SNAP Treads Where Bishop Braxton Won't
By George Pawlaczyk
Belleville News-Democrat
May 26, 2006
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/crime_courts/14672230.htm
BELLEVILLE - Discouraged by what they say is Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton's failure to control a priest who admits he molested children, a national group has asked Attorney General Lisa Madigan to intercede.
But a spokesman for Madigan's office responded Thursday that it is local state's attorney's offices that have jurisdiction in criminal matters, and not the attorney general.
The spokesman, Melissa Merz, would not respond to whether Madigan would use her political influence, as the group requested, to recommend that two priests be sent to a secure treatment center for pedophiles. They are the Rev. Real Bourque, 78, of Belleville, and the Rev. Daniel McCormack, 37, of Chicago,
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| Bourque |
A three-page letter faxed Thursday to the attorney general's office from the St. Louis-based Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests, asked Madigan to use her "bully pulpit" or public position to speak out about the priests.
Bourque has said he molested boys in the late 1970s and early 1980s while a priest in Massachusetts and Maine. Bourque, who was never charged with a crime, was treated for pedophilia in 1995 in Maryland. He has declined to comment.
McCormack was charged last year with sexually abusing three minors and, in April while out on bond, was again charged with sexually abusing three more minors. He has been released again on an increased bond. He could not be reached for comment.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has come under criticism in connection with the McCormack case.
Bourque, a defrocked and retired priest, resides at the St. Henry Oblate Retirement Home about two blocks from Althoff Catholic High School. His only supervision is to sign a sheet when he leaves the home's grounds, the Rev. Allen Maes has said.
Maes heads a local branch of the international religious order Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate of which Bourque is a member. In Belleville, the order operates the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows.
"When it comes to protecting kids we'll just be as creative and relentless as we can. Obviously Braxton should be waging this battle. Not us," said Dave Clohessy, the executive director of SNAP.
Braxton has said that because Bourque is a member of a separate religious order, he has no power over him.
However, former Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory, now archbishop of Atlanta, has said had he known about Bourque's transfer to the retirement home in 2002, he would have stopped it.
Gregory's former vicar general, Monsignor James Margason, now the pastor of Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Shiloh, has said Bourque should be sent to a treatment center where he can be strictly supervised.
Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com and 239-2625.
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