PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Monday, April 25, 2016
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
A prosecutor in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office now says that in recent weeks, credible allegations of clergy child sex crimes have surfaced involving “virtually every diocese in the state.”
Meanwhile, it’s been two months since the AG’s office released results of a grand jury investigation showing that more than 50 Altoona Catholic priests molesting hundreds of kids while their church colleagues and supervisors ignored or hid the crimes.
What’s Altoona Bishop Mark Bartchak done over the past eight weeks to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded? Virtually nothing.
He’s taken down a couple of banners in one church that had the names of his predecessors. That’s it.
And meanwhile, over the weekend, we learned about a second convicted US predator priest who has recently and quietly been put back on the job, twice, despite the allegedly “binding” national church “zero tolerance” policy. Two bishops have broken that pledge by letting Fr. Jose Alexis Davila work in their parishes.
In 2012, Fr. Davila was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to stay away from a 19-year-old he victimized in the San Diego Diocese. Catholic officials there were harshly criticized for putting him back in a parish after he admitted his guilt.
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