SNAP Urges Cardinal for Action

SNAP urges Cardinal to put pressure on a Chicago-based religious order 

Former member and admitted child molester will not leave Indonesian orphanage

SNAP: Children are at risk each day that the perpetrator remains there

Group also ‘outs’ 44 more publicly accused local predator priests

WHAT

Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and advocates will

--disclose information about a priest who belonged to a Chicago-based religious order who has admitted to sexually assaulting girls at an orphanage in Indonesia, and 

--urge Cardinal Blasé Cupich to add the cleric's name to the Archdiocese‘s list of abusive clergy and to insist that religious orders reveal the names of accused members.

They will also release names of and information about 44 current or former Chicago clerics who

--are publicly accused of molesting children,

--have largely been ‘outed’ by church officials elsewhere, but

--had or have access to Chicago area kids, and  

--whose whereabouts and status are unclear.

WHEN

Thursday, April 18 at 10 a.m.

WHERE

On the sidewalk outside the Chicago Archdiocesan Headquarters at 835 N. Rush Street (corner of Rush and Pearson)

WHO

Two-three victims and advocates who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Chicago man who is the group's new executive director.

WHY

1.) Fr. Rich Daschbach, who was until recently a member of a Chicago-based religious order called the Divine Word Missionaries (1835 Waukegan Rd, Techny, 847-272-7600), allegedly admitted last year that he sexually abused girls at an orphanage in Indonesia which he founded in1993. As of two months ago he was reportedly refusing to leave the facility and was still saying mass, despite being defrocked. 

Even though Fr. Daschbach was ordained at St. Mary’s Mission Seminary in Chicago and is an admitted child abuser, his name does not appear on the Archdiocese's list of clergy with "substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor." SNAP believes that it is possible that the former priest could have had victims in Chicago as well, so it wants his name and the allegations publicized here.

The group also wants Cardinal Cupich to use every tool at his disposable to pressure the Chicago-based religious order to take action to have Fr. Daschbach removed from the Indonesian orphanage. Every day that the former cleric remains there, children remain at risk of grievous harm, SNAP says.

The Cardinal should also insist that all Catholic religious orders who work within his Archdiocese post the names of accused child molesters on their websites. Although a majority of bishops have reluctantly and partially done this, only a handful of religious orders have. Religious order clerics make up about a third of the priests in the United States.

Jefferson City MO Bishop Shawn McKnight has said that he will refuse to let religious orders work in his diocese without having taken this step.SNAP wants Cardinal Cupich to do the same.

2.) SNAP has discovered and is disclosing the names of and details about 44 publicly alleged child molesting clerics who spent time in the Chicago area but are not on the archdiocese’s  list of ‘accused’ clerics. Four of them are also not in the recently-issued “The Anderson Report” on abuse in Illinois.

Most of the 44 were ‘outed’ through civil lawsuits, criminal prosecution or by their own church supervisors, often elsewhere in the US. But each one of them had or has access to Chicago kids.

Of the accused, 30 are or were Jesuits and were ‘outed’ as credibly accused predators in December by the Jesuit hierarchy. They worked or were in Chicago, Maywood, Edgewater, Berwyn, Wilmette, Evanston,Barrington, Wadsworth and Oak Park.

And a dozen are or were Christian Brothers who have been accused at least twice. They  worked at one or more of three local schools: Brother Rice High School in Chicago, St. Laurence High School in Burbank and/or Leo High School inChicago.

For “the safety of kids and the healing of victims,” SNAP wants Cupich, the Jesuits and the Brothers to ‘come clean’ about the alleged wrongdoers and provide more information about each of them.

A detailed fact sheet about the 44 will be given out at the news conference.