Survivors network calls on bishop to update clergy sex abuse list with 5 more names

BELLEVILLE (IL)
News Democrat

April 10, 2019

By Lexi Cortes

As recently as February, accusations of sexual abuse have come to light about five priests who have ties to Southern Illinois, according to a victims group.

Members of the group, called the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and other advocates wrote those priests’ names in chalk on the sidewalk outside the Belleville Diocese at the end of March.

They want Belleville Bishop Edward K. Braxton to add those five names to the Belleville Diocese’s public list of priests, which now includes 17 men who were “removed from ministry after credibly substantiated allegations” of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct.

The group, known as S.N.A.P., said the five priests’ names should be included because they have been accused of abuse, too, and have lived or worked in the Belleville Diocese.

The names include Paul Joseph Bruening, Gavin O’Connor, Donald Dummer, Joseph P. Lessard and Ronald E. Brassard.

Braxton and Monsignor John Myler, a spokesman for the Diocese, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Bruening was named most recently on a list of priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children released two months ago in a Catholic diocese more than 500 miles from Belleville.

Bruening went on to work in the Diocese of Belleville in 1962, five years after he was accused of abusing a girl in Iowa, according to the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa’s list, which included all of his assignments.

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