Geneva- Two child molesting clerics worked in Switzerland

 Victims to leaflet outside cathedral

Two child molesting clerics worked in Switzerland

Group urges church members & staff to report abuse

SNAP: “Catholic officials should do more to protect kids”

WHAT 

Holding signs and childhood photos, clergy sex abuse victims will hand out fliers to Catholic churchgoers and passers. The leaflets urge anyone with information about clergy sexual misdeeds to “start healing and protecting kids by calling law enforcement, exposing wrongdoers and speaking up.”

They will also urge Catholic Church officials to

– publicly disclose the names, whereabouts and work histories of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics, and

– “actively seek out” anyone who “saw, suspected or suffered” clergy sex crimes or cover ups, especially a cleric who was convicted of molesting two children and spent a year on the job in Switzerland.

WHEN 

Sunday, May 4

WHERE

On the sidewalk in front of Basilique Notre-Dame de Genève, Rue Argand 3, 1201 Genève  

WHO

Three-four members of an international, US-based support group for clergy sex abuse victims called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Chicago woman who is the organization’s founder and president (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY

For the safety of children and the healing of victims, SNAP is prodding current and former Catholic Church employees and members who have seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes to speak up and report it to police. The group feels the Swiss church hierarchy continues to be irresponsible and secretive about this on-going scandal.

Their flier blasts Swiss church officials for not doing more to expose predators and protect kids. It was just three years ago that, for the first time, Swiss Catholic officials revealed any details about abuse in their dioceses.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/catholic_church_reveals_scale_of_sex_abuse.html?cid=31149684

SNAP is especially concerned about Swiss adults who may have been hurt as kids by two clerics, and who may still be suffering in “shame, silence and self-blame.” The clerics are:

–- Marist Brother Colgan Taylor who  worked for a year in Fribourg, Switzerland and was convicted and jailed on child sex charges in Australia (according to the Sydney Morning Herald and an Australian victims group called Broken Rites (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/29/1038386298686.html, http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/238, [email protected]), and

--Fr. Gregor Mueller, an admitted child molester who resigned in 2010 from the Chur diocese where he was still working (in Schuelbelbach) despite multiple abuse allegations (according to the Associated Press and the Swiss daily Blick). Mueller also worked in the Basel diocese, in Mehrerau and in Birnau Germany.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2010/03_04/2010_04_14_MercuryNews_SnapshotsOf.htm

This month in Geneva, Vatican officials are being questioned at a periodic review by the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

In February, after a similar hearing in Geneva before a different UN panel (the Committee on the Rights of the Child), church officials were harshly criticized for ignoring and enabling sexual violence against children.

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/VAT/CRC_C_VAT_CO_2_16302_E.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/world/europe/un-panel-assails-vatican-over-sex-abuse-by-priests.html?_r=0 

CONTACT 

In Geneva----Barbara Blaine, Swiss mobile +41 076 641 89 92, U.S. cell +1 312 399 4747, [email protected], Nicky Davis, [email protected], Megan Peterson, Swiss mobile, +41 076 642 15 53,[email protected]

In the US----David Clohessy US mobile +1 314 566 9790, [email protected] or Barbara Dorris US mobile +1 314 503 0003, [email protected] or the SNAP office in Chicago at +1 312 455 1499, [email protected], [email protected]