SNAP Responds to Passing of Cardinal William Levada

By Dan Mcnevin, Joey Piscitelli, Melanie Sakoda, Zach Hiner
SNAP
September 27, 2019

https://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_responds_passing_cardinal_william_levada

Cardinal William Levada has passed away. In his wake, he leaves behind a legacy of obfuscation, cover-up, and minimization of cases of clergy abuse.

As the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Cardinal Levada ignored reports of abuse from the Antonio Provolo School in Verona, Italy, for almost a year, until the allegations became public. 

While the leader of the the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Cardinal Levada allowed priests who were accused of abuse to stay in ministry even while facing lawsuits. He has the notorious distinction of seeing the head of his hand-picked abuse review panel resign in protest after seeing that church “investigations” of abusers under the cardinal were little more than PR stunts.

We hope that future heads of the CDF and other archdioceses around the country will learn from Cardinal Levada’s example and know what not to do when handling cases of clergy abuse in the future.

But even more so, we hope that survivors know that our volunteer leaders are there to support any victim who may want to talk through their feelings with someone who understands. Events like these can cause different emotions to well up, whether anger, sadness, or confusion, and our support groups are open to all victims of clergy and nun abuse.