Rome--SNAP challenges papal panel to talk "procedures"

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 6

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

The latest church abuse panel, meeting now in Rome, is to “come up with best practices for dioceses and religious orders to implement” (AP) and “propose ways for the church to improve its norms and procedures.” (Catholic News Service).

But if my house is filthy, I don’t need to learn “best cleaning practices.” I just need to start sweeping out the dirt.  

That’s what Pope Francis must do. But that’s what he hasn’t done and won’t do. The dirt is just too widespread.

It’s a lack of decisive action, not a lack of ‘norms,’ that keeps predators in parishes and abuse cover ups covered up. No plethora of procedures can or will force bishops to be honest about child molesting clerics and responsible about innocent childrens safety.

Since royalty are never demoted or disciplined in a monarchy, clearer or "better" or more procedures do nothing but create the image of reform. So we have few hopes for this panel. Whatever it recommends will be adopted and then ignored because this pope, like his predecessors, lacks the spine to fire corrupt men like Archbishop John Neinstedt or Bishop Robert Finn.

Or Philippine Bishop Arturo Mandin Bastes who right now is keeping a known abuser, Fr. Arwyn N. Diesta, in ministry. (Fr. Diesta worked in the Los Angeles archdiocese in the 1980s and abused a young teen seminarian there. Three times Sorsogon diocesan officials were warned about Fr. Diesta - twice by Cardinal Roger Mahony and once by the Vatican. Yet Bishop Bastes puts youngsters in harm’s way today by keeping Fr. Diesta on the job.)

 http://www.bishop-accountability.org/Philippines/Key_Cases.htm#Diesta

Or Argentinian Juan Alberto Puiggari (who covered up for Fr. Justo José Ilarraz who sexually assaulted up to 50 kids in the early 1990s in a residential minor seminary in the Paraná archdiocese but was never reported to civil authorities and allowed to transfer to another unsuspecting diocese and where he stayed in ministry until being ‘outed’ in 2012 by a journalist).

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/Argentina/news/2012_10_15_Analisis_Digital_Archbishop_Puiggari.html

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/Argentina/Detailed_Illaraz_Summary.htm

The list goes on and on and on.

Complicit Catholic officials need punishment, not advice. They need harsh discipline, not “best practices.” This new church panel can't provide that. Only the Pope can. But he refuses.

So children, parents and families must create and rely on external pressure - from victims, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors, lawmakers and independent governmental investigators – to expose and deter clerics who commit and conceal this horrific sexual violence.

These panel members are well-educated and well-intentioned but clearly powerless over prelates.

Marie Collins and Pete Saunders are smart and compassionate individuals who are brave to take on this role. We wish them well and hope they won't end up feeling used or betrayed. But this panel, like every other church panel, is predicated on the deceptive notion that prelates need to be educated about abuse. They don't. They need to be severely, publicly and promptly disciplined each time they ignore, minimize, conceal or enable child sex crimes. That hasn’t happened. That isn’t happening. And that won’t happen, unless Pope Francis suddenly shows way more bravery than he’s shown in two years.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/rome_victims_to_church_abuse_panel_take_practical_action_now

http://www.snapnetwork.org/rome_pope_all_talk_no_action

http://www.snapnetwork.org/rome_punish_kids_not_clerics

(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 +1 314-566-9790, [email protected], Barbara Dorris +1 314-503-0003, [email protected], Barbara Blaine +1 312-399-4747, [email protected]