A Berks County legislator, who says he was abused as a child by a priest, predicts that people are going to be "shocked" when they learn how bad the problem has been in the Allentown Diocese.

The remark was made by state Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, who testified recently before an Allegheny County grand jury as part of a statewide investigation led by the state Attorney General's office. He said the Allentown Diocese is "definitely under the microscope" and claims what will be found in the Allentown investigation will make the findings in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese "look mild." Rozzi cannot detail his grand jury testimony because of its confidential nature. Rozzi said he was abused when he served as an altar boy in 1984 in his home parish in the Reading area.Earlier this year, shortly after "Spotlight" won the Academy Award for best picture of 2015, the state was rocked by a grand jury presentment detailing that hundreds of children in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese were abused over a 50-year period.This caused the state Attorney General's Office to launch a sweeping investigation into the problem, and the office has cast a wide net that will involve six of the eight dioceses in the state.Not included are Altoona-Johnstown, where the investigation is completed, and the Philadelphia Diocese, where local grand juries have been conducting investigations for more than five years.The Allentown Diocese, which is made up of about 260,000 Roman Catholics in Carbon, Schuylkill, Northampton, Lehigh and Berks counties, contains 89 parishes, 34 elementary schools, six high schools and two colleges. There are about 250 active and retired priests serving the diocese. Those who identify themselves as Catholics make up about one-fifth of the total population of the five-county region.Rozzi, who has led a so-far unsuccessful effort to extend the statute of limitations on sex-abuse crimes involving predator priests on altar boys and other children, said grand juries have been convened in the Allentown and Harrisburg dioceses.A spokesman for the Scranton Diocese, which serves Monroe County and other northeastern Pennsylvania counties, said it has been notified that a probe is underway.A spokesman from the Harrisburg Diocese confirmed the investigation, but a representative from the Allentown Diocese would not comment.Instead, in a statement, Allentown Diocese spokesman Matt Kerr said that the diocese reports abuse allegations to law-enforcement officials and has "zero tolerance" for offenders.Rozzi's blockbuster comments come just days after the pastor of an Emmaus church, who had formerly served at Marian Catholic High School, was charged by the Lehigh County District Attorney's office for having lewd and illegal images of young boys on his computer.Monsignor John Mraz, 66, was charged with sexual abuse of children, criminal use of a communications facility and obscene and sexual material and performances.The charges came after a parishioner, who was asked to update Mraz's computer, discovered a link to a site, "naked little boys."The parishioner notified the Allentown Diocese, which contacted the district attorney's office. Mraz is free on $50,000 unsecured bail pending an Oct. 3 hearing. He is not allowed Internet access nor can he have contact with minors. Mraz was once vice principal and director of spiritual activities at Marian Catholic. He also served as pastor of the former St. Bertha's Parish in Tuscarora.According to the Database of Publicly Accused Priests in the U.S., Mraz becomes the 23rd in the Allentown Diocese since the 1970s to be charged, convicted or implicated in child pornography and child abuse cases.In the Scranton Diocese, which includes Monroe County, the database lists 24 priests in the same category during the same time frame.The most notable in Monroe County was the late Rev. Robert Gibson, who served as pastor of Our Lady Queen of Peace in Gilbert from 1975 until 1982. Gibson also served as education director at Notre Dame High School in East Stroudsburg and at several other parishes in the county.Reform starts at the top, with the pope. Francis was initially accused by victims' advocates of not "getting it" as far as clerical abuse was concerned. He has since created a commission of experts, including two survivors of abuse, to advise the Vatican on best practices and he accepted the commission's recommendation to create a Vatican tribunal to prosecute bishops who fail to protect their parishioners from abusive priests.Francis has accepted the resignations of two U.S. bishops accused of cover-ups - Archbishop John Nienstedt of Minneapolis and Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City. Even members of Francis' abuse commission, however, objected when he appointed a Chilean bishop accused of covering up the country's most notorious pedophile.Allentown Diocese Bishop John Barres, who succeeded Bishop Edward Cullen in 2009, has adopted a "no tolerance" policy, which we support wholeheartedly.This has been a welcome change from previous administrations, which tried to sweep some of these allegations under the rug by transferring priests to other parishes, only to find that they preyed on new young victims.This scandal has cost the Catholic Church dearly in terms of lost parishioners, prestige and support. The rate of abuse by priests has fallen dramatically in the past 30 years.About three-quarters of the cases in the U.S. occurred between 1960 and 1985, studies have found, but the fallout continues until today.With new allegations coming out weekly about abuses a generation ago, we are hopeful that these latest investigations will expose these yearslong cover-ups.In the end, the goal for all diocesan leaders must be transparency. As harsh and discomforting as it might be, the truth must prevail.