RI–Report on abuse/cover up at RI school; Victims respond

RHODE ISLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790 cell, 314 645 5915 home,davidgclohessy@gmail.com

Our hearts ache for the dozens and dozens of girls and boys who were assaulted at St. George’s school for decades and for the dozens and dozens of adults who were deceived and betrayed and re-victimized by secretive, self-serving school staff who chose to put their careers and reputations above the safety of kids, the healing of victims and the prevention of crimes.

We hope this report prods Rhode Island lawmakers to reform the state’s archaic child safety laws, especially the arbitrary, unfair and predator-friendly statute of limitations.

We suspect this report radically underestimates both the amount of pain that’s been inflected on the innocent and the complicity of school staff. Phrases like “the school failed” are, we believe, sanitized. “Failure” suggests a good faith effort that went awry. That’s not what happened here, we believe. Repeated, deliberate and selfish decisions were made, over decades, to hide crimes and shield predators and endanger kids, for the sake of boosting enrollment and donations and careers.

There may be tiny, sad silver lining in all of this. All too often, well-to-do parents assume that child molesters prey largely on kids from lower income families and adults in stable marriages assume that child molesters go after kids from “broken” homes. Neither are true. Predators usually make no distinctions. They’ll target whichever kids they have access too, even if the kids are bright, wealthy or well-loved.

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