SINGAPORE
Channel News Asia
January 3, 2019
Patricia Gallagher Marchant was first abused by a priest who befriended her family when she was seven or eight years old.
More than five decades later, the 61-year-old stood Wednesday (Jan 2) in front of a throng of news cameras outside the downtown Chicago headquarters of the Catholic archdiocese in this sprawling American city, and demanded the church listen to survivors.
“They’ve counted on our silence,” Marchant said. “The horror of what happened to each of us needs to be out and spoken.”
Marchant was joined by leaders of two survivors’ advocacy groups who sent an open letter to Pope Francis asking to be a part of a historic gathering that the Catholic leader called for in February at the Vatican, to discuss the ongoing crisis roiling the church.
At issue was the very credibility of the pope’s conference, they claimed, and whether survivors would have faith in its outcome.
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