UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Friday, July 1, 2016
Statement by Joelle Casteix of Orange County, SNAP volunteer western regional director, 949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com
Vatican officials should discipline a retired bishop in Ghana.
Bishop Peter Akwasi Sarpong says crimes by pedophile priests are
— not the worse form of sin,
— experience “temptation” and are basically “having sex,”
— attract an inappropriate amount of public attention, and
— commit sins of weakness rather than malice, so their wrongdoing is less severe.
He also said “Politicians killing people to come to power, can you compare the sin of a priest who has seen a beautiful girl and has sex with her to that?”
These remarks hurt victims. They perpetuate widely-dispelled myths about abuse. They minimize the horror and damage of clergy sex crimes and cover ups.
And they should be denounced, at the highest levels, by the church hierarchy and by Sarpong’s colleagues. Otherwise clerics will continue to accept them and use them to justify committing and concealing heinous acts of violence against the most vulnerable, and those who see, suspect or suffer child sex crimes will continue to be dismissed, ignored and disbelieved, becoming even more helpless and hopeless.
Time and time and time again, across the globe, bishops make hurtful comments and take hurtful actions about his continuing crisis with impunity. Church defenders dismiss them as “isolated incidents,” much like they dismiss the actual crimes and cover ups. So the wrongdoing continues, the predators stay hidden, the victims remain depressed and the children ultimately get assaulted when these crimes could have been prevented.
No matter what lawmakers or church officials do or don’t do, we urge every single person with information or suspicions about child sex crimes and cover ups in Catholic churches or institutions – especially in the developing world – to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling law enforcement, get justice by calling attorneys, and be comforted by calling support groups like ours. This is how kids will be safer, adults will recover, criminals will be prosecuted, cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.
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