Media Statements

An independent commission into the issue of Catholic clergy sexual abuse in France is set to do a deeper dive into the scale of the problem in that country, something that we think will bring much-needed detail and information to the recently reported statistics on this issue.

A Minnesota Catholic diocese is getting a new bishop soon and we call on him to make the protection of children and prevention of abuse his number one priority once he takes the job in Duluth.

A Pennsylvania Catholic diocese’s callous treatment of a survivor in desperate need of therapy demands attention from parishioners and the public. Today we are calling for diocesan leaders to publicly justify their stance.

Belleville Catholic officials have quietly - without notifying the public - added a dozen more names to their list of those with “credible allegations” of abusing children. Given that the entire point of these lists is to ensure that diocesan leaders are accountable to their parishioners and the public, we are disturbed that these updates were made without any sort of notice.

52 lawsuits were filed against the Diocese of Albany on Monday, and thanks to those lawsuits the names of twenty new abusers have been made public. We applaud these survivors for coming forward and know that children and the vulnerable will be safer because of these filings.

Following an open letter detailing allegations of inappropriate sexual advances and sexual harassment, we have learned a prominent Catholic composer has been dropped by one of the companies with which he worked. We applaud this move and hope that this news will encourage other still-silent victims to come forward and make a report to police.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo has been tapped by Houston’s ABC 13 to lead a discussion on race relations in communities of faith. Given Cardinal DiNardo’s history of obfuscation and minimization when it comes to cases of sexual abuse, we believe ABC 13 can and should find a better person to represent Houston’s faith communities.

We are dismayed and disappointed by the decision in Mitchell v Roberts out of the Utah Supreme Court. This decision will only make it harder for victims of sexual abuse to come forward, put more children at risk of abuse, and prevent law enforcement from getting dangerous criminals out of the community.

As an organization dedicated to survivor support and the prevention of sexual abuse, SNAP has recently heard from another group, Into Account, about an allegedly abusive Catholic music minister. While we have not heard from any victims directly, we have been contacted by the whistleblowers. More to the point, we know that false allegations are rare and multiple false allegations are even rarer. Therefore, we support Into Account's efforts to bring other victims out of the woodwork and to expose the accusations publicly in an effort to protect others from future abuse.

A new lawsuit has been filed on behalf of nine brave survivors (eight living, one deceased) who allege abuse at the hands of seven different priests from the Diocese of Pittsburgh. We applaud these brave survivors for coming forward and hope that they are finding support and comfort on their healing journey.