ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Tuesday, June 23
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )
One of the nation’s most prolific predator priests – who worked in Joliet – has passed away and a victims’ group wants Catholic officials to “aggressively seek out and help” others who the priest assaulted.
Fr. James M. Janssen reportedly abused at least three dozen boys, often along with other pedophile priests (Fr. Francis Bass, Fr. Theodore Anthony Geerts and Fr. James W. Murphy). He is also accused of pimping his victims to other clerics (Bass, Murphy and Fr. William Wiebler).
For two years (1956-1958), Janssen worked at – and abused at least one child at – St. Isaac Jogues parish in Hinsdale. The victim’s mother discovered obscene letters between the Janssen and the boy. She gave them to the parish priest, the priest wrote to the bishop, and Janssen was suspended from his position at Holbrook IL where he worked with “the boy scouts and the teenagers”
Janssen allegedly used sacrilege and petty crime to groom his victims, and sometimes took them out of state to abuse them. Janssen’s “stable of boys” ranged in ages from five to 18. He continued to abuse at least one into his twenties, and he kept in touch with several into their adulthood, according to multiple sources (see BishopAccountability.org)
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.