OH--Columbus seminarian to be sentenced for trying to have sex with infant

June 29, 2016

For immediate release, June 29, 2016

Statement by: Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511, [email protected]

A Catholic seminarian who attracted national media attention and spent time in Ohio, Vermont and Kentucky is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday (7/1) for horrific child sex crimes.

Former Josephinum College student Joel Wright travelled to San Diego seeking infants for sex.

We hope he will be given a long sentence. This dangerous child predator, who was rejected by forty other seminaries, needs to be kept far away from kids forever.

Wright was a seminarian in Columbus diocese, but he was also sponsored by the Steubenville diocese in Ohio. He also studied in Kentucky and is originally from Vermont.

Let's hope that Vermont Bishop Christopher Coyne, Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell, Steubenville Bishop Jeffrey Montforton and Covington Bishop Roger Foys will use pulpit announcements, parish bulletins and church websites to do what they should have done long ago – do outreach to others who may be suffering from Wright’s wrongdoing.

And we hope that current and former staff at St. Thomas More College near Covington Kentucky, Franciscan University in Steubenville and Josephinum in Columbus will aggressively seek out others with information or suspicions about other crimes by Wright and cover ups by his colleagues or supervisors.

And let’s hope that anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Wright will find the courage to come forward and contact law enforcement no matter how long ago the crimes may have happened.

(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 25,000 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])

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Showing 3 comments

Friend E commented 2016-07-01 13:08:49 -0500
Sadly I can no longer say I am shocked by this. What i still find quite amazing and makes me so angry, is that clergy are not even screened by the same standards as others. Myself as a healthcare provider had to be screened through a central registry, a State agency, as well as be fingerprinted, all previous employment records were checked and rightfully so.. This is the LAW ! I think on points concerning public safety for the protection of all human beings, especially children and the vulnerable in our society the separation of Church and State has gone too far.
Amy Ross commented 2016-06-29 10:52:34 -0500
This agent of Satan was rejected by 40 other seminaries, yet managed to be accepted in Columbus? I think all Catholic seminaries should be able to connect with each other online and run potential seminarians’ names through a database to see if they’ve been rejected anywhere else and why, since pedophiles are stil trying to infiltrate the Church. I’m disgusted by this whole thing and am struggling to even stay Catholic. Thank God this demon was caught before it was ordained!
@ tweeted this page. 2016-06-29 10:06:41 -0500
OH--Columbus seminarian to be sentenced for trying to have sex with infant http://www.snapnetwork.org/oh_columbus_seminarian_to_be_sentenced_for_trying_to_have_sex_with_infant?recruiter_id=342
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