OH-MI-UT-Canada -- Victims blast Catholic officials

For immediate release: Thursday, March 26

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

Catholic officials in Toledo and Detroit admit that child sex abuse allegations against a priest have been deemed “credible.” We hope this disclosure will prod other victims to come forward and get help.

http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/Diocesan/statement-regarding-father-james-roth-osfs.html

From 1976 to 1987 as a religious brother and 1995 to 2004 as a priest, Father James Roth worked at St. Francis de Sales High School in Toledo “as a faculty member/administrator, and from 1995 to 2004 assisted with weekend Masses and sacramental ministry at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church in Monroe, Michigan,” according to a church announcement.

We call on Toledo’s bishop and Detroit’s archbishop to personally visit each site where Fr. Roth worked and beg victims to speak up and start healing. In nearly every case, bishops do the absolute bare minimum and sit passively back, behind their desks, hoping more victims don’t call. Instead, they should be acting like the shepherds they profess to be, and aggressively reaching out to anyone who may have been hurt and may still be suffering in shame, silence and self-blame.

We are deeply grateful to the brave victim of this cleric for finding the courage to expose this predator. We urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes - – to summon the strength to call police, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

Fr. Roth was part of the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales (OSFS), a Catholic religious order.  The head of the Toledo-Detroit Province, Father Kenneth McKenna (419-724-9851).

Fr. Roth was born in 1953 died in 2015. He also worked in Utah and Ontario, Canada.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We were founded in 1988 and have 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, [email protected], Barbara Dorris 314-503-0003, [email protected], Barbara Blaine 312-399-4747, [email protected]