BOSTON (MA)
BishopAccountability.org [Waltham MA]
July 16, 2023
Catholic Bishops in MA Are Still Hiding Names of Accused Priests, Experts Say
AG’s Commitment to Child Safety and Transparency Is at Issue
The Healing of Survivors Depends on AG Holding Bishops Accountable
Treatment Center in the Worcester Diocese Was a Haven for Sex Offenders
WHAT
Holding signs and church abuse documents at a sidewalk news conference in front of the MA Attorney General’s office, experts and survivors of the Catholic abuse crisis will call on AG Andrea Campbell to release her office’s long-delayed report on the sexual abuse of children in the Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield dioceses.
WHEN
Monday, July 17, 2023 at 11:00 am
WHERE
One Ashburton Place, Boston, Massachusetts
WHO
The two leaders of BishopAccountability.org, the Waltham MA–based international archive and watchdog group that has been tracking the Catholic abuse crisis since 2003. They are:
– Terry McKiernan, Founder, President, and Co-Director of BishopAccountability.org
– Anne Barrett Doyle, Co-Director of BishopAccountability.org
Joining them will be clergy sex abuse survivors and activists, including:
– Skip Shea, an award-winning filmmaker who’s a clergy sex abuse survivor from the Diocese of Worcester
BACKGROUND
McKiernan, Barrett Doyle, and Shea will speak about the Massachusetts Attorney General’s long-delayed report on the sexual abuse of children in the Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield dioceses.
The story of the AG’s secret investigation and delayed report was broken by New England Public Media’s Nancy Eve Cohen on July 14, 2023. See her report.
McKiernan, Barrett Doyle, and Shea will discuss their 2021 meeting with the Attorney General’s Office and follow-up to that meeting, the grave need for the Attorney General’s report finally to appear, the inadequacies of former AG Tom Reilly’s 2003 report on the Archdiocese of Boston, and the ongoing concealment of accused priests’ names in the dioceses of Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield.
Samples of the documents that BishopAccountability.org provided to the AG’s Office will be shared with the media. These documents will shed light on the House of Affirmation, a now defunct “treatment center” for priests in the Diocese of Worcester where Mr. Shea was assaulted as a child, and where hundreds of offending priests were evaluated and treated. The head of the House of Affirmation, Fr. Thomas Kane, was himself a child abuser.
McKiernan, Barrett Doyle, and Shea will also argue that the AG’s report will console and encourage survivors of abuse in Massachusetts, in some cases saving their lives. Her report will also create pressure for the Worcester diocese to publish a list of their own credibly accused priests. It is the only diocese in Massachusetts – and one of the few in the U.S. – that has not done so.
CONTACT
Terence McKiernan
Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org
mckiernan1@comcast.net
508-479-9304 cell
Anne Barrett Doyle
Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org
barrett.doyle@comcast.net
781-439-5208 cell
Skip Shea
Award-Winning Filmmaker
https://www.skipshea.com/about
skipshea@gmail.com
About BishopAccountability.org
Founded in 2003, BishopAccountability.org is based in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, and documents the crisis of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. We offer a vast online collection of church records, legal documents, and media reports. Our hardcopy archive contains more than one million pages of documents. The mission of the organization is to give the public convenient access to information pertaining to the abuse crisis in the U.S. and worldwide. An independent non-profit corporation, BishopAccountability.org is an archive and a data center that advocates for transparency and accountability. We are not a victims’ advocacy group, and we do not weigh in on the cultural divide within the Catholic Church.