Media Statements

The Archdiocese of Denver recently informed parishioners of St. Mary Catholic Church in Aspen that Fr. Michael J. O’Brien has been accused of sexually abusing a child during his time in their parish. Although the priest denies the allegations, they have been reported to law enforcement, and Fr. O'Brien has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of both criminal and Church investigations.

False allegations of child sexual abuse are extremely rare. We applaud this young victim for coming forward so soon after his abuse and we recognize how difficult it must have been to tell his story. SNAP is committed to standing by all survivors of sexual abuse by trusted authority figures. This victim's bravery will help to keep other children safe.

A lawsuit was filed Monday asserting that the Catholic Diocese of Nashville and St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, turned a blind eye to the horrific crimes committed by the director of religious education, Michael D. Lewis. The lawsuit cites these Catholic institutions failed to stop Lewis from repeatedly raping and sexually exploiting a child on church property from 2014–2017. The alleged perpetrator, Michael D. Lewis, faces trial in February 2022 in Rutherford County on felony sex crimes charges related to this abuse. 

The Pope has accepted the resignation of 77-year-old Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who was recently cleared by the Vatican of sexual abuse allegations. The Bishop was accused of abuse in a lawsuit filed in November of 2020, alleging that he had abused a boy while he was a priest in Jersey City. That accusation came after Bishop DiMarzio had just finished leading an investigation into the Diocese of Buffalo over accusations of episcopal mishandling of clerical sex abuse cases there. A second lawsuit was filed in March 2021 alleging that the prominent Brooklyn prelate abused a child while working as a priest in New Jersey.

Douglas Johnson faces six criminal charges related to the unlawful videotaping of a girl in Chesapeake. Johnson worked as a youth minister at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Reston from 2005 to 2018. Prior to being employed at St. John Neumann, Johnson volunteered for more than two decades in the youth program there and at St. Thomas à Becket Catholic Church, also in Reston. During most of the time that he was volunteering, Johnson worked for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

The Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend announced today that Fr. David Huneck has resigned following an allegation he sexually abused a minor. The priest was only ordained in June of 2018, having previously worked in pastoral ministry and as a deacon.  Fr. Huneck was assigned as pastor of Saint Paul of the Cross Catholic Church in Columbia City and also as chaplain of Bishop Dwenger High School in Fort Wayne.

The Boy Scouts of America’s bankruptcy has caused religious groups to be concerned with their own potential liability in these cases. Many faith communities sponsored scout units and allowed the church-owned property to be used as a meeting space for the BSA groups. But some had even deeper entanglements. While it is troubling to those religious organizations that sponsored scout groups to realize that they are not protected under bankruptcy, it is troubling to us that many of those abused in scouting were harmed by chaplains or other representatives of the sponsoring faith community.

Fr. Raymond Joseph Hemmerle, a Catholic cleric twice convicted of child sexual abuse, will be set free on October 1st.  While we understand and respect the American judicial system, we fear for the safety of children upon his release, especially given the distressing fact that he will not be forced to register as a sex offender.

Fr. David Ryan was set to return to ministry at St. Francis De Sales Catholic Parish in Lake Zurich after being cleared just last week of allegations of child sexual abuse. However, on Thursday Cardinal Blase Cupich wrote in a letter to church-goers that the cleric will remain away from the parish while "new information" is investigated. SNAP urges the Cardinal to be transparent about the nature of this "new information," as the lack of openness exacerbates mistrust of the Archdiocese.

The Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin announced yesterday that the resignation letter submitted in March, 2021, by Archbishop Stefan Heße has been denied by Pope Francis. The Archbishop of Hamburg had been under scrutiny in a Vatican investigation into his handling of abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Cologne. The German prelate was in charge of pastoral personnel in the Cologne Archdiocese from 2006 to 2012. He then worked as vicar-general from 2012 to 2015 before being ordained as Archbishop of Hamburg on March 14, 2015. 

The Apostolic Nunciature to Germany is an ecclesiastical office of the Roman Catholic Church in that country. We are shocked to read the statement from the Nunciature saying that “the basic problem” was a “lack of attention and sensitivity toward those affected by abuse” within the Cologne Archdiocese’s administrative apparatus. The nunciature said that the probe had found organizational deficiencies and procedural errors by the Archbishop, but that “the investigation did not show that these were committed with the intention of covering up cases of sexual abuse.” However, Archbishop Heße himself earlier acknowledged his responsibility for the failure of the system. We would now like to know exactly what the Archbishop considered his mistakes, especially since the Gercke report accused him of having neglected his duty in nine separate cases. It has been our experience that few hands are clean among Catholic officials.

Seven-time Olympic medal winner Simone Biles, alongside fellow gymnasts McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, and Maggie Nichols, shared heart-wrenching testimony in a Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington D.C.yesterday. We applaud these young women for having the courage to be public about their stories of abuse and we believe that more crimes will be prevented in the future thanks to their witness and bravery.

In a powerful tone, Simone Biles told the panel, “I don’t want another young gymnast, Olympic athlete, or any individual to experience the horror that I and hundreds of others have endured, before during, and continuing to this day in the wake of the Larry Nassar abuse.” Biles continued, fighting back tears as she said, “to be clear, I blame Larry Nassar, and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.” Her former teammate, McKayla Maroney, spoke in anger as she described her 2015 interview with the FBI saying, “After telling my entire story of abuse to the FBI in the summer of 2015, not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they eventually documented my report 17 months later, they made entirely false claims about what I said.