PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change
BY KATHY KANE
Many people believe that the legislative battle in Pennsylvania right now is a matter of money. The belief that victims want civil suits for financial compensation and that the Church wants to protect its finances. What many do not realize is that victims/survivors often seek to bring civil suits for the truth that is revealed in the documents and records that are ordered to be disclosed. Along with the finances, the Church also wants to protect the evidence, but it makes for a more complicated sound bite.
The March 2016 Grand Jury report of clergy abuse in the Altoona Johnstown Diocese disclosed much previously unknown information. One thing I found in reading the document was a patient who was at the St John Vianney Treatment center in Sept /October 2012. The write up of this child predator priest, who actually was profiled by the FBI, was the complete opposite of my conversations with the Vianney staff in 2012 when I was making attempts to improve child safety after discovering one of their patients in a school parking lot. A C4C reader recently alerted me to the following video published in June 2013 which is an interview with Fr James Flavin who was the President of the facility at that time. This interview is pretty much verbatim to my conversations with Fr Flavin and other Vianney staff at the time. A total downplay of the fact that child predators stay at the facility. I heard instead about depressed nuns and overweight priests.
In the video Fr Flavin says pedophiles cannot be treated but instead it is a matter of containment and protection. Protection of whom exactly, the children or the predator? He also makes this startling claim about the facility ” we don’t really deal with the sexual issues, the serious sexual issues” . Well the internet, newspaper articles and GJ reports tell a different story and in the past we have highlighted some of the depraved men who have passed through those doors. What exactly is classified as serious or sexual if watching child pornography of 2 and 3 year old’s is not? Or molestation of childrens’ bodies..or child rape?
Please take some time to view the video. It will probably “disappear” from the internet soon. Take note of the conversation shortly after the 3 minute and 19 minute marks
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