
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 13, 1993                   TAG: 9311130204
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium

LEADING CARDINAL ACCUSED OF ABUSE

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, one of the prominent Roman Catholic prelates in the United States and a leading voice against sexual abuse by clergy, was accused Friday by a former high school seminarian of molesting him in the mid-1970s.

Bernardin unequivocally denied the charge. "The allegations are totally untrue. They're categorically false," Bernardin told reporters at the Chicago archdiocesan chancery. "I have never abused anyone, at anytime and at any place."

Bernardin was ordained into the priesthood 42 years ago and made a cardinal in 1983.

The accusation against him - certain to further rock a church already shaken by cases of sexual misconduct involving other clergy - was contained in a $10 million lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. Southern District Court in Cincinnati by Steven J. Cook of Philadelphia.

Cook, 34, also claimed in the lawsuit that Father Ellis N. Harsham, then a priest at St. Gregory seminary in Cincinnati, repeatedly engaged in sexual acts with him from 1975 to 1977. Harsham could not be reached for comment.

Cook also alleged that Harsham delivered him to Bernardin's private quarters when Bernardin was archbishop of Cincinnati. It was there he claimed he was fondled and sodomized by Bernardin.

Cook further charged that Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk and the Rev. Francis W. Voellmecke, the former rector of St. Gregory's along with Bernardin, destroyed records and covered up Harsham's dismissal from the seminary, now known as the Athenaeum of Ohio, "for sexual misconduct with seminarians."

Pilarczyk said Friday that the archdiocese investigated Cook's allegations against Harsham earlier Bernardin this year but "found insufficient basis upon which to substantiate the allegation."

Cook's attorney, Stephen C. Rubino of Ventnor, N.J., a former Florida prosecutor who has represented other clients in lawsuits against the church, would permit no interviews with his client other than one taped in "recent weeks" by CNN and broadcast Friday.

In that interview, Cook said, "I don't really know if you can put words to describe it, what that pain is like. It shatters your world, it shatters your soul, it shatters your life. [Bernardin] has to pay a price. [Bernardin and Harsham] have to be accountable for their behavior."

It was not until 1992 that Cook "started to recall incidents of sexual abuse" by Harsham, his attorney said. Additional memories resurfaced this year, the attorney said, including recollections of being abused by Bernardin.

by CNB