NEW YORK (NY)
The Center for Constitutional Rights
August 15, 2018
In the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing widespread sexual violence across the state and cover-up by senior leaders of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania and the Vatican, survivors renewed calls for a federal investigation, which they requested in 2003 and again in 2014. The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding an investigation and reiterating the facts of the nationwide crisis that has proven to be more pervasive with each passing year. The groups say it is the responsibility of the federal government to protect children in the future by conducting a thorough investigation and taking appropriate steps.
“If they had done what we asked in 2003, how many children would have been spared?” said Tim Lennon, President of SNAP’s Board of Directors.
“Despite all the evidence that thousands of children suffered needlessly to protect the image of the Catholic Church, federal officials have taken virtually no steps to probe or prevent these crimes or cover-ups or punish clerics who conceal or commit them,” said Peter Isely, who is now a founding member of End Clergy Abuse (ECAglobal.com), a new global organization of survivor leaders and human rights activists from five continents and 28 countries launched in Geneva in June. Isely authored the 2003 SNAP white paper and call for investigation to the DOJ. ECA is joining SNAP’s call today to the DOJ on behalf of survivors around the world.
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