SNAP Press Statement
For immediate release: Friday, February 11, 2011
Summary of Philadelphia Grand Jury Report 2/11
After a detailed two year investigation, here’s what impartial grand jurors found.
The archdiocese
—“continues to engage in practices that mislead victims, that violate their trust, that hinder prosecution of their abusers and that leave large numbers of credibly accused priests in ministry”
—After more than four months, has still not fully complied with the grand jury’s subpoena
—“not much has changed” since a scathing 2005 report by another grand jury
—“has betrayed once again” the victims who report to its staffers
The archdiocesan abuse system
—“is designed to help the abusers and the archdiocese itself ”
—“is devoid of common sense”
—“reaches the wrong result in the vast majority of (child sex abuse) cases.”
The “predatory priests still in ministry” (the jury’s words)
—“dozens of apparent abusers remain on duty in the archdiocese today with access to new young prey”
—at least 37 priests with “substantial evidence of abuse” have been kept in assignments that expose them to children”
—at least “41 priests who have remained in active ministry in the past five years after the Archdiocese learned of accusations or reports of their inappropriate behavior or sexual abuse of minors.”
—only two of these 41 have been listed on the Archdiocese’s website as credibly accused, which means the identity of most of these priests remains unknown even to their parishioners.”
The so-called “victims assistance coordinators”
—“mislead victims”
—“do not keep victims’ statements confidential”
—“turn over” victims’ statements “to archdiocesan attorneys”
—“handed previously confidential” victim’s records “over to the victim’s abuser”
—“hound” victims to “give statements to “use as ammunition to impeach victims”
Msgr. William Lynn (for years, until 2004, a high ranking chancery staffer)
—“put literally thousands of children at risk of sexual abuse by placing them in the care of known child molesters” over the past two decades.”
—“was acutely interested in shielding abusive clergy from criminal detection, in shielding the Cardinal from scandal, and in shielding the Archdiocese from financial liability.”
— “showed no interest at all in defending the Archdiocese’s children. On the contrary, he consistently endangered them.”
—called his conduct in “dealing with abusive priests” to be “dangerous and indefensible”
—“knowingly exposed children to predatory priests”
— “acted as if his job was to protect the abuser, never the abused”
—his “refusal to curb” two known predators “led directly to the rape of (two boys)”
(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy
abuse victims.)
I read enough of your excellent post to know the record is
BEYOND UNMITIGATEDLY OUTRAGEOUS.
Please excuse my not reading the whole post. I just ate.
The article beginning this thread speaks of the unbelievable and blatant guilt of the diocese itself. Not just individual priests or church officials.
The Diocese.
“The rapist priests we accuse were well known to the Secretary of Clergy, but he cloaked their conduct and put them in place to do it again,” the grand jury said. Monsignor Lynn faces a maximum of 14 years in prison if convicted on all charges. The report also charged Msgr. William Lynn, secretary of clergy in the archdiocese under former Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, with endangering the welfare of children by allowing “dangerous” priests to remain in place. Monsignor Lynn was responsible for investigating abuse allegations from 1992 to 2004.
"All of them witches."