Victims blast bishop over predator priest

Catholic prelate heads to national meeting next week

Victims blast bishop over predator priest

Catholic prelate heads to national meeting next week

All US bishops will vote on “flawed” church sex abuse policy

SNAP tells Cleveland’s top church official “Push for reforms”

And take predator priest’s name off building and plaque, they say

Self help organization praises six women who have exposed pedophile

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy molestation victims will pass out flyers encouraging Catholics to
-- beg Cleveland’s bishop to take the lead this week in strengthening the church’s “weak, vague” abuse policy,
-- remove a recently-“outed” predator priest’s name from a plaque and a building, and
-- permanently post on the diocesan website the names and whereabouts of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics, so that children will be safer.

WHEN: Monday, June 13 at 11:45 a.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 1007 Superior Avenue E, (Corner E 9th St)

WHO
Five or six supporters and victims of childhood clergy sexual abuse who belong to SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), including a Chicago woman who is the group’s founder and president

WHY
1.This week, America’s bishops will meet in Seattle and consider proposed changes to the church’s nine-year old child sex abuse policy (first adopted in Dallas in 2002). The purported “revisions” are being given little attention and “no major changes have been proposed, according to Religion News Service.” SNAP believes dramatic reforms are needed to better protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded and that Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon should spearhead an effort to make such reforms.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-06-10-catholic-church-sex-abuse-reforms-review_n.htm

The group especially wants to see the church policy spell out harsh penalties for any church employee from custodian to cardinal who ignore or conceals child sex crimes. There are no such provisions now.

2.SNAP is also urging :Lennon to remove the name of Msgr. Nicholas Monaghan from a Cleveland area parish. In the past few days, credible allegations have surfaced that Monaghan molested at least six girls at St. Charles of Borromeo on Ridge Road in Parma in the 1950s and 1960s. SNAP also wants Lennon to explain and apologize for his denying a Monaghan victim this request and wants the bishop to personally visit each parish where the cleric worked, urging victims to come forward and get help. (Monaghan died in 1967 at the age of 85). http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/06/texas_woman_says_she_was_abuse.html

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/06/more_former_students_allege_re.html

3.SNAP also wants Lennon to do what 24 other bishops have done, and post on his website, for the sake of public safety, the names, whereabouts and priestly status of child molesting clerics who are or have been in eastern Ohio.

According to a Boston-based independent research group called BishopAccoutnabilty.org, there are46 publicly accused Cleveland diocesan child molesting clerics. SNAP notes that the actual number of Cleveland area pedophile priests is likely much higher because BishopAccountability.org lists only those clerics against whom allegations have been lodge in the public domain – in civil lawsuits, criminal prosecution or news accounts.

In 2002, Baltimore became the first US diocese to disclose names. A good current example is the Philadelphia archdiocese: http://archphila.org/protection/Updates/update_main.htm. Here is a list of all the dioceses that have disclosed names: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AtAGlance/lists.htm

CONTACT
Barbara Blaine of Chicago, SNAP President, 312 399 4747, [email protected]
Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP Outreach Director 314 862 7688, 314 503 0003 [email protected]