A message from SNAPDFW’s facilitator, Lisa Kendzior
Acknowledge your courage
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It takes courage to acknowledge that we’ve been abused and it is not easy to even admit it to ourselves. Just browsing this website is a big step.Know that you are not alone!
If you’ve been victimized by clergy, please know that you are not alone. You can get better. You can reach out to others who’ve been hurt just like you have.
Together, we can heal one another.
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Dear Friends,
I’m excited to report that we have a great turnout for our Day of Rest and Relaxation this Saturday. I assure you that you will be glad you signed up.This professionally-facilitated day has been developed to honor YOU and meet you where you are in your healing. It is not structured like an ordinary support group meeting. You can share as little or as much as you are comfortable. There are many of you who haven’t come to a support meeting. You just might find this Saturday’s event an easier introduction to SNAP DFW as there will be several brand new attendees. Moreover, I would really like to meet you.
I will be very happy to welcome you all, both survivors and those with loved ones who were abused. Let's all have a great day honoring each other and our fellow survivors everywhere.
Lisa Kendzior
SNAP DFW
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Adding insult to injury, defensive pope trivializes outcry over pedophile priests as "petty" in Palm Sunday sermon; SNAP responds
"Contrary to what a few in Rome are saying, we are not "ignoble," "despicable" or engaging in "petty gossip." We are men, women and children who are in deep pain, having been raped, sodomized and assaulted by Catholic clergy and often betrayed by Catholic officials. Our trauma - past and present - should never be trivialized by anyone, much less by those who profess to be caring shepherds." -- Barbara Blaine, SNAP President
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Preaching to those gathered in St Peter's square during a Palm Sunday service, the pope, trivialized the global cries of the sexually abused victims of Roman Catholic priests and of the hierarchy that protects them, saying he would not allow himself "to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion".[ view entry ] ( 377 views ) | permalink
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Former San Francisco archbishop William Levada, who now heads Ratzinger's former Vatican office once know as the Inquisition, is accused of sitting on clergy sex abuse reports by 67 deaf men and women for months until pressured by news media. The Italian case has eerie echoes of the investigation of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys.Read the full CBS/AP story and Clohessy's response issued earlier today.
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The BBC has raised the question of whether Pope Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger should resign over the snowballing paedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church. In theory, there is nothing to stop Benedict from simply drafting a letter of resignation to hand to the College of Cardinals, the electoral body of bishops who elected him.
Under Roman Canon Law, the only conditions for the validity of such a resignation are that it be made freely and be properly published.
Ratzinger's predecessors Gregory the XII and Benedict XIII resigned the papacy. And there is speculation that during WWII, Pius XII drafted a letter of resignation should he be imprisoned by the Nazis. But the records of the wartime popes remain locked down in the Vatican to this day.
Read the article by the BBC Vatican correspondent.
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In a March 18 article in NCROnline, one which has been somewhat lost in the shuffle of media events of the last few days concerning the global Catholic sex abuse crisis, theologian Hans Küng adds his significant perspective."Is it not time for Pope Benedict XVI himself to acknowledge his share of responsibility, instead of whining about a campaign against his person? No other person in the Church has had to deal with so many cases of abuse crossing his desk." -- Hans Küng, March 18, 2010
Read Küng's entire statement in NCROnline.
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In a note read on Vatican radio on Saturday, Vatican spokesman/priest Federico Lombardi, said:“The nature of the question is such as to attract the attention of the media, and the way in which the church deals with (the attention of the media) is crucial for her moral credibility.”
Victims of the church hierarchy, however, see the test of Vatican credibility in how it actually chose to respond to victims, and in that regard the pope has clearly failed.
An editorial in National Catholic Reporter yesterday says that the pope needs to come clean, once and for all.
"We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history. The Holy Father needs to directly answer questions, in a credible forum, about his role -- as archbishop of Munich (1977-82), as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1982-2005), and as pope (2005-present) -- in the mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis." -- Editorial, National Catholic Reporter March 27, 2010
Read the NCR editorial "Credibitlity gap: Pope needs to answer questions" in today's NCRonline.
Read the Vatican spin on its admitted crisis in "moral credibility" in today's NYTimes.
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Vatican, NYTimes exchange volleys on Ratzinger's involvement in pedophile transfer; victim concerns marginalized
Once again, the Vatican seems oblivious to victims of Roman Catholic priest predators, opting instead to save face and insulate the pope from the controversy, as evidenced in this latest front page fencing between the Vatican spin doctors and the New York Times. Read both sides on today's NYTimes front page:
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Internal church documents show that Ratzinger was copied on memo that transfered German pedophile priest
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Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope and archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish. -- NYTimes Mar 26, 2010
Read the entire story in today's NYTimes.
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SNAP President Barbara Blaine, SNAP Midwest director Peter Isely and 2 others were detained in Rome by police during a news conference in front of the Vatican today. Similar conferences were scheduled for several other cities for today."We've spent more time in the police station than Father Murphy did in his life," said Isely, Milwaukee-based midwest director of SNAP after his release.
Isley was referring to the American priest Lawrence Murphy -- whom the Vatican refused to defrock in spite of his being accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin. The Vatican has strongly defended its position on the Murphy affair, prompting the SNAP demonstration.
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According to a new New York Times story, a US pedophile priest reportedly abused between 150-200 deaf kids at a school over 24 years, often during confessions. Yet for years, a small Vatican bureaucracy headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now the Pope) fought three US bishops’ efforts to oust the predator, citing a fear of scandal.
- Read the story in today's NYTimes.
- Read SNAP responses.
- Download the entire NYTimes file on the priest from Bishop Accountability Website.
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SNAP Outreach director Barbara Dorris issued a statement for the survivors' advocacy group today commenting on the resignation of Irish bishop John Magee accused of covering up sexual abuse by priests. "We hope that Magee's resignation will provide some relief and consolation for the thousands of deeply wounded abuse victims and hundreds of thousands of betrayed parishioners in Ireland," said Dorris in a statement issued today. "By itself, however, this resignation doesn't signify any fundamental change in the corrupt church hierarchy or hurtful church practices regarding predator priests, nuns, seminarians, bishops, brothers or other employees."
We hope this move will help those in pain realize that there is hope and that their suffering is validated. At the same time, we hope this move will not in any way diminish the pressure for more substantive, long-term reforms that are needed to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded in the church. -- Barbara Dorris
Read the Vatican statement about the resignation, and Barbara Dorris' full response.
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We must keep in mind two facts. First, these numbers come from most of the same bishops who concealed and enabled clergy child sex crimes for decades. They are inherently suspect, to say the least.Second, very few child victims are able to disclose the crimes as they happen, so there always has been and will be decades between the actual offense and the reporting of it.
"We’re saddened, but not surprised that church officials still spend twice as much on predators as victims ($11 million vs. $6.5 million) and more than four times as much on their lawyers as on victims ($28 million vs. $6.5 million)." -- David Clohessy
Given these facts, there are two options. We can either be reckless, assuming that clergy sex crimes are somehow magically being reduced, or we can be prudent, assuming that clergy sex crimes are essentially happening at the same rate, or a higher rate, than before.
Caution, not complacency, is the responsible choice.
Read Clohessy's full March 23 press release here.
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