CALIFORNIA
The Raw Story
TOM BOGGIONI
07 DEC 2015
A group representing victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests has blasted the San Diego Catholic Diocese for appointing a priest who admitted to destroying documents detailing sexual assaults to oversee their sex abuse hotline.
Likening him to “an admitted embezzler [who] shouldn’t oversee bank accounts,” Melanie Sakoda of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) said Fr. Steven Callahan shouldn’t be allowed to “oversee abuse reports.”
Callahan is listed as the Victims’ Assistance Coordinator on the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego website — with a phone number to call the priest as well as an email address.
In a court deposition in 2007, after approximately 150 men and women filed suit against the San Diego diocese over sexual abuse claims, Callahan admitted to destroying documents in the early 90’s implicating a fellow priest.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune, Rev. Emmanuel Omemaga fled to his native Philippines in 1993 after admitting to Callahan that he had molested a 14-year-old girl.
Callahan claimed that he had urged Omemaga to turn himself in to the police before he left the country.
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