Predator Priest’s Emails Raise Qs Re Church Abuse Board

SNAP
October 17, 2013

http://www.snapnetwork.org/mn_predator_priest_s_emails_raise_qs_re_church_abuse_board

[Star Tribune]

[the emails - Jeff Anderson & Associates]

[video transcript]

[Jane Doe 20 statement]

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

It’s sickening to read multiple seductive and manipulative emails from a then 44-year-old priest to a then 15-year-old girl.

Here’s the real question raised by these disturbing emails: What’s wrong with the six or seven Catholics on Archbishop John Nienstedt’s anonymous abuse board? They claimed the abuse allegations against Fr. Keating were “unsubstantiated” even after reading these emails and peppering this brave girl with repeated questions?

These adults, presumably some of them parents, apparently find little wrong with an allegedly celibate “man of God” repeatedly writing sexually suggestive comments to a teenager.

These adults, presumably some of them parents, apparently are somehow unmoved by the very credible abuse report – in person and via video – of a brave, wounded girl and her family.

Nienstedt has obviously done a great job of packing his panel with die-hard church loyalists who will ignore a victim’s compelling evidence and testimony and side with an accused priest no matter what.

We urge every single person who has gone before any archdiocesan abuse panel to step forward again, this time to independent sources of help. We urge them to also call police.

Reporting child sex crimes is always hard. It’s harder if you were treated poorly when you first reported. But it’s the path toward prevention and recovery. So even if you have been betrayed twice – once by a trusted cleric and again by his supervisors or colleagues – we beg you to take a deep breath, pick up the phone, and share your burden with someone who can and will truly help you heal.