INDIANA
South Bend Tribune
By Margaret Fosmoe
South Bend Tribune
A victims’ group is asking University of Notre Dame officials to discipline the Rev. Daniel Groody, a theology professor, for comments he made last week during a memorial service on campus for the Rev. Virgilio Elizondo, a priest who committed suicide in Texas after being accused of child sexual abuse.
During the service, Groody said Elizondo was accused of abuse “not because he was a serial abuser, but because he was a highly visible, accomplished, respected cleric. …,” according to a news report in the Observer, the student newspaper.
SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) is asking the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, to take disciplinary action against Groody for his comments.
“Survivors who read Father Groody’s words can only feel horribly discouraged: many abusers tell their victims that no one will believe them over a respected man of the cloth. As a result, they will be less likely to seek help, and they will continue to suffer alone and in silence, and their abuser will go on to hurt more children,” SNAP officials David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris wrote in a letter to Jenkins.
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