By Bill Vidonic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Bill Vidonic is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-320-7948 or via e-mail.
Two allegations of sexual abuse of minors by a priest who spent nearly two decades in Charleroi are “credible,” and a Vatican disciplinary body could decide his fate, according to a review board for the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese.
The diocese placed the Rev. David Dzermejko, the former pastor of Mary, Mother of the Church Parish in Charleroi, on administrative leave in June 2009, when an allegation surfaced that he sexually abused a youth more than 20 years ago.
After the diocese acknowledged that allegation, another person lodged an abuse allegation against Dzermejko, according to the diocese.
One of the alleged victims is dead; information about how he died was unavailable.
The diocesan review board investigated both allegations, interviewing one alleged victim, diocese director of communications Robert Lockwood said yesterday.
In letters sent Friday to the involved parties, the board found the abuse allegations to be “credible,” Lockwood said.
Lockwood did not provide details about the allegations, citing the accusers’ need for privacy.
Bishop David A. Zubik will send the findings to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. Lockwood said that body, which reviews allegations of sexual abuse of minors, could decide to hold a trial in Rome or decide that the Pittsburgh diocese could hold a trial or take some other administrative action against Dzermejko.
Dzermejko’s most severe punishment could be removal from the priesthood, Lockwood said.
Lockwood did not know when the congregation would decide Dzermejko’s fate.
He said Dzermejko, 61, remains on administrative leave and “is not in any ministry whatsoever,” but would not say where Dzermejko is. Dzermejko could not be reached for comment.
A Braddock native, Dzermejko was ordained in 1974 and worked at churches in Natrona Heights, Ross and Penn Hills. He was pastor of the Charleroi church for 18 years.
Lockwood said the alleged abuse did not occur when Dzermejko was at Mary, Mother of the Church, but he declined to say more.
According to a March New York Times article, only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases were sent to the church’s congregation since 2001 were given full church trials, which led to some of them being defrocked.
Ten percent were defrocked immediately after their cases were sent to the congregation, and 10 percent left voluntarily. Nearly 60 percent faced other disciplinary action, including being banned from celebrating Mass.