Munich, Germany
Barbara Blaine and Barbara Dorris of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), are here for a day before heading to Vienna and Berlin. They placed several dozen photographs of children abused by priests at the front gate of the office of Archbishop Reinhard Marx, who heads the archdiocese of Munich and Freising.
The women were here to reach out to German abuse victims and to call for an independent government probe into the emerging clergy sex abuse scandal here. So far, the archdiocese told NCR March 21 that they can handle the investigations on their own.
Blaine and Dorris met with a half dozen German media members and announced the formation of a confidential self help group for German victims. The women asked anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes to “speak up, call police, get help, expose predators, protect others and start healing.”
[Editor’s note: NCR’s Tom Fox is in Munich covering the emerging clergy sex abuse story there.]
