CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant
December 12, 2004
By KIM MARTINEAU, Courant Staff Writer
A national group of Catholic nuns will not turn over a list of members to an advocacy group for victims of sexual abuse by clergy, or allow the victims to speak at its upcoming conferences.
The advocacy group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, made those demands to raise awareness about the problem of abusive nuns, at a time when news reports have focused heavily on abusive priests.
"All we want is to be part of the healing and education," said Mary Guentner, a social worker from Milwaukee who says she was abused as a teenager by a nun. "We are the experts. ... We can truly help develop a plan to put the healing of victims first."
A Connecticut woman, who claims she was abused by a nun when she was a senior at Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, helped arrange a historic meeting in October with leaders from the nation's largest consortium of nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. At the meeting, Landa Mauriello-Vernon and four others asked the nuns to help them reach out to other alleged victims, by providing a link to the Survivors Network on their website and turning over contact information to the approximately 450 religious orders that belong to the Leadership Conference.