UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312-399-4747, bblaine@SNAPnetwork.org)
For the sake of healing, we call on Pope Francis to aggressively do outreach in each of the ten nations where archbishop Josef Wesolowski spent time as a cleric. The pontiff should publicly beg anyone who was hurt by Wesolowski to come forward and get help.
(The nations are: Poland, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Tadjikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Dominican Republic, Italy and Puerto Rico.)
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bweso.html
For the sake of justice, we call on Pope Francis to insist that church staff in each of these nations turn over files about Wesolowski to law enforcement. It’s possible that some of this predators’ colleagues intimidated victims, threatened witnesses, destroyed evidence, stonewalled police, shredded documents or broke laws in other ways. If so, they should be prosecuted, and Francis can help make this happen.
Regardless of what the pontiff decides, we call on the bishops of these nations to take these steps immediately.
Why?
Because it’s likely Wesolowski hurt kids in many (perhaps all) of these countries.
Because Catholic officials recruited, educated ordained, trained, promoted and moved Wesolowski.
Because Catholic officials call themselves “shepherds” who search for and help “lost sheep.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.