BishopAccountability.org
	Pope Accused of Ignoring Abuse Victims News.com.au November 13, 2007 http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22750244-23109,00.html POPE Benedict XVI was accused today of ignoring the US victims of decades of sexual abuse by Catholic priests as his first trip to the United States was announced. Groups representing abuse victims noted that Benedict's April 15-20 schedule would take him to Washington and New York but not Boston, the epicentre of the pedophilia scandal. "Boston still has a lot of people who are justifiably outraged so I'm guessing that he is afraid of protests," said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the website Bishop Accountability.org. She said that Cardinal Edward Egan of the New York archdiocese had refused to release documents on accused priests, unlike Boston, which revealed in 2002 that it had hushed up its knowledge of pedophile priests for decades. "So the pope is sending the signal that he is honouring the cardinal who may be his most successful keeper of secrets, who has suppressed the crisis and silenced the victims most successfully," Ms Doyle said. Bishop Accountability.org documents priests accused of abuse and carries accounts by their victims. From 1950 to now, more than 5000 priests have been exposed by their archdioceses as pedophiles, it said. "We believe that double or triple that figure actually have abused kids," Ms Doyle said, citing court documents and press reports. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the Vatican had "played a fairly abysmal role" in the scandal that rocked the US Church, by failing to punish implicated individuals, and even promoting some of them. "Benedict has been at the upper echelons of the Church for decades," SNAP national director David Clohessy said. "So it's hard to imagine that he's not had direct dealings with these cases," he said after the pontiff's inaugural US trip was announced by the conference of US bishops. Regarding the pope's itinerary, Mr Clohessy said: "He is passing up a golden opportunity because while the wounds are still deep and fresh throughout the American Church, Boston is perhaps the best place for him to begin addressing those wounds." Catholic authorities in the United States have paid out close to $US2.8 billion in damages to hundreds of victims, many of whom accused the Church of turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse. An unidentified young man who was abused as a boy by a Catholic priest has won a record $US3 million in compensation from a Pennsylvania diocese, Church officials said on Saturday. "It's hard to imagine that he would ignore the crisis entirely. But we would hope that he would offer more than just a vague, passing reference to it," Mr Clohessy said ahead of the pope's visit. "We would hope that he would use this visit to announce genuine reform that would better protect kids in the future." Ms Doyle said: "The ideal message will not happen when the pope comes. "That would be for him to tell his US bishops to release every name of accused priests, and stop fighting victims in court, and take all the money they're spending on defence lawyers and public relations and create a fund for the victims instead."
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