Letter to Archbishop Shelton Fabre

June 29, 2023

From: Susan Vance

8324 Burchfield Drive

Oak Ridge, Tennessee

To: Archbishop Shelton Fabre

Archbishop of Louisville, Kentucky

Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee

3940 Poplar Level Road

Louisville, KY 40213-1463

Dear Archbishop Fabre,

Welcome to the beautiful area of the Diocese of Knoxville. Your time as Apostolic Administrator will no doubt be a challenging one. As advocate for Clergy Sex Abuse Victims molested as children as well as adults who have been sexually exploited by clergy, I need your help.

Two sexual abuse victims of Catholic priests of the Diocese of Knoxvile—one abused as a child and one sexually exploited as an adult—have requested me to implore you to remove the illegal silencing restrictions imposed on them by former Bishop Richard Stika.

\The Dallas Charter of 2002 article 3 states that no victim may be silenced unless that victim chooses to be silent. The Vos Estis Lux Mundi mandate first promulgated by Pope Francis in 2019 states the same.

These two survivors are not the only ones who will need to be released from their illegal Non-Disclosure

Agreements or Non-Disparaging Agreements or other confidentiality language imposed against church rules by Bishop Richard Stika but let's begin here and move forward to the others who may request it.

Truthfully, all of these silencing techniques going back to at least 2002 are illegal. Paying victims for their silence is reprehensible. Imposing NDAs or any silencing language is even more reprehensible and contrary to the mandate of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as Pope Francis himself.

Can you make this right? Can you remove alf silencing language by declaring that language null and void? Will you do the right thing by issuing a decree voiding all of these illegal actions by Bishop Stika?

While I stand up for the first two victims to come forward asking for your help, there will be others. Having Bishop Stika leave this diocese will, in and of itself, empower these men and women long held captive by intimidation and threats of retaliation if they break these illegally imposed silences. The action of a blanket removal of all of these silencing agreements for any victim of the Diocese of Knoxville will distinguish you among your colleagues in your faithfulness to the Dallas Charter of 2002 and Vos Estis Lux Mundi. I hope you will take this path.

May God be with you as we embark on this journey in East Tennessee.

Sincerely,

Susan Vance

Leader of SNAP of Tennessee (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) 

865-748-3518 

susan8324@gmail.com