COLUMBUS (OH)
Columbus Dispatch
March 24, 2019
BtyDanae King
After being criticized for taking months longer than the other five Ohio dioceses to release its list of priests accused of sexually abusing children, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus said it didn’t include information on where and when each priest worked in the diocese because it would have further delayed the list and might have exposed victims.
Yet the diocese releases that information when it receives an allegation against an individual priest and has done so in recent years and doesn’t express the ssame concerns in that process.
When asked why the processes for reporting the abuse of a single priest versus releasing a list of all ‘credibly accused’ clergymen are different, the Rev. Monsignor Stephan Moloney, vicar general and victims assistance coordinator for the Diocese of Columbus, said “it just is.”
“It was just a decision that was made,” he said.
Advocates for survivors say that a priest’s history within a diocese could help trigger victims’ memories of their abuse and prompt them to report it.
“They need to have the assignment history in there because there’s still victims out there suffering in silence and shame,” said Judy Jones, Midwest regional director for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
Yet Moloney said seeing “the names will give those victims courage to come forward.”
Columbus is one of many dioceses across the country that have released lists in the wake of a July Pennsylvania grand jury review that revealed allegations of more than 1,000 children being sexually abused by more than 300 priests.
The level of detail provided on other dioceses’ lists vary widely, but some do include the assignment history of the priests, said Terence McKiernan, co-president of Bishop Accountability, a national group that works to track allegations of abuse by Catholic officials and publishes that information on its website.
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