NY- Cardinal Dolan feels church is “picked on”; SNAP responds

For immediate release: Monday, March 10, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, [email protected]) 

On Meet the Press today, Cardinal Tim Dolan shamelessly whined that Catholics “are being picked on” about child sex crimes, trying to pretend that somehow, the church's largely corrupt hierarchy is the real victim in the on-going, horrific Catholic clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis. Shame on him.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/dolan-pope-francis-likely-meet-sex-abuse-victims-n47266

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-march-9-2014-n48396 

He sounds childish when he basically says “Other people are wrongdoers too.” And of course he doesn't cite, because he can't cite, any other institution with such a long-standing, well-documented and continuing pattern of selfishness, recklessness, callousness and deceitfulness with children's safety as the Catholic hierarchy. 

“Why is it that Catholics are being picked on and singled out,” Dolan gripes. “This goes on in other areas of society, so yes I applaud the Popes comments regarding this." 

Of course, child molesters can be found in every occupation. But their supervisors elsewhere largely boot them out. But their Catholic supervisors largely ignore or hide their crimes and often transfer and protect them when child molesting clerics are caught. 

Dolan also claimed that in recent years, the Catholic Church has become an example of handling child sex crimes well. He's dead wrong. Right now, prosecutors want to extradite a Polish archbishop to face charges for molesting kids. Pope Francis and his staff are stopping this. Months ago, a United Nations panel asked for information about clergy sex crimes and cover ups, Pope Francis and his staff rebuffed them. Right now, Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn remains on the job and not a single one of the world's 5,000 bishops has even found the courage to denounce him, even though he was found guilty in criminal court of withholding evidence of a priest's child sex crimes from police.

Ever the savvy politician, Dolan sucks up to his boss by praising Pope Francis' recent similar remarks. And he briefly and vaguely alludes to failures by his predecessors and colleagues, without naming any of them, and refuses to ever acknowledge wrongdoing himself. 

Check out these three recent cases in which Dolan acted irresponsibly:

http://www.snapnetwork.org/three_recent_troubling_ny_clergy_sex_cases_involving_dolan

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 15,000 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 (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, [email protected]), Mark Crawford (732-632-7687, [email protected])