'There was nobody to protect us': Why a prosecutor who witnessed abuse took on his own Catholic church. David Hickton, a former altar boy from a Pittsburgh suburb, faced an intense backlash in 2016 when he sought to put the full weight of the government behind the incendiary theory that the church leadership should be prosecuted as a criminal enterprise for rampant clergy abuse. Hickton's Sunday morning scorning by fellow churchgoers stands as an ugly example of what federal prosecutors in Philadelphia are likely to encounter as they conduct a broader investigation into alleged sexual abuse by Catholic priests throughout Pennsylvania. Ref. USAToday.