ABUSE ACTIVISTS SEEK TO CASH IN ON POPE’S VISIT

OTTAWA, July 5, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Activists who claim to represent victims of abuse by lay officials and clergy in Catholic institutions are hoping to cash in on Pope John Paul’s upcoming visit to Canada. Described by activists and media as “survivors” (presumably to shamefully garner some of the resonance of Holocaust survival), they want a “10-minute sit-down” with the pontiff to “restore some of their lost dignity, if not their faith,” reports Canadian Press.  “The bishops in Canada have been treating many survivors with utter contempt and hatred,” David Gagnon, director of the so-called Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) Canada, announced to reporters, using the politically-charged hyperbole typical of homosexual activists. “This symbolic gesture,” he claimed, would restore “to victims/survivors a small measure of their dignity lost, as it would constitute a first gesture of recognition of the violence lived by these people,” his letter to the Vatican declares.  In fact the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has wrung its hands over abuse victims since the 1980s, with little effect on self-appointed activists determined to drive an agenda apparently against Catholicism itself, rather than against the slack discipline and doctrinal drift that underlie current abuse scandals.  To read about activists cashing in on John Paul II’s visit to Canada see:  https://www.canoe.ca/CNEWS/abuse_jul3-cp.html   For LifeSite’s Special Report on the contemporary Catholic scandals: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/jun/020618a.html