WASHINGTON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )
Yakima’s Catholic bishop is desperately trying to evade responsibility for a child molesting cleric by stressing that the cleric’s crimes happened during guitar lessons that weren’t “church-sanctioned.” That is disgusting hair-splitting. Deacon Aaron Ramirez would likely never have been trusted by this boy or his parents had Yakima’s bishop not irresponsibly held Ramirez out to be a holy, celibate man when he clearly wasn’t.
For decades, Catholic officials have said almost anything to avoid any accountability for their reckless, callous and deceptive wrongdoing in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases.
(In one notorious case, then-Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco argued in court filings that one of his priests shouldn’t have to pay support for the child he fathered because the woman should have used birth control, which of course the Catholic hierarchy insists is immoral.)
Catholic bishops have shown a remarkable ability to sound pastoral in public, but fight viciously in court. We hope Yakima jurors won’t reward more of this legalistic, self-serving hair-splitting.
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