NORTH DAKOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Monday, Jan. 25, 2016
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP outreach director (314-503-0003 cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)
Catholic bishops in Bismarck and Fargo are refusing to disclose names of predator priests. Shame on them. Their self-serving secrecy leaves kids in harm’s way and parents, police, prosecutors, parishioners and the public in the dark.
[InForum]
Last week, the Seattle Catholic archdiocese released a list of 77 child molesting clerics who worked there.
Last year, six Minnesota-based church institutions did likewise.
Yesterday, the Yakima daily newspaper reported that church officials there may do the same thing in March.
Over the past dozen years or so, more than 30 US bishops have released such lists.
For the safety of kids, North Dakota bishops should do the same. It’s the quickest, easiest way to warn parents, police, prosecutors, parishioners and the public about predator priests. It’s the very least bishops should do, since they recruited, educated, ordained, hired, trained, transferred and shielded these predators for years, often helping them evade prosecution by keeping their crimes secret until the statute of limitations expired.
Only 13 North Dakota predators have been exposed, compared with 32 in South Dakota, 50 in Montana and 186 in Minnesota (according to the independent website BishopAccountability.org). It’s sad that families just across the border from North Dakota are arguably safer from predator priests than families that are in North Dakota.
So we hope Fargo Bishop John Folda and Bismarck Bishop David Kagan will find the courage to do what they know is right: protecting the vulnerable, healing the wounded and exposing the truth by posting predators’ names on parish and diocesan websites.
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