BishopAccountability.org
	Albany Church under Fire By R.W. Groneman The Record [Troy NY] September 12, 2005 ALBANY - The only confrontation Sunday morning involving protestors ordered to keep their distance from a church came when a neighbor cranked up the lawn sprinkler to shower the feet of picketers on the sidewalk in front of his Western Avenue home, across the street from the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Cross. Earlier, Albany Police Lt. Daniel Colonno and Mark Lyman of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) walked the court-imposed boundaries intended to keep the placard-toting picketers from approaching within 100 feet of the church door. A few days before, the lawyers representing the city helpfully spray painted white marking lines in crosswalks and on the grass. None of the protestors crossed the line. Churchgoers Tom and Geraldine Martin welcomed the presence of the seven city police officers to keep the peace and enforce the setback. "(The protestors) are here every week, marching on the sidewalk right outside the church," Tom Martin said. "You couldn't concentrate on the Mass." This was the 17th consecutive week of protests. Most of the 200 attendees of the Mass probably didn't notice the 16 picketers who stretched along the main drag of Western Avenue. The usual entrance to the church is from a parking lot on Ormand Street. On busy Western Avenue Lyman and attorney John Aretakis, a persistent critic of the handling of sex abuse cases by the Diocese of Albany, took turns stating their case to the members of the media. "Our goal is to expose the people within the religious establishment who are still being protected," Lyman said. Specifically, he is upset that a church panel found no basis for charges against the Rev. Daniel Mahar, the Holy Cross pastor. Aretkis represents a 44-year-old man who accuses the priest of abusing him in Saratoga Springs in 1973. A court hearing on the restraining order limiting the pickets is scheduled Tuesday before state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Spargo in Albany County. While the street theater played out in front of her home, Kirsten Aiello of Western Avenue noted: "Every Sunday, they're out here demonstrating at the church, and we have a Level 3 sex offender living right across the street on Brevator, and they're not picketing that." Lyman said he was aware of registered sex offenders in the neighborhood, but that his focus was to call for justice for the abused and punishment for the guilty in cases of church-related sexual abuse. In the interest of preserving evidence for posterity, Aretakis brought his video camera. He took pictures of the Albany Police detective taking pictures of him. Lyman, Aretakis and several other protestors, including women, wore name tags identifying them as "John Doe." It was a mocking reference to the court order that uses the phrase commonly applied to unknown persons.