Subscribe
Shop Local
Magazine
Gas Prices
Today's Poll!Roundtable set for clergy victims
Michael Wegs hands out a flyer to Immaculate Conception Church members after church Sunday morning. The flyers ask area leaders of the church to “break the silence” of sex abuse at the former St. Thomas Seminary in Hannibal. Photo by Gerry Tritz.
Monday, May 7, 2012
A group dedicated to helping victims of clergy sex abuse is inviting the public to a roundtable discussion this evening on “pedophile priest culture and the diocese of Jefferson City.”
The event will be held from 7-9 p.m. at Lincoln University’s Inman Page Library.
It will be hosted by Come to the Stable/The Stephen Spalding Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Marion, Iowa.
Wegs’ group also says it plans a 10 a.m. news conference today to identify six new predatory priests and to review the casework of eight new victims of former Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell. On Sunday, Michael Wegs, the group’s secretary-treasurer, handed out leaflets to Immaculate Conception Church parishioners as they left church. The leaflets urged Catholic leaders to “break the silence” on the sexual molestation that took place at the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal.
Marry Me
Comments
jimrobertson 1 year ago
This tactic of leafleting churches is questionable to me. I'm a victim who has leafleted and always felt uncomfortable with that behavior and the picture above says why. Embaressing Catholic parents in front of their kids doesn't seem to be the best way to get them on our side. That is if your really trying to get them on our side. Maybe this ploy is used by these "victims"" groups to alienate the people in the pews. Maybe these victims groups are not controlled by the victims but by somebody else. Some one who wants to drive these criminals deeper into their vestments, myths and titles. So that the people in the pews will feel it's their religion that's being attacked and not the individual citizens who've committed the crimes. I know from personal experience with SNAP as an example. There is no democracy in SNAP. No decisions on policy or behavior has ever been decided democratically there. Remind you of any related dog in this fight? It sure does me.
JudyJones 1 year ago
Silence is not an option anymore, way too many kids have been sexually abused and the abuse if not getting stopped by the church officials.
Hopefully many will attend this roundtable discussion and get educated, sex abuse of kids needs to be talked about more often, The stigma needs to be lifted.
And hopefully all, who may have knowledge or may have been harmed by anyone at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal, will have the courage to speak up and report it to police. Do not report your abuse to the church officials, they are not the proper officials to be investigating sex crimes against kids.
Keep in mind your silence only hurts, and by speaking up there is a chance for healing, exposing the truth, and therefore protecting others.
Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, USA, 636-433-2511
(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 12,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers and increasingly, victims who were assaulted in a wide range of institutional settings like summer camps, athletic programs, Boy Scouts, etc)
jimrobertson 1 year ago
Why are we, the victims, always reminded by SNAP that we need to do this or we need to that and that our, the victims, silence is awful. The silence from the pews is what's awful. It's their kids that are in jeopardy. And SNAP says, victims must find the "courage" to do this or that. And that we need to "get educated". And we need to "heal". You know, my healing is none of your damned buisiness! First: Judy Jones is not a victim. Her "leadership" implies that we victims except Blain and Clohessy are too ashamed to lead ourselves. Utter nonsense. Second: I wouldn't trust SNAP to help me heal, as far as I could throw them. Why? They aint therapists. It took me 6 years of "dealing" with SNAP and it's complete lack of democracy, to find out they were in fact created by the Dominicans. Look at SNAP's NPO documents at Victims of Silence@ Bulletinboards.com. Do you believe any of us,victims, were told about SNAP's founding? Never! Blaine just whipped SNAP up at her kitchen table. Ha! I ,since I was 20 years old and I'm 65 now, have never lacked courage to tell of my abuse. Some victims are afraid, I get that. But SNAP infers we are " courageous" if we " follow" them. And how "sad" they are and very upset when we don't. Have you ever heard of any "movement" that never explains how it makes it's choices and who makes it's choices? I haven't. But we are "courageous" All we have to do is follow them. This is beyond pathetic. It is fraud, pure and simple. SNAP created by the Church as honey to pull the victims to them. We are "survivors" we do wish to "network". We were "abused by priests" (This latest twist of expanding SNAP's mission to Jews and Protestants and Boy Scouts is another scam to make Catholic clerical abuse just another, in a long list of abusers, almost normal.)But in truth SNAP delivers nothing of what it pretends to offer. Why? Because SNAP is the Church.
Please review our Policies and Procedures before registering or commenting
Or login with:
OpenID