For immediate release: Friday, January 14, 2011

SNAP on John Paul II's sainthood & Cardinal Law's aide's promotion

Statement by Barbara Blaine President of SNAP 312 399 4747 [email protected]

Today, in an astonishing move, the Pope made one of Cardinal Bernard Law's top aides a new bishop.

The message ambitious clerics will get is: Defending and shilling for an extraordinarily callous and deceitful prelate will help your career.

The message wounded victims and betrayed Catholics will get is: Your pain doesn't matter.

Out of tens of thousands of US priests, the Vatican promotes a close confidante of America's most disgraced Catholic figure. It's unfathomable.

Statement by Joelle Casteix Western Regional Director of SNAP 949 322 7435 [email protected]

Today, Pope John Paul II moved closer to being named a saint, despite taking virtually no steps to protect even a single vulnerable child from devastating child sex crimes or exposing even a single complicit cleric who ignored or concealed such crimes.

Time and time again, the Catholic hierarchy honors and promotes clerics with little or no consideration being given to hundreds of thousands of individuals who are still suffering the life-long impact of childhood violation at the hands of priests, nuns, seminarians, and bishops.

(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 23 years and have more than 10,000 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 Blaine (312-399-4747, [email protected]), Peter Isely (414-429-7259, [email protected]), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, [email protected])