BishopAccountability.org
	Dc Catholic Officials Should Do More to Monitor Predator Priests By David Clohessy SNAP December 3, 2010 http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2010_statements/120310_dc_catholic_officials_should_do_more_to_monitor_predator_priests.htm Catholic officials can and should do more to supervise the pedophile priests they recruit, educate, ordain, hire, and often protect and quietly transfer. When clergy sex crimes and cover ups are uncovered, it’s immoral for bishops to suddenly ‘cut and run,’ and feign powerlessness. For starters, for the safety of children, bishops in the DC area should do what 24 of their colleagues across the US have done: post on church websites the names of all proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics. Parents, parishioners and the public can’t protect their kids from predators unless we know who those predators are. This is the bare minimum moral obligation of every Catholic prelate. Remember that priests have pledged to obey their bishops. In return, bishops provide priests – even most predator priests – with salaries, health insurance and a host of other benefits. Bishops can therefore order pedophile priests to live in supervised settings, like professionally-run treatment facilities for sex offenders. But virtually no bishop does this, preferring to instead take the cheap and easy way out, despite the obvious public safety risk involved. Kids are safest when child predators are imprisoned. So bishops can and should also do much more to urge victims and witnesses and whistleblowers to call police and prosecutors. Instead, they do the absolute bare minimum, and merely suspend child molesting clerics from active ministry. That’s a dereliction of duty. DC bishops should personally go to each parish where pedophile priests have worked and emphatically beg anyone with information about the crimes to contact law enforcement. Those kinds of clear, direct pleas can make a difference. But we rarely see bishops taking this simple step to protecting the vulnerable . Bishops are powerful monarchs. They have massive resources. They have church newspapers and radio stations and websites. They have hundreds of employees and dozens of parish bulletins and websites. If they choose to act responsibly, bishops can help ensure that more predator priests are charged, convicted and jailed. But it takes courage and compassion to do this. And sadly, courage and compassion are sorely lacking in many bishops/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/02/AR2010120206646.html NOTE: More information about this situation can be found at BishopAccountability.org (SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 22 years and have more than 10,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org) Contact David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com), Peter Isely (414-429-7259, peterisely@yahoo.com), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)
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