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.
Tweet
;)
Survivors respond to pope's refusal to accept resignations of Irish bishops implicated in sexual abuse by priests scandal
Andrew Madden, who was abused as an altar boy in Dublin, said he was "disappointed" by the pope's decision not to accept the auxiliary bishops' resignations. However, he said, "I am not surprised; I have long since given up hope of the Catholic Church getting its act together when it comes to child protection."The Catholic Church, right from the Vatican down, has refused to fully acknowledge this problem," Madden said.
Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the U.S. based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), issued a statement saying, "By rejecting the resignations of two complicit Irish bishops, the pope is rubbing more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of thousands of child sex abuse victims and millions of betrayed Catholics.
"By this move, the Pope has done irreparable damage to the already deeply damaged image of a selfish church hierarchy."-- SNAP president Barbara Blaine
"He's sending an alarming message to church employees across the globe: Even widespread documentation of the concealing of child sex crimes and the coddling of criminals won't cost you your job in the church," the statement said.
Read the article "Pope declines resignation of Dublin auxiliary bishops" including Madden's statement on the National Catholic Reporter website ...
Read the AP story and SNAP president Blaine's full statement on the SNAP national website ...
[ view entry ] ( 463 views ) | permalink
SNAP confronts women religious leaders on behalf of those abused by nuns; 'come clean' as model for church
;)
DALLAS -- Standing in a 105 degree temperature outside the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Dallas, four members of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) held a press conference as heads of women religious communities were checking in inside the hotel lobby at the outset of the annual gathering for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).The SNAP assembly included Steve Theisen, Therese Albrecht, SNAP's National Director David Clohessy and SNAP DFW's Lisa Kendzior.
Clohessy said that the purpose for the conference was to send a message to the women religious leadership that it should do more to “come clean” about abusive nuns. He called for LCWR to develop a national abuse policy that could be a model for the bishops and for the entire world. Sadly, he said, efforts to work with LCWR have been rebuffed for the past six years.
Read the story in National Catholic Reporter online ...
[ view entry ] ( 468 views ) | permalink
Largest organization of American Nuns to hold annual meeting in Dallas; SNAP DFW urges your presence and support
Dear Friends,I am writing to ask you to support a very important and rare event taking place next week in Dallas. The largest organization of American nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), is holding their annual conference next week at the Hyatt Regency on Reunion Blvd. in Dallas.
"I am suggesting that an hour or two of your time to stand with victims in this situation, may be the single most significant use of your time all year. " -- SNAPDFW facilitator Lisa Kendzior
SNAP is going to have a presence as the National Director, David Clohessy, and the gentleman who is responsible for bringing this issue to the forefrontand a survivor of sexual abuse at the hand of a nun, Steve Theisen of Iowa, are coming to Dallas.
We need survivors and supporters to stand with them on Tuesday, August 10th at 1:00 pm and Wednesday, August 11th at 11:00 am on the sidewalk outside the Hyatt Regency downtown.
The purpose is to handout leaflets urging the nuns to:
* let SNAP survivors who were molested by nuns speak to their national nuns conference in Dallas this week, and;
* launch an independent self survey to learn how widespread such sex crimes are
Unknown to many:
* the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) refused to join the Dallas Charter;
* the LCWR is a canonically approved membership organization for Catholic sisters in America; and
* are only held accountable to a far distant Vatican Office called The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
For 7 years, victims of nun sexual abuse have asked the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) for simple and inexpensive actions:
* Allow survivors to speak at National and Regional Conferences;
* Allow survivors to speak at member communities;
* Place a "To Report an Abuse" SNAP link on LCWR website;
* Ask member communities to do the same in their publications or on their website; and:
* Provide SNAP with contact numbers for communities' Victim Assistance Coordinators.
For 7 years the LCWR has refused.
The LCWR has more than 1500 members, who represent more than 90 percent of the 59,000 women religious in the United States.
Sadly, female sexual predators who are members of religious communities are capable of committing sexual abuse with terrifying exploitation but without the typical lack of suspicion.
Society's comfort level with intimate touching between women and children enables female abusers to initiate contact far easier without suspicion. The reality of a female practicing pedophilia is shocking but must not be ignored if we are to protect those that are most vulnerable.
This is going to be a big deal and I am suggesting that an hour or two of your time to stand with victims in this situation, may be the single most significant use of your time all year. I urge you to consider standing in solidarity with those who have suffered in this way. Your support would mean a great deal to them.
Lisa
[ view entry ] ( 447 views ) | permalink
Ratzinger papacy investigates again: this time, Medjugorjan Blessed Virgin 'sightings' targeted by inquisitors
;)
Adding the mystics of Medjugorje to his potential heretic hit-list -- along with gay seminarians and "uppity" women in genuine ministries -- the German pope has cranked up the smoke and mirrors intended to further enshroud the sexual perversion crisis of the imploding Roman priesthood and its hierarchy, exacerbated by the pope himself and his own secretive, blame-throwing, ideologically absolutist regime.BBC News and the American Paulist Catholic news outlet CathNewsUSA report that in March, 2010 the Vatican announced that a 20-strong commission will report to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the Inquisition) on claims that the Virgin Mary appears on a daily basis in a town in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
It is said she speaks in Croatian, uttering the words: “I’ve come because there are many true believers here. I wish to be with you to convert and reconcile the whole world.”
The Roman Church, under the Polish and German papacies, has long debated the credibility of the sightings. So the timing of this commission must give any mature observer of world events pause.
Read the story in the BBC report 'Vatican investigates Bosnia "apparition" of Virgin Mary' ...
Read the CathNewsUSA story 'Vatican announces Medjugorje investigation' ...
[ view entry ] ( 508 views ) | permalink
On 20 November 2009, the global community celebrated the 20th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the unique document that sets international standards for the care, treatment and protection of all individuals below age 18.Like all UN member states signing the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Vatican is required by international law to submit regular reports on its efforts to safeguard child rights.
But the Vatican has ignored repeated UN requests to file the report for years.
In 2009, a Vatican official announced to a UN assembly that the long-delinquent report was being "finalized as we speak."
Not so. The head of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child told the Associated Press just this month (July, 2010) that:
"... the UN required Vatican report "is now almost 13 years overdue."
"A LEGALLY BINDING INSTRUMENT"
According to the UNICEF website Unite for Children, filing the report is a legally binding, international responsibility:
""The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. In 1989, world leaders decided that children needed a special convention just for them because people under 18 years old often need special care and protection that adults do not. The leaders also wanted to make sure that the world recognized that children have human rights too." Unite for Children, UNICEF
LINKS
Read 'Vatican breaks UN treaty on children's safety; SNAP responds' on the SNAP national website ...
Download the 16 page executive summary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child from the UNICEF website ...
For more on the CRC, visit Unite for Children on the UNICEF website ...
[ view entry ] ( 536 views ) | permalink
Convicted Mother Teresa spiritual advisor used status to prey on unsuspecting families and children; SNAP responds
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled to keep Fr. Donald McGuire behind bars. McGuire is an unrepentant, narcissistic, serial child predator who used his status as a Jesuit and Mother Teresa’s spiritual adviser to prey on unsuspecting families and kids."This case should remind all sex abuse victims that even the most high profile, widely-respected and cunning child molesting cleric can sometimes be prosecuted and kept away from kids if only we are brave, patient and persistent." -- SNAP founder Barbara Blaine
Read SNAP founder and president Barbara Blaine's full statement on the SNAP national website ...
[ view entry ] ( 539 views ) | permalink
'Rome fiddles, We Burn' - NYTimes Columnist Marueen Dowd comments on latest Vatican priest sex crime rules
"The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary...
"The casuistic document"There is no moral awakening here. The cruelty and indecency of child abuse once more inspires tactical contrition. All the penitence of the church is grudging and reactive. Church leaders are merely as penitent as they need to be to protect the institution. " -- Maureen Dowd, NY Times Published July 16, 2010
- did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia;
- it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police;
- it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug;
- it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children;
- it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened.
;)
Read the entire column "Rome Fiddles, We Burn" on the NYTimes website ...
[ view entry ] ( 999 views ) | permalink
Canonist and survivors' advocate Thomas Doyle speaks out on new Roman rules for handling sex abuse by priests
"The main problem with the Vatican's latest attempt at damage control is that they continue to deny the fundamental issue: the nature of the clericalized monarchical structure of the institutional church and its role in the systematic dismantling of the reality of church as People of God."
"The norms list several canonical crimes that are subject to the CDF. There is a serious gap in this list: failure to properly and responsibly respond to reports of sex abuse by clerics. This would obviously nail the majority of U.S. bishops, both retired and active. This crime is just as devastating as the sex abuse itself because it obviously enables continued rape and molestation of innocent children and adults. The bishops' systemic practice of cover-up and dishonesty, which should be a crime, is also a gross insult to all lay persons and not just victims and their families."
"The cloak of secrecy hasn't been removed. (The Vatican spokesman) claims that secrecy is maintained "in order to safeguard the dignity of all the people involved." This of course, is a lame excuse for the Vatican's obsession with image."
"The eighth revision is a potential for disaster. This one gives the local bishops the power to proceed judicially against people whom they suspect of heresy, apostasy or schism. The potential for misuse of this norm and the consequent denial of due process and the right of free expression to people the bishops decide don't think like them is terrifying."
[Tom Doyle is a priest, canon lawyer, addictions therapist and long-time supporter of justice and compassion for clergy sex abuse survivors.]
Read Tom Doyle's entire article "The Vatican's new norms" on the NCR website ...
[ view entry ] ( 574 views ) | permalink
Catholic news outlet calls Vatican refusal to implicate bishops in sexual crime coverup 'the elephant in the sanctuary'
"Lacking in both the Dallas Norms governing the American church and Cardinal Levada’s announcement of changes in the church’s universal laws was any mention of the fate of bishops who, by ignoring the reported sexual abuse of children by their priests, allow them to victimize yet other children."The Dallas Norms effectively shifted the burden of the abuse crisis from the bishops who ignored the abuse to the priests who perpetrated it. The universal norms announced by Cardinal Levada ignore the problem entirely." -- National Catholic Reporter "This truly is the elephant in the sanctuary.
Read the full article on the NCROnline website ...
[ view entry ] ( 467 views ) | permalink
Mega-church elder pleads guilty to rape of church member, and to pending charge of spreading HIV ...
[Dallas, TX] Nathaniel Tumbwe, a self-proclaimed "reverend, doctor and prince" pleaded guilty Friday to raping a church member while still an elder in the Dallas mega-church Potter's House. Tumbwe also pleaded guilty to a pending charge of transmitting HIV to another women. A third victim was prepared to testify to having also been unknowingly infected with HIV by the former churchman.After the guilty plea, Tumbwe's rape victim took the witness stand to address Tumbwe in a victim impact statement, in which, in part, she said directly to her perpetrator:
"Mr. Tumbwe, not Rev. Dr. Tumbwe, not Rev. Dr. Prince Tumbwe - Nathaniel Tumbwe, how dare you think you can take advantage of a woman, especially a Christian woman?
"You caused me considerable damage and pain," she said. "Every Sunday, it's in my mind. You caused me to question the church and the faith community.
"How dare you, how dare you, how dare you ..."
The former minister-rapist will serve concurrent 15 year sentences for the charges. Upon release or parole, he will be deported by US authorities.
Read the story in yesterdays Dallas Morning News ...
Read SNAP outreach director Barbara Dorris' statement, issued prior to the outcome of the trial ...
[ view entry ] ( 576 views ) | permalink
Vatican reduces protection for 23.7% of potential victims of priest child rape; claims 'major contribution'
Although the recently released rewording of Vatican status quo on the priest rape crisis extends the Vatican's self-authored statute of limitations to 20 years, the Ratzinger administration has, in essence, increased the dangerous vulnerability of children between ages 14 and 18 by removing their already flimsy Roman hierarchy protection from pornographic rape by priests.According to the Roman church's own statistics, 23.7% of priest rape victims are between ages 14 and 18. SNAP suspects the number to be much higher. However, in light of that report, the Vatican's latest "major contribution" to "rigor and transparency" in dealing with its priests' criminal rape of children, actually makes this 23.7% of potential victims, i.e. the age group 14-18, to be more vulnerable to predator priests, not less.
Read 'The Politics of Statistics' from Commonweal magazine on the Bishops Accountablitly website ...
[ view entry ] ( 461 views ) | permalink
Vatican tweaks statute; defines "child" as under 14; groups women priests, priest rapists; remains unaccountable
In yet another grossly insensitive attempt to manipulate public opinion in its favor and against its own victims, the Vatican has produced a woefully inadequate rewrite of its long standing status quo in regards to the protection of child victims of priest and priesthood rape. SNAP's response is that "the church's approach needs 'massive overhaul, not mere tweaking."Although the statement extends the Vatican-self-authored statute of limitations to 20 years, the Ratzinger administration has, in essence, increased the dangerous vulnerability of children between ages 14 and 18 by removing their protection from pornographic rape by priests.
According to the John Jay report of 2003, commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, 23.7% of priest rape victims are between ages 14 and 18. The Vatican's latest "major contribution" to "rigor and transparency" in dealing with its priests' criminal rape of children, renders that age group more vulnerable to predator priests, not less.
Read the two SNAP responses to Vatican "guidelines" rewording status quo ...
Read 'Vatican revises church law on sex abuse' on the NCROnline website ...
[ view entry ] ( 367 views ) | permalink
Archives
