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	Police Interest in Bourque Welcomed by SNAP By George Pawlaczyk Belleville News-Democrat June 1, 2006 http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/crime_courts/14713712.htm BELLEVILLE - A group that monitors priests issued a statement Tuesday that chaperoning the Rev. Real Bourque will not guarantee the safety of children. "Bourque needs to be in an independent, secure treatment center. That's what keeps kids safe," said Barbara Dorris, outreach director for the St. Louis-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. On Monday, Belleville Police Chief Dave Ruebhausen said he will send a detective to meet with leaders of the St. Henry Oblate Retirement Home on North 60th Street that houses Bourque. He also suggested a chaperone might be a way to safeguard the public when Bourque leaves the home to fulfill his duties comforting dying priests. "We welcome the (police) chief's concern and involvement," Dorris said. "At the same time, the idea of having a fellow priest travel with Bourque is simply unworkable. That's been promised and tried dozens of times before with disastrous results." A Chicago area priest was recently charged with molesting children while he was supposedly being monitored by another priest. In a letter dated Tuesday asking Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton to meet with SNAP members, national director Dave Clohessy wrote, "Over the past few weeks we have repeatedly asked you to rectify this very dangerous situation but you have chosen to act like a cold-hearted CEO, claiming you are powerless to control a priest in your diocese...." In the one public statement he has made about Bourque, Braxton said he has no "direct authority" over a priest in a religious order. Braxton could not be reached. Bourque, 78, is a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He said he abused boys in the late '70s and early '80s in Massachusetts and Maine, but has declined additional comment. He was never charged but was removed from ministry and treated in 1995 at a church facility for sexual offenders. Bourque was transferred to Belleville in 2002 without the knowledge of then Bishop Wilton Gregory, now the archbishop of Atlanta. Bourque was a former television personality on a national Catholic cable channel with his own show, "Let Your Light Shine." Gregory, the former head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has said had he known he would have tried to prevent Bourque's transfer to the oblate home. Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com and 239-2625.
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