TX- Cardinal named to new Vatican council, SNAP responds

For immediate release: March 10, 2014

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790 cell, 314 645 5915 home) 

Houston’s Cardinal Daniel DiNardo is one of 15 individuals named to Pope Francis' new “Council for the Economy.” We are disappointed in this choice.

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=20722 

For decades now, pedophile priests and complicit bishops have been – and still are – the biggest crisis the church has faced in modern times. And in this on-going scandal, DiNardo's record - in Sioux City and in Houston – is terrible.

As long as the Vatican continues to promote bishops who covered up clergy child sexual abuse, Catholics can expect more kids to be hurt and more sex crimes to be committed. 

In 2008, we named DiNardo as one of the worst Cardinals in the US. Our view of him has not changed.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_press_releases/2008_press_releases/041608_SNAP_issues_new_list_of_worst'_US_cardinals.htm

In November 2007, a victim reported having been sexually abused by Fr. Stephen Horn between 1989 and 1993. DiNardo found him credible and suspended Horn. The Cardinal, however, kept the allegation and his determination secret from parishioners, police and the public for two months, despite US bishops’ repeated pledges to act quickly and openly with credible sex abuse allegations. Finally, in mid-January, DiNardo disclosed his action. (The delay gave Horn, a credibly accused molester, ample opportunity to fabricate alibis, destroy evidence, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, or even flee the country, as some pedophile priests have done.)

Part of DiNardo’s secrecy and delay occurred in the weeks between when the Pope announced that DiNardo would be named a Cardinal (October 2007) and when DiNardo was promoted amid much pageantry (November 24). Some Houston Catholics have speculated that DiNardo didn’t want the news of Horn’s crimes to ‘rain on [DiNardo’s] parade.’

At the time, we wrote DiNardo, urging him to explain and apologize for his secrecy and to visit parishes where Horn worked and emphatically beg victims and witnesses to come forward, get help and call the police. He has not responded to either the letter or the request. As best we can tell, he never did.

Beginning in the 1990s (and likely longer), Sioux City church officials knew of repeated charges of child molestation against an admitted abuser, Fr. George B. McFadden (dating back into the 1960s). (DiNardo was Sioux City bishop starting in 1997.) For at least five years DiNardo had the chance to disclose McFadden's hurtful actions to police, prosecutors, parishioners, and the public, and to keep McFadden from other vulnerable children. He stayed silent.

According to the Des Moines Register, "The confessed child molester continued to hear confession and say Mass daily over the past decade at the Cathedral of the Epiphany, Sioux City's largest Catholic church.) 

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/2002_06_23_Rood_ChurchSecrecy.htm 

McFadden who remains a priest even now, is accused of abusing more than 25 girls and boys in dozens of civil lawsuits. Despite his alleged 'treatment' and 'retirement' in the 1990s, he continued to function as priest until 2002.

(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 25 years and have more than 15,000 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 Dorris (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, [email protected])