Sex abuse victims leaflet neighbors about predator priest

NY Catholic supervisors secretly moved 'credibly accused' cleric

SNAP urges Jesuits to disclose other predators who live in Manhattan

For decades, church officials let offender live/work secretly among unsuspecting teens

Group wants Archdiocese, Jesuits & Fordham to move child molesters elsewhere & alert public

What:
Holding signs and childhood photos, clergy sex abuse victims will hand fliers to passers-by
-- warning them that a predator priest is secretly living in New York City and
-- urging NY Catholic officials to apologize for and explain
             -- their current 'reckless' secrecy about predators, and
             -- their decision to secretly move at least 1 prominent credibly accused predator priest to Manhattan

They will also urge church staffers to
-- put this sex offender (and other predators) in a remote, secure treatment center, and
-- aggressively reach out to find and help victims of these child molesting clerics.

When:
Wednesday, May 27, at 2:15 p.m.

Where:
Outside a Jesuit facility, 106 W. 56th, in Manhattan

Who:
Three men who were victimized by Catholic clergy and who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a Missouri man who is the organization’s long time national director and a New York man who first exposed two local Jesuits as predators

Details:
In recent years, two high profile predator priests worked and lived at Fordham University in the Bronx. One of them - Fr. Roy A. Drake – died recently but another - Fr. Eugene J. O’Brien – has quietly been moved to a Jesuit facility in Manhattan at 106 West 56th Street, according to the 2008 Official Catholic Directory. (Until last fall, neither had been publicly exposed until SNAP made credible child sex abuse allegations against them public and the New York Times and other media outlets reported on them.)

SNAP strongly suspects other child molesting clergy live at the same location, which is also adjacent to the Loyola School, http://www.loyola-nyc.org/ and the Gregorian University Foundation (which O’Brien headed from 1995-2002 and which raises money for the church's premiere college in Rome).

O’Brien was Fordham Prep’s Headmaster and President from 1960 – 1979 and is a member of its Hall of Honor. In the 1970s, he molested a teenaged Prep student who was paid a secret $25,000 settlement in 1997. It included a ‘gag order’ forcing the victim to keep quite about the crimes. (A copy of the settlement will be provided.)

Drake, an internationally renowned priest who was on the NY Archdiocese’s faculty for decades, sexually abused then-13 year old Rich Cerick in 1969 at Drake’s apartment at Fordham University. In 2005, Cerick reported the abuse to Jesuit, Fordham and NY Archdiocese officials. Another youngster told these officials Drake tried to sexually molest him too. The Jesuits have admitted that Cerick’s allegations are ‘completely credible,’ but they hid Drake, refused to disclose his whereabouts or warn others about him. Even now, they refuse to help Cerick in any way.

Neither priest has been investigated, sued or faced criminal charges. Copies of correspondence between Jesuits and Cerick will also be provided.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news5/2008_10_21_Vitello_JesuitSchool.htm

Contact: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP National Director 314 566 9790, Rich Cerick of New York 646 262 9847