The Catholic Church will stop at nothing to harass its victims of child sexual abuse and the support groups that assist these victims.
By MICHELE M. BETTI | b&a opinions | https://bettiandassociates.com
As a Catholic, it is disgusting to see how ruthless the Catholic Church is toward victims. The Catholic Church has sanctioned for decades the systematic abuse of children under its clergy. Men mostly hiding behind priestly black garb and white colors are responsible for raping, molesting, sexually assaulting, humiliating, and torturing young children all across the globe.
Unable to win in the bedrock of public opinion, the Church has turned its pincers and poisonous sting on advocacy groups that have long supported victims of pedophile priests.
The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as “SNAP,” has been subpoenaed to turn over all of its documents in two Missouri cases against the Catholic Church. Lawyers for the Church have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.
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 a battery of lawyers questioned David Clohessy, its National Director, for more than six hours this year.
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “‘SNAP’ is a menace to the Catholic Church.”
Mr. Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group: “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”
He said bishops were also rethinking their approach of paying large settlements to groups of victims.
“The church has been too quick to write a check, and I think they’ve realized it would be a lot less expensive in the long run if we fought them one by one,” Mr. Donohue said.
Mr. Donohue epitomizes the Catholic Church’s position on victims of clergy sexual abuse. Do whatever it takes to utterly destroy, obliterate, and defeat any victim and advocacy group that assists these victims. I’m sure Jesus would be really proud of these guys.
Copyright 2012, b&a opinions. Betti & Associates – Law firm representing victims of clergy and sexual abuse
By MICHELE M. BETTI | b&a opinions
