CA--Bishop claims “abuse is over” while he lets predator work elsewhere

For immediate release: Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Statement by Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home,[email protected])

San Diego’s top Catholic official is making the self-serving and deceptive claim that the church’s child sex abuse and cover up crisis is over while he passively sits back and lets a convicted predator priest work in another parish.

Shame on Bishop Robert McElroy.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/apr/21/sdqt-bishop-mcelroy-appeal/#

Hoping to boost parochial school attendance by exploiting recent sex scandals at a public school, McElroy claims “Catholic schools still have one big advantage” because “We’ve had our big sex scandal. It’s in the past."

"I promise that your kids are safe with us,” McElroy tells San Diego parents while he lets Fr. Jose Alexis Davila work at four Oklahoma parishes while giving parents, police, prosecutors, parishioners and the public no warning whatsoever.

http://kfor.com/2016/04/23/priest-convicted-of-sex-crime-finds-home-in-lawton-parish/

http://www.snapnetwork.org/ok_victims_blast_ok_city_archbishop_over_convicted_priest

(McElroy’s comments were prompted by three staffers at Imperial Beach’s Mar Vista High School -Edward Aaron Mendoza, Martin Albert Gallegos and Alejandro Rodriguez - having been in the news recently for sex crimes.)

McElroy is being deceitful and disingenuous. Catholics in San Diego should be ashamed of him.

No matter what lawmakers or 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.

(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])