ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Monday, June 27
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
Local Catholic officials have kept hidden the passing of Robert Vonnahmen, one of the area’s most notorious pedophile priests. He died in a nursing home in Highland, Illinois on, or near, May 9 and his Catholic funeral was apparently held on May 12 in Elizabethtown, Illinois where he was buried.
At least three bishops and dozens of Catholic officials ignored and enabled Vonnahmen’s crimes for decades. He was one of Illinois’ most egregious predators. As recently as 2013, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson let Vonnahmen run ads in the Archdiocesan newspaper for the San Damiano Shrine in southern Illinois which the defrocked child molester operated even though the Vatican defrocked Vonnahmen seven years earlier.
We call on Belleville Bishop Braxton to spread the word of Vonnahmen’s death through church bulletins, parish websites and pulpit announcements and beg others who saw, suspected or suffered his crimes to come forward.
And we call on Carlson to apologize for and explain his reckless support of this serial predator. How does he justify encouraging local Catholics, through the St. Louis Review newspaper, to visit and donate to a facility run by a proven predator?
Once again, Catholic officials stay silent about a predator. Once again, the feelings of his victims are disregarded while the comfort of his bishop is protected. The people Vonnahmen violated deserve to know that he can no longer hurt anyone. We hope his passing will bring some comfort to those he assaulted and betrayed.
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