MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Friday, June 3, 2016
For more information:
David Clohessy (314) 566-9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, Barbara Dorris (314) 503-0003,bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)
Victims beg Baptists for action on clergy sex cases
Denomination holds annual meeting soon in St. Louis
“It should make “safe place” for submitting abuse reports, SNAP says
SBC should start by logging allegations & asking victims to step forward
Group predicts: Next “Spotlight”-style exposé will be in largest Protestant denomination
In anticipation of the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in St. Louis on June 14-15, leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing to two of the SBC’s top officials, seeking the creation of a central “safe place” office to which Baptist clergy sex abuse survivors can file reports about their alleged perpetrators.
“Now, Baptist officials tell clergy abuse survivors that they must go to the church when the accused predatory pastor works or worked if they want to report his crimes within the faith community. That’s flat-out cruel,” states the letter. “This is like telling abuse survivors that they must go to the den of the wolf who savaged them.”
“At a bare minimum, the Southern Baptist Convention needs to provide a ‘safe place’ where abuse survivors may report their perpetrators to people who have the training and experience to receive those reports with compassion and care,” asserts SNAP’s Executive Director, David Clohessy. “Of course, we hope that SBC officials will eventually understand that the denomination needs to do a great deal more, but for now, what we are proposing is something small — receive reports and log allegations.”
“In our experience, even when a minister has not been criminally convicted, most people will agree that a pastor has repeated abuse allegations, then people should be warned,” stated Clohessy. “We in SNAP wonder what that number would be for SBC officials. For example, if a minister had 3 abuse allegations in 3 churches in 3 different states, would that be enough for SBC officials to conclude that a denominational assessment should be made and churches informed? What if the minister had 10 allegations? Whatever the number, the place to start is with at least receiving reports and systematically logging allegations. How else can the SBC have any hope of having any idea of how many allegations may have been made about any particular minister?”
SNAP points to data gathered by the Associated Press indicating that Protestants also have a huge problem with clergy sex abuse, and in its letter, predicts that the next “Spotlight”-style exposé will focus on the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
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