For immediate release: Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Priest acquitted; SNAP responds

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach CA, western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (949 322 7434, [email protected])

Our hearts ache for this brave woman who had the wisdom to report a horrific crimes to law enforcement. Let’s hope that every person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Hawaii – by Borowic or any cleric - will find the courage and strength to speak up, call police, expose wrongdoing, protect kids and start healing.

If you have knowledge or suspicions - however old, small or seemingly insignificant - about clergy sex crimes, it's your moral and civic duty to call police. Please summon the courage to do what's right, call law enforcement and hopefully prevent more devastated lives.

We strongly suspect that other current or former church members and staff have seen or suspected sex crimes. They may be keeping quiet to protect their church or their faith. But that’s irresponsible and short-sighted. Churches and faith are strengthened, not weakened, when the full truth is revealed and the wrongdoers are exposed.

(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])

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/127337678.html

Visiting priest acquitted of sexual assault at Holy Trinity

By Star-Advertiser staff - POSTED: 12:19 p.m. HST, Aug 09, 2011

A Circuit Court jury deliberated for about two hours Monday before acquitting a priest of charges that he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a woman on the grounds of an East Honolulu church this year.

The Rev. Bothdan Borowic, 56, was found not guilty of all charges following the trial in Circuit Judge Colette Garibaldi's courtroom.

Borowic was accused of sexually assaulting the 55-year-old woman at the Makai House, a former convent on the grounds of Holy Trinity Church.

Borowic was charged in the case only two weeks after arriving here.

He came here to lead services for the St. Sophia's Ukrainian Greek Catholic Mission, according to a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Hawaii.