SNAP calls on Catholic religious order to publicize a list of accused members

Fr. Eckley Macklin has apparently been found to have a "credible" allegation of sexual abuse of a minor in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, according to information shared in a parish bulletin from a Catholic church in the Diocese of Cheyenne.  The priest worked in that Diocese from 2003- 2015 in the parishes of St. Ann in Saratoga, St. Joseph in Lovell, St. Stephens Mission in St. Stephens, and St. Margaret in Riverton.

However, the Diocese of Corpus Christi has yet to include this information on its list of abusers, and the religious order to which Fr. Macklin belongs, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), has yet to release a list of accused members at all. SOLT is headquartered in Corpus Christi.

Most Catholic dioceses and many independently run Catholic religious orders have published lists of perpetrators, disclosing to their communities and the public what they deem to be "credible" allegations of the abuse of minors by clergy, brothers, sisters, and laity. While by our accounting these lists fall short of complete transparency, they are a start to providing the information promised to the faithful in the 2002 Dallas Charter. In our view, it is completely unacceptable for an order to disregard the need for a list, which will preferably not only include the names of the abusers, but also their photos, assignment history, and information about the accusations. There has been growing pressure from inside and outside the Church to come clean about sexual abuse, in part because it will promote the healing of victims, but more importantly because it will help to protect today's children.

The Church's purported desire to atone for the cover-up of crimes in the past is hard to believe when they continue to refuse to come clean and provide this crucial data. In fact, the pattern we have seen of institutional knowledge and concealment clearly still exists. We not only call on the Diocese of Corpus Christi to add Fr. Macklin to its list of abusers, but we also demand that SOLT publish its own list, which should not only include the names of perpetrators but also, in the "spirit of transparency," provide other helpful information about all the accused. 

CONTACT: Mike McDonnell, SNAP Communications Manager ([email protected], 267- 261-0578), Zach Hiner, SNAP Executive Director ([email protected], 517-974-9009)

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for more than 30 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org.)