David Clohessy of SNAP Speaking Outside Southern Baptist Convention, Birmingham, Alabama, June 2019: How to Effect Real Change with Churches and Abuse

I'd like to share with readers a presentation that David Clohessy of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) made in June 2019 when the Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm grateful to David for permitting me to share it here, and to Carol Yeager of SNAP in North Carolina for sharing this video with me. 

Front Page News Today in Charlotte, North Carolina: "PRIESTS ACCUSED OF SEX ABUSE — The Charlotte Diocese Has Not Released Lists"

On the front page of today's Charlotte Observer: a headline reading, "PRIESTS ACCUSED OF SEX ABUSE," with a notice that the Catholic diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, still has not released names of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse. The headline points readers to an article inside the front section of the paper that appeared several days ago in the online copy of the paper, but is being published in the print-media copy for the first time for today's Sunday edition. 

U.S. Catholic Bishops Meet for Prayer-and-Repentance Confab: Some Valuable Responses

DiNardo, who is credibly accused of declining to report abuse in his own diocese, is currently US Bishops president. @pontifex’s entire effort means nothing unless every prelate who enabled a priest to assault a child is removed. #TheFishRotsFromTheHeadhttps://t.co/TTe5q5JgDL

— Indie Theology (@IndieTheology) January 4, 2019

As the American Catholic bishops meet in Chicago for their prayer-and-repentance confab, here are some responses/commentary I have read in the last day or so that catch my eye, and which I want to pass on to you:

Abuse of Vulnerable People and Churches: Recent Reports, from Baptists to Nuns Raped by Bishops and Priests to Jesuits to a German Princess Saving the Church

This is a collection of reports on the abuse situation as it is unfolding in various churches now. These are all recent statements, and not by any means a representative report on all that is happening on the sexual abuse front in religious groups right now. Stories are breaking on that front fast and furious — this is only my own selection of reports that have drawn my attention recently, for reasons that will be apparent as you read:

As More U.S. Catholic Diocesan Offices Are Searched by Police, Reports Continue That Lists of Abusive Priests Released by Bishops Are Incomplete

Two days ago, I wrote, 

One bishop after another is claiming that there have not been cases of abuse in his diocese for years now, and the lists being released are almost entirely names of priests who have been dead for some time. Many survivors are pointing out that they can testify that the lists being released are not complete, since they personally known of priests whose names are not on the lists being released.

More Commentary on Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, as Vatican Sends Thoughts and Prayers

Elizabeth Bruenig, "Evil walked the earth in Pennsylvania":

That there should be mass defrockings is obvious. That there should also be a swath of criminal convictions also seems beyond question….Evil is real, and it walked the earth in Pennsylvania. It entered through our church doors.

From Bad to Worse in News Of Catholic Abuse Crisis: Vatican Tells Bishops They Don't Have to Report Abuse to Authorities, Indian Bishop Places Criminally Convicted Priest in Ministry

This week, as Carnival was in full swing in many Catholic regions of the world and as the body of Padre Pio was paraded in Rome in a glass coffin, things appear to have gone from bad to worse in news of the response of Catholic officials to the abuse crisis. Patricia Miller sums up the response of many thinking Catholics (and non-Catholic observers) to the papal abuse commission's recent silencing of Peter Saunders by noting that "[f]or abuse survivors, the move to silence Saunders confirms their fears that the commission was largely a PR tactic."

SNAP's Q and A on Pope Francis and Abuse/Cover Up Crisis: Highly Recommended

And speaking of the upcoming papal visit to the U.S. (I just did so in my previous posting, didn't I?), SNAP has published a very valuable Q and A written by David Clohessy, on Pope Francis and the abuse/cover up crisis. I highly recommend this document to you. It does an outstanding job of arguing that the so-called "Francis effect," in collusion with an adulatory media, give many of us the impression that Pope Francis has done something substantive to address the issue of child abuse by clerics in the Catholic church.

Big U.S. Catholic News of Day: Bishop Robert Finn Resigns

And, of course, the big news in the Catholic church in the U.S. today: the convicted felon who was bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Robert Finn, has just resigned. As Laurie Goodstein reports for New York Times,