News Buzz
March 24, 2010
http://www.milwaukeenewsbuzz.com/?p=12285
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| David Clohessy |
Two of Milwaukee’s leading activists against sex abuse by Catholic clergy are heading to Rome to protest at the Vatican and help European victims.
Amidst a growing European scandal over the issue – similar to the one that has rocked American parishes – Peter Isely and John Pilmaier, director and co-director of the Wisconsin chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, flew into Atlanta Tuesday before crossing the Atlantic.
The group – which has butted heads with church officials in Milwaukee, where new Archbishop Jerome Listecki has refused to meet with its members – is responding to a new wave of victims speaking out on the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Catholic clergy, according to David Clohessy, SNAP’s national director.
Isely and Pilmaier will meet with recently identified victims in Italy, host outreach events and call on government agencies to launch investigations. According to a press release, the two are expected to “harshly criticize Vatican officials for refusing, even now, to take decisive action to protect kids from predator priests."
Clohessy says reports released by Ireland’s Murphy Commission in 2009 detailing church cover-ups have prompted many victims to speak out, and the outcry has caused a ripple effect across other European countries. He compared the reaction to the one seen in Spring 2002 following a Boston Globe investigative series on clergy sex abuse.
Past victims are often compelled to come out “with a desperate sense of moral and civic responsibility,” Clohessy says, after news accounts or government investigations identify new victims and “the compelling and disturbing evidence of continued church cover-ups.”
The European media is perking its ears up, especially after German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for thorough investigations of clergy abuse allegations in the country. SNAP has since formed one of its first chapters outside the United States, Canada or Mexico in the European country.
Pope Benedict XVI remarked on the rising controversy in a St. Patrick’s Day sermon in Northern Ireland. “I want to say to anyone who has been hurt by any failure on my part that I apologize to you with all my heart,” he said, according to the Montreal Gazette. Soon after, the Pope issued a letter apologizing for the scandal.
It’s hit even his home parish in Munich, Germany, where a newspaper reported that while serving as archbishop, the Pope allowed a priest suspected of abuse to remain in the Church until further allegations arose, according to the BBC. Then, the priest was relieved of his duties and convicted in criminal court.
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