Austin Priest Abuse Survivor Group Leader in Vatican for Abuse Summit

By Candy Rodriguez
KXAN
February 21, 2019

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/v

Catholic leaders and survivors are gathered for a historic sex abuse prevention summit. Early Thursday morning, Pope Francis opened the summit by warning bishops there needs to be more than condemnation and concrete action needs to be taken.

Carol Midboe with the Austin chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is one of many survivors and advocates in attendance.

Midboe said the group is there to demand action. They've set out five demands which including the dismissal of clergy involved, the creation of a "zero-tolerance policy," report abuse directly to law enforcement, release all files, and stop all "lobbying efforts against legislative reform that would benefit survivors."

On Tuesday, Carol said the group tried to deliver a letter directly to the Pope but were not allowed to.

"They walked up to the Vatican and tried to hand it over to officials and they asked them to place it on the ground and so survivors felt that that was representative of how survivors have been treated overall," she said, though she understood that when the group wasn't allowed to, it could have been a matter of security.