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	Sex Abuse Victims Target Fugitive Priests Church Officials Asked to Help Extradite Accused Priests TheBostonChannel.com [Vatican City] April 13, 2005 VATICAN CITY -- American victims of clergy sex abuse urged church officials Wednesday to help extradite accused priests who fled to their religious orders in Rome or to foreign countries to escape punishment. Barbara Blaine, founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said religious leaders have a moral obligation to help prosecutors in these cases, so children are not at risk. "The place where these men should be is almost anywhere except Rome," said Blaine, speaking at a news conference in a hotel near St. Peter's Square. "This is not about punishment. This is merely about prevention." The Dallas Morning News reported last year that some religious orders were sheltering accused priests in Rome. They include clergymen who had been criminally charged in the United States or who had admitted molesting young people years before and now face additional claims. The newspaper also found evidence of several priests accused of abuse in one country who then moved to another, where they were working in Roman Catholic churches or ministries. Supervisors of the accused clergy in Rome told the Dallas paper they were not trying to help the men escape punishment, but wanted to give them a place to live and work away from children. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has declined to comment on the presence in Rome this week of the Survivors Network, which claims 5,600 members and has been pressing church leaders to acknowledge the scope of abuse in their dioceses for more than a decade. On Monday, Blaine and another victim went to St. Peter's Square to protest the decision by the cardinals to ask Cardinal Bernard Law to lead an important Mass in St. Peter's Basilica mourning Pope John Paul II. Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in December 2002 when unsealed court records revealed he had moved predatory priests among church assignments without notifying parishioners. He has apologized for his wrongdoing. The pope last year appointed Law archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, a ceremonial but highly visible post. Some Catholics said protests around the time of the pope's death were inappropriate - and questioned whether anyone in the Vatican was even listening. The cardinals eligible to vote in the conclave have stopped giving media interviews. The election is set to begin Monday. Marco Politi, a papal biographer and Vatican expert, said the Italian public was generally sympathetic to victims and did not resent their presence. "I think that these two representatives of SNAP made a very dignified appearance," Politi said. "They were speaking with very great dignity about the sorrow and pain of the victims. They underlined that they didn't want to interfere in the inner life of the church in the conclave. They didn't ask Cardinal Law not to participate in the conclave, but they stressed that he himself should have refused to celebrate the Mass." Politi also said there were many signs that cardinals understood the depth of the abuse problem, despite accusations of Vatican indifference from some Americans. Last month, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, one of John Paul's closest aides whose name is mentioned as a possible candidate for pope, denounced "filth" in the church, "even among those ... in the priesthood," during the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum. Vatican officials also agreed two years ago to change church law for the United States so bishops had broader power to keep accused priests out of parishes. Those changes are now under Vatican review.
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