Activist group apologizes to priest after lawsuit dismissed

November 27, 2017 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

St. Louis, Mo., Nov 27, 2017 / 08:19 pm (CNA).- An advocacy group has issued an apology to a St. Louis priest for “any false or inaccurate statements” regarding allegations of abuse, after criminal charges against him were dropped and subsequent lawsuits were settled or dismissed.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis published the apology from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) on Monday.

“The SNAP defendants never want to see anyone falsely accused of a crime. Admittedly, false reports of clergy sexual abuse do occur. The SNAP defendants have no personal knowledge as to the complaints against Fr. Joseph Jiang and acknowledge that all matters and claims against Fr. Jiang have either been dismissed or adjudicated in favor of Fr. Jiang,” the group stated.

SNAP also apologized for the harm that false accusations can cause to the priest as well as to the Catholic Church as a whole.

“SNAP apologizes for any false or inaccurate statements related to the complaints against Fr. Joseph Jiang that it or its representatives made which in any way disparaged Fr. Joseph Jiang, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, Monsignor Joseph D. Pins and the Archdiocese of St. Louis,” the group stated.

A statement from the Archdiocese of St. Louis said the apology was issued “as part of a settlement with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in a defamation lawsuit filed by Father Jiang in 2015.”

Criminal charges filed against Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, after an allegation of abuse, were dismissed in 2015. Jiang had also passed a polygraph test, during which he denied that he had ever abused a minor, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Following the dismissal of the charges, Jiang filed a lawsuit against SNAP officials and against the parents of the minor, on the grounds that the false accusations had had a detrimental impact on his life.

In 2016, a federal judge ruled that SNAP had made false statements against Fr. Jiang “negligently and with reckless disregard for the truth.” The first part of the lawsuit with SNAP and the parents of the minor was settled last month. A federal judge dismissed the second part of the case earlier this month, on the grounds that too much time had passed before Jiang decided to add the additional parties to the lawsuit.

Fr. Jiang had been previously accused of improper contact with a teenage girl who attended the Basilica of St. Louis, where he was associate pastor. Charges of child endangerment and witness tampering were dropped in 2013.

In January of this year, a former SNAP employee, Gretchen Rachel Hammond, filed suit against the organization, claiming that SNAP accepts “kickbacks” from plaintiffs’ attorneys to whom it refers alleged victims.  SNAP denied those claims, but SNAP president Barbara Blaine resigned from the organization shortly after the suit was filed.

“SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors – it exploits them,” Hammond said in the lawsuit.

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Arrests made, statues restored at vandalized Catholic Church

March 10, 2022 Catholic News Agency 3
From left to right: Promise Yardley, 18, Freeman Yardley, 24, and Blessing Yardley, 22, were all arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office March 5 as suspects in a vandalism incident at Holy Family Catholic Church in Jacksonville, Florida. / Courtesy Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Department of Corrections

Boston, Mass., Mar 10, 2022 / 16:07 pm (CNA).

When Holy Family Catholic Church in Jacksonville, Florida, learned that three people were arrested as suspects in a vandalism incident involving defacement of their statues which depict the Holy Family, its response was a call for prayer.

“Let us pray for them,” the church said in a statement.

The three suspects were arrested March 5 for writing “hail satan” and other vulgar images on a group of three statues honoring the Holy Family outside the church on Feb. 23. Freeman Yardley, 24, Promise Yardley, 18, and Blessing Yardley, 22, were each charged with criminal mischief to church/other place of worship, which is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. It is not clear if the three suspects are related.

The marble statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Child Jesus, and St. Joseph had either vulgar or satanic images written on them in black marker. Surveillance footage shows three people at the scene, two of whom appear to write on the statues. You can watch the church’s videos of the incident here and here.

In its statement, Holy Family Catholic Church said that all three had confessed to the crime. But arrest reports block out what the three suspects said to police in statements made before their arrest.

The arrest report shows that a groundskeeper from Holy Family Catholic Church alerted police on March 5 when he saw two females who matched the description of the suspects walking into a nearby apartment less than a mile away from the church. Police were able to verify and identify the suspects, Blessing Yardley and Promise Yardley, and after interviewing them individually, made their arrests. Freeman Yardley was arrested later at his workplace.

The three were listed on Thursday as being in a pretrial detention facility in Jacksonville, with bail set at $15,003. They are scheduled to be arraigned on March 29.

Statues of the Holy Family that were vandalized on Feb. 23, 2022, outside Holy Family Catholic Church in Jacksonville, Florida, have been restored. Courtesy of Holy Family Catholic Church
Statues of the Holy Family that were vandalized on Feb. 23, 2022, outside Holy Family Catholic Church in Jacksonville, Florida, have been restored. Courtesy of Holy Family Catholic Church

The statues have been restored, the church announced. “Thanks to the amazing work of Angel Corrales and our maintenance staff, the statues are clean and looking better than ever!” Father David Keegan, Pastor at Holy Family, wrote in a Facebook post on March 7. Corrales, who was hired to do the restoration, said in a Facebook post that he was honored to do the job.

“Thank you for trusting me with such beautiful work,” he wrote.

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