OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Monday, March 21, 2016
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home,davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
It’s all well and good to promise “we’ll do better in the future.” Catholic officials, when facing abuse scandals, excel at pledging improvement. They’re usually very poor, however, at follow through.
It’s hard to believe that church officials in Columbus, Steubenville and Vermont were unaware that dozens of seminaries had rejected Joel Wright. And Catholic officials have been talking about better seminary screening for decades. So it’s hard to be enthusiastic about this latest promise.
Behavior in the present is more important that pledges in the future. And right now, officials at the Josephenum and in the Columbus diocese must use their websites, mailing lists and bully pulpits to find others with information or suspicions about Wright’s crimes and get them to call police and prosecutors. That will make the biggest difference in the short term.
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