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	Birmingham Diocese Asked to Identify Abusive Priests By Jeff Hansen Birmingham News October 20, 2007 http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1192868427260350.xml&coll=2 A support group for victims of clergy sexual abuse wants the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham to list names of abusive priests. In a sidewalk news conference Friday near St. Paul's Cathedral, Ann Brentwood, Southeast regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called for newly installed Bishop Robert Baker to make public lists of: All offending clergy in the Birmingham diocese. All offending clergy who were transferred out of Birmingham to other dioceses. All the parishes, hospitals and schools where those offending clergy have worked. Brentwood said she has mailed a letter to Baker asking for this information. She and SNAP volunteer Mike Coode took similar letters to Catholic bishops in Little Rock and Jackson, Miss, earlier this week. Next week they will carry similar letters to bishops in Atlanta, Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. SNAP is a nonprofit support group founded in Chicago in 1989 for women and men wounded by religious authority figures. Brentwood, a Maryville, Tenn., retired teacher and health care worker, was a Dominican nun as a young woman. Coode has said a priest in Nashville and then at St. Bernard's College in Cullman sexually abused him in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Diocese of Alabama issued a statement after Brentwood and Coode sought a meeting with Baker, saying it takes "protection of our children very seriously." Any complaint of possible child sexual abuse, the statement said, is reported to the Alabama Department of Human Resources for official investigation, followed by an effort by the bishop to meet with the complainant to document the allegations. A lay review board, which includes a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker and judge, reviews the information and makes recommendations to the bishop. E-mail: jhansen@bhamnews.com
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