Sister Gloria Czarniewicz
Diocese of Rockville Centre
Ordained: N/A
Summary of Abuse Allegations Against Sister Gloria Czarniewicz:
Sister Gloria Czarniewicz was a sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth. According to media reports, in July 1994, a nun filed a lawsuit accusing Sister Czarniewicz of abusing her when she was a 20-year old student. Sister Czarniewica was Mother Superior of a convent in New York within the Diocese of Rockville Centre at the time of the alleged abuse.
The suit claimed that Sister Czarniewicz abused her several times between September, 1968, and February, 1969, stating that she would enter the accuser’s room while she was asleep, lie on top of her and fondle her.
She said, “Back when that happened, who else could you turn to? I was just in. I couldn’t tell the provincial [regional head of the order]. They would have thrown me out.”
The accuser decided to take legal action after she was transferred to Riverhead in 1987 to teach at Mercy High School and learned that Sister Czarniewicz was also a teacher there and living at the same convent.
She said she became depressed and suicidal. It was when she sought counseling, that she revealed for the first time what had happened. She later reported the abuse to her provincial, whose response, she said, was, “We all slip from time to time.”
In June 1989, when the accuser’s request for transfer for either her or Sister Czarniewicz was refused and no action was taken against Sister Czarniewicz, she asked for and was granted an extended leave of absence from the order.
The suit was dismissed in 1995 based on expired statute of limitations. Sister Czarniewicz died in August 2016.
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