Nuns group dismisses plan for drawing out abuse victims
Activist decries 'hurtful' response
By Caryle Murphy, Washington Post | December 10, 2004

WASHINGTON -- An association representing 75,000 Roman Catholic nuns has rejected a proposal from a victims advocacy group designed to encourage people who were sexually molested by nuns to come forward and get help.

The proposal was presented to officials of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a Silver Spring, Md., umbrella group of women's religious orders, by representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, when the two sides met privately in Chicago on Oct. 3.

The proposal included five requests of the conference: place information about SNAP on the conference's Internet home page; request that individual religious orders in the conference do the same; provide SNAP with a list of those orders and names of contacts to call when a victim comes forward; allow victims to address next year's annual convention; and allow them to speak at conference workshops on sexual abuse.

Conference officials responded to the requests in a Nov. 22 letter, saying the group's efforts had heightened "our awareness of the long-term effects of sexual misconduct by women religious." But, the officials wrote, they could not "meet their specific requests in the manner . . . indicated."

"We've repeatedly taken the initiative to talk with the" conference, said Landa Mauriello-Vernon, 30, of Hamden, Conn., a spokeswoman for the group that met with the nuns in Chicago. "But at every juncture, they've been resistant. They seem determined to repeat the same cold, bureaucratic, and ultimately hurtful patterns we've seen in so many bishops."