LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Monday, July 14, 2014
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)
Two new stories by Minnesota Public Radio – a ten minute piece and startling one hour documentary – shed disturbing light on the case of a Lafayette, Louisiana predator priest. Both are available now online.
It includes painful interviews with Louisiana clergy sex abuse victims and their family members who contradict the carefully-crafted but patently false image of former Lafayette Bishop Harry Flynn as a “reformer” on abuse.
This is a very close look at how Flynn dealt with the horrific Fr. Gilbert Gauthe case. We are grateful that MPR unveiled Flynn’s deceit in Louisiana. For decades, church officials have claimed that prelates like Flynn and Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley “cleaned up” abuse in dioceses far earlier than their colleagues. In our view, that’s a convenient and self-serving myth.
These Catholic officials were simply forced to deal with clergy sex crimes and cover ups sooner than their peers. And they learned, as MPR reports, that continued secrecy was key. Yet they used smart public relations and soothing words and symbolic gestures to foster a false impression of change.
MPR reports that the lesson Flynn learned in Lafayette and encouraged other bishops to follow was “express concern for victims, hire aggressive attorneys and disclose nothing. He did not ask the Vatican to kick out a single abusive priest.”
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