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	Giving Victims a Voice By Ryan Kruger WSIL August 29, 2008 http://www.wsiltv.com/p/news_details.php?newsID=5505&type=top COBDEN - A Champaign man who claims he was molested by his priest 30 years ago was recently awarded $5 million. A St. Clair county jury ruled the Belleville Diocese knew about Father Raymond Kownacki's violent past, but instead of reporting it the Diocese moved Kownacki around from parish to parish. One place he was sent was Cobden. David Clohessy, the leader of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, was outside St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Cobden handing out flyers about Father Raymond Kownacki. In the 1980's Kownacki was assigned to St. Joseph's. And Clohessy says the priest likely abused children at every church he worked. But so far many victim's have not come forward. "We want them to know that you can recover from this kind of childhood trauma, you can get better but it takes courage, you have to reach out and get some help from people who know what you're going through," said Clohessy. Clohessy is a victim himself. He says he was molested by a Missouri priest almost 40 years ago. And like most victim's of abuse, it took him years to come forward. "Secrecy is the predators best friend and is the victim's worst enemy," said Clohessy. But members of St. Joseph's say there is no secrecy here. "As far as I know we've never had any priests who did anything, we've never had any indication from any of our parishioners, our kids or our adults that anything bad happened to any of them," said John Russell, who's on the Parish Council at St. Joseph's Church. Russell says St. Joseph's has done extensive background checks on all its employees. And has made preventing abuse a priority. While members of the church were caught off guard by Clohessy's tactics, they agree with his message. "We're a little orthodox church so we support our church, but we don't support them against you guys, that's just horrible," said Russell. As of now, no criminal charges have been filed against Kownacki. Clohessy says that's because the victims that have come forward did so after the statute of limitations ran out. Contact: rkruger@wsiltv.com
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