FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014
For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director ( 314 566 9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com ), Amy Smith of Houston, SNAP leader ( 281 748 4050, spacecitysnap@gmail.com )
Abuse victims plead with Southern Baptists
They beg church officials: “Don’t appeal jury verdict”
Florida Baptist Convention should “accept justice,” they say
“Appealing will erode Baptist officials’ moral authority,” states SNAP
They call this a “watershed moment” for largest US Protestant denomination
An organization that helps clergy sex abuse victims is asking the Florida Baptist Convention to reconsider its decision to appeal a recent and unprecedented multi-million dollar verdict in a child molestation case.
Last week, a unanimous jury in Lake County, Florida, awarded $12.5 million to a man who was sexually abused as a child by a Southern Baptist minister in a church affiliated with the Florida Baptist Convention.
This is believed to be the first time that a state or national Baptist organization has been held responsible for the crimes of a minister. For years, Baptist denominational officials have successfully maintained that each church is completely autonomous such that Baptist denominational organizations can’t be sued for negligently allowing clergy child molesters to “church-hop.”
Within hours, Baptist officials announced their intention to ask a higher court to overturn the jury’s verdict.
Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing to Florida Baptist Convention executive director John Sullivan to urge that the statewide denominational office reconsider that decision.
The group maintains that Baptist officials are “at a historic crossroads” and “must choose between the familiar but hurtful, costly, defensive, and fundamentally immoral practice of using legal hard-ball to evade responsibility, or a more kind and smart practice of accepting responsibility, helping victims and taking action to deter future clergy sex crimes and cover-ups.”
“In the long run, this denomination will protect children, save money, prevent embarrassment, and be hailed as doing the right thing, if you act now as compassionate shepherds instead of cold-hearted CEOs,” said Amy Smith, a SNAP leader in Houston who is herself a Southern Baptist.
“This first-ever jury finding – that Baptist denominational offices should bear responsibility for harm inflicted by a clergy child molester — is a real ‘wake-up call’ for the entire denomination,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP’s Director. “Denominational officials can heed or ignore the call. We hope they’ll make the tougher but smarter and more responsible choice to accept responsibility, not appeal, and to implement denominational safeguards for the protection of kids.”
Clohessy compared the jury’s decision to a lengthy 1985 internal Catholic Church report sent to every US bishop, warning them that soon lawsuits involving pedophile priests would proliferate and radically undermine their reputations.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.