PENNSYLVANIA/NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Thursday, July 16
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)
A suspended, twice-accused predator priest is now a therapist. Shame on Catholic officials in Camden and Philadelphia for doing almost nothing to protect kids from him and warn parents about him.
Despite decades of devastation to families and repeated church pledges to reform, bishops continue, at best, doing the absolute bare minimum in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases.
They protect their careers and reputations by suspending predator priests. But they refuse to protect the public by warning them about predator priests.
We see this all the time. Two quick examples:
—Last week, it was revealed that a credibly accused Oblate priest, Fr. Michael Charland, is now a therapist in the Twin Cities.
(He also worked in Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, Mississippi and Canada.)
—A Catholic school teacher, Tom Hodgman, is a professor today at Adrian College in Michigan, despite admitting that he molested two girls and is accused of molesting at least one more. (His former employer, a Catholic high school, had to pay $1.6 million to Joelle Casteix who was repeatedly sexually violated by Hodgman when she was a youngster.)
Camden church officials did and are doing very little to protect kids from Fr. Igle. And what little they did, they did late and under duress. Notice the timeline:
–In 2000, Catholic officials suspended Fr. Igle from active ministry over an allegation of sex abuse.
–Catholic officials kept this move secret from law enforcement for two years.
–Not until 2011 did they tell New Jersey regulators about two abuse reports against Fr. Igle, both
of which, church officials admit, are credible.
–And allegedly they ever told Fr. Igle about a second allegation or that the first allegation was deemed credible.
The Inquirer story raised a troubling questions: “Where have the accused priests gone? And who bear
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.