PURGE. SANCTIFY. DEFEND
“ Go rebuild my Church, which you see is falling into ruins.”
BISHOP MARK BARTCHAK
Our own Bishop Mark Bartchak
Bishop mark has been with us for around five years since he became Bishop on April 19, 2011. He was the President (2003-2004) of the Canon Law Society of America during the heat of the child molestation scandals. He pretends he was unaware of this problem.
Our diocese had received national attention for child abuse yet he says this was not a priority when he came to town, he wanted to get to know the parishes.
In 2013 I wrote him a letter asking when he was going to act on problem priests, yet he still didn’t do anything.
In his office there was a room dedicated to priest problems that contained over 115,000 pages of complaints that he just didn’t get a chance to review.
To my knowledge, no priests have been removed that were not the result of direct action of the legal system. That means people had to get lawyers or police involved to get action.
He had an active complaint with Fr Maurizio yet he let him in office for years.
He had complaints against one priest I know of and he paid money to the family and moved the priest. He had them sign a confidentiality agreement to the settlement. Why?
When you pay money and move a priest we have a problem!
He has not removed anyone in the diocese that has failed to report these people or who have participated in the cover-up.
In summary, Bishop Mark has chosen the same path as his predecessors. His actions and inactions have greatly compromised his ability to lead our diocese. How do we trust someone who has done the same things as previous bishops and has failed to take corrective action on priests with horrible histories?