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  Pope Talks Today of " Petty Gossip;" Clergy Sex Victims Are Hurt & Insulted

Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
March 28, 2010

http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2010_statements/032810_pope_talks_today_of_petty_gossip_clergy_sex_victims_are_hurt_insulted.htm

VATICAN CITY -- Statement by Barbara Blaine, SNAP President, 312 299 4747

Contrary to what a few in Rome are saying, we are not "ignoble," "despicable" or engaging in "petty gossip." We are men, women and children who are in deep pain, having been raped, sodomized and assaulted by Catholic clergy and often betrayed by Catholic officials. Our trauma - past and present - should never be trivialized by anyone, much less by those who profess to be caring shepherds.

That last description - "petty gossip" - hurts the worst, because it comes from the Pope himself. The mean-spirited comments by some loyal church bureaucrats in defense of the pontiff are wrong but understandable, given the intense scrutiny their leader now faces. But when the Pope himself responds to hundreds of suffering clergy sex abuse victims and thousands of aching Catholic parishioners with dismissive rhetoric, it's particularly disturbing.

Tens of thousands of us are doing a public service. By our courage, we are making the church, and society, safer for children. By our actions, we are exposing predators, warning parents, protecting families and deterring future recklessness and deceit in child sex cases, secular and religious. We are shining a sorely-needed light on long-hidden secrets and corruption, so that horrific wounds can be healed and so that vulnerable youngsters can be safeguarded. That's no "conspiracy," that's decency and bravery.

The Catholic hierarchy can't have it both ways. It can't claim to care about victims while it also attacks victims.

While personally painful, these ill-advised and hurtful Vatican remarks strengthen our resolve to do everything we can to reduce child sex crimes and disclose the deeply-rooted patterns of complicity in the church that contribute to and enable child sex crimes.

 
 

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