CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release Thursday, May 22
Statement by Kate Bochte, SNAP Leader, 630-768-1860 keight@sbcglobal.net
Process to get new Chicago cardinal starts
We hope that Chicago’s next Catholic Archbishop will do more to prevent future clergy sex crimes and cover-ups. But we’re not optimistic.
[WLS]
Pope Francis, like his predecessors, keeps promoting bishops who have concealed or are concealing heinous sexual violence against kids.
The list of proven, admitted and credibly accused clerics who committed or concealed child sex crimes and who have been ignored or helped by Cardinal George is a long and sorry one. Some are proven, admitted or credibly accused child molesters (Fr. Kenneth Martin, Fr. Joseph Bennett, Fr. Norbert Maday). Others ignored or concealed abuse, according to SNAP and church records, complicit (Fr. Leonard Dubi and Fr. Edward Grace).
Time and time again, George has been dishonest about child sex crimes and reckless and secretive about the clerics who perpetrated them. He kept knowingly favoring friends and predators over kids and Catholics, to the point of taking extraordinarily obvious and inexcusable risks even with proven pedophiles.
Cardinal George also
— let a convicted pedophile priest quietly work in archdiocese (Fr. Kenneth J. Martin),
— refused for years to suspend a credibly accused predator facing more than 12 abuse allegations (Fr. Joseph Bennett),
— tried to get a convicted pedophile priest released early from prison (Fr. Norbert Maday),
— twice rejected the recommendations of hiw own abuse panel (the Bennett case),
— tolerated the complicit high-ranking chancery office priest who advised an accused predator on how to deceive a church review panel (Fr. Edward Grace),
— named an accused predator’s friend (Fr. Edward Dubi) to allegedly monitor him, despite clear pleas by abuse review panel to name anyone else for that role,
— tolerated the egregious misconduct by a predator’s friend who shoved a person for simply asking questions about the predator (Fr. Edward Dubi)
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