A message from SNAPDFW’s facilitator, Lisa Kendzior

Acknowledge your courage

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 Vatican has announced that the pope has accepted the resignation of Daniel Walsh, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa, CA.

The diocese has been hit with several lawsuits under Walsh's tenure involving alleged child sex abuse by former priests.

Reports say that in 2006, Walsh was threatened with criminal charges for failing to report accusations of misconduct against Xavier Ochoa, a priest in his employ, for five days after the priest admitted the abuses to Walsh. Authorities said the delay allowed Ochoa time to flee to Mexico before he could be arrested.

Walsh underwent 'counseling' and was not charged. The priest is still at large. And the victims remain ignored.

Read the full story on the KTVU San Jose website...

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The 23rd victim to report being molested by a notorious FW predator priest has settled out of court with the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese. Financial terms were not disclosed. The priest, James Reilly, died in 1999.

The victim's attorney, Tahira Khan Merritt of Dallas, strongly criticized the diocese, saying its officials were interested in "preserving their secrets." She urged victims to go to law enforcement rather than the church.

In 1976 a plaque was placed on a children center building named after Reilly on the St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church campus in Arlington, TX. The plaque read, in part, "His love for children brings men nearer to the Lord." Victims insisted the plaque be removed following a 2006 settlement against the diocese that also involved the priest.

SNAPDFW urges anyone with any knowledge of abuse by this predator to contact law enforcement officials, and not the church.

Read: Serial molester's victim settles with Fort Worth diocese ...

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A priest in Ramsey County, Minnesota is currently being accused of abusing his pastoral authority over a parishioner in order to seduce her into a sexual encounter. Now the priest is challenging the constitutionality of the law upon which the felony criminal charge against him has been brought, claiming that it is "an overly broad attempt to regulate sexual behavior."

County prosecutors have replied that the constitutionality of the law has been previously upheld in court, and that it would be dangerous and inconsistent to grant license to pastors which is not granted to other professionals--such as doctors, therapists, or social workers--in their interaction with clients.

Ramsey County prosecutors write,

"Like statutes prohibiting sexual relationships between patients and doctors, therapists, counselors and social workers, the power imbalance created in the clergy-counselee relationship lies at the heart of criminalizing any sexual relationship that may develop."

Minnesota and Texas are two of the states that have laws on the books for clergy as well as for others in the helping professions.

SNAPDFW has compiled a page of resources for survivors victimized by clergy as adults. See the link below.

• Read: St. Paul priest challenges sex charges ... in the St. Paul StarTribune
• Read: Resources for Survivors of Abuse Who Were Victimized as Adults ... on the SNAPDFW website ...
• Read: Why it is NOT an affair (Psychological Effects of Abuse) ... on the SNAP National website.

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Pop Catholic televangelist and Roman Catholic priest John Corapi, who has been accused of abusing one of his followers, has decided to abort the investigation against him by quitting the priesthood.

One week before announcing his departure, however, the company Corapi owns to sell his right wing Catholic preaching books, tried to clear its inventory with a Corapi "Ordination Anniversary Sale!!" As far as we know, the sale is still going on, in case anyone is interested.

As we reported here recently, Corapi has been secretly under investigation by his catholic order of priests for allegations that he raped one of his followers.

Today, however, in an arrogant flourish of blinding self-righteousness, Corapi quit the priesthood.

Posturing as an innocent victim/martyr, Corapi "courageously" fell on his sword while:

1. Blaming the victim he claims to have only "loved";
2. Blaming the bishop-hierarchs (strange "bedfellow," eh?);
3. Perpetrating one last rip off of his Catholic faithful followers with an "Ordination Anniversary Sale!!" to clear the inventory of his personal and privately owned book company one week before his announcement to quit.

SNAPDFW wants to know: where is the voice of the victim? As usual, the Roman hierarchy, and, in this and similar cases, its flamboyant priest publicity hounds control the dissemination of information, drowning out the voices of the innocent with claims of owning the 'one truth' and of being 'the one true church.'

Read: 'Father Corapi Has Lost It' in the National Catholic Register ...

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The bishops missed a real opportunity to show they really care about kids' safety. Instead, they sent a chilling message: the public relations plan we call our abuse policy is good enough, vague, weak, and unenforced though it may be.

Hundreds of US bishops over the past nine years could have pushed for improvements to the "charter." Not a single one did. -- Barbara Dorris, Outreach Director Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

"This is a squandered opportunity and a disaster for children, not only in the United States but worldwide." -- Bishop Accountability

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to retain their policies on sexual abuse by clergy members with only minor revisions, disregarding victims’ advocates who had called for a more substantial overhaul. -- New York Times

• Read the SNAP statement ...
• Read the Bishop Accountability article ...
• Read the article in the New York Times ...

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A day after the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph announced a plan to radically improve investigation of reports of sexual misconduct by employees, its lawyer asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit accusing a KC priest of abusing a 13-year-old boy 40 years ago because the plaintiff waited too long to make his claims.

Read: Kansas City diocese seeks dismissal of lawsuit, day after announcing plan to investigate abuse ...

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/ ... e-Lawsuit/

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After stalling US courts for over nine years in an Oregon child abuse case, the Vatican was ordered finally to turn the records over. Now they want 60 more days.

Additionally, the UN Committee on Rights of the Child reported recently that the Vatican is over 13 years delinquent in producing a simple statement required of all member nations concerning it's efforts to protect children.

By contrast, the Roman pope, just last year responded personally, forcefully and immediately to release millions of dollars in Vatican funds frozen by the international banking community during a money laundering investigation.

Actions speak louder than words.

Read: Vatican further stalls US court in child abuse case:
http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/jun/ ... e-lawsuit/
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Read: Vatican 13 years delinquent in filing required UN report on how it protects children:
http://snapdfw.org/index.php?entry=entry100724-091806
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Read: Pope acts quickly and decisively to release Vatican assets frozen in money laundering investigation:
http://snapdfw.org/index.php?entry=entry110103-082718


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The bishop of Kansas City - St. Joseph has removed another priest from pastoral duties because of “credible reports” of sexual misconduct with minors. This second removal followed publicity exposing the bishop as having ignored a previous threat of one year ago reporting possible pedophile behavior by a priest who was arrested recently (one year after the bishop was informed of the the threat) on child pornography charges.

A letter written by the principal St. Patrick Catholic School went unread by Robert Finn, the Kansas bishop, for more than a year.

It detailed allegations and suspicions about one of the school's priests, Shawn Ratigan.

Ratigan was charged on May 19 of this year for possessing child pornography.

The letter, written a year to the day before Ratigan’s arrest, lays out a laundry list of accusations. It even said that Ratigan, “Fit the profile of a child predator."

• KC bishop's publicity-provoked 'apology' for leaving priest reported as threat to kids in job ...
• KC bishop admits to ignoring letter reporting priest as potential abuser ...
• Second priest removed following press coverage of bishop's failure to act ...
• Protesters demand resignation of bishop in KC ...

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In a move rare in U.S. Catholic history, but one that indicates growing exasperation with the way the bishops of the Catholic church have handled the now decades’ long clergy abuse scandal, a local newspaper, the Kansas City Star , today has called for the resignation of Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn.

Read the story in NCROnline ...
Read the editorial in today's Kansas City Star ...

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"At the heart of the crisis was clericalism, the mind-set of ecclesiastical privilege in which leaders behave as an anointed class accountable to no one except those above them in the church hierarchy." -- Editorial in the Minneapolis - St Paul StarTribune, 27 May 2011

Read the editorial in the Minneapolis - St Paul StarTribune, 27 May 2011 ...

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The principal of a Catholic elementary school warned the Kansas City-St. Joseph chancery office that a local priest “fit the profile of a child predator” six months before the diocese took any action to remove him from ministries dealing with children. This week, one full year after the bishop was told of the threat to children in his diocese, the priest was arrested on possession of child pornography charges.

Read the full story in the National Catholic Reporter ... 

Updated 29 May 2011

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There have been at least 27 other reports on clergy sex abuse between 1989 and 2011. All cite cultural causes as contributory. But the only one citing any culture other than the Roman clerical culture as causative is the one that very culture bankrolled.

So says catholic canon law expert Thomas Doyle, author of the first report ever issued to the US bishops on clergy sex abuse, in 1986.

Of all the reports citing cultural causes of clergy abuse, the recently released John Jay College of Criminal Justice report exonerating the "arrogant" clergy from blame is the only one shifting that blame from the clerical culture out of which the crisis arose to the secular culture surrounding it, against which the bishops claim moral superiority while continuing to deny responsibility for protecting pedophile priests.

"Most of the (27 other) reports contained a section on causality. None of the reports said anything about the effect of the culture of the sixties or seventies as a factor of causality but every one of them pointed to the various kinds and levels of failure by the bishops as the essential cause of the phenomenon of sexual abuse of children and minors by clerics." Fr.Thomas Doyle, catholic canon law exert.

Although the report should not be completely written off as largely either irrelevant or enabling of the bishops’ never-ending campaign to avoid facing their responsibility square on, says Doyle, it definitely claims the moral high ground for the bishops again.

Tom Doyle is a priest, canon lawyer, addictions therapist and long-time supporter of justice and compassion for clergy sex abuse victims. He is a co-author of the first report ever issued to the U.S. bishops on clergy sex abuse, in 1986.

In our opinion, the bishops of the US Catholic Church, in allegiance to their European monarch the pope, have attempted to shift attention away from the victims of clergy abuse and onto itself again. The implication is that the church and its 'innocent' leaders are the victims here -- victims of circumstances -- the "circumstances" of an era in American cultural history.

Read Tom Doyle's commentary "'Arrogant clericalism' never assessed in John Jay report" ...

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