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Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests will be meeting today
By joe gorman
youngstown
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — or SNAP — will have a private, local meeting today.
Judy Jones, Midwest associate director for SNAP, and Barb Dorris, SNAP outreach coordinator, both said the location and time of the meeting is being kept from the media. The session is to be a closed counseling session for those who have been abused by clergy, regardless of denomination.
Anyone who was a victim of abuse who wants to attend the meeting can call Dorris at 314-862-7688.
Jones said the biggest problem when dealing with abuse cases in the Catholic church is that the bishops in the individual dioceses do not all follow the zero-tolerance policy set down by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops when dealing with sexual abuse.
She said individual bishops are acting at their own discretion because they have almost unlimited power. The only people who can intervene and force them to do something are the Pope or local law enforcement, Jones said.
“That’s still a huge problem,” Jones said.
Nancy Yuhasz of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown said the diocese encourages people to report any abuse to civil authorities first, then to the diocese so it can do its own investigation.
Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said if someone wants to make a complaint to his office, he advises them to file a report with the police in the jurisdiction where the incident happened. If something falls outside the statute of limitations, Gains said he encourages them to file a civil suit so they can get some compensation for the pain they went through.
In January it was learned that the diocese had settled with 11 former students at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren who alleged they were abused by a baseball coach and Franciscan friar, Brother Stephen Baker. Baker later committed suicide in Pennsylvania after former students in other states alleged that they also had been abused by him.
Baker’s abuse at JFK was purported to have occurred between 1986 and 1990, outside the statute of limitations for criminal charges to be filed. However, the diocese said when it first became aware of the allegations in 2009, it immediately reported them to the Trumbull County Children Services Board.
In October 2011, Father John Warner, 69, resigned as pastor of Sts. Philip and James Parish in Canal Fulton after an allegation that inappropriate touching occurred more than 30 years ago at St. Edward Parish in Youngstown.
The year before, Father Thomas Crum, who taught at Cardinal Mooney High School, was defrocked after he was accused of sexual abuse at the school, where he was assigned from 1975-77. Crum served in the diocese from 1975 to 2009.