CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer
October 8, 2018
By Sheila Vilvens and Jessie Balmert
It’s time for Ohio to investigate sex crimes by Catholic Church clergy, says a group of abuse survivors.
SNAP, short for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, protested outside Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s Cincinnati office Monday afternoon. Three SNAP protestors showed up holding pictures of children from around the country who say they were abused.
SNAP is calling on DeWine to follow the lead of other states that have recently investigated clergy sex crimes and cover-ups.
Last week, Michigan’s attorney general seized abuse records in each of that state’s seven dioceses.
But DeWine’s office says Ohio law doesn’t allow for statewide investigations and grand juries, such as the one that revealed years of abuse in Pennsylvania.
Under Ohio law, local police and prosecutors must investigate crimes – by priests or anyone else – committed in their county.
That happened in 2003 when then-Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk pleaded no contest to charges that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati failed to report child sexual abuse by priests in Hamilton County.
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