CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Thursday, February 12, 2015
For more information: Melanie Jula Sakoda ( 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com ), Cappy Larson ( 415-637-2006 cell, cappy@rlarson.com ), David Clohessy ( 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )
Clergy sex abuse victims again beg synod to defrock archbishop
He was the Orthodox Church in America’s highest ranking cleric in Canada
But, his appeal denied, he is now in jail for sexually assaulting a young boy
SNAP to church officials: “No more excuses, follow your abuse policy”
Members of an abuse survivors’ group are again urging Orthodox Church in America (OCA) officials to defrock a high ranking clergyman who was found guilty of molesting a child.
Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, say that the denomination has publicly acknowledged that their sex abuse policy requires that clergy who have been convicted of child sexual abuse be laicized by the synod of bishops.
Storheim was convicted in January of 2014 for sexually violating an 11 year old altar boy in Winnipeg. The archbishop was sentenced to 8 months in jail the following July, but appealed both the conviction and the sentence. However, his conviction and his sentence were recently upheld by the appellate court.
[CTV]
The survivors’ group wrote to the OCA’s synod of bishops before their meeting last spring, begging them to follow their policy in Storheim’s case.
[SNAP]
SNAP has again written to the synod, again asking them to act at their spring meeting to enforce their own guidelines. The text of the letter, sent today by fax (where available) and email to 12 hierarchs is pasted below. The names and contact information for the bishops follow the text.
“At the risk of repeating myself, this is a no-brainer and should have happened last year,” said Cappy Larson of SNAP. “Both Archbishop Seraphim’s guilt and church policy are crystal clear. Now even the appeal is over and the archbishop is serving his sentence. No more excuses, the synod needs to follow its policy!”
“Please,” added Melanie Jula Sakoda, also of SNAP, “make sure that this convicted child molester can never again use his religious titles or roles to get access to and hurt another child.”
From 1990 until his forced retirement in March of 2014, Storheim headed the OCA’s Archdiocese of Canada and was based in Ottawa, Ontario. Prior to that he worked in Edmonton and other cities in Alberta, Winnipeg in Manitoba, London, also in Ontario, Charlotte, North Carolina in the United States, and in Finland.
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