MICHIGAN
Daily Telegram
By Dennis Pelham
Daily Telegram Staff Writer
ADRIAN -- Complaints of sexual abuse by two United Methodist Church ministers were voiced Saturday from the sidewalk in front of the Adrian College campus where an annual weekend gathering of church leaders in the Detroit Conference was taking place.
A board member of the national group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests held a press conference along with a Dearborn Heights man who said his former minister destroyed his marriage and sexually harassed his four daughters.
After the press conference, SNAP board member Janet Patterson of Kansas walked across the campus to try to hand deliver a letter to Michigan Conference Bishop, Jonathan Keaton.
She was not able to meet with him. She also passed out copies of her letter to people attending the conference, including to one of the two ministers SNAP is asking the church to take action against.
Patterson is the mother of a sexual abuse victim who committed suicide nearly six years ago at the age of 29. She said he was abused by their family's Catholic priest when he was 12 years old.
Posted by kshaw at May 22, 2005 07:40 AM