UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Monday, Dec. 5, 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)
We are disappointed but not surprised that a criminal investigation into an accused predator priest has ended without formal charges. We doubt, however, that he has “convinced police he’s innocent.” (We suspect police simply lack adequate proof to move forward, which of course does NOT mean the accused is innocent.)
And we’re highly skeptical of Catholic officials that they’ll do some kind of “internal investigation” into the cleric. In our experience, such probes are usually “whitewashes” done largely for public relations purposes.
[Kawartha]
“Fr. Bill Moloney (of Immaculate Conception Church) had been removed from his post in early November after a complaint was filed to Haliburton OPP about an incident at Camp Northern Lights, where he is the director,” according to Peterborough This Week.
The paper also reported that the priest “had convinced police he was innocent of allegations of sexual misconduct.” Again, we’re highly suspicion of this claim. We urge police to correct this if in fact it leaves a false impression.
We also urge Fr. Moloney’s supervisors to be more forthcoming about these allegations and aggressively seek out others – using church websites, parish bulletins and pulpit announcements – who may have information or suspicions about this priest or other church staff.
Shame on Deirdre Thomas, spokesperson for the Peterborough diocese for using vague, minimizing mischaracterizations. She called the child sex abuse report and the police investigation “matters that have arisen recently.” If you can’t call something what it is, how can you possibly investigate or prevent it?
Church “investigations” into alleged child sex crimes are inherently problematic.
Just today, in New Jersey, it’s been revealed that an abuse report against a priest 13 years ago had been kept quiet. The priest kept working. And a few weeks ago, he was arrested on child pornography charges.
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