PENNSYLVANIA/NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016
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 )
A Philadelphia-based group of nuns is refusing to admit that it ran an orphanage where a man says he was both sexually and physically abused as a child. We call on these nuns to stop ducking and dodging and start helping this victim. If they continue to stonewall, we call on Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput and New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan to insist that they step up, “come clean” and help this struggling survivor.
New York City Catholic officials insist that St. Michael’s Home for Children on Staten Island was run by the Philadelphia-based Sisters of Mercy (Mid-Atlantic branch). That’s where an unnamed man charges he was beaten and molested years ago.
But the nuns’ group refuses to confirm or deny they operated the orphanage, or even respond to a reporter’s phone call about this, leaving the victim in a painful limbo. That’s mean-spirited. And it contradicts the hundreds of promises by hundreds of Catholic officials to be “open” about child sex crimes in the church.
Shame on Sister Patricia Vetrano, the president of the Sisters of Mercy Mid-Atlantic Community (610-664-6650, http://www.sistersofmercy.org/mid-atlantic/) and on every other nun, defense lawyer or public relations staffer in the church who is stonewalling this brave, wounded victim, especially now during Pope Francis’ supposed “Year of Mercy.”
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