Abuse Survivors Angered Over San Francisco Clergyman Near School
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)- A priest who now lives in San Francisco is facing charges for alleged abuse in Southern California 18 years ago, and abuse survivors are upset that he lives in a religious order house so close to a school.
KCBS' Margie Shafer Reports:
John Doe has filed suit against Fr. Gerald Wertz and the Salesian Society in Los Angeles Superior Court, for abuse he claims took place when he was a 15-year-old student at St. John Bosco High School in Southern California in 1993-94.
The suit uses a little known state insurance code provision, that claims church officials are required to provide the victim with written notice of when statute of limitations will expire. Wertz's supervisors helped pay for John Doe's therapy, but failed to disclose the last date Doe could take legal action.
Tim Lennon with Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests demonstrated outside the San Francisco archdiocese offices claiming Wertz's current residence at the Salesian Provincial Residence on Franklin Street in San Francisco is too close to Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory School just a block away.
"The San Francisco office here is within a block of 1,100 students, and we want the diocese to take up this issue and to notify its parishes in order to have full disclosure," said Lennon.
Wertz has been living in San Francisco for years. Secretary of the Salesian Provincial, Father Tom, says the Salesians let the religious order at Sacred Heart know about Wertz's presence 10 years ago. The Salesians are independent of the school.
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