MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016
For more information: David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, davidgclohessy@gmail.com), Barbara Dorris (314-503-0003cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)
Two accused church officials quietly move
One still works for an institution training priests
Victims’ blast “reckless secrecy” of Saginaw’ Catholic bishop
Investigation showed cleric “sexually harassed” a then-22 year old
Lawsuit says church official accused victim of seducing older priest
Two defendants in a civil abuse and cover up lawsuit involving a Saginaw priest have apparently moved out of state. A victims group is blasting the priest’s supervisor for “doing what bishops have done for decades: letting alleged wrongdoers quietly move away after being accused and work again among unsuspecting and vulnerable families.”
One of the accused, Trudy McCaffrey, still works for the church in Irene, South Dakota where she’s a “spiritual director” for Broom Tree Retreat, cultivating new priests. The other defendant, the alleged predator in the case, Father Denis Heames, now works for a San Diego California lawyer.
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According to a Michigan newspaper, the lawsuit, filed earlier this year in Isabella County in Chief Judge Paul Chamberlain’s court, accuses Fr. Heames, McCaffery, the Saginaw diocese and St. Mary’s parish of “battery, defamation, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, negligent supervision and vicarious liability” because Fr. Heames allegedly “abused his authority when he entered into a sexual relationship with a then-22 year old student in the fall of 2012, when he began acting as her spiritual counselor.”
In some states, it’s a crime for a clergy person to have sex with a congregant. Advocates say it’s inherently abusive for “well educated, powerful priests, who have massive power over parishioners, to exploit that power for their sexual gratification, just like doctors can’t have sex with patients and therapists can’t have sex with clients,” according to David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Letting McCaffery and Fr. Heames “quietly” move is “reckless, deceitful and callous” and “endangers vulnerable young church members,” said Clohessy. “These deliberate and irresponsible decision violate, at least in spirit, the US bishops’ abuse policy which supposedly mandates ‘openness and transparency’ in clergy abuse cases. Bishops in San Diego, South Dakota and Michigan are taking big risks here.”
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