VERMONT/NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )
Vermont Catholic Bishop Salvatore Matano has been promoted to head the Rochester diocese. We’re disappointed that Pope Francis has promoted a bureaucrat with a terrible record on children’s safety.
In 2006, Matano’s diocese was one of just two in America to have been found in violation of the US bishops weak and vague national abuse policy because Matano refused to ensure that adequate abuse prevention training was provided to all his staff, as the policy requires.
For eight years, he refused to list Vermont’s predator priests on his website or house and supervise them, two simple, proven abuse prevention steps that we asked him to take.
[SNAP]
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Matano’s also been accused of financial misdeeds. In 2009, two lawsuits – by 27 alleged victims – were filed charging that Matano “transferred assets into separate entities to make it harder for victims of priest sexual abuse who have sued the church to collect monetary damages in their cases,” according to the Burlington VT Free Press. The newspaper noted that in 2006, “the diocese transferred $3,819,000 to a church pension fund and another $3,704,000 was placed in a newly created trust for Vermont Catholic Charities.”
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