Peterson: Volunteers keeping clergy abuse in spotlight

CALIFORNIA
The Mercury News

By Gary Peterson, gpeterson@bayareanewsgroup.com
POSTED: 04/30/2016

They stood quiet as church mice outside Oakland’s Cathedral of Christ the Light. They spoke only to those passers-by who engaged them. Their presence was their message, and the message is that molestation of children by clergy didn’t disappear with the final credits of “Spotlight.”

In the past two months, lawsuits filed against the Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, have accused once-local priests — the Rev. Emmerich Vogt and the Rev. Milton Eggerling — of sexual abuse. Vogt’s attorney has denied the allegations. Eggerling is deceased.

“Between these two priests, they worked in the Diocese of Oakland, the Diocese of San Francisco and the Diocese of San Jose,” said Melanie Sakoda, one of three volunteers from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which held the half-hour event Tuesday.

The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team blew the lid off the Catholic Church’s dirty not-so-little secret in a series of stories in 2002. In February, a movie celebrating that journalistic effort won the Academy Award for best picture.

By comparison, Sakoda and her fellow volunteers are more selective and low-key when it comes to whom they spotlight and what they seek.

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