Sins of the Fathers
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What do survivors of abuse by priests deserve?

What is right?

Just.

You know, considering Jesus and all that.

Help paying for therapy and medication? If not life?

That's a start.

But here's the problem.

What are survivors of abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of St. Louis receiving, as of August, 2020?

Nothing.

Despite VOS ESTIS.

And I can prove it.

Nothing

You'd think the movie SPOTLIGHT and the resulting negative publicity would have finally forced the Catholic Church to get its act together.

Finally.

But you'd be wrong.

The fact is that there are still (arch)dioceses, including my own Archdiocese of St. Louis, that believe they owe survivors NOTHING.

And they don't even bother to hide it.

Don't Take My Word

Why should you believe me?

You don't have to.

Given my prior expereince with Deacon Phil Hengen, who I came to refer to as Runaround Phil, I recorded and transcribed my March 26, 2019 meeting with Archbishop Robert Carlson and her, during which Sandra Price admitted...

SP: ...What Carol (Brescia) does is… Anybody in the diocese is free to call her. And what she does is link people to therapists if they do not have one. So that’s kind of her role for us. She’s not necessarily somebody who’s going to make the determination if the therapy would to be paid for. That all happens through the Review Board.

To be clear, FINDING a psychologist isn't the hard part of getting help. There are a lot of -- and increasing numbers of -- Trauma Informed therapists.

 Rather, the hard part is PAYING FOR THERAPY.

What's more, I was never offered the chance to present my case to the ArchStL Review Board -- who makes the decisions regarding financial assistance -- much less even talk to them.

Promise to Protect, But...

The home page for the Archdiocese of St. Louis' response to the Catholic sex abuse crisis is called simply...

At the bottom of that page is a link to another page entitled...

On that page there is NO MENTION of any program or resources for survivors that will help pay for the process of surviving, including paying for things like...

  • Therapy
  • Medication
  • Life

Yes, they do talk about prayer services and masses but, given that my abuse ocurred in a church, I'm unable to take advantage of anything offered in such a setting.

There's also the fact that, when I tried to attend a prayer service in an effort to ask Archbishop Carlson to end the Smear Campaign, I was subjected to...

Vos Estis

But what about Vos estis lux mundi?

Didn't that make promises to survivors?

It certainly did.

But the Archdiocese of St. Louis has done NOTHING to comply with VOS ESTIS. I've informed the Vatican and the Pope of the Archdiocese of St. Louis violations of VOS ESTIS and have heard nothing in reply.

It seems VOS ESTIS is just paper tiger.

If not a sham.

A cruel trick played on survivors.