, if I could override those. I said I could not.”
Zubik would not discuss what the red flags were; a search of court records showed Rock had been accused of several crimes in Beaver and Allegheny counties, including a guilty plea to indecent exposure after a 2004 incident at Freedom Area Middle School.
A diocese review board turned down the accuser’s application in early August; the man responded days later, Zubik said, with emails to his pastor about “taking down someone big in the church” and, later, in public posts on Quigley’s Facebook page and on his blog, titled “Molested by Bishop Zubik.”
Rock, 45, said via email on Wednesday that he had no comment beyond what was written at the website.
Berosh said county detectives tried to contact Rock after the diocese informed him of the allegations. Rock said then he was interested in pursuing a civil suit and would not cooperate with the detectives; late last month, though, Rock showed up at the Beaver County Courthouse to give a statement to detectives.
In that meeting, Berosh said Rock said his memory about the Zubik incident was jogged by smelling Zubik’s aftershave at the June meeting.
“I have never heard of a more convoluted and extenuated series of stories,” Berosh said.
Besides contacting Berosh’s office, the diocese referred the information about Rock’s allegations to the Vatican and an independent review board — which includes law enforcement officials, lawyers and psychiatrists — established by the diocese to review allegations against clergy.
Zubik said he debated whether to go public with Rock’s allegations; the debate ended last weekend, when diocese officials discovered Rock’s blog.
“We were aware this was going on, and I debated the merits of going public, because there were no legal charges or no civil actions,” Zubik said. “But when the blog showed up on Sunday, I thought ‘That’s it. We’re going forward with this.’ “
Zubik said the decision to go public was driven by a desire to protect the church and the priesthood from false accusations.
“I was aware that my reputation would be tarnished here, but I mostly wanted to stand up for the church and my fellow priests,” he said. “We take allegations from anyone very seriously, but at the same time we cannot let ourselves become targets to those who would make false claims.”
Zubik, a graduate of St. Veronica High School in Ambridge, was reluctant Wednesday afternoon to talk about what the charges meant to him personally. But he said he visited his father, 85-year-old Stanley Zubik, on Tuesday night so he would be prepared for Wednesday’s news conference.
“I will be OK,” Zubik said. “More than anything else, I wish my father didn’t have to go through this.”
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Zubik: Assault Accusations ‘False, Offensive, Outrageous’
wpxi.com
Posted: 10:22 am EDT October 5, 2011Updated: 5:55 pm EDT October 5, 2011
PITTSBURGH – Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik has been accused of inappropriate contact with a student while working for a Catholic high school in the 1980s.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Zubik said he would not name the former student, who also accused two other priests of inappropriate contact. Channel 11 News has learned that the accuser is 45-year-old Mike Rock. Rock was a Quigley Catholic High School student in the 1980s when Zubik was the vice principal of the school.
“My accuser alleged, ‘He was the most violent with me. He forced me up against a wall in the chapel and tired to tongue kiss me,’” Zubik told reporters. “I’ll do in any direction I can to help victims but at the same time for anybody to decide to do false accusations to demean priesthood is something I will defend as I’m doing here now.”
“The fear of every priest is that someone, sometime, somewhere, somehow will level a false accusation against him. That nightmare has been realized for me,” Zubik said.
The accuser made the claims after he was denied liturgical service at his parish after a background check, Zubik said.
Zubik called the accusation “false, offensive and outrageous.”
In August, the accuser put information about Zubik being inappropriate towards him on the Quigley High School Facebook page, according to reporter Brandon Hudson. The webmaster saw the information and took it down, Hudson said.
Zubik said he doesn’t feel these are accusations or allegations, rather a threat.
Channel 11′s Jodine Costanzo reported that Rock first went to the Diocese with allegations against two other priests last year. Rock was given the chance to meet with Zubik, but investigators said he didn’t respond until May.
The bishop said during that meeting Rock didn’t talk about the two priests and instead asked him to overturn the background check that prohibited him from working at a local church.
Zubik said after he told Rock that he would not overturn the decision is when Rock posted the accusations against him on Facebook.
The incident has been passed on to the Vatican and Diocesan Review Board for review. Zubik also passed the matter on to the Beaver County district attorney, who also held a new conference on Wednesday to discuss the investigation.
“In my opinion there is no base of law or fact to substantiate this claim,” said Beaver County district attorney Tony Berosh.
Berosh said Rock never came to police and never reported the alleged assault by Zubik and began investigating when the Diocese contacting him.
“He’s making these allegations and not coming to us and telling us what happened. That speaks volumes for what he has to say,” said Berosh.
Berosh said that the Bishop did nothing wrong and said Rock has a lengthy criminal record with charges including burglary, indecent exposure and open lewdness.
The district attorney said they conducted an investigation even though the statue of limitations was up. Berosh said Rock was hard to reach and was not cooperative. When Rock finally responded, Berosh said he told him that he was represented by council civilly and was going to handle matters in his own fashion.
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Zubik denies allegation he molested student decades ago
post-gazette.com
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Larry Roberts/Post-Gazette
Bishop David Zubik on Wednesday talked about charges made against him alleging he had inappropirate conduct with a student while vice principal at Quigley Catholic High School in the mid-1980s.
Bishop David Zubik of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh called a news conference Wednesday morning to announce that he had been falsely accused of molesting a minor decades ago.
“The fear of every priest is that someone, sometime, somewhere, somehow will level a false accusation against him. That nightmare has been realized for me,” he said. “I emphatically state no such behavior occurred, nor any semblance of such behavior. The accusation is false, offensive and outrageous.”
Nevertheless, the bishop said, he reported it weeks ago to the Beaver County District Attorney, to the Vatican and, more recently, to the review board that evaluates all accusations of sexual abuse against clergy of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. That board will report its findings to the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C., he said.
Unless the Vatican tells him otherwise, Bishop Zubik said, he intends to continue his duties.
Bishop Zubik said he decided he had to address it because it was in the public domain.
The accusation stems from the bishop’s tenure as vice-principal at Quigley in the 1980s, when his accuser was a student there. According to the bishop, the former student, whose blog says he is now 45, made the accusation against him in late August after being denied permission to serve as a parish volunteer because of information revealed on a background check required of all parish volunteers.
The bishop said he could not reveal the contents of the background check because everyone who takes it is promised confidentiality
A Post-Gazette reporter was alerted to the blog post on Monday and attempted to e-mail its author with questions. The accuser declined, saying he was going to be interviewed by Nancy Grace of CNN in three weeks.
On his blog post he said he originally went to the diocese with allegations that he had been molested by two other priests. One that he named was the former Rev. Robert Wolk, who was dismissed from the priesthood and convicted of sex crimes in the late 1980s. The other is a former priest who has never been the subject of a lawsuit or criminal case, but who Bishop Zubik said had been removed from ministry many years ago for inappropriate conduct.
The blog account continues that, as the accuser met with Bishop Zubik in the wake of his earlier accusations about molestation, he suddenly remembered that then-Father Zubik had molested him at Quigley.
Bishop Zubik described his accuser as “a complex individual” and said he had no intention of taking legal action against him.
“I assure you that I am concerned about the welfare of my accuser. At the same time, I expect that my integrity and the integrity of the Church I lead will be respected as well. I pledge my prayers for my accuser, and I ask your prayers for both of us,” he said.
I posted all of these together – a bit of catch-up plus good to see all of the articles together.
Well, I don;t know about this. Furst and fioremost the fact that the bishop’s accuser has a criminal record should in no way dictate, as seems to be implied, that he was NOT sexually assaulted by the bishop or, for that matter, by two other priests. It is well known that many male victims of clerical sexual abuse resort to lives of petty crime after their abuse. For many it is stereotypical behaviour.
As for the incident where the accuser was masturbating in a car outside a school – not great, and in no way do I excuse it, but, the truth is that such unacceptable behaviour is often symptomatic of childhood sex abuse. Why that should be flogged as proof positive that the bishop did not attempt to kiss Mile Rock is beyond me. But,what about as smear campaign targeting a populace which knows little about the impact of clerical sex abuse on a child or teen?
Did Rock make his allegations against the bishop because he had been turned down as a ‘volunteer’ at the parish? Or, did he address the business of volunteering during his meet with the bishop because he recalled the bishop’s attempt to kiss him many years ago and therefore couldn’t bring himself to talk of the allegations against the other priests at that time?
The thing that puzzles me most is this: IF Rock came up with this in retaliation, why in the name of goodness did he not come up with something with far more clout than Zubik tried to forcibly french kiss him in the 80s? Why, if he was going to lie to ‘frame’ the bishop would he not make it a dandy of lie?
The DA has said the accusations are without merit. He also said: “I have never heard of a more convoluted and extenuated series of stories.” Where, I wonder, has the DA been for the past 20 years?
Brad Phillips of Phillips Media Relations in Washington, D.C., commended the bishop’s decision to go public before the story because: “Generally speaking, people are conditioned to believe people who come out on a story first,” and in going public, Zubick “ got in front of the story” and in so doing “helped to control the narrative by making his perspective the controlling one.”
Very true. The bishop is indeed controlling the narrative
But, beyond having the wherewithal to control the narrative, where does the truth of the allegations lie?
“I stand by my blog!” wrote Rock. “It is really tough for me and my family right now. I have nothing more to say at this time.”
I am sure it is. I pray that somehow the truth in this sorry saga comes to the fore. If Rock is telling the truth let’s pray that he is vindicated. If indeed he is lying, let’s pray that that too comes to light, and by means which prove that he is lying vs the current smear campaign against him which is geared to make him look like a liar.
It is the rare man indeed who makes false sex abuse allegations against a priest. It just is not something men are prone to do.
A final thought….
I do not think Rock should be allowed to assist as a ‘volunteer’ in his parish That, however, has nothing to do with whether he was or was not accosted by Zubick in the 80s.
And a final question: I wonder what Rock’s allegation of his priest violating the seal of confession is all about?
Maybe if you read my blog, you can see where these people got all of their info about me from. My site is http://www.molestedbybishopzubik@yolasite.com
I did not hide a single thing about me, I toold of my criminal past, I told about thinking I was gay, I told all about me, and I wrote my blog on June 2 2011, three months before I was denied the opportunity to serve for the church.
My question is this how does this story and Bishop Sandusky of the diocese of pittsburgh and Coach Zubik of Penn State sound so similar?
Michael,
Let me go out on a limb…
…you have not painted the complete picture because of the shame…he hasn’t because of the guilt…there are unfortunately no eye witnesses and no other accusers…there isn’t really anything to report because it was just “playing around”…!!! according to the aggressor.
You were guilty of a crime therefore you are a criminal and your word isn’t worth the effort…you have done some strange things because you are that kind of a person or you are that kind of a person because of what was done to you…somewhere in your past, by someone …How am I doing?…
Something compelled you to come forward at some point…just as all the others who came forward because of the Penn State scandal…because all of a sudden they did not feel all “alone”, not guilty, not…
How are you feeling?.. Sometimes when “part of the truth” his held back, it makes everything sound like a lie…
We all know that usually the best defense is a good offense…The best defense to that, when in doubt, is to be entirely honest, truthful and patient…
Right now it is impossible to save us from guessing…
We are all “complex individuals” and the barely veiled innuendos cast a similar shadow and some dissonance …from the other perspective!
We seem to have two halves of a truth….
The difference is very similar…! and the answer remains a question.
jg