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Friday, June 1, 2012

When will the surprises from Catholic Church sex scandals end?

Yet another, new Catholic Church sex scandal. This from SNAP (Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests) today:

Ex-KC area seminarian pleads guilty to child porn

"Nickolas Pinkston, a Warrensburg man who was studying to become a KC MO priest, has pled guilty to child porn charges while studying at a St. Louis seminary."

Fortunately, this was found out and will be handled before Mr. Pinkston was made a priest.

As if that weren't bad enough, however, there is yet more possible scandal to the story (more from SNAP):

"As best we can tell, Bishop Finn stayed silent when Pinkston was arrested. Let’s hope he doesn’t stay silent now. It’s possible Pinkston could face more charges and that others he may have hurt could come forward. But that’s more likely to happen if Bishop Finn acts responsibly and uses his bully pulpit and communications tools to spread the word about Pinkston’s history."

So many of us keep asking, time and again--when will these sexual abuse cases end with the Catholic Church? Surely they will one day.

We all have to demand they stop. We all have to demand that the Catholic Church be responsive to these situations. Further, we have to demand these "situations" end and never happen again.

There is a little bit of good news from Catholics today, however, thankfully:

Dominic Holden from the Stranger reports:

"Seattle's Catholics are angry--at other Catholics. Their ostensible leader, Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, has spent the last three months crusading to stop same-sex marriage from becoming state law and, even more controversially, is now leading a pope-mandated inquisition against thousands of American nuns for adopting "radical feminist themes." Finding themselves at ground zero of a national fight with implications for millions of secularists, Catholics here have held weekly vigils near the archbishop's office, filed a political action committee to counter his views on marriage equality, and even begun cutting off money."

Let's hope the people in the pews will rise up and demand accountability in all ways from their leaders and leadership.

(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. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747, bblaine@snapnetwork.org), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688, 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com), Joelle Casteix (949-322-7434, jcasteix@gmail.com), Peter Isely (414-429-7259, peterisely@yahoo.com)

Links: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/former-kenrick-glennon-seminarian-admits-child-porn-charge/article_4b432a52-ab6b-11e1-bd62-0019bb30f31a.html;

1 comment:

JudyJones said...

We hope that anyone who has been harmed by Nickolas Pinkston, will contact a therapist, a support group or the police. That is the best way to expose wrongdoing, protect others and start healing.

Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511
snapjudy@gmail.com