A message from SNAPDFW’s facilitator, Lisa Kendzior

Acknowledge your courage

It takes courage to acknowledge that we’ve been abused and it is not easy to even admit it to ourselves. Just browsing this website is a big step.

Know that you are not alone!

If you’ve been victimized by clergy, please know that you are not alone. You can get better. You can reach out to others who’ve been hurt just like you have.

Together, we can heal one another.

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"The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. ...

The network and its allies say the legal action is part of a campaign by the church to cripple an organization that has been the most visible defender of victims ..."

-- New York Times, 12 March 2012

“If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced it definitely would be SNAP. And that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.”

-- Marci A. Hamilton, law professor,Yeshiva University; advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes

Read the article: Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group in today's NYTimes ...

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According to a Reuters story of March 8, the Vatican is seeking inclusion on the European Commission's so-called "white list" of states who comply with international standards against tax fraud and money-laundering.

This reaction is to having been currently listed by the US State Department as a nation "of concern" for potential money laundering activities.  

The Vatican Bank, founded in 1942 by Pope Pius XII, has been in the spotlight since September 2010 when Italian investigators froze 23 million euros ($33 million) in funds in Italian banks, including the Vatican bank, after opening an investigation into possible money-laundering.
 
The pope was quick to react, a mere one month later, with a 'Motu Proprio' -- amounting to a papal executive order -- to make the Vatican bank's internal activities transparent under international banking standards.

As we've pointed out here in the past, no such parallel executive order for transparency has ever been forthcoming from the pope or the Vatican concerning the Roman Catholic priest sexual abuse crisis. 

In fact, for 14 consecutive years, the Vatican has ignored a United Nations request to member nations for information concerning its handling of child endangerment issues.

The pope has demonstrated, in action not words, that when Vatican assets are at stake, he is willing, even anxious, to act quickly, decisively, pragmatically  and emphatically.  Not so, apparently, when the safety of children is at stake.

As the recent history of the Roman Catholic hierarchy shows, since, at least, 2002 -- with the emergence of world attention on the Boston priest sexual abuse scandal -- the pope's demonstrated willingness to issue executive orders for transparency in accordance with international child abuse standards seems considerably less important than his willingness to comply with international banking standards of transparency to retrieve frozen Vatican funds.

• Read the full Reuter's story: Vatican Makes Money Laundering List Of U.S. State Department ...
• Read about the Vatican's instant compliance with the banking community's demand for transparency ...
• Read: 'Vatican enacts new banking laws' in the Irish Times ...
• Read: Vatican ingnores UN request on Rights of the Child

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In what National Catholic Reporter calls "a six hour ordeal," soft spoken victims' advocate David Clohessy, Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was grilled with some 800 questions posed by several lawyers hired to defend priests accused of abuse and the Roman Catholic diocese that they work for. 

In an email to NCR, Clohessy said the contents of the transcript, made public Friday, show “that Catholic officials want the names and emails of people who turn to SNAP for help.”

“Church officials claim they don’t want the names of victims, witnesses or whistleblowers. But they’re desperately trying to gut the law that most enables us to protect victims, witnesses or whistleblowers,” wrote Clohessy, referring to a Missouri law that protects the confidentiality of rape crisis centers. “So it’s clear they aren’t being honest.”

Read the story in the National Catholic Reporter ...
Read the full 215 page transcript of Clohessy's deposition ...

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We sanction what we believe.

In 2002, America was still reeling from 9/11. The Roman Catholic Church in the United States was beginning to reel from the news coming from Boston that priests had raped children and that their bishops had protected them and allowed them to rape again. And the Vatican was marginalizing the priest sex abuse crisis as "an American problem."

During that same year, a former Catholic priest and still devout Roman Catholic wrote a small book entitled Toward a New Catholic Church (James Carroll. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).

Never the alarmist, always the realist, Carroll challenged all believers of any faith, but particularly those in his own church, to "think critically about what we believe" before it is, literally, too late. Have we? Have I? Have you?

The truth is that it is no less a necessity to deeply consider what we believe today. For as always, what we believe determines what we will sanction.

In 2012, just this morning, an item in the UK publication The Guardian contains the headline, Iran to announce 'major nuclear progress.'

In 2002, James Carroll wrote:

As demonstrated by the world's move to the brink of nuclear war between Pakistan and India in the spring of 2002 in a dispute that defined itself religiously, nothing less than the future of the human race is at stake in our readiness to think critically about what we believe.

Here at SNAPDFW, a small group of survivors of abuse by those with rank and spiritual authority -- priest, nun, religious, minister, deacon, teacher, doctor, therapist -- come together monthly and struggle to make sense out of a church home, a family, a helping relationship that has been wrenched violently from them by abuse -- a Church, or other environment, formerly their safest place to be, but one that now protects the perpetrators and itself instead of its victims. Legally cornered to be accountable, the former "safe place" strikes back with vengeance and vilifies -- and all in the name of the God that it teaches the world to fear.

To this day -- 10 years after the Boston abuse revelations -- the Catholic church continues to insult and ignore its victims. A recent gathering of bishops in the Vatican to discuss the sex abuse crisis, and even to listen for a few moments to the plight of one of them, did not include the bishop of Rome (also known as the pope). Nor did the bishop of Rome bother to even acknowledge the visiting survivors in his daily sermon and blessing, being dispensed to other visitors and dignitaries only a few blocks away.

In speaking of the 2002 Boston sex scandal in the Roman church in America, James Carroll spoke words that are unfortunately -- and for many victims who have not survived, quite tragically -- still valid today. Believers might use it as a primer for beginning, finally, to "think critically about what we believe."

It would be simplistic to attribute the moral paralysis that so long marked Church responses to priestly child abuse to any one characteristic of Catholic culture, be it:

• celibacy,
• the all-male priesthood,
• a Jansenist suspicion of sexuality that breeds repression,
• a male fear of females,
• or the disparity between increasingly self-respecting homosexuals in the Catholic clergy and a Catholic moral theology that continues to preach contempt for homosexuality.

But taken together, such notes of contemporary Catholic conflict are indications of the dysfunction that results when the gap between preached ideals and life as it is really lived becomes too wide -- especially if the ideals are false.

What we sanction is determined by what we believe. If it is time to stop sanctioning the abuse of innocents in our churches, perhaps it is time, too, to begin to "think critically about what we believe." For what we believe determines what we will sanction.

SNAPDFW invites all survivors of spiritual, emotional, physical and sexual abuse by anyone with rank and authority within "the helping professions" or within families or churches or anywhere else to come spend a few moments with others who can relate. You are welcome here, regardless of your religion or background. Abuse occurs in all religious traditions -- from the most orthodox to the most contemporary. Here you will be welcomed. You will not be judged. And you will not be abused.

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Earlier today, Monday Jan 16, Belgian authorities raided three bishops' administrative offices nearing the end of a two-year investigation into whether church officials protected child abusers at the expense of their victims.

A Belgian Catholic Church spokesman said the offices in Hasselt, Mechelen and Antwerp cooperated during the raids and handed over files.

AP reports that a judicial official close to the investigation, who asked not to be identified, said today's surprise raids were based on some 200 witness accounts and 87 civil claims and sought to reveal if high-level clergy were involved in keeping abuse covered up.

Read more in the Fort Wort Star-Telegram here: Belgian authorities raid 3 bishops' offices

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Grand jury investigations into the recent child sex abuse scandals that have rocked Penn State and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have placed the issue of child sex abuse onto the front burner here in Pennsylvania — where it belongs.

I serve on the Child and Youth Committee and have listened to and read many hours of excruciatingly painful testimony from victims and their families describing the most heinous sexual abuse imaginable. The institutional cover-ups and subsequent ill-treatment of victims have made these terrible situations even worse. It’s a sad day, indeed, when concern for institutional risk management trumps uncovering the truth.

It’s not going to be easy. But, it is up to me and to all elected state officials, regardless of their affiliations, to act with integrity, strength, and righteousness — right now.

It’s time to open the window.

1. First, we in state government must encourage — not suppress — the public conversation about the sexual abuse of children.
2. Second, state legislators must act to expand the current statute of limitations for child sex abuse.

I recently listened to testimony concerning two perpetrators who were Franciscan Friars and who taught at Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia when I was on the faculty there. As a life-long Catholic, a former parochial school teacher, and a religious education instructor, I am filled with anguish over these incidents.

I am also a proud Penn State alumnus and I still teach at the PSU Abington campus. I believe that Penn State is a jewel in the crown of our great commonwealth. Thus, everything I’ve learned about the Jerry Sandusky scandal and the devastation it has wrought pains me to the core...

Read full article: Child sex abuse: When concern for institutional risk trumps the truth ...

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It was reported on this website one year ago that the Vatican had instantly (within a few weeks) responded with "transparency" demanded by the international banking community when 30 million dollars in Vatican bank assets were seized in a money laundering investigation; but that the same Vatican had ignored, for the 13th year in a row, a request from the UN Convention on Rights of the Child for some simple honesty in Roman Catholic handling of child abuse.

One more year has elapsed. And the Vatican, so quick to become "transparent" in order to get its assets back, still ignores a request to be transparent about its handling of child abuse -- and this time, for the 14th consecutive year.

Today, Kristine Ward of our sister organization the National Survivors Advocacy Coalition (NSAC) has written an editorial on this unconscionable papal negligence titled Yet Another Deadline Passes, Still No Report. Read that editorial below, then read the related links to articles on this website.

RELATED

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• NSAC Editorial: Yet Another Deadline Passes, Still No Report


• Vatican 13 years delinquent in submitting legally required UN report on 'Rights of the Child'


• SNAP petitions international court to investigate the pope and top Vatican officials for possible crimes against humanity


• Amnesty International human rights report lists Vatican for failure to protect children


• Vatican 2010 priorities: protect assets; ignore 'Rights of the Child'


• Moral bankruptcy of Roman hierarchy read into record of United Nations Human Rights Council

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"Sexual abuse of our children is the cancer that lives and walks among us, but a cancer survivor wears their ribbon proudly and we all stand to cheer as they walk by in their annual parade.

But who stands to cheer for the victim of a sexual assault?"

-- Dale Hansen, WFAA Dallas

It has been more than a month now since the sex scandal at Penn State stunned the Happy Valley and changed the lives of so many forever.

Former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky has said he's innocent of the charges he faces for sexually abusing so many young kids, but he stood silently by while the Penn State president, the athletic director and the legendary coach Joe Paterno lost their jobs in disgrace.

Is that really the action of an innocent man?

But then, they stood silently by while being told that Sandusky was abusing the children he says he was trying to help.

Nobody's innocent here, and those kids have lost their innocence forever because nobody talks about the abuse of a child.

The victim of a sexual crime is the only victim we don't talk about, and maybe it's time we do.

Read the full article, and watch the video on the WFAA website ...

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In an open letter published on Newsweek’s thedailybeast.com website, filmmaker Tyler Perry addresses an 11-year-old boy involved in the Penn State sexual abuse scandal.

Perry’s letter begins by saying: “I don’t know your name, but I know your face. I don’t know your journey, but I know where you are. I am your brother!”

Perry goes on to reveal personal details of his own sexual abuse as a child, and how his voice went unheard when he reached out for help to friends and family.

Perry writes, “The strength that it must have taken for your 11-year-old voice to speak out about such a horrible act is something that I didn’t have the strength or courage to do at your age.” The star calls the boy “my hero.”

The 40 current counts of sexual abuse against former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky listed in the grand jury indictment involved boys over a 15-year period who are adults now. Sandusky has maintained his innocence.

Read 'Tyler Perry Writes Open Letter to Alleged Penn State Victim' on the ABC News website ...
Read 'Tyler Perry's Open Letter to Penn State 11-Year-Old' ... on Newsweek's Daily Beast website ...

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This is one to watch over the next few days.

A Catholic bishop in Ireland stepped down yesterday just six days before child sex abuse audits into two dioceses where he served are due to published.

Bishop of Derry Seamus Hegarty’s resignation on health grounds was accepted by Pope Benedict a mere two weeks after offering it. He left his post immediately.

Read the full story in the Irish Independent ...
Read 'Bishop quits over health days before abuse audits' ...

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A Reuters news service article quotes the head of US Roman Catholic bishops, Timothy Dolan, as saying that the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State University 'opens a wound' within the church. "No one has suffered more," claims the Catholic leader of priests.

The victims advocacy community -- with all respect that may or may not be due -- would point out to the bishop that the victims of abuse are the ones who have been wounded, raped and sodomized by Catholic priests and attacked by bishops and their high-priced lawyers for years -- a fact dramatized by these very statements.

It is not the Catholic hierarchy that has been victimized. The bishops, like Dolan, in that "community" continue to provide and protect the criminal perpetrators of that abuse. You, Mr. Dolan, and your kind, are not the victims here.

According to victims advocate Kristine Ward of SNAPDFW's sister group, the National Survivors Advocacy Coalition (NSAC), the purpose of Dolan's comments were to opportunistically deflect attention away from his colleagues and underlings in the Roman hierarchy, which systemically perpetuates the environment of abuses, and systematically denies it and shields the guilty.

Once again, SNAPDFW asks the question we've asked so many times before:

Just how outrageous does outrageous have to get!?

Read the Reuters news article "Penn State scandal "opens wound" in Catholic Church" ...
Read Kristine Ward's NSAC Editorial "The Gall of It" ... Read More...

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