ILLINOIS
The Awareness Center

Back in 1992, at the age of 55, Rick Springer joined forces with LinkUp, (which was originally called VOCAL – an acronym for Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup) started speaking out as a Catholic survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

According to the Chicago Tribune article “Silence is Broken”, Rick Springer was quoted as stating: “I knew that what he (his offender) was doing was wrong”. . . “But I couldn’t tell my family, which was alcoholic dysfunctional. I told leaders of my church, who said the archbishop of Chicago would be informed. At the time Springer was studying to become a priest. “But nothing happened. I was told to leave the seminary because I was not a good candidate for priesthood. That’s the way it stayed for 31 years.”