TENNESSEAN TRAVELS to UNITED KINGDOM for POPE BENEDICT’S TRIP

Tag: usa
Tag: england

TENNESSEAN TRAVELS to UNITED KINGDOM for POPE BENEDICT’S TRIP

STANDS UP for SUPPORT for SURVIVORS, SEARCHES for SURVIVOR ADVOCATES

URGES CATHOLICS TO BE VOCAL FOR JUSTICE and REPARATION

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Contact Information:

Mike Coode, 615-364-2334, mikeintn@bellsouth.net, United Kingdom

Kristine Ward, KristineWard@hotmail.com, United States

Tennessean Mike Coode traveled to Scotland and England for Pope Benedict’s trip this week.

Mr. Coode, of Nashville is a founder of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC) and a Tennesee leader of the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests (SNAP.

He is leafleting in search of survivor advocates, protesting the Pope’s inaction on the abuse crisis during the Pope’s motorcades through Scotland and England, taking part in press conferences, rallies, and panels.

“Mike Coode is living his convictions that justice and reparation are due the survivors of sexual abuse, “Kristine Ward, chair of the NSAC said. “Sexual abuse is a crime and in the Church’s sexual abuse scandal bishops, the Pope and the Vatican have covered up crimes and because they are religious leaders they are given deference. Mike is battling that on behalf of .the innocent and vulnerable.”

During his travels, Mr. Coode has urged the Catholics of the United Kingdom not to be swayed by any meeting the Pope holds with survivors. ” These meetings are short sighted and survivors are too taken by the circumstances to really tell the Pope what they’ve been through and how it has affected their lives,” Mr. Coode said, ” It gets alot of media attention but when the trip’s done that’s the end of it.”

Mr. Coode asks all Catholics to be vigilant in listening to the Pope’s words and ask themselves: Who could do more than the Pope in the signle stroke of the pen than the Pope and why isn’t he doing it?

In addition to reparations, Mr. Coode called for a complete opening of the records the Vatican is holding on sexual abuse by priests and religious sisters, an order to bishops to do the same, resignations of all bishops who covered up the crimes, and a world wide data of all priests and nuns who are credibly accused of abuse.

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