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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In spite of an apologetic self-indictment issued Saturday, Sean O'Malley, archbishop of the diocese of Boston gave a phone number to a violated parish, and urged new victims to call him up.

SNAP strongly urges any and all victim survivors of clergy abuse in the Roman Catholic church, or any other religious or secular group, to CALL THE AUTHORITIES FIRST, NOT THE CHURCH. Then call supporters and advocates for victims of abuse. They will provide you with resources for the kinds of spiritual, emotional and legal care you need.

O'Malley's apology-by-proxy, read by a subordinate to a group of about 50 parishioners in a Boston area Catholic church Saturday night, apologized for the Dec. 11 tongue-lashing from the pulpit by the priest-in-charge, Stanislaw Kempa.

The verbal abuse was hurled at three young men, now in their 30s, who are accusing the late Rev. Czeslaw "Father Chet" Szymanski of sexually abusing them in the parish when they were children.

The first order of business -- always -- in incidents of suspected abuse of children or vulnerable adults by clergy is do everything possible to have the suspects removed from access to potential other victims.

The recent history of the Roman Catholic church, including Saturday's admission of failure to respond appropriately by O'Malley, emphasizes the fact that those abused by priests should NOT call the church first for help. Call the police. Protect the innocent. That is the first order of business, not calling in more priests.

Attorney Carmen Durso, who represents the three men, first announced the abuse allegations at a press conference on Dec. 9.

Kempa tongue-lashed the young men who are making the allegations in front of his congregation during Mass two days later, blasting them during a tirade/sermon, calling them "cowards," and claiming that the accusations "were not credible."

"The clerical antagonism and apparent indifference toward victims of sexual abuse, even when faced with substantial evidence, is one of the principal reasons why it remains so difficult for victims to come forward," Durso said.

It bears repeating that SNAP strongly urges any and all victim survivors of clergy abuse in the Roman Catholic church, or any other religious or secular group, to CALL THE AUTHORITIES FIRST, NOT THE CHURCH.

Then call supporters and advocates for victims of abuse. They will provide you with resources for the kinds of spiritual, emotional and legal care you may need.

SNAP DFW can be reached at: snapdfw@verizon.net.

Read more on the abuse and the apology in the Lowell, Mass. Sun ...

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NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Federal prosecutors in Connecticut say a man who sexually abused children at a school in Haiti he founded also threatened to kill a prosecutor.

Authorities cited the alleged threat in court papers Thursday as they argued Douglas Perlitz of Eagle, Colo., should be sent to prison for more than 19 years when he is sentenced next week.

Perlitz ran the Project Pierre Toussaint school, and dispensed very little help that came without strings attached. He built a charity, and used it to rake in donations from well-intending and unsuspecting supporters to feed what he craved: forcible sex with some of the poorest, most downtrodden and vulnerable children in the world.

Perlitz will be sentenced Tuesday in the court of United States District Judge the Honorable Janet Bond Arternon on Tuesday.

Read the story in the Washington Post ...


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In another stunning display of the pope calling the kettle black, the Vatican, in secret communiques published Saturday in the British news outlet The Guardian, tried to stiff-arm an Irish fact-finding probe into sexual exploitation and abuse by priests and subsequent bishop cover-up, and instead accuses Ireland of failure to respect the sovereignty of the Holy See.

One of Ireland's most prominent campaigners against the Catholic Church's cover-up of child abuse, Andrew Madden, said one of the leaked documents offered more evidence that the Vatican was concerned only about protecting itself, not about admitting the truth.

'Self-interest ruled the day when their priests were raping children.' -- Andrew Madden, former altar boy raped by a Dublin priest.

"The only issue for the Vatican has been the supposed 'failure' of the Irish government to protect the Vatican from intrusive questions. Self-interest ruled the day when their priests were raping children," said Madden, a former altar boy who was molested by a Dublin priest. In 1995 Madden became the first person in Ireland to go public with a lawsuit against the church, opening the floodgates for hundreds of lawsuits.

Read the full AP story on Earthlink's International News site ...

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"My major priority," New York's Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan said at his election last week as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "would be to continue with all vigor I can muster what's already in place. It's not like we're in a crisis."

Timothy Dolan's job is to put the best face on the reactionary hierarchy's slow motion act of self-destruction. The surest sign of this crisis is the jovial conviction that there is no crisis. -- Catholic author James Carroll

Mincing no words in his response, Catholic journalist and author James Carroll commented on Dolan and his 'no-crisis' crack, beginning with a simple question:

"Hello? The Catholic Church not in a crisis? The moral authority of the Roman Catholic hierarchy is at its lowest ebb since the Inquisition."

Read Carroll's article online US News' Daily Beast...

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The utter moral bankruptcy of the Roman Catholic Church looms more ominously than ever today in the latest unimaginably ignorant statements of the pope on the use of condoms.

Totally ignoring an entire generation of diseased children of infected parents -- a phenomenon for which, in 3rd world countries, the dark-ages mentality of the patriarchal sexual ideology of Catholicism is directly implicated -- the German pope finally admitted that condoms contribute to inhibiting the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

But he did so in a peculiarly homophobic remark suggesting that male prostitutes might act more responsibly by using condoms.

This comes from a man, it might be recalled, whose personal, attending entourage was recently alleged to have been soliciting male prostitutes. (See story from Mar 5 ...)

Just how outrageous must this destructive, dictatorial regime become before intelligent catholics stop pumping it up with power by ignoring it, or even worse, by continuing to support it?

Read the unconscionable pontifications for yourself ...


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SNAP in DFW is a place of emotional and moral support for survivors of clergy sexual and power abuse, and for their supporters. We come together (if we may borrow a line from the 12 step recovery programs) to share our experience (often horrendous and debilitating), strength (at first, minimal to none), and hope (again, at first, non-existent, but as time goes by and help comes, improving).

However, in spite of the enormous global need now coming to light for non-church support systems for survivors of clergy sexual and power exploitation and abuse, there are, as our British friends might say, "bloody few!"

That's why we're recommending today that you visit the "Road to Recovery" website.

Road to Recovery says of itself that it is the only non-profit organization in the United States that offers compassionate counseling and referral services to survivors of clergy sexual abuse."

Road to Recovery is a non-profit, charitable organization founded in 2005 to provide "emotional, psychological, financial, and spiritual assistance to survivors as they attempt to recover from the effects of having been sexually abused by members of the clergy."

The very ironic twist to this group is the fact that it was actually founded by two priests, one, himself, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse -- two men who, single-handedly, are attempting to do what the Roman Catholic Church pays out enormous legal fees to avoid doing: helping survivors of priest rape and abuse.

Check out their site, and their group. We hope it can be of help to you.

Go to the Road to Recovery website ...


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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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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

• SNAP Member Kevin Kratsch
• Former SNAP Member Jaime Romo

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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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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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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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