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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The Florida legislature has sent a bill for the governor's signature that would lift statutes of limitations for pursuing criminal or civil sexual abuse cases in which victims are younger than 16 at the time of the abuse.
Read the AP story in the Miami Herald ...
Read SNAP response ...
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"How do some of us stay in the Church?" Huffington Post commentator hopes "for the return of miracle"
"How do some of us stay in the Church? In grief, in sadness, with a resolve not to be shut out by those who say they are speaking in the name of the Father. We just don't believe them. The Church is not an institution; it is the people, people who are now wounded and scandalized, not only by the sexual crimes of priests, but more important, by the cover-up by those in power. In 1959 the election of Pope John XXIII was a surprise, a kind of miracle. It happened once. It could happen again. We wait, in stubborn hope, for the return of miracle. We want to make sure some of us are at home when it happens." -- Huffington Press commentator Mary C. Gordon
Read "Why I Stay: A Parable from a Progressive Catholic" in today's Huffington Post ...
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British news outlet The Tablet reports today that a survey conducted in Germany shows a huge increase in the number of Catholics registering their decision to formally leave the Church due to what analysts are calling the worst scandal to hit the Roman hierarchy in history.
"One in four German Catholics – more than six million faithful – is expected to leave the Church because of the recent scandals, particularly in the Catholic south of the country, a survey has claimed. The poll, in the Frankfurter Rundschau, said that in the historic Bavarian town of Bamberg some 1,400 people a month have been registering their decision to formally leave the Church – seven times the normal rate of 200. In the nearby city of Würzburg 1,233 per month are leaving, instead of the average of 407." -- The Tablet, 26 April 2010.
Read this and other news of the crisis in The Tablet today ...
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Arthur Budzinski, a deaf man who said he was sexually assaulted and raped by convicted Milwaukee priest Lawrence Murphy, stood with SNAP Midwest director Peter Isley at a news conference Thursday."Fr. Murphey may have stolen our bodies, but the archbishops, the cardinals and the popes stole our voices." -- Arthur Budzinski, deaf victim of Milwaukee abuse
See the CNN video of the news conference on the SNAPDFW multimedia page ...
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An article published Saturday in Forbes quotes the National Catholic Reporter as having characterized the Roman Church as suffering its "largest institutional crisis in centuries.""The Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal has passed a media tipping point. Over the past three years it has accounted for 42% of all nightly network news coverage devoted to the pope and the church, according to data from The Tyndall Report." -- Forbes, 23 Apr 2010
Read the story in Forbes online ...
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In an Associated Press story filed this morning, a retired priest says he told church authorities years ago about allegations that Belgium's longest-serving bishop abused a boy. But bishop he was "stonewalled." The Belgian bishop was forced to resign Friday.
An earlier story named another priest in the allegation, but it was later reported that the abusers he reported did not include the Belgian bishop.
Read the AP story on the Forbes Website ...
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS STORY. Check back soon for updated information.
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In a statement issued by the Vatican on Friday, Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the bishop of Bruges in Belgium since 1984, admitted to sexually abusing a young person in his "close entourage."In the prepared statement Vangheluwe said that he abused “a young man in my close entourage ... when I was still a simple priest and for a while when I began as a bishop.”
The disclosure makes Vangheluwe the latest cleric, and the fourth bishop to quit in a spreading abuse scandal.
Read the story in today's NYTimes ...
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Deaf victim's letter instrumental in federal lawsuit targeting top Vatican command for engineering coverup
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Pamela Meyer (pictured) stands with members of SNAP outside the federal courthouse in Milwaukee yesterday where a federal law suit was filed accusing Pope Benedict XVI and senior Vatican officials of failing to defrock Rev. Lawrence Murphy, despite allegations he molested at least 200 deaf children from 1950 to 1975. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)The suit is significant because it is aimed at the highest reaches of the Roman Catholic Church, and involves Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a strong defender of Pope Benedict XVI's handling of the global clergy sexual abuse crisis and a man whose own record on a separate high-profile case has come under scrutiny. A letter from a victim has emerged sent directly to Sodano a year before the Vatican admitted learning of the Murphy case.
The defendants in the lawsuit are Ratzinger, Sodano, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and the Holy See, identified as the state of the Vatican City. Bertone was Ratzinger's deputy at the time and is now the Vatican's secretary of state.
Read the full AP Story on Google News ...
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Embattled German Bishop Walter Mixa submitted an offer of resignation to the Vatican on Wednesday amid allegations that he physically abused children and misappropriated Church funds. German commentators welcome the move, saying it sparks hopes of greater transparency in the Catholic Church's abuse investigation.In a letter written to Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday, German Bishop Walter Mixa tendered his resignation over allegations of physical abuse and financial misconduct within the Augsburg Diocese.
German press across the entire spectrum of political opinions responded en masse with relief. German publication Der Speigel today published quotes from several German news outlets:
The conservative daily Die Welt writes:
"Right now, Mixa is ill-suited to play the role of pastor and head of a large diocese. He has continued to refuse to give candid explanations, preferring to hide behind vague pleas for forgiveness for everything and nothing."
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes (in an updated online version):
"Finally. Finally, Walter Mixa, the bishop on the edge, is stepping down. ...(I)t is unclear how violently he ... struck children in his care and how deeply he dug into the coffers of the local orphanage foundation."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"It doesn't happen every day that bishops speak about other bishops in public. It is even rarer for them to publicly criticize one another. And it is truly remarkable that two bishops have called on a third bishop (Mixa) to temporarily step down from office."
"The whole affair and his behavior is still weighing on the Church and damage the credibility of any of the bishops' statements."
The center-left Berliner Zeitung writes:
"These days, in real life, the word 'Catholic' stands for physically abusive or lustful priests. People are leaving the Church in droves. ... In real life, Mixa has been very, very slow, on the one hand, to understand that his office does not entitle him to beat children, spend donation money on art, kitsch and wine -- and, on the other, to resign."
Read the entire story and all German press quotes in today's Der Speigel ...
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The Irish Times, citing Vatican sources, confirmed yesterday that Benedict XVI is this morning expected to formally accept the resignation of Bishop Jim Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin.
Read the story in today's Irish Times ...
Read the story of the resignations in the Washington Post today ...
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Following protests by SNAP, Cardinal who praised cover-up bows out of 1st Latin Rite mass in DC in half a century
The former high-up Vatican official, Dario Castrillon-Hoyos, who officially praised a convicted bishop for protecting a rapist priest -- and claimed he was directed by the former pope to do so -- has canceled plans to celebrate a latin mass in Washington, DC after sharp pressure on the archbishop of Washington from SNAP and other victim advocacy groups to block his participation. SNAP is glad Hoyos bowed out, but criticizes Vatican and Archdiocese of Washington for failing to intervene.The National Catholic Reporter yesterday said:
SNAP, the Saint Louis-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said April 20 that it had asked Pope Benedict “to forbid Castrillon-Hoyos from celebrating the Mass.
“When wrong-doers like Castrillon-Hoyos get rewarded by the Catholic hierarchy, church employees everywhere see that wrongdoing is sanctioned,” SNAP stated.
Washington archdiocesan spokeswoman Susan Gibbs told Catholic News Service April 20 she didn't expect Archbishop Wuerl to intercede, because "cardinals have universal faculties and the archdiocese is not a sponsor of this event."
Following the announcement that Castrillon-Hoyos had bowed out, SNAP officials said they were relieved the cardinal wouldn't be the celebrant but expressed disappointment that neither the Vatican nor the Archdiocese of Washington intervened in this matter." -- National Catholic Reporter, April 21, 2010
Read the UPI story from yesterday evening ...
Read the report in the National Catholic Reporter ...
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SNAP urges archbishop of Washington to forbid Vatican official who endorsed coverup from leading mass in DC
Dear Archbishop Wuerl:
We urge you to forbid a controversial church official who clearly endorses law-breaking and irresponsible behavior from leading a mass in your archdiocese this weekend.
You know all of the disturbing facts about Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a former Vatican official who is coming here in just a few days:
Giving him the honor of leading this mass is problematic in two ways. First, it rewards wrong-doing, and that in turn encourages future wrong-doing. Second, it rubs salt into the already-deep and still-fresh wounds of millions of hurting Catholics and thousands of hurting victims.
- He thanked and congratulated a French bishop, in a letter he wrote in 2001, for hiding a sexually abusive priest.
- He allegedly was authorized to send that same letter to bishops across the globe.
- He defended his 2001 letter just days ago at a conference in Spain, arguing that the French bishop couldn't tell police about a predator priest because he learned about the crimes in the confessional. The French bishop himself, however, contradicted this claim, admitting that the priest admitted his crimes in a normal conversation, which is not a privileged communication according to church rules.
- He now claims, without providing any evidence, that he wrote the letter endorsing the French bishop with the approval of the late Pope John Paul II.
- He has expressed no remorse for his letter or his deceptive comments.
- He has made similarly hurtful comments about clergy sex crimes and cover-ups in the recent past.
- It should go without saying that Castrillon-Hoyos' words and deeds are very hurtful to clergy abuse victims, Catholics, and anyone who cares about kids.
Read the entire SNAP letter on the national Website ...
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