Victims challenge Catholic group
They want all its abuse files given to police
SNAP to Catholic officials: “Bring predators home now”
Those who “see, suspect or suffer child sex crimes” must “step forward,” it says
WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at
a footpath news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will
pass out leaflets to passersby seeking information about a controversial
Catholic religious order. The fliers urge church officials to
-- turn over all information about
known and suspected child molesting clerics to secular authorities,
-- post the names, photos and
whereabouts of known and suspected sex offender clerics on church websites, and
-- insist that accused abusers return
to Australia to face justice.
Victims are also encouraging current
and former members of the order to “come clean” and contact law enforcement
officials “so that wrongdoers can be prosecuted, children can be protected and
crimes and cover ups can be exposed and deterred.”
WHEN
Tuesday, December 4th at 2
p.m.
WHERE
Catholic Church Offices
Polding Centre,
133
Liverpool Street,
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
WHO
4 or 5 members of an international support group called SNAP
(the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest)
including an American woman who is the organisation’s president and
founder
WHY
Many orders of the Catholic Church
have harbored sex predators over many years. These orders include the Christian
Brothers and Salesians of Don Bosco. Almost three in four clerics in
Australia and New Zealand who belong to one Catholic religious order face child
sex abuse allegations, according to testimony a few months ago by a respected
psychologist before an inquiry launched by the parliament of Victoria. The
Vatican -based order is called St John of God
Brothers.
In a startling new story by Fairfax
Media, crimes and cover ups by the Brothers have been disclosed for the first
time.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/spreading-the-rot-of-child-sexual-abuse-20121201-2anl0.html
One member of the order, Brother
Rodger Moloney, was arrested in Australia in 2003 (along with two fellow
brothers). But the order spent years - and hundreds of thousands of dollars -
fighting Moloney’s extradition to New Zealand. In 2006, however, Moloney lost
that battle. Two years later , he was convicted and served a year in New Zealand
jail from 2008 for abusing five boys at Marylands. He remains a Brother and is
now back in St John of God's care in NSW.
Another ex-member of the order,
Bernard McGrath, was convicted in NSW in 1993 for abusing a boy at the order's
Kendall Grange school at Morisset on the central coast in the 1980s. But it was
not until 2002 - nine years later - that the order called him in to ask him
about the abuse. On the weekend
he returned from Sri Lanka to Christchurch where he was arrested and granted
bail.
http://www.watoday.com.au/world/missing-mcgrath-appears-in-new-zealand-court-20121203-2apqq.html
Some of the abuse, perpetrated
against many kids with disabilities, took place at church-run institutions like
Kendal Grange in Morisset NSW, Greensborough and Mentone in Victoria and
Marylands in Christchurch NZ.
Catholic officials have paid
settlements to a large number of victims who say they were molested by the
brothers yet not one perpetrator had ever been referred to the police.
Five of the alleged predators harboured within the Order are
deceased. An unknown number are alive and still active in the communities, many
working overseas. One credibly alleged perpetrator is still celebrating mass
to large congregations in an unsuspecting community.
http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/page119-st-john-of-god.html
For more information about the St
John of God Order visit
- http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/spreading-the-rot-of-child-sexual-abuse-20121201-2anl0.html
- http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/page119-st-john-of-god.html
- http://www.peterellis.org.nz/Institutions/Marylands/2005/2005-0411_TheAge_ClergymenFight.htm
The current head of the order is
Provincial Brother Timothy Graham.
CONTACT
Barbara Blaine, SNAP President and
Founder (04 4901 8594 or +1 312 399 4747, bblaine@snapnetwork.org)
Nicky Davis, SNAP Australia Leader
(04 4901 8594, nickydavis2011@gmail.com
Mark Fabbro, SNAP Australia Leader
(04 4901 8594, survivorsclergy@gmail.com