BishopAccountability.org
	SNAP Challenges O’malley to Include All Predator Priests SNAP August 4, 2011 http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2011_statements/080411_snap_challenges_omalley_to_include_all_predator_priests.htm Statement by: Phil Saviano of Boston, Board Member, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (781-686-3886) phil@philsaviano.net We commend the caring individuals who have gathered today to sound the alarm about dozens of child-molesting religious order priests. However, it is dismaying that they are the ones who have to do this. Protecting the vulnerable and healing the wounded is Cardinal O’Malley’s job. Yet with child safety, he continues to move slowly, not quickly, and acts secretly, not openly. He should have been the first Catholic official to make the identities of predator priests public. Instead, he’s two years late on his own promise to do so, and nine years later than the first of his colleagues to do this. (Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, 11/02) By arbitrarily and unilaterally ignoring the child sex crimes of religious order priests, O’Malley is basically keeping hidden one third of the predator priests, nuns and brothers who have worked in his archdiocese. This, despite the canon law that states that to work in a diocese, an order priest must first obtain permission from a diocesan bishop, and that the bishop has supervisory power to remove the order priest without the superior's consent. So why now dodge accountability for them? But this isn’t about Cardinal O'Malley. It’s about safeguarding innocent kids. Does it matter to a child whether the priest who is assaulting him is an order or a diocesan priest? No, it does not. The child's trauma and the emotional fallout is the same. Likewise, the threat that these men post to other children is also the same. So why split hairs? Why is the Cardinal maintaining secrecy that shields these publicly accused order priests? Our gathering today is about protecting kids and making society better by exposing such secrecy in the Boston Archdiocese. This should be the Cardinal's priority, but since he won't do it, we are happy to do it for him. (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 23 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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