{"id":16392,"date":"2025-05-09T03:08:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T10:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16392"},"modified":"2025-05-15T03:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T10:15:07","slug":"priest-sex-abuse-survivors-hopeful-pope-leo-xiv-brings-change-to-catholic-church-cbs-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16392","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Priest sex abuse survivors hopeful Pope Leo XIV brings change to Catholic Church&#8221;, CBS News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/\"><\/a>By\u00a0Tara Molina<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May 9, 2025 \/ CBS Chicago<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>As the world celebrates a new pope, the largest group for survivors of clerical abuse in the U.S. \u2013 SNAP \u2013 is calling for a zero tolerance policy, but there&#8217;s more to the story in the Chicago area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The longtime leader of SNAP&#8217;s Chicago office knows Pope Leo XIV&#8217;s family. So, while he echoes the group&#8217;s call for change with this new pope, his main message is one of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SNAP stands for Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Larry Antonsen does more than lead the group in Chicago, he&#8217;s a survivor himself, and has been involved in the organization for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He seems like a pretty normal guy, from what I&#8217;ve heard and seen,&#8221; he said of Pope Leo XIV, whose Chicago connection goes back a long way. &#8220;His mom and dad were at our wedding, so we go back kind of a long way.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pope Leo XIV&#8217;s parents, Louis and Mildred Prevost, were at Antonsen&#8217;s wedding more than 50 years ago. Louis Prevost, a school superintendent, also hired Antonsen&#8217;s wife for her first teaching job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fifty-four years later, Larry Antonsen is hopeful for what the new pope will do when it comes to addressing sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s got a long way to go, but that&#8217;s ok. I&#8217;m really, I&#8217;m hopeful with this new pope. I really am hopeful,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The national organization \u2013 25,000 members strong \u2013 didn&#8217;t mince words in a letter sent to Leo XIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;With the title comes a grave reckoning,&#8221; they wrote, calling for<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/pope-francis-death-church-sexual-abuse-survivors-snap-reaction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u00a0a zero-tolerance policy<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 removing a priest from a church after a single act of sexual abuse that is admitted to or established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They have to start, because this has been going on and there are so many people that have been hurt,&#8221; Antonsen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Antonsen also hopes he can strengthen his Chicago connection with the new pope if and when he comes back for a visit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s got a lot of things on his plate, but he&#8217;s gotta start somewhere, and if he would just keep an open mind and open ears to us,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Antonsen said close friends of his reached out to the pope when they were visiting Rome recently to see if he&#8217;d say hello. Still Cardinal Robert Prevost at the time, he ended up driving to meet and spent the day with them off a Chicago connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Antonsen hopes that spirit means he will make time for him, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Tara Molina May 9, 2025 \/ CBS Chicago As the world celebrates a new pope, the largest group for survivors of clerical abuse in the U.S. \u2013 SNAP \u2013 is calling for a zero tolerance policy, but there&#8217;s more to the story in the Chicago area. The longtime leader of SNAP&#8217;s Chicago office knows Pope [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16393,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16392\/revisions\/16393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}