LOS ANGELES (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )
A controversial Catholic official who once compared media coverage of clergy sex scandals to “Stalin and Hitler” will speak today in Los Angeles at a Catholic Religious Education Congress.
He’s Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez-Maradiaga, one of Pope Francis’ top hand-picked advisors. In 2002, he claimed that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe as ”protagonists of what I do not hesitate to define as a persecution against the church,” He also claimed that the media covered the abuse scandal with ”a fury which reminds me of the times of Diocletian and Nero and more recently, Stalin and Hitler.”
[SNAP]
Maradiaga also opposed proposals that local bishops turn allegations of clerical sex crimes over to civil authorities for investigation and possible prosecution.
“I would be willing to go to jail before harming one of my priests ,” he said. “I am a priest, a bishop.”
But it’s not just what Maradiaga says. His actions are even more alarming.
He repeatedly moved a known child molester, Fr. Enrique Vasquez, to various assignments around the world despite knowing about the priest’s criminal behavior. He kept Fr. Vasquez in parishes until March 2004, when Fr. Vasquez fled the village of Guinope days ahead of police. Fr. Vasquez had escaped criminal prosecutions in Costa Rica in 1998 before arriving in the US and fleeing again.
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