CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
for immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
Ten pages of previously-secret records about a serial predator priest who worked and abused in Connecticut have been made public. They paint an unflattering view of the Catholic church hierarchy.
He’s Fr. Bernard W. Bissonette (a.k.a. Bissonnette). At least nine men have accused him of child sex crimes. One of them, Thomas Deary, committed suicide. Members of the Deary family travelled to New Mexico to confront Fr. Bissonette.
In the 1960s, Fr. Bissonette worked in the Norwich diocese at parishes in Moosup, Putnam and Pawcatuck.
After he was transferred out of Connecticut, over the next 30 years, he went on to abuse children at nine parishes in New Mexico, Michigan, and Minnesota, according to
The records show Fr. Bissonette’s colleagues were concerned early in his career about his “peculiar behavior” and show that he “had trouble with boys” and was “sent out of the Norwich diocese because a (victim’s) father was threatening arrest.”
We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Connecticut will summon the strength to speak up. Kids are safer only when victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are courageous enough to act. Silence is tempting but it only helps wrongdoers.
It’s important that people with suspicions or knowledge of these crimes and cover ups call the independent professionals in law enforcement, not the biased amateurs in church positions.
Even if those who committed the abuse may be deceased or elderly, those who concealed the abuse may still face prosecution for failure to report abuse, endangering kids, destroying evidence and other offenses.
We call on Norwich Bishop Michael Cote to personally visit the parishes where Fr. Bissonette worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. Cote should also use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements across the entire diocese to seek out others who may have been assaulted and are still suffering. And he should permanently post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every child molesting Norwich cleric, whether alive or dead, diocesan or religious order, or admitted, proven or credibly accused. (About 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the bare minimum a bishop should do to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.)
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