Cincinnati priest, former head of National Review Board honored

Published: 2005-07-15

INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) -- The lay organization Voice of the Faithful presented its top honors to a Cincinnati priest and an Illinois appeals court judge who stepped down last year as head of the U.S. bishops' National Review Board at its national convocation July 10 in Indianapolis. Msgr. Lawrence Breslin, a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, received the organization's Priest of Integrity Award, and Illinois Appellate Court Justice Anne Burke of Chicago was the inaugural recipient of the group's St. Catherine of Siena Distinguished Lay Person Award. In the award citation, Msgr. Breslin was commended for "repeatedly warning Vatican officials about Msgr. Daniel Pater, an admitted abuser who left Ohio after abusing a girl and was rapidly climbing the Vatican bureaucracy." Jim Post, Voice of the Faithful president, said Burke, the interim chairwoman of the lay board that monitors church compliance with sex abuse prevention policies, "courageously spoke the truth about clergy sexual abuse to cardinals at the Vatican, U.S. bishops and to countless groups of lay Catholics across the country."

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