Priest, SNAP ask Listecki to disinvite Mahony from Wisconsin conference

A prominent Wisconsin priest and advocate for clergy sex abuse victims is asking Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki to disinvite disgraced Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony from a spring assembly of local clergy, in light of the cardinal's recent sanction over his role in covering up clergy sex abuse for more than two decades.

Father James Connell of Sheboygan, former vice-chancellor of the archdioces, is asking that Listecki instead invite victim-survivors, their familes and friends, advocates, clergy and lay workers hurt by the scandal and others to speak, and that the conference be open to the media.

"Truly, this is a moment to generate hope," said Connell in an open letter sent to Listecki and distributed to media. A public accounting of the crisis and ongoing effects of the scandal would generate "optimism for the future of the Catholic Church," he wrote.

Mahony is scheduled to speak in May at the spring priests assembly. The archdiocese did not immediately return e-mails and telephone calls seeking comment.

The advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests issued a statement Wednesday endorsing Connell's request.

Mahony's successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, last week relieved him of all public duties as a result of the release of thousands of pages of documents detailing his and the archdiocese's handling of the sex abuses crisis there for decades. Gomez called the documents "brutal and painful reading" and the behavior detailed there as "terribly sad and evil."

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