Catholic church abuse victims demand list of accused

“San Francisco is one of those places. It’s one of the most important, oldest dioceses in the whole United States. It’s an archdiocese. It’s the seat of power for the western United States. And everywhere else within this within this region, lists have been published. But the archbishop of San Francisco will not publish a list. And so we think it’s really important to get this list out, to get it published, to update it, to provide information to victims and their families. We find that whenever we publish a list, we get phone calls from victims who didn’t know that they were not the only one. And it provides them with a level of comfort and in some cases helps them decide to come forward and get help.”

Salvatore Cordileone, center

Advocates for victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have released a list of more than 300 accused abusers associated with the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests delivered its list of 312 names Thursday along with a letter to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone urging him to release his own internal list of credibly accused priests.

The archdiocese is one of only 15 in the U.S, less than 10 percent of all dioceses, that has not publicly listed abusive priests.

The archdiocese says it has a policy to report sexual abuse allegations to authorities, an independent review board and parishes.

But the releases of names have varied widely in quality, said Terry McKiernan, president of Bishop-Accountaiblity.org.

Some include the priest’s full assignment histories, photos and other details, while others don’t. And not every diocese provides cross-references for when a priest of one diocese worked in another. “They’re all over the map,” McKiernan said.

As inconsistent as the lists are, they have provided many names not otherwise known publicly, and most dioceses in other countries have not followed suit. “It does not happen elsewhere around the world,” he said.

The first lists were published two decades ago, and often dioceses release lists in response to outside events, such as a criminal investigation, McKiernan said.

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