MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 18

Statement by Judy Jones of St. Louis, Assistant Midwest Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 974 5003, snapjudy@gmail.com )

Missouri’s Catholic bishops are trying to get more tax breaks through a petition-gathering drive about schools. Citizens should think long and hard before signing.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Church officials who worry about shrinking Catholic schools should insist that their bishops take real measures, not symbolic ones, to end the long-standing and dangerous church culture of recklessness and deceit in child sex abuse cases. That will no doubt help stem declining enrollment in parochial schools.

And citizens approached with the church-sponsored petitions should keep in mind one fact: For at least three reasons, public schools are inherently safer than private schools. There is more openness and more accountability in…