Media Statements

(For Immediate Release July 24, 2022) 

Pope Francis is due to arrive in Canada to start a 4-day visit. While there, he will confront one of the nation's greatest tragedies: the often-abusive residential schools established with the Catholic Church's assistance to eradicate Indigenous culture and relationships.

We stand in solidarity with abuse survivors and honor the innocent lives lost and their families in Canada for continuing to speak the truth against such great odds and in the face of such powerful denial by church officials. While this papal visit is a response to a call by our indigenous brothers and sisters across North America, we know it took a lot of courage for them to carry the pain and suffering to the Vatican and request this personal visit by Pope Francis. We commend them and honestly believe they have made a mark in history.

Sadly, it took the discovery of mass graves and the realization of murder, rape, and enslavement to trigger a response from the Vatican. Indigenous groups deserve more. Everything must be revealed: the names of the priests, nuns, deacons, brothers, and lay employees who guided this atrocity. The world needs to know which Cardinals, Bishops, and Popes participated close in, and from afar, in creating these crimes against humanity.

While the Pope's visit may be meaningful for some, many may find his visit traumatizing. Church officials have taken decades to acknowledge any part of the dark chapters in Canadian history. Because Pope Francis is making a widely publicized visit, we can't help but ask if a child anywhere on earth is safer now that a pope has landed back at the crime scene? No.

This visitation is pure publicity, and we expect to hear more about healing and reconciliation and less about truth and accountability. An official website listing the itinerary painted with the colors of a holy celebration has been established. This is no surprise to us, and it certainly is nothing to celebrate; it fits church officials' carefully crafted narrative that abuse is all "in the past" and reconciliation is a solution. It is far from a "thing of the past." Victims who suffered abuse by clerics from the 1990s to the present day have yet to come forward and are still a decade or more away from reaching the average age of reporting abuse, which is around 52.

Francis may know what horrendous tragedies occurred against the Indigenous People and at residential schools, but he will never see the truth. Only those who suffered and the families of loved ones lost know the truth.

We believe the focus needs to be on stopping abuse, stopping bishops who continue the cover-up now and, in the future, not conveniently implying that a pardon equals healing. In our view, Pope Francis could meet with a thousand victims. But that wouldn't safeguard a single child.

Kids are safer when we acknowledge that to this day, children and adults at vulnerable points in their lives are being assaulted by those in positions of authority. And yet, thousands of church officials selfishly sit on secrets about abusive priests, nuns, religious brothers, missionaries, and church laity that police and prosecutors could use to pursue and prosecute alleged perpetrators. More importantly, allow victims to know law enforcement will hear them, and the wheels of justice can begin to bring closure to their lives.

Every survivor is concerned about protecting and preventing physical and sexual abuse. We know that helps the healing process: knowing our pain prompts action that might spare even one child a lifetime of devastation from violence. This papal visit will bring short-term joy to some, healing to few, and protection to no one.

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager, (267-261-0578, [email protected]) Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director (517-974-9009, [email protected]) 

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

(For Immediate Release July 19, 2022) 

The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador has approved the sale of 43 church-owned properties. This court approval, according to news reports, is aimed at helping to compensate victims for crimes committed against them by Catholic Clerics. In 2021, abuse claims and settlement figures mounted against the Diocese of St. John’s. As expected, the legal arm of the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation- St John’s filed for protection from creditors.

We are extremely concerned to learn in this report, supplied by the accounting firm handling the sale of the properties through the bankruptcy court, that the Catholic church, via several legal entities it formed, is buying up some of its own properties.

For us, this raises several questions: 

First, if the church is bankrupt, where does it get the cash to in essence keep and maintain these properties? Is it actually bankrupt?

Second, is the sale price an arm's length transaction?  

We can’t help but think since the church has found another source of cash, why aren’t those funds being applied to the settlement amounts, so that another bidder can buy the properties and thus generate even more funding to compensate victims?

We hope the judge handling this bankruptcy will review these real estate transactions carefully. So often, victims are retraumatized beyond just the sexual abuse; they get lied to when reporting, stiff-armed by bishops who claim to be pastoral but who are not, and shortchanged when they finally succeed in court.

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager, (267-261-0578, [email protected]) Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director (517-974-9009, [email protected]) Shaun Dougherty, SNAP Board President, (814-341-8386, [email protected])

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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(For Immediate Release July 19, 2022) 

The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown said Monday one of its priests will resign his position following an abuse investigation. The diocese released the findings of an independent investigation concerning a 2021 allegation against the Rev. Marian Babjak. As a result, Babjak has agreed to resign his job at Christ Our Savior Parish in Struthers, effective July 6. Babjak was accused of having inappropriate physical contact with a minor, who is now an adult. Following an independent, third-party investigation, a Diocesan Review Board determined that the allegation is credible. 

To us, it is cases like this where the bravery of a victim is paramount to the blanket statements made by church officials concerning alleged abuse cases. Fact, the victim here made the Youngstown Catholic community safer. The now resigned priest, Marian Babjak, has demonstrated what we have seen as a trend, that as time marches on, more and more younger priests are being credibly accused of misconduct. Babjak was ordained in 1995.

His victim is very young to have reported abuse and we stand with them in full support. It is rare that an abusing cleric has just one victim, and we doubt it began at ordination. We hope this news encourages others who may be sitting in painful silence to find the support and courage to report their information to law enforcement. A contributing factor to this growing trend is simply because there is no diagnostic tool to screen for or identify an abuser, we are certain more priests ordained in the 90s and 2000s will eventually be outed or arrested.

Babjak also represents a troubling trend. That of a foreign priest who comes to the United States on religious visas and molests children. SNAP has tracked post clerical 2000 convictions and notes that 70% are foreign-born. Clearly, Homeland Security needs to focus on this danger. As the priest shortage becomes more exacerbated in America, it seems US bishops are recklessly lowering their standards, with predictable, dangerous results.

Every parish where Babjak worked should be asked to seek out survivors. His seminary in Slovakia should be alerted as well as where he may have worked in student assignments.  Because he was involved in priest training that involved contact with children and lay parishioners prior to his ordination, we should expect more victims from earlier in his career. Most of those victims are still a decade or more away from reaching the average age of reporting abuse, which is at around 52. Those will be his earliest victims. Victims from recent years may not come forward for another 30 years.

To our knowledge, there is no international database of catholic abusers. Babjak is just another example of why one needs to be created. Our guess is he'll move back to Europe and keep his collar. Many others have already left the United States in secrecy, something the church officials have facilitated for decades.  

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager, (267-261-0578, [email protected]) Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director (517-974-9009, [email protected]) Shaun Dougherty, SNAP Board President, (814-341-8386, [email protected])

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

(For Immediate Release July 18, 2022) 

Fr. James Jackson, FSSP, A Rhode Island priest who had recently transferred from Colorado has been arrested for allegedly violating the conditions of his release while in Kansas.

Jackson was originally charged in October of last year with possessing and transferring child pornography. A Rhode Island State Police task force, Internet Crimes Against Children, executed a search warrant at St. Mary’s on Broadway, in Providence. Both the church and rectory were included in the warrant. State Police said that as part of a child pornography investigation, they discovered that the internet connection at the rectory at the parish was involved.

We are not shocked to learn of Jackson’s arrest. In fact, we wonder why anyone would think releasing him to a different state while he awaits trial was ever a good idea in the first place. It certainly doesn’t seem safe for any residential community to allow a defendant facing child pornography offenses to live, especially given the type of media collected during a warrant in his case in Rhode Island.

Under the terms of his release from federal court in November, Jackson was allowed to return to his home state of Kansas to live with a relative while waiting for the charges to be adjudicated. Jim Martin, a spokesman for the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island, said that Jackson was arrested for allegedly violating the terms of his “pre-trial” release. 

We suspect the terms of release must have included no access to electronic devices that would give access with intent to view sexual exploitation of children, including possessing or distributing this graphic material. And while the exact terms of the violation have yet to be disclosed, we can’t help but think about the danger and reality of the alleged crimes Jackson faces. Child molesters and pornographers are not just criminals, they are sick and impulsive, it is in their pores.

We hope he has not notched any more victims; we ask Kansas and Rhode Island authorities to scour his travels and access to devices. Federal authorities need to keep this dangerous man behind bars until his prosecution and those charged with his supervision should never believe that Jackson has repented to sin no more. You can take the actor away from the scene of crimes, but as we have seen many times over in cases involving delict priests, they’ll never stop because of a new address.

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager, (267-261-0578, [email protected]) Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director (517-974-9009, [email protected]) Shaun Dougherty, SNAP Board President, (814-341-8386, [email protected])

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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(For Immediate Release July 14, 2022) 

The father of a choirboy who prosecutors alleged was sexually abused by Cardinal George Pell has launched a lawsuit against the cleric and the Catholic Church. We stand in solidarity with the deceased victim’s father and hope that the scheduled hearing for next month can begin to bring some level of justice to the family. We can’t imagine the pain that still lingers for the victim’s father, especially since the Vatican never pursued an investigation of its own. There is no doubt the church breached its duty of care.

According to reports, the father is seeking damages for mental injury that he suffered after learning of the allegations, his lawyers said. In 2018 Cardinal Pell was convicted of abusing two choirboys in the 1990s, but his conviction was reversed in 2020 after an appeal. So far, the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne has made no comment and the court set down a hearing for the suit next month. We look forward to seeing this case proceed.

When Pell’s conviction was overturned, we wrote that “this ruling only exacerbates the mistrust survivors feel. It also helps propagate myths about sexual violence, stigmatizes victims for choosing to disclose later in life, and negatively affects how people react when allegations are made against prominent community members.” We hope that through this civil suit, this bereaved father is able to help correct some of these myths and further demonstrate the facts of the abuse that his son suffered.

Based on their reporting habits, church officials have for years held their own investigations out as equal if not better than those of law enforcement. For them to be satisfied with the outcome of Pell’s appeal in this case instead of carrying out their own probe was a grave failure for Pope Francis’s “all-out battle” against clergy abuse. Cardinal Pell was put back on the job and once again, church officials turned a blind eye.

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager ([email protected] , +1-267-261-0578),  Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director ([email protected], +1-517-974-9009)

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org; our Australia website is SNAPAustralia.org)

(For Immediate Release July 7, 2022) 

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany paid $750,000 to a 47-year-old Saratoga County man who was allegedly sexually abused for over a decade by former Albany priest, 73-year-old Mark A. Haight, of Schenectady. Haight, who was ordained in 1976 and stands accused of sexually abusing boys for more than a decade.

We applaud the strength and courage of the victim in this hard-fought case. We can't help but notice that it took 13 different demands for church officials to produce the alleged abusers' work history and other "secret files”. Once again, transparency and accountability are nowhere to be found after the promise made by the USCCB in the Dallas Charter 20 years ago.

The agreement, in this case, was reached just a week after Bishop Scharfenberg threatened bankruptcy if this settlement was accepted. Clearly, the Diocese of Albany isn't as broke as the bishop claims, especially if the diocese can settle this case while staring down about 380 others that no doubt will have similar facts and patterns.

In his public letter last week, Scharfenberger referenced the high cost of lawyers and processing as a reason for victims to agree to a mediation program. To us, this mediation proposal is no doubt designed to keep eliminate current litigants and high-figure settlements. It also goes against the very grain of why the Child Victim’s Act (CVA) was passed. Allowing victims their day in court to expose the irreparable harm done to them is an essential piece of justice and closure. Bishop Scharfenberger wants to bypass this process.

Imagine all the secrets wrested about former priest Haight and the many that sit in waiting against other named defendant priests and religious held in secrecy. When it takes 13 discovery requests to acquire a simple work and health history, it is a revealing sign that church officials want little to be known about abuse cases and again disrespect victims and their rights under the CVA.

The silver lining here is that so soon after Scharfenbergers insincerity, we can see a wolf is still parading as a sheep.

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager ([email protected], 267-261-0578), Melanie Sakoda, SNAP Survivor Support Coordinator ([email protected], 925-708-6175), Zach Hiner, Executive Director (517-974-9009, [email protected])

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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It is ironic that a priest who showed integrity has been defrocked for taking a stand for what he believes is just, while priests who molested children were hidden, paid and never forced to leave the church. By defrocking Tim Stier, what message does Oakland Bishop Mike Barber think he is sending? 

(For Immediate Release June 29, 2022) 

For the past several years, SNAP has followed allegations of non-sexual abuse involving an
Episcopal priest, Robert H. Malm. Fr. Malm is canonically resident in the Episcopal Diocese of
Virginia, and currently works as interim rector of St. Peter’s-on-the-Canal, in Bourne Ma.
SNAP calls upon the Episcopal dioceses of Virginia and Massachusetts to comply with church
canons, including the Title IV clergy disciplinary provisions. SNAP also calls upon law enforcement, local prosecutors, and both dioceses, to conduct full, fair, and impartial investigations into the allegations against Fr. Malm.

The allegations against Fr. Malm are made by Eric Bonetti, a former parishioner, and include:

- Filing false police reports.
- Engaging in retaliation for filing a complaint about his conduct with the diocese.
- Repeatedly filing false civil actions in which Fr. Malm claimed he was being threatened,
despite having had no contact with Eric in several years.
- Claiming that blog posts about him, on blogs published by Eric and family members,
were “threatening and harassing.”
- Concealing evidence adverse to Fr. Malm in litigation.
- Repeatedly offering fabricated statements of law and fact to the courts.
- Repeatedly committing perjury, including falsely claiming under oath that Eric’s late
mother, then dying of COPD, contacted him repeatedly. Later, Fr. Malm told a judge
under oath that he didn’t even know her name — despite the fact he expressly
referenced her by name in his original sworn statement.
- Falsely telling police that Eric had stalked, threatened, and “terrorized” Fr. Malm and his
family, despite having had no contact in several years.
- Using inflammatory and inappropriate language in court, including referring to Eric as a
“domestic terrorist.”
- Witness tampering.
- Falsely telling parishioners and others that Eric is mentally ill.
- Lying to the Episcopal bishop of Virginia about facts related to the case.

(For Immediate Release June 29, 2022) 

We are encouraged by news that the FBI is looking into sexual abuse and cover-up within the Archdiocese of New Orleans. We have no doubt that this probe will reveal far more truths to the public than we have gotten from church officials in New Orleans. A probe like this is absolutely critical, especially when considering the move by church hierarchs in New Orleans to pre-emptively declare bankruptcy, a move that we believe was designed to shield assets, protect secrets, and prevent information about the cover-up from making it into the public eye.

As we see it, the best justice that victims and the unsuspecting faithful can hope for lies with a secular law enforcement investigation. SNAP has long argued that true reform and change will come from the involvement of secular authorities and believe that what is happening in New Orleans is a welcome change and something that should be replicated throughout the United States. We hope that this news will especially encourage any survivors who have been suffering in silence to find the strength to come forward, make a report, and start healing.

We believe that priests and deacons took boys across Louisiana’s borders to sexually abuse them, these acts are federal crimes, some of which may still be prosecutable. We applaud the New Orleans FBI field office and hope their investigation is not only for the Archdiocese of New Orleans but for all the dioceses across the state.

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager([email protected], 267-261-0578), Shaun Dougherty, SNAP Board President ([email protected], 814-341-8386) Melanie Sakoda, SNAP Survivor Support Coordinator ([email protected], 925-708-6175) Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director ([email protected], 517-974-9009)

 (SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

(For Immediate Release June 28, 2022) 

Two years after launching “Version 1.0” of guidelines for how bishops, religious superiors, and canon lawyers are expected to handle complaints of alleged abuse by clergy, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has released an update. In a disappointing fashion, this update does not strengthen any existing requirements because the update is a mere suggestion without any teeth to enforce it. We are frustrated that “reforms” from the Vatican continue to lack the very clear and direct asks that survivors have been making for years.

The update to the “Vademecum on Certain Points of Procedure in Treating Cases of Sexual Abuse of Minors Committed by Clerics” "does not have the power of law," according to a dicastery statement released on June 27; rather, it " is intended to respond to a growing need for knowledge" regarding the processes to be followed when allegations of abuse are made.

To us, this is meaningless and is a continuance of what we have known for decades, that church officials can continue to make their own decisions regardless of what the Vatican announces publicly. There is no “growing need for knowledge:” reports from myriad countries and states already contain the experiences of survivors and their demands for reform, and these reports have made it clear that clergy sexual abuse remains a worldwide problem. That the Vatican continues to see “a growing need for knowledge” in how to respond to cases of sexual abuse is beyond worrying – to us, it is a signal they are willfully ignorant.

New examples of sexual abuse of children and adults by those in positions of power are reported every day from all around the world. What specifically does their understanding lack if a " growing need for knowledge " cannot be observed through government committees established to investigate abuse inside the church or the startling findings of attorney general investigations?

What is especially concerning is that these new rules appear to demonstrate that church officials around the world are still considering legitimate allegations false. This latest update added a sentence that said, "The anonymity of the source should not automatically lead to considering the report as false," when the charter rules were released in 2020. The revised standards reiterated this statement and added the following: "The source's anonymity should not automatically lead to the conclusion that the information is untrue, particularly if it is supported by material that attests to the possibility of a delict."

This is a huge concern for us and makes us wonder how many cases of abuse were automatically dismissed because an individual wished to remain anonymous, or the church refused to provide them the documentation they know exists. We can only assume that this number of cases is as large as this “update” is minimal.

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager([email protected], 267-261-0578), Melanie Sakoda, SNAP Survivor Support Coordinator ([email protected], 925-708-6175) Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director ([email protected], 517-974-9009)

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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