Archdiocese Wants More Secrecy, SNAP Responds

SNAP
January 3, 2014

http://www.snapnetwork.org/mn_archdiocese_wants_more_secrecy_snap_responds

The foxes who have for decades ‘guarded the chicken coop’ want to keep doing so. Corrupt St. Paul Catholic officials who for decades have protected proven and accused predator priests are asking a judge to let them keep doing so. Shame on them.

[Star Tribune]

We doubt that documents about “rumors spread by a mentally unbalanced individual, by a disgruntled parish employee” are kept in church files. We believe that now, as before, claims of concern about allegedly wrongly accused clerics are a ruse. St. Paul Catholic officials are worried about themselves and their reputations and their power.

We imagine it must be very hard for an adult to be wrongly accused of child sexual abuse. But we don’t have to imagine something much harder: to be sexually assaulted as a child and watch your perpetrator be protected and hidden for decades and keep on assaulting kids thanks to allegedly spiritual figures who you were taught to believe were Christ’s representatives on earth.

For decades, we as a society have given Catholic officials every benefit of the doubt in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases. It’s time that innocent kids and wounded adults are given the benefit of the doubt.

We hope this judge will rule in favor of openness and against secrecy. We hope he will show that vulnerable children's safety trumps deceitful adults' preferences.