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  Victims Advocate Calls on Archbishop for Support

Indianapolis Star [Indianapolis IN]
October 16, 2003

The head of a national support group for clergy abuse victims asked Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein on Wednesday to encourage Catholics to show support for victims.

Barbara Blaine made the plea to the archbishop in light of what she considers a "dangerous situation" involving a sex abuse complaint against the Rev. Bernard P. Knoth, the former Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School principal who resigned last week as president of Loyola University in New Orleans. Knoth resigned following his removal from the active priesthood after a former Brebeuf student accused him of sexual misconduct in 1986.

"Instead of recognizing and appreciating the great courage the victim exercised in coming forward," Blaine wrote in a letter to the archbishop, "he is being called a coward and being challenged to publicly disclose his identity."

Blaine is the president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national group that offers support, guidance and information to victims.
 
 
 

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