SNAP responds: Bishop Zubik should step down

For immediate release: Wednesday, August 15, 2018

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

In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary Pittsburgh's top Catholic official claims "There was no cover up going on" of child sex crimes.

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/08/14/bishop-david-zubik-responds-to-grand-jury-sex-abuse-report/

Catholics should stop donating to Bishop Zubik's diocese until he steps down or takes proven steps that protect kids. Such a boycott may be the best way to cut through the persistent denial of Pittsburgh's church hierarchy

Two years of hard work by dozens of independent, trained law enforcement officials and unbiased grand jurors found that
-- Priests were raping little boys and girls and (bishops) hid it all. For decades.
-- (Bishops) followed a playbook for concealing the truth

The state's top law enforcement official, Josh Shapiro, said
-- "in some cases, the cover up stretched all the way up to the Vatican."
-- (Bishops) protected their institution at all costs."

Virtually every other governmental inquiry into Catholic scandals across the world has reached almost the exact conclusions. Most other US bishops have admitted, at some level, in vague terms, that cover ups have happened. (We're firmly convinced that cover ups are going on now.) In this sense, the Grand Jury report calls out Zubik.  According the the Attorney General Shapiro: 

“If you look at the documents contained in the church’s own secret archives that then-Bishop Wuerl and Bishop Zubik had access to, uniquely had access to, it is clear that the cover-up occurred in the Pittsburgh Diocese along with every other diocese in Pennsylvania. The abuse occurred and it was enabled by this cover-up,” the attorney general said.We urge western Pennsylvania church-goers to give more generously than ever, but to quasi-independent entities like Catholic Charities, with boards of directors less apt to ignore, hide or enable child sex crimes. They should contribute to agencies that won't help these church authorities who value reputation over the safety of children. There needs to be an alternative to keep paying lawyers and public relations people to hide and twist the truth.If those in church hierarchy can't even admit wrongdoing, they very likely won't stop wrongdoing. They can't even begin to be part of any solution if they refuses to see there's a problem.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, is the world's oldest and largest support group for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org) 

Contact  -  Tim Lennon (415-312-5820, [email protected]); Judy Jones (636-433-2511, [email protected]), Becky Ianni (703-801-6044, [email protected])