MINNESOTA
City Pages
By Jesse Marx
Wed., Jul. 30 2014
For decades, Bob Schwiderski has been a voice for victims of clerical abuse. He’s blanketed the neighborhoods of accused priests with fliers and held press conferences to encourage others to speak out.
This week, Schwiderski kicked up his crusade. He released an updated version of a map he created showing where each of the allegations of sexual misconduct that he’s recorded over the years occurred and by whom. There’s 250 names total, and they include not only Catholic priests and monks, but Episcopal and Protestant pastors and their staff. You’ll also find four nuns.
The map is entitled “The Hunting Grounds” because Swiderski believes that places of worship, no matter the denomination, attract sexual predators. “Some people know that if they present themselves in this godly way they’ll have access to children,” he tells us. “And the families are trusting of the people who work in the churches.”
He would have included allegations against leaders of other religions, but he doesn’t know of any. And even if he did, he’d need a second source. Every person on the map has at least two allegations against them, he says. Another list he keeps private includes 261 Christians.
His careful approach of naming people publicly, which he honed as the head of the Minnesota chapter of SNAP, has the benefit of bringing victims together. Schwiderski asks everyone who comes forward with an allegation to contact their old friends and classmates, looking for similar stories of abuse. “All of a sudden, there’s two or three people and they haven’t talked in 20 years,” he says, “but now they have people to walk forward with.”
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.