Sins of the Fathers
ChrisOLeary.com > Sins of the Fathers > Scared Shitless

On July 1, 2019, as I was dealing with the anniversary of That Day, I received an e-mail from Sandra Price of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

July 1, 2019

Hi Chris,

I wanted to follow up with you as I received a call from Melanie at the USCCB. At this time we will no longer be engaging with you in any capacity due to the unauthorized recording you posted to your twitter account on June 30, 2019.

Because you were unable to adhere to the conditions of the meeting that I arranged for you with Archbishop Carlson I will not request or arrange any further meetings. Going forward please do not expect a response from the Archdiocese regarding meeting requests with the Archbishop of St. Louis.

This decision in part is due to the lack of consideration given for the other potential victims that you named during our meeting. It is very important for victims to have control over their stories and when they share them and who they share them with.

It is one thing to provide us with information in a confidential setting, however, exposing a potential victim on social medial is an ethical violation that we cannot condone.

In addition if you choose to post this email please share the entire email as written. Should you choose to misquote or take this email out of context you waive your right to confidentiality with this single email response. Thank you for your understanding.

Sandra

The worst part of that e-mail — the thing that literally scared the shit out of me — is the following line.

...you waive your right to confidentiality with this single email response.

Threatening to reveal confidential information about a survivor — I guess information gained during the discovery process of the lawsuit I filed and gleaned from medical or therapy records — would seem to be problematic; to violate the spirit, if not the law, of the Pope's recent efforts to improve the response of the church to the abuse crisis.