TUCSON (AZ)
Tucson Weekly
by Mari Herreras @tucsonazmari
When Dove of Peace Lutheran Church parishioners walked out of last Sunday’s service, they were greeted by two television news crews and a newspaper reporter asking about a woman from a California-based sex abuse survivors’ organization passing out flyers about their music minister when they arrived for church that morning.
On Thursday, Nov. 7, Joelle Casteix, volunteer western regional director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent out a press release that she and other SNAP volunteers would be outside the 665 W. Roller Coaster Road church holding signs and childhood photos, and handing out flyers to warn church members that their music minister Eric Holtan was convicted in 2000 of first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct; and that they should demand his removal and talk to their kids.
Dove of Peace member Brad Schwab told the Tucson Weekly that it’s been 13 years since Holtan pled guilty and he only has two years left on his 15-year probation. Another church member Nancy Day chimed in that many in the congregation knew about Holtan’s past and it was understood that Holtan’s probation officer checked in with the church pastor regularly.
Day added that Holtan does not work with children in the church in his duties as music minister. “He directs the adult choir,” she said, addressing the terms of Holtan’s probation in which he is not allowed to have unsupervised contact with underage females.
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