CLERICAL ERROR

Bishop Thomas Paprocki this week summoned reporters to refute a recent suggestion made by Survivors Network Of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) that pedophile priests from Chicago might have been assigned to the Springfi eld diocese in the 1990s. SNAP’s evidence? Six pedophile priests, back in 1993, had a phone number that rings to a Litchfi eld address, SNAP had said at a March 5 press conference. During his press conference, Paprocki told reporters that the Litchfi eld address in question is a house where a priest from Chicago once lived. Somehow, a church directory from the 1990s had erroneously contained the same Litchfi eld phone number for 265 priests, including the pedophiles. “The repetition of this same phone number for 265 priests was clearly a mistake,” Paprocki said. Anyone who should suspect that a priest has sexually abused a child should call either the diocese or the state Department of Children and Family Services, Paprocki said. After the bishop spoke, David Clohessy, SNAP director, said that he did not know whether he would again call a press conference with old phone numbers as his chief evidence. “That’s a good question,” Clohessy said. “I’m just hearing this explanation today, that it was a typographical error. I have no reason to doubt that.” But Clohessy stood fi rm on one point: If someone suspects a priest of sexually abusing kids, they should call the cops, not the church.