ELDERLY MAN CLAIMS ABUSE SIX DECADES AGO: Episcopal Church denies financial obligation

June 15, 2009

An 81 year old man wants the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania to pay for his alleged sexual abuse and for the inheritance he claims they stole from him. Ralph White Jr. said even if he doesn’t live to see a dime of any money awarded him he’s glad to know the church must respond to his allegations.

According to papers filed by White who is suffering from a heart condition, he claims he was sexually abused by his pastor in the 1940s when he was a boy. Now a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court had ordered the church to respond to his lawsuit. White, of West Philadelphia, is seeking unspecified damages from the five-county diocese and All Saints parish in Wynnewood, and the return of his modest inheritance. the rest