MI--Saginaw priest is sued; Victims respond

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, [email protected])

A Saginaw priest is being sued for sexually exploiting a college student. We applaud her courage while we deplore the secrecy of Saginaw’s bishop.

http://www.cm-life.com/article/2016/02/father-heames-lawsuit

For about two years, Fr. Denis Heames of St. Mary’s University parish manipulated, deceived, hired and supervised a student named Megan Winans. For about a month, Saginaw Bishop Joseph Cistone kept silent about Winans’ lawsuit against church officials, which was filed Jan. 14.

Shame on Bishop Cistone for keeping the case quiet for weeks. Why is his delay problematic? Because hours and days are crucial in a sex abuse case. Every minute a predator's crimes are kept secret gives him and his allies’ time to destroy evidence, fabricate alibis, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses and discredit whistleblowers.

We suspect Fr. Heames has hurt other vulnerable students families with similar clerical misconduct. So we urge Bishop Cistone to aggressively reach out to others who may have been hurt by Fr. Heames.  

Many know about child molesting Catholic clerics. But few realize priests abusing vulnerable adult parishioners is as or more widespread but still deeply hidden. It’s always wrong and hurtful for doctors to have sex with patients, therapists to have sex with clients and ministers to have sex with congregants. That’s especially true in Catholicism, where parishioners are taught, from birth, to respect and trust priests as holy celibate men who can forgive sins and get them into heaven.

In 17 states, it’s a crime for a cleric to have sex with a congregant. 

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Dorris (314-503-0003 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747, [email protected])