OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release, June 29, 2016
Statement by: Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511, SNAPjudy@gmail.com
A Catholic seminarian who attracted national media attention and spent time in Ohio, Vermont and Kentucky is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday (7/1) for horrific child sex crimes.
Former Josephinum College student Joel Wright travelled to San Diego seeking infants for sex.
We hope he will be given a long sentence. This dangerous child predator, who was rejected by forty other seminaries, needs to be kept far away from kids forever.
Wright was a seminarian in Columbus diocese, but he was also sponsored by the Steubenville diocese in Ohio. He also studied in Kentucky and is originally from Vermont.
Let’s hope that Vermont Bishop Christopher Coyne, Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell, Steubenville Bishop Jeffrey Montforton and Covington Bishop Roger Foys will use pulpit announcements, parish bulletins and church websites to do what they should have done long ago – do outreach to others who may be suffering from Wright’s wrongdoing.
And we hope that current and former staff at St. Thomas More College near Covington Kentucky, Franciscan University in Steubenville and Josephinum in Columbus will aggressively seek out others with information or suspicions about other crimes by Wright and cover ups by his colleagues or supervisors.
And let’s hope that anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Wright will find the courage to come forward and contact law enforcement no matter how long ago the crimes may have happened.
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