UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Statement by Barbara Dorris, Outreach Director, 314-862-7688 SNAPdorris@gmail.com

Fr. John Celichowski of the Capuchins religious order said Tuesday “through much of our history as a province, we have failed victims and survivors.”

He’s wrong.

The Capuchins didn’t “fail.” Failure implies a good faith effort that somehow went awry. That’s not what Catholic officials, dozens of them in this order and thousands of them across the world, have done. For the most part, they deliberately shunned victims, stonewalled prosecutors, deceived parishioners, moved predators and enforced secrecy and endangered kids. These are smart men with smart lawyers who made carefully-crafted and self-serving decisions.

These were not mistakes or failures or inadequacies. It’s a disservice to children, victims, parishioners and the public to add insult to injury by deceiving people now about these intentional, hurtful and…