VANCOUVER (CANADA)
Vancouver Sun
August 20, 2018
By Denise Ryan
Vancouver’s Roman Catholic archbishop and a victims’ advocate respond to revelations of abuse of children by priests Pennsylvania.
The recent revelations that the Catholic Church covered up the abuse of close to 1,000 children by 300 priests over several decades in Pennsylvania has shaken survivors of church abuse in B.C., victims’ advocate Leona Huggins of Coquitlam said Sunday.
“I got a call from a survivor this morning,” said Huggins, who was abused by a Vancouver priest when she was a child. Huggins now volunteers with SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Vancouver Roman Catholic Archbishop J. Michael Miller released a statement Sunday saying he is “devastated by these accounts of profound evil,” and that “what the victims of sexual abuse have endured has shaken me and broken my heart.”
The statement, which was posted on the Archdiocese website and read at Lower Mainland masses, acknowledged the sexual abuse, and the poor treatment many victims received by church authorities.
Miller said he is especially upset with bishops and priests “who failed to protect the most vulnerable among us,” in particular those who knew about the abuse but did nothing about it. Miller is calling on anyone who knows about “any abuse happening now” to contact law enforcement and to alert the church through their webpage.
Huggins said Miller’s statement does not go far enough. Huggins said it’s time for full transparency from the Catholic Church “about any credible complaints, current and historical, against priests in B.C.”
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