PARAGUAY/UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Tuesday, July 1
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )
A Vatican team is being sent to investigate a priest who allegedly molested several U.S. boys and is now second-in-command at a diocese in Paraguay.
While we are very skeptical of internal church investigations, we are glad at least something is happening about this troubing case. But we also want bishops in both countries to reach out to others this priest has hurt.
Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity was accused of sexually abusing at least four boys at St. Gregory’s Academy in Moscow, Pennsylvania between 2002-2004. At least two civil suits were filed and one of them was settled for $380,000. Scranton diocesan officials sent Fr. Urrutigoity to a church treatment center which concluded that he “should be removed from active ministry and his (priestly) faculties should be revoked.”
We call on Catholic officials throughout Paraguay, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania to aggressively reach out to their flocks – using their bully pulpits, church bulletins, diocesan websites, and personal parish visits – and beg anyone who saw, suspects or suffered child sex crimes to come forward, report any crimes or misdeeds they may have seen, suspected or suffered by Fr. Carlos to police and prosecutors.
And we urge those with information or suspicions about him to seek independent sources of help, like law enforcement officials and groups like ours.
A Boston-based research group called BishopAccountability.org disclosed that Fr. Urrutigoity is now in the Diocese of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay and is its Vicar General. We are grateful for their painstaking and accurate research.
In the 1990s, Fr. Urrutigioity lived and taught at the St. Pius X Seminary in Winona. He belonged to a controversial and very conservative religious order known as the Society of St. Pius X.
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