The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, established in 1989, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization support group of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their supporters, founded in the United States. [1] Barbara Blaine, a survivor of sex abuse by a priest, was the founding president. SNAP, which initially focused on the Roman Catholic Church, had 12,000 members in 56 countries as of 2012 [update] . [2] It has branches for religious groups, such as SNAP Baptist, SNAP Orthodox, and SNAP Presbyterian, for non-religious groups (Scouts, families), and for geographic regions, e.g., SNAP Australia and SNAP Germany.
Shaun Dougherty was elected to serve as the president in July 2021 [3] and remained president as of April 2024. [1] Tim Lennon was a past president.
SNAP's history, and list of current staff and directors, are on their Web site. [1]
On June 13, 2002, SNAP's David Clohessy addressed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at its high-profile meeting in Dallas, Texas. He asserted that many church-going Catholics had strong concerns about the way in which bishops were handling the growing child sexual abuse scandal. Clohessy said, "We're not here because you want us to be. We're not here because we've earned it or have fought hard for it. We're here because children are a gift from God, and Catholic parents know this! That's why 87% of them think that if you've helped molesters commit their crimes, you should resign." [4] In 2004, SNAP acknowledged accepting donations from leading attorneys who had represented clients in abuse cases, but maintained that it did not direct clients to these attorneys. [5]
On August 8, 2009, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, who served as the first chair of the National Review Board established by the U.S. Catholic bishops to investigate clergy sex abuse, addressed SNAP's annual gathering. He admitted he was at first naïve about the scope of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and urged bishops who covered up crimes to be prosecuted. [6]
In 2009 SNAP supported a legislative bill in New York that would push Catholic Church dioceses to disclose the names of all clergy who have been transferred or retired due to "credible allegations" of abuse. [7]
On June 9, 2009, a group of survivors of clergy abuse protested the appointment of Joseph Cistone as bishop of the Saginaw, Michigan diocese. [8]
Retired Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of the Archdiocese of Detroit is a member and strong supporter of SNAP and has helped SNAP do fundraising work. [9] According to the National Catholic Reporter , Gumbleton was punished by the Vatican and removed as a parish pastor because of work he did with SNAP and concerns he had about the Church's response to child sexual abuse. [10]
SNAP's president, Barbara Blaine, and national director, David Clohessy, resigned from their SNAP positions, effective February 4, 2017, and December 31, 2016, respectively. According to the Chicago Tribune , "Barbara Dorris, SNAP's outreach director, has become the managing director". [11] [12] Three other longtime leaders, board president Mary Ellen Kruger and outreach director Barbara Dorris, both of St. Louis, and board member Mary Dispenza, left in March 2018. [13]
In 2015 SNAP was ordered by US District Court Judge Carol E. Jackson to release information on alleged sex abuse victims, [14] during the discovery process of a defamation suit by an accused priest against whom charges were dropped. [15] [16]
According to David Clohessy, the director and spokesman, it is the most significant legal battle facing the organization in its 23 years and that he personally may be fined or jailed. [14] SNAP refused to fully comply with the judge's order, claiming "rape crisis center privilege". [17] [18] In August 2016, Judge Jackson found that no such privilege exists and imposed sanctions against SNAP. The judge found that SNAP had defamed him and conspired against the priest, and order that SNAP pay the priest's legal fees. SNAP's attorney stated they were considering an appeal.[ citation needed ]
On January 18, 2017, a former fundraiser for SNAP, Gretchen Rachel Hammond, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the organization in Cook County, Illinois. Hammond had been employed by SNAP as a Director of Development from July 2011 through February 2013. In the lawsuit, Hammond alleged that SNAP fired her in retaliation for confronting the organization for "colluding with survivors' attorneys." The lawsuit stated that "SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors—it exploits them. SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of 'donations.' In exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church." [19] According to the Catholic News Agency, the lawsuit claimed that SNAP "receives 'substantial contributions' from attorneys sometimes totaling more than 40 or 50 percent of its annual contributions. A prominent Minnesota attorney who represents clergy abuse survivors reportedly donated several six-figure annual sums, including over $415,000 in 2008. Other unnamed attorney-donors who represent abuse survivors reportedly came from California, Chicago, Seattle, and Delaware." [20] The lawsuit also cited emails sent by David Clohessy and Barbara Blaine to survivors and "prominent attorneys".
In one such email, Clohessy urges a survivor to sue the Wisconsin archdiocese "i sure hope you DO pursue the WI [Wisconsin] bankruptcy ... Every nickle (sic) they don't have is a nickle (sic) that they can't spend on defense lawyers, PR staff,gay-bashing, women-hating, contraceptive-battling, etc." [21] [22]
SNAP denied the allegations. Outreach Director Barbara Dorris told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , "That's simply just not true," outreach director Barbara Dorris said about misrepresenting the best interest of abuse victims. "We have been and always will be a self-help support group for victims." Dorris added that she couldn't remember if Hammond, who identifies as a transgender woman and is currently a journalist for the LGBT paper Windy City Times in Chicago, had been fired or not. [19] SNAP president Barbara Blaine issued a statement which read "The allegations are not true. This will be proven in court. SNAP leaders are now, and always have been, devoted to following the SNAP mission: To help victims heal and to prevent further sexual abuse." [23] On January 24, 2017, the Chicago Sun Times reported that Clohessy "voluntarily resigned" from SNAP "effective Dec. 31", according to a two-paragraph email from SNAP Board Chairwoman Mary Ellen Kruger. [22] Clohessy told the Kansas City Star "that the lawsuit had nothing to do with his resignation and called the allegations in the case 'preposterous.'" [24] Blaine died in 2017. The lawsuit was settled in early 2018. Clohessy returned to SNAP as a spokesperson. [25]
There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
The Diocese of Joliet in Illinois is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in Illinois in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Chicago.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans is a Latin Church ecclesiastical division of the Catholic Church spanning Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Washington civil parishes of southeastern Louisiana. It is the second to the Archdiocese of Baltimore in age among the present dioceses in the United States, having been elevated to the rank of diocese on April 25, 1793, during Spanish colonial rule.
The Diocese of Kansas City–Saint Joseph is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in northwestern Missouri in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Saint Louis.
Jerome Edward Listecki is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has served as Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, since 2010.
David Allen Zubik is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania since 2007. Zubik previously served as bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay in Wisconsin from 2003 to 2007, and as an auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh from 1997 to 2003.
The Diocese of Jefferson City is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in the state of Missouri in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of St. Louis.
David G. Clohessy is known as an American activist and leader for victims of clergy abuse. He served for more than two decades, until December 2017, as the executive director and spokesman for the Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). He remained on the board after his resignation.
Barbara Ann Blaine was the founder in 1988 and president until February 2017 of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a national advocacy group in the United States for survivors of clerical sexual abuse. It has been involved in the efforts by survivors to gain compensation and action by the Catholic Church and other religious organizations to end clergy abuse and acknowledge past cover-ups.
This page documents Catholic Church sexual abuse cases by country.
The sexual abuse scandal in Los Angeles archdiocese covered events that were documented beginning in the 1930s, but most publicity was related to events of the 1970s through 1990s. Priests accused of molesting children or adults in the parish were typically reassigned, without informing new parishes of charges against them, as the church protected its staff. Changes in policy took place, a dozen priests were dismissed in 2002, the church issued an apology and detailed report in 2004, and in 2007, the Archdiocese reached a settlement with 508 victims of $660 million, a recordbreaking amount. More lawsuits are expected when the California statute of limitations will be temporarily lifted on January 1, 2020.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Chicago archdiocese in the late 20th and early 21st century is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United States and Ireland.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, U.S., is a significant episode in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United States, Ireland and elsewhere. The Philadelphia abuses were substantially revealed through a grand jury investigation in 2005. In early 2011, a new grand jury reported extensive new charges of abusive priests active in the archdiocese. In 2012, a guilty plea by priest Edward Avery and the related trial and conviction of William Lynn and mistrial on charges against James J. Brennan followed from the grand jury's investigations. In 2013, Charles Engelhardt and teacher Bernard Shero were tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Lynn was the first official to be convicted in the United States of covering up abuses by other priests in his charge and other senior church officials have been extensively criticized for their management of the issue in the archdiocese.
There have been many lawsuits, criminal prosecutions, and scandals over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in the United States of America.
Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Canada are well documented dating back to the 1960s. The preponderance of criminal cases with Canadian Catholic dioceses named as defendants that have surfaced since the 1980s strongly indicate that these cases were far more widespread than previously believed. While recent media reports have centred on Newfoundland dioceses, there have been reported cases—tested in court with criminal convictions—in almost all Canadian provinces. Sexual assault is the act of an individual touching another individual sexually and/or committing sexual activities forcefully and/or without the other person's consent. The phrase Catholic sexual abuse cases refers to acts of sexual abuse, typically child sexual abuse, by members of authority in the Catholic church, such as priests. Such cases have been occurring sporadically since the 11th century in Catholic churches around the world. This article summarizes some of the most notable Catholic sexual abuse cases in Canadian provinces.
Settlements and bankruptcies in Catholic sex abuse cases have affected several American dioceses, whose compensation payments have totaled in the billions of dollars.
Jeffrey Marc "Jeff" Herman is an American trial lawyer who specializes in representing victims of sexual abuse, and has been described as a "[t]op church sex abuse attorney". He is the founding and managing partner of the South Florida-based firm Herman Law, and has been described in the media as "the nation's leading attorney when it comes to handling high-profile sexual abuse lawsuits".
14% of New Zealand Catholic diocesan clergy have been accused of abuse since 1950. Several high profile cases are linked to Catholic schools.
A grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania lasted from 2016 to 2018, and investigated the history of clerical sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses.
Phillip James Saviano was an American advocate for survivors of Catholic church sexual abuse. As a youth, Saviano was abused by a priest in the early 1960s. Thirty years later, after reading about the priest abusing other youths in another state, Saviano went public, becoming one of the earliest survivors of church sexual abuse to do so. He brought a lawsuit against his local diocese, uncovering evidence of additional abuse. Eventually, his investigation led to The Boston Globe publishing a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles exposing the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal, which was dramatized in the 2015 Academy Award-winning film Spotlight.