Victims' rights group hands out flyers about accused priests at Mobile cathedral

By Carol Mcphail
AL.com
March 25, 2015

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2015/03/victims_rights_group_hands_out.html

Electricians with Huff Electric in Mobile change the lights on the golden domes of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Mobile, Ala., on Monday, July 14, 2014.

On Wednesday, a member of a victims' rights group distributed flyers to parishioners as they entered noon Mass at the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.

Barbara Dorris, outreach director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said she wanted to shine light on allegations made against a Mobile priest and the response by the Archdiocese of Mobile, as well as reach out to those who may have been affected.

Dorris, of St. Louis, Mo., said she handed out about 25 flyers entitled "Please help us protect kids." The flyers urged Archbishop of Mobile Thomas J. Rodi to suspend an accused Mobile priest and to warn people about an accused Jesuit who had previously lived in Mobile.

"We're concerned about the case with Father Savoie," said Dorris, referring to an allegation that Rev. Johnny Savoie had sex with a teenager at St. Lawrence Catholic Parish in Fairhope more than a decade ago. The allegation, which Savoie has denied, surfaced during an unrelated lawsuit regarding bullying at St. Pius X Catholic Parish in Mobile, where he is pastor.

"Whether it's true or not is not the issue," said Dorris. "It's the secrecy."

She said SNAP contends that Rodi should have revealed any and all allegations to the parishes. "(The archbishop) should have visited the parishes where this priest worked and said, 'If you know anything, we feel you need to talk with the police and prosecutors,'" she said.

Tommy and Cathy Kruse of Mobile attended Mass at the cathedral on Wednesday, the feast day of the Annunciation, celebrating the angel Gabriel's appearance to the Virgin Mary. They were given flyers when they entered the gate in front of the cathedral.

"To me, it's just trying to tear down our church," said Cathy Kruse.

The flyer also mentions the case of Brother Claude Ory, a Jesuit clergy member. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, Ory was removed from the Loyola College in Maryland campus in Baltimore in 2007 over allegations of sexual misconduct a decade earlier in Dallas. Ory had also worked at Spring Hill College in the 1990s.

Rodi, who was in Montgomery on Tuesday, could not immediately be reached for comment. He has told AL.com regarding the Savoie case that the "allegation was made more than a year ago," and "at that time, it was reported by the Archdiocese of Mobile to civil authorities in accord with our child protection policy."

Savoie has told parishioners of the allegations and testified in September that no one from the policy or district attorney's office had questioned him.