WHAT
After a sidewalk news conference, clergy child molestation victims & their family members will try to hand deliver a letter to St. Paul-Minneapolis’s Archbishop Harry Flynn urging him to
- disclose yet another abusive cleric from a central Minnesota Catholic abbey,
- stop evading responsibility for religious order predators,
- start reaching out aggressively to this cleric’s victims and other victims, and
- push abbey officials to, once and for all, make public ALL the names of accused molesters
WHEN
Monday, Sept. 25, 2:30 p.m.
WHO
Sisters from California and Nevada whose brother took his own life after being sexually assaulted and several clergy molestation victims who belong to a support group SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)
WHERE
Outside the Catholic archdiocese headquarters (chancery office), 226 Summit Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102
WHY
Two sisters of Patrick Michael Ryan (born 10/17/51) say that he hanged himself in 1971 after having been drugged and raped by a St. John’s teacher during his sophomore year. Years later, in a conversation with Abbey staff member Maxine Barnett, one of the sisters was told that the perpetrator was Fr. Paul GoPaul of Trinidad, who is also deceased and has not been publicly accused of child abuse before. The victim’s family members were offered therapy by the Abbey.
The sisters are coming forward now because Abbey officials are failing to honor promises to be open about sexual abuse by their staff and because they want others hurt by GoPaul to know they aren’t alone. SNAP wants Archbishop Flynn, as Minnesota’s top Catholic official and former head of the US bishops sex abuse panel, to reach out to those hurt by current and former Abbey staff and prod the Abbey to disclose more.
For the past few months, controversy has surrounded the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese and St. John's Abbey in Collegeville. Both have kept the names of credibly accused child-molesting clerics secret for years and have essentially refused to aggressively contact others who may have been assaulted by the abusive clergymen.
In late July, under external pressure, St. John’s disclosed that three monks there have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse. Two of them, Rev. Michael Bik & Rev. Bruce Wollmering, allegedly live under the supervision of their fellow clerics in Collegeville. The third, Rev. Robert Blumeyer, is now deceased.
Despite being accused of child molestation in 1997, Bik kept teaching at St. John's prep school until 2002. Wollmering was accused of sexual harassment in 2004. Blumeyer was accused of sexual abuse almost a year ago. Although deemed "credible," all of the allegations were kept secret, however, until recently, which "selfishly and callously puts innocent kids at risk of horrific sex crimes," SNAP says.
SNAP has written the head of the abbey, Abbot John Klassen, urging him to give all records about sex offenders at the facility to law enforcement immediately and to report all future accusations immediately, not years later. They have also urged abbey staff to "aggressively reach out" to others who witnessed, suspected or experienced sex crimes by the monks.
SNAP calls the abbey's recent announcement of the credible allegations "begrudging, belated and inexplicably reckless."
A similar news conference is being held outside the Abbey in Collegeville this morning at 10:30 a.m.
http://www.startribune.com/614/story/679312.html
CONTACT
David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP national director 314 566 9790 cell
Bob Schwiderski of Wayzata. SNAP Minnesota director 952 471 3422
Rita J. Prince of Pahrump, NV (sister of the alleged victim) 619-368 5637 cell
Terri Ryan of Bremerton, WA (sister of the alleged victim) 360 620 5820 cell
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