Notorious Seattle predator priest passes away, SNAP responds

James McGreal, a notorious predator priest from Seattle, has passed away.

We believe he was living at The Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Missouri (called "Club Ped” last year by one local news outlet: http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=201365 )

McGreal, who has admitted to molesting hundreds of boys, was never criminally charged, in part because Catholic officials concealed his crimes until the statute of limitations had expired. The amount of devastation McGreal cuased is supported by documents posted on BishopAccountability.org.

We are extremely grateful to all of McGreal's victims who have bravely reported this predator and helped warn others about him. We hope none of them are still suffering in silence.

McGreal can no longer hurt kids. We hope that fact will bring some relief and consolation to all of those who have been hurt by his crimes.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 23 years and have more than 10,000 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 www.SNAPnetwork.org

CONTACT - David Clohessy, Director ( 314-566-9790 cell, [email protected]),
Barbara Dorris, Outreach Director ( 314-862-7688 home, +1-314-503-0003 cell, [email protected])

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016045002_dige29m.html

Priest accused of child abuse dies

The Rev. James McGreal, considered to be one of the most serious offenders among priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle accused of sexually abusing children, died last week in a church facility in Missouri, Greg Magnoni, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said Sunday.

McGreal, who was in his late 80s, died of natural causes on Wednesday or Thursday, Magnoni said.

In 2003, the archdiocese paid nearly $8 million to settle a lawsuit brought by 15 men who claimed they were sexually molested as boys by McGreal.

From 1948 to 1988, McGreal served in 10 parishes in Seattle and other parts of Washington state. He was permanently barred from the ministry in 1988 after the archdiocese made a stunning confession that it had assigned McGreal to a Federal Way parish, even though he had been removed from two parishes and a Catholic hospital after being accused of sexually molesting boys.

Court documents claimed that archdiocese officials began receiving complaints about McGreal in the late 1960s and that McGreal had disclosed to a counselor that he had molested hundreds of victims.


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