UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013
Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com )
The pope has made many feel hopeful, with his personal humility, down-to-earth gestures, and obvious deep compassion for the poor. He has not, however, made a single child safer. He hasn’t exposed one predator priest or disciplined one corrupt bishop.
After nine months of essentially ignoring the church’s most severe crisis, he hastily announced last week that he’ll appoint an abuse study panel. That’s it. Meanwhile, kids are being raped, predators are being helped, police are being ignored, prosecutors are being stonewalled and secrets are being hidden.
Unlike many religious figures, the Pope has enormous power. With great power comes great responsibility, the responsibility to do more than just pick a panel to study a crisis that has been percolating for centuries and that hurts children every single day.
Pope Francis presides over the world’s only global monarchy. And it’s a wealthy, rigid, hierarchical one with a long and sordid history of enabling and hiding child sex crimes. That hierarchy is still enabling horrific child sex crimes, by their actions (refusing to give information to the United Nations) and inaction (not revealing the names of known child molesting clerics, not punishing those who conceal their crimes, not lobbying for better child safety laws).
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