Vatican--Novel suit is filed vs. convicted predator who’s set to go back to work; Victims respond

For immediate release: Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003 cell, [email protected])

It may be the most irresponsible Vatican move we’ve ever seen: Catholic officials in Rome have lifted the suspension of a recently convicted predator priest. We are stunned and saddened by such blatant recklessness and callousness 

But we’re grateful that one of the priest’s victims is filing a new lawsuit, using a new approach, to try and protect kids from this admitted child molesting cleric.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/u-s-survivor-sue-india-church-reinstating-perv-priest-article-1.2606218

Tomorrow, in Minnesota, an unusual lawsuit will be filed against Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul and his Catholic supervisors. Weeks ago, Fr. Jeyapaul’s bishop in India announced that the CDF had lifted Fr. Jeyapaul’s suspension and that next month, he’ll be reassigned.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2016/01_02/2016_02_17_Express_Paedophile_Roams.htm

This is a novel legal approach – charging Catholic officials with creating “public nuisances” by hiding and helping predator priests. In several states (especially Minnesota), it’s working. We hope more victims start to use it.  Something new and more must be done to prod Catholic bishops to better safeguard the vulnerable and to stop enabling heinous child sex crimes.

Many other horrific clergy sex abuse and cover up cases involve

--local bishops, not Vatican officials, putting kids in harm’s way,

--credibly accused pedophile priests, not convicted ones, being put back on the job around kids, and

--irresponsible actions years before, not years after, repeated policies and pledges by church officials to keep child molesting kids out of ministry and away from kids.

So for these reasons, we consider the Vatican’s incredible recklessness and callousness in this case perhaps the worst we’ve ever seen.

To be clear, bishops have put other convicted child molesters back into parishes.
http://www.snapnetwork.org/_twice_convicted_put_back_on_the_job

And to be clear, bishops still put and keep credibly accused predator priests in churches and schools. (Here are ten such cases in the US: http://www.snapnetwork.org/usa_accused_predator_priests_still_on_the_job)

But how, in 2016, under Pope Francis, who has made so many promises to do better with pedophile priests and who professes such concern for the vulnerable and suffering, does an admitted predator priest who faced two criminal charges (and was found guilty on one of them) and two civil lawsuits (both of which settled) and was a fugitive from justice and had to be extradited back to the US, get his suspension lifted just months after completing his prison sentence? It is mind-boggling.

It was Megan Peterson’s courage that brought forward a second victim of Fr. Jeyapaul. It was the second victim’s courage that prodded Fr. Jeyapaul to plead guilty. And we hope the courage of a third victim will get Fr. Jeyapaul extradited, convicted and jailed again, so that no more innocent lives are shattered.

Until he’s charged and convicted again, Fr. Jeyapaul should be put in a remote, secure, independently-run treatment center far from families who have learned to trust him.

No matter what church officials do or don’t do, we urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in Catholic churches or institutions to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling law enforcement, get justice by calling attorneys, and be comforted by calling support groups like ours. This is how kids will be safer, adults will recover, criminals will be prosecuted, cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/rome_pope_says_complicit_bishops_should_resign

http://www.snapnetwork.org/rome_victim_of_just-restored_convicted_perp_priest_blasts_francis

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

U.S. church sex abuse survivor to sue diocese in India for reinstating perv priest

BY MICHAEL O'KEEFFE    NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, April 18, 2016, 

The Vatican reinstated convicted pedophile and Catholic priest, Father Joseph Jeyapaul, in February 2016, less than a year after he pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a minor in Minnesota.

A former New Yorker who says she was sexually abused by a priest reinstated by the Vatican earlier this year - even though he had pleaded guilty to criminal charges - is expected to file a federal lawsuit against the cleric's diocese in India.

Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson will file suit on behalf of Megan Peterson in federal court that claims the Diocese of Ootacamund endangered children by reinstating the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul to ministry.

Anderson and Peterson will speak about the lawsuit at a news conference in St. Paul Tuesday, according to a press advisory released by Anderson's law firm.

Peterson, a member of the advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), said she could not  . . .

Read full article here