A message from SNAPDFW’s facilitator, Lisa Kendzior
Acknowledge your courage
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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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Catholic Child Welfare Society in England diocese liable for $12.8 million in damages to abuse victims; cannot appeal
A Catholic diocese in northeast England has been refused the right to appeal a court ruling that found it responsible for a $12.8 million compensation claim by victims of child sexual abuse, believed to be the largest award to abuse victims in English history.The diocese was found liable in October for the claims of 158 former pupils who were abused at St. William's Community Home, in Market Weighton, near York, between 1960 and 1992.
Although Christian Brother James Carragher, now 74, who was principal at the home for more than 20 years, began serving a 14-year prison sentence in 2004 for a long list of sex crimes against students, judges ruled that his order, the De La Salle Christian Brothers, which staffed the home, had no legal responsibility, leaving the Catholic Child Welfare Society of the diocese liable for the compensation claim.
Read the full story in the National Catholic Reporter ...
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You are not alone! 200 sexually abused men speak out on national TV; full video of the Friday's Oprah Winfrey show
Caution: This program is extremely and disturbingly explicit. However, our hope is that it encourages others abused, even years ago, to tell someone who genuinely understands and cares so that the long road toward healing this horrible rape of innocence and spirit can begin. It can and will -- you are not alone!
Watch episode 1 in its entirety here
Read Comments by Survivors at the Taping of the Oprah Show
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200 Abused Men Stand Up to Be Counted on 2 Day National TV Event; Urge Anyone Ever Abused to Get Help
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On Friday, Oprah Winfrey’s show will air the first part of a two part program about men who were abused, sexually and physically, when they were children. It’s estimated by professionals that one in six men were abused in their youth. Some die from suicides or deaths related to alcohol or drug abuse.
That's a horrendous number that continues to grow to this day, and this is unacceptable.
With the lid coming off the Catholic Church's victims, this should tell other organizations that it's time to clean their own houses, and they should open up all files of perpetrators and contact victims that are kept hidden." -- SNAP Member Survivor Kevin Dratsch
The program will address all types of abuse, from domestic to professional to clergy.
Advanced promotion for the show describes it as, "A landmark Oprah Show event that's never been done before. Two hundred men courageously stand together to say they were all molested."
Watch the program trailer
Read SNAP Member Kevin Kratsch's letter in the Appleton, WI Post-Crescent ...
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Survivors Head for Reformation Day Gathering in Rome to Say 'Enough' to Sexual Abuse by Roman Catholic Priests
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60% of Chicago parishes employed publicly accused sexual predator priests, new SNAP supported study shows
A study taking 5 years to complete by SNAP and two other survivors advocate groups has shown that nearly 60% of Roman Catholic parishes in Chicago employed priests who were publicly accused of child abuse and sexual predator behavior.The study, conducted jointly by Voice of the Faithful, African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy and Sexual Abuse and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), looked at assignments made between 1917 and 2009 of priests accused of abuse. The researchers spent five years combing through data for the report--and they believe the number of unreported cases of abuse could make that percentage even larger.
SNAP president Barbara Blaine told the Huffington Post Monday that while she believes nearly every Chicago-land parish has been affected, the study showed that "poor parishes and minority parishes have a disproportionately high percentage of problem priests."
Blaine said further that the Chicago Archdiocese has consistently under-reported cases of abuse, and that SNAP encourages victims of abuse to reach out to advocacy groups--not to the church.
"SNAP encourages victims of abuse to reach out to advocacy groups -- not to the church."
-- SNAP president Barbara Blaine
Read the story in the Chicago Tribune ...
Read the story in the Huffington Post ...
Read SNAP statement on the report ...
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Belgium's highest court reverses lower court's return of seized church records on pedophilia; orders reseizure
In a reversal of a lower court's order to return truckloads of files on priest sexual abuse by Roman Catholic dioceses in Belgium, Belgium's highest court has ordered the files re-seized.The raids on June 24, conducted as a Vatican ambassador was meeting with church leaders, opened the eyes of the world to the scale of the scandal within the Belgian Catholic Church, but the church and retired archbishop, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, demanded that the material seized be declared out of bounds.
Lower courts, having found that the June police raid was illegal, ordered prosecutors to return all files to the Belgian bishops and the independent commission they had created to handle sex-abuse complaints. But the top court has now said that abuse victims should have had the opportunity to present their views before the case was decided.
Read more: New twist in Belgian Catholic abuse legal row - The Times of India ...
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Can Restorative Justice work when religious sexual abuse perpetrators and their protecting leaders lack remorse?
Restorative Justice is a concept in law that stresses the idea of promoting dialogue between victims and accused as opposed to a strict adversarial relationship based on abstract interpretations of legal code violations. To work best it requires goodwill on all sides.The pope has spoken of "sin within the Church" but victims would like to see action, not mere lip service - action demonstrating the Church's sincerity in making things right.
An article on www.beliefnet.com suggests that building the path toward greater justice and healing guided by the parameters of Restorative Justice seems like it might be an idea worth trying.
However, the only credible comment to the article says,
Restorative Justice is a good thing. However, it necessitates a certain level or moral development in the perpetrator. He must be able to empathize with his victim. He must seek restoration because of empathy, not just because he got caught. It is not clear that today's religious leaders have a developed enough moral fiber to participate in restorative justice. ...
Frankly, I do not see any bishops of any ilk rushing to repair the survivors of clergy sex abuse. Neither do I see said bishops acting to embrace survivors as Christ.
Read more: On the BeliefNet website ...
Read more: Wikipedia article on Restorative Justice ...
Then you make the call.
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SNAP survivors of priest rape come to Britain for pope trip, ask action, not lip service, to protect children
Americans Therese Albrecht and SNAP president Barbara Blaine are in Britain representing fellow survivors of priest sexual abuse during the pope's current trip there. They want more openness about abuse in the Catholic Church."We are asking that the Pope and the Vatican establish a worldwide database with the names of all of the known and credibly-accused predator priests." -- SNAP President Barbara Blaine in Britain
Read the entire story on the Voice of America website ...
Watch VOA video of SNAP survivors interviewed in Britain:
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Human rights jurist claims immunity protecting pope from legal action in pedophile crisis needs moral improvement
In a book set to be published in tandem with the popes visit to Britain, a leading British jurist has claimed that the diplomatic immunity model of international relations needs to be replaced by a more moral legal order, so that someday soon not even a pope will be above the law.Read the article Should the Pope face charges? in the Canadian publication McLeans ...
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According an Associate Press story filed today, an independent Belgian commission reported that hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two.
Professor Peter Adriaenssens, chairman of the commission, said the abuse in Belgium may have been even more rampant than the 200-page report suggests, because his panel's work was interrupted and all its files seized in a June 24 raid by Belgian judicial authorities who are conducting their own probe.
"Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who has worked with trauma victims for 23 years, said nothing had prepared him for the stories of abuse that blighted the lives of victims. He called the report's findings "a body blow" to the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium." -- Raf Casert, Associated Press
Belgian church authorities said they would react on Monday to the report. The Vatican had no immediate comment.
Read the entire AP story on the MSNBC website ...
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Belgian Cardinal pressured victim to protect bishop with secrecy until he retired, says tapes released and verified
The New York Times reported today that a Belgian cardinal, Godfried Danneels, pressed a sexual abuse victim to either accept a private apology or wait until a bishop accused of the victim's rape had retired before pressing charges, according to tapes recorded by the victim, and verified by the church as genuine. "The cardinal warned the victim against trying to blackmail the church and suggested that he accept a private apology from the bishop and not drag 'his name through the mud.'
The victim responded, 'He has dragged my whole life through the mud, from 5 until 18 years old,” and asked, 'Why do you feel sorry for him and not for me?' "
The tapes, which church authorities have verified as accurate, are among the more revealing documents in the continuing scandal of sexual abuse by clerics and subsequent cover-ups by the church. And having a record of a cardinal entreating an abuse victim to keep his silence is another embarrassment for the Catholic Church, which continues to be much more protective of its abusive hierarchy than of its victims.
Read the full story in the New York Times today ...
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Irish abuse survivor 'shattered' by leadership of 'clerical culture' in abuse crisis considers option 'this is not the church for me'
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A survivor of clerical sexual abuse, well-known in Ireland, is considering quitting the Roman church following the pope's decision to keep two Dublin auxiliary archbishops implicated in the abuse scandal in office. Marie Collins has doggedly remained a Catholic in the hopes that the church will reform. However, describing last week's revelation as the "final nail in the coffin" of her hope that the church would change as lead by the clerical culture, Collins said she has "really gone beyond the point I was at before".
"I have always said my Christianity is not in doubt. I am not disillusioned with my faith in God or Christ. But I am just at the point where I'm considering that I don't need to call myself a Catholic anymore, in a church where clerical power holds sway. My hope of reform coming from within the clerical church is gone." -- Marie Collins, Irish abuse survivor.
Read the full story in the Sunday's Irish publication the SundayTribune online ...
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