WASHINGTON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016
Statement by Mary Dispenza, volunteer Seattle director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (425-644-2468, Seattle@SNAPnetwork.org)
Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain should fire a Bellingham principal for deceiving parents – in at least two ways – about a sex offender at a Catholic elementary school.
First, the principal kept the offender’s presence secret for a year. When he finally did “come clean (only after having been prodded by distraught parents), he further deceived parents by claiming, with no apparent basis, that the offender was “in the first percentile” of child molesters who were rehabilitated. (According to one news account, the man remains “registered as a level II sex offender, meaning he is considered at moderate risk to reoffend.”)
That principal, Dan Anderson (360 733 6133, theoffice@school.assumption.org, ,danderson@school.assumption.org) claims “It was never that we weren’t going to communicate this information to parents” and “We gave (the information) to (parents) when we felt it was necessary.”
No, Anderson and his colleagues gave the information when they were virtually forced to do so because parents discovered it on their own and were beginning to pressure church and school staff. And Anderson and his colleagues should have given as much information to parents about a sex offender at their school as quickly as possible, not when officials “felt it was necessary.” That self-serving arrogance – that Catholic officials get to hide information about known predators – is the reason 6500 priests (and countless nuns, brothers, bishops, seminarians and other current and former church employees) have been able to molest more than 100,000 children.
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