OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 24
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org )
By his continuing, reckless and selfish secrecy, Steubenville Bishop Jeffrey Monforton is helping a defrocked priest and accused serial child predator gain access to more innocent kids and vulnerable adults.
[WTOV]
What a tragedy: A man deemed too dangerous to be in a parish can now teach teenagers and young adults, in part because a bishop is too selfish and irresponsible to simply say “these are credible child sex abuse allegations against him.”
And what irony: A defrocked priest and accused serial child predator talks about the child sex abuse allegations against him but his bishop, who has promised to be “open and transparent” about child sex allegations, refuses to talk.
What’s happened, precisely, is this: After several credible allegations of child sexual abuse, Steubenville’s bishop urged the Vatican to defrock Fr. Gary A. Zalenski. Vatican officials finally did so.
What this means, very simply, is this: that Zalenski been deemed by his own supervisors to be too dangerous to be a Catholic priest. He’s been formally and permanently expelled from ministry by the Vatican.
Keep in mind that there’s a great shortage of priests. And Catholic officials are often biased toward priests. They often refuse to defrock even credibly accused child molesting clerics. Usually, it’s only the most egregious offenders who are permanently ousted from the priesthood. So it speaks volumes that Zalenski has been ejected from the priesthood.
But now, Zalenski is teaching at a Belmont College. Steubenville’s bishop must do more to protect children from him and explain his own secrecy surrounding the troubling case.
But despite a national and allegedly binding US church abuse policy that mandates “openness and transparency” about clergy sexual abuse, Bishop Monforton:
— kept the Vatican’s decision to oust Zalenski secret for more than a month
— disclosed it only to his flock, not to the public
— put a tiny, two sentence notice about it in a church publication and, in an astonishingly callous and deceitful move,
— makes no mention of why Zalenski has been defrocked, and
— has just refused more requests from WTOP TV for interviews about Zalenski.
Zalenski is now on the faculty at Belmont College and has access to teenagers. For this reason and others, Bishop Monforton must do more. He should start by simply holding a news conference to warn parents, parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public about a credibly accused and permanently ousted predator priest and explaining – clearly and completely why Zalenski was defrocked.
That’s what a caring shepherd would do.
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