The Buffalo Diocese has added a retired priest to its list of clergy with “substantiated claims” of sexual abuse of a minor.
Monsignor Ronald Sciera was put on administrative leave following a 2021 Child Victims Act lawsuit claiming he molested a 13-year-old boy nearly 50 years ago. Sciera in a 2021 interview with The News denied sexually abusing anyone and said the claim was false.
“I have to answer to God,” 87-year-old Monsignor Ronald P. Sciera said. “I have a hope that justice will be served, and the truth will come to light.”
In a statement Friday, the diocese said Bishop Michael W. Fisher determined that accusations against Sciera, 88, had been substantiated.
The bishop made his decision after an investigation and recommendations by a review board that consists mostly of lay Catholic professionals, including a retired judge, a licensed clinical social worker and a retired banking executive.
Fisher previously suspended Sciera, who lives in Florida, from performing any public ministry as a priest, a restriction that the monsignor’s lawyer tried to have reversed with an appeal to Rome that included the results of a lie detector test and 75 letters from people attesting to his character.
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