LANCASTER
- A Dominican Sisters of Peace sister accused of molesting a student in
1982 at Fisher Catholic High School has been removed from her ministry
and is undergoing psychological assessment at a center that specializes
in therapy for religious and clergy, according to the order.
The
order identified the nun as Sister Lisa Zuccarelli, 65, and said she
was a teacher at Fisher Catholic at the time. Zuccarelli taught at
Fisher Catholic from 1980 to 1985.
A
city police report said the female accuser left her house one night
because of abuse and that Zuccarelli let her stay in her room at
St. Mary Convent for the night. The report states Zuccarelli molested
her that night and told her to sneak out the following morning.
"We
consider this conduct reprehensible, and we are deeply sorry for the
pain it has caused," Sister Patricia Twohill, Dominican Sisters of
Peace prioress, said in a statement. "We have approached the situation
with as much transparency as possible, while being respectful of the
privacy of the victim. We are doing all that we can to support the
healing of all involved."
The Domincan Sisters filed a police report with the Lancaster Police Dept. on July 28.
The Dominican Sisters said Zuccarelli taught at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, from 2003 until this year.
She
previously taught at the Georgetown University School of Nursing in
Washington, D.C. and Albertus Magnus College in New Haven,
Connecticut.
Zuccarelli is also a former student at New York University.
She
started teaching high school at DeSales High School in Columbus in 1975
and moved on to Catholic Central High School in Steubenville in 1978,
where she taught for two years.
A phone call and email message to Fisher Catholic was not immediately returned.
The
Dominican Sisters of Peace ask anyone who experienced sexual abuse by a
member of the order to contact them at 614-416-1963 or to contact law
enforcement.
jbarron@gannett.com
740-681-4340
Nun who once taught at Fisher Catholic High School in
Lancaster has been accused of sexually abusing a student 36 years ago,
according to a police report.Sister Lisa Zuccarelli, who belongs to the
Dominican Sisters of Peace, was removed from her ministry, restricted
from unsupervised contact with former students and minors, and was sent
to a psychological center for clergy for assessment after the
allegation came to light, the Columbus-based Dominican Sisters of Peace
said in a news release. Details about when the abuse occurred weren’t
given.
Zuccarelli,
65, has not taught locally since 1985, when she left Fisher Catholic,
according to the Dominican Sisters, which has a location near Ohio
Dominican University that the order founded in 1911. During her time at
Fisher Catholic, Zuccarelli lived in the St. Mary Convent in Lancaster.
The
Dominican Sisters of Peace learned about the accusations when a former
student wrote a letter to the order in July. The order reported the
allegations to Lancaster police and the Roman Catholic Diocese of
Columbus that same month. An outside investigation in late October
found the allegation credible, according to the release, which was
issued Nov. 28 and didn’t specify who conducted the investigation.
A
Lancaster police report filed July 28 says the female student had left
her home in 1982 due to abuse and Zuccarelli allowed her to stay in her
room for the night. The student said Zuccarelli molested her that
night, and told her to sneak out of the convent the following morning,
according to the report.
Lt. N.H.
Snyder, with the Lancaster police detective bureau, said in an email
that the victim spoke with the department’s sexual assault detective
and didn’t want to pursue criminal charges.
He
said the allegations reflected a misdemeanor, “borderline gross sexual
imposition,” and the crime was beyond the statute of limitations
Due both of these reasons, the case was closed, Snyder said.
“We
consider this conduct reprehensible, and we are deeply sorry for the
pain it has caused,” Sister Patricia Twohill, prioress of the Dominican
Sisters of Peace, said in a written statement. “We have approached the
situation with as much transparency as possible, while being respectful
of the privacy of the victim. We are doing all that we can to support
the healing of all involved.”
Twohill
had talked to the victim about her letter, according to the police
report. A search of local court records shows that no charges had been
filed as of Tuesday.
Despite sexual
abuse by Catholic priests being widely reported, there doesn’t appear
to be any statistics on the number of nuns or religious sisters accused
of abusing minors, said Gary Schoener, a Minneapolis-based clinical
psychologist. Yet experts know the abuse happens, he said.
“As
with other things with the church, this is one of those areas that is
sort of been undercover for years,” said Schoener, who has worked with
abuse victims for many years. “Just as it took a longer time for priest
stuff to come out, nuns are even slower ... We’ve seen, certainly, many
other cases but they’re among the hardest to find.”
It
can take victims years sometimes to come forward, as it did with this
incident, he said, because there is not a clear place to report abuse
by nuns. And for children, sexual contact with a woman can be a “murky”
area, Schoener said, as it is not as clearly defined as abuse by a male.
The
Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), a nonprofit
research center at Georgetown University that tracks reports of clergy
sexual abuse of minors, doesn’t have data on abuse specifically by
nuns. A researcher said the center isn’t aware of any other source for
the information.
Zuccarelli had most recently been teaching at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, where she’d been since 2003.
Zuccarelli
was in Ohio from 1975 to 1985, during which time she taught at DeSales
High School in Columbus (1975 to 1977), Catholic Central High School in
Steubenville (1978 to 1980), and Fisher Catholic (1980 to 1985).
Anyone
who has experienced sexual misconduct by a member of the Dominican
Sisters is asked to contact law enforcement and Twohill at 614-416-1963.
dking@dispatch.com
