OAKLAND — The Oakland diocese has announced it will delay releasing the list of all priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors until next year.
On Oct. 8, the Catholic diocese announced it would release the list in about 45 days, with the 45th day falling on the Friday after Thanksgiving. But on its website, the diocese said it needed more time and moved the new date to “after Jan. 1, 2019.”
“The primary reasons for this are two-fold,” the diocese said in a statement. “First, we have decided it is essential we contact survivors in advance of a public announcement, and this will require a sensitivity to their unique situations. Secondly, it is important we spend more time verifying the information we have on priests from religious orders and from other dioceses who served in the Oakland Diocese.”
The Oakland diocese had followed the lead of the San Jose Diocese, which released the names of 15 priests on Oct. 18 who have been credibly accused of abusing children within the diocese dating back decades.
The self-reporting came on the heels of the explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report over the summer that detailed hundreds of offender priests and more than a thousand victims from that area and how the church covered up the crimes.
San Jose became the first diocese in the Bay Area to reveal the names of its abusive priests. The Archdiocese of San Francisco is mulling a similar move.
Priest abuse victims have been pushing for the California Attorney General to conduct an investigation on the church and its handling of the abuse scandal. The state’s top law enforcement official has not commented whether or not an investigation has been launched, but on the AG website there’s a section for abuse victims to report their experiences.
Abuse victim Joey Piscitelli said the Oakland diocese delay likely has to do with the distinction between the Roman Catholic dioceses and the various Catholic orders.
“The dilemma for the Oakland Bishop is that there is a considerable conflict existing between some Catholic religious orders, and some Roman Catholic Dioceses in California, and other states,” he said. “That conflict concerns a conception by some Catholic Religious Orders that they are not directly under the authority of Catholic Bishops and Dioceses, but rather they are under the authority of their own hierarchy.”