At local news conferences and vigils, they hold to their chests photos of youngsters, usually themselves.
Kids — in Kodachrome color or black and white — smiling in their Sunday best.
In most cases, the pictures were snapped decades ago, when the fresh-faced subjects were being molested, they’d later allege, by Kansas City’s Catholic clergy.
Today they are citizen soldiers in a group called SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
In recent months they’ve been converging on public places across the metro almost on a weekly basis.
Media-savvy and quick to mobilize, they showed up outside the Jackson County Courthouse in April to demand that authorities launch a grand jury investigation into what SNAP called cleric sex crimes and cover-ups in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.
Clay County soon filed child-pornography charges against the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, although officials dismiss SNAP’s influence. Now, a grand jury in Jackson County appears to be focused on how diocesan leaders have handled such cases.
The Roman Catholic Church initiated reforms years ago to keep sex crimes and hush-hush from recurring. But developments here are raising the specter that abuses have continued, which the Chicago-based SNAP fears may be happening everywhere.
Few would dispute that horrors have been exposed and justice delivered during SNAP’s 23 years — the first decade mostly spent as lonely voices with few authorities, or believers, in their corner.
But the support and advocacy group has its detractors, particularly when its members leaflet a neighborhood to warn of a long-ago perpetrator living there — as some did earlier this year in Overland Park.
The organization this month drew global headlines, and some scorn, when a legal advocacy group, on SNAP’s behalf, asked the International Criminal Court to investigate possible crimes against humanity by top levels of the Vatican for sheltering guilty priests.
A “ludicrous publicity stunt,” said the Vatican’s U.S. lawyer, Jeffrey Luna, in a statement to the press.
SNAP has withstood such ridicule to help transform the public discourse and strategies for exposing sexual victimization in the church.
“The church has gotten better because of the various lawsuits that SNAP’s been involved in,” said Terry McKiernan, an independent Catholic watchdog whose website, BishopAccountability.org, tracks complaints against priests.
“To create,” he continued, “this nationwide, now worldwide, family that gets people to talk about what they would never think of talking about before? That’s incredible.”
Jim Caccamo is chairman of the Kansas City diocese’s independent review board, which the church instituted after scandal exploded in Boston in 2002. He said: “I wish there was no SNAP.…If sexual abuse allegations had been handled properly, there would be no SNAP. But it’s a group filling a valued niche to make sure these cases are handled in a normal, appropriate way. Somebody had to stand up and do that.”
Threadbare group
David Clohessy grew up Catholic in central Missouri.
Twenty years ago this month, the one-time ACORN activist filed his own lawsuit alleging a priest abused him starting at about age 11.
“He very carefully groomed me,” said Clohessy, SNAP’s national director, from his St. Louis area home last week. “He’d take me canoeing. The first time I saw the ocean, saw the mountains, was with this guy … back when parents considered it a huge honor to go on vacations with the priest.”
Clohessy joined SNAP in its infancy — then a threadbare nonprofit founded by social worker Barbara Blaine, who reported her own abuse in 1985 and still serves as the group’s president.
Clohessy’s willingness to go public ultimately led to TV interviews with Oprah Winfrey and “60 Minutes.”
After Boston newspapers exposed scandal in the church, The New York Times sat down with Clohessy and People magazine named him among the “25 Most Intriguing People” of 2003.
For the group’s outreach director, Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, the childhood photo she often holds recalls the girl who attributed her molestation to God punishing her for once wearing brown shoes, not her snappy dress ones, to church.
“When you look at me now, you see an old lady,” said Dorris, 63. “What you really need to see is a 6-year-old,” the age she alleges her abuse began.
Despite the organization’s growth — it claims more than 10,000 members in 61 U.S. chapters, plus organizers in Europe and Australia — SNAP hardly qualifies as cash-rich.
It reported to the IRS income from donations and grants totaling about $400,000 in 2009, resulting in a reported shortfall of $78,291.
Clohessy and Blaine each earned a reported $85,460 that year for their efforts, and Dorris earned $52,000, completing the bulk of the payroll.
“What we do and what people think we do is radically, radically different,” said Clohessy. “We spend 90 percent of our time out of the public spotlight — not talking at all, but listening.”
Listening to survivors.
They include Mike Hunter, a SNAP volunteer who leads the Kansas City chapter.
Like many members, Hunter struggled through school, became alcoholic and for decades kept secret the time his priest thrust a hand down his pants. That was the extent of Hunter’s abuse, he said, but the toll was worse for younger brother Kevin.
Sexually assaulted for years, Kevin would spiral into drug addiction, contract AIDS and die at age 29, said Hunter.
Also like many members, Mike Hunter has left the Catholic faith.
“I figure, if you’re for the church and the way it conducts itself, then you’re for child abuse,” he said.
He keeps a black spiral notebook stuffed with scribbled notes and the phone numbers of hundreds of alleged victims who have cold-called him since the 1990s.
Hunter in 2008 was among 47 plaintiffs who, with attorney Rebecca Randles, divvied up a $10 million settlement with the Kansas City diocese.
The bundled lawsuit accused a dozen priests of abusing the plaintiffs as children, mostly between the 1950s and early 1980s.
Working closely with SNAP, Randles credited Hunter for rushing to the emotional aid of other plaintiffs when their resolve would weaken or a personal crisis — job loss, marital trouble, substance abuse — would strike.
“That’s SNAP’s greatest asset,” she said. “Eighty-five to 90 percent of these victims face those moments when they desperately need to reach out. And SNAP is there. I truly think some wouldn’t be alive otherwise.”
Clohessy jokingly acknowledges the challenges of leading a diverse set of members — religious, anti-religion, gay, anti-gay — all sharing a damaged childhood:
“The only thing harder than herding cats is herding cats that were tremendously wounded as little cats … They tend to be horribly mistrustful of authority.”
Critics snap back
Many church leaders and other critics of SNAP argue that its militancy — calling press conferences, for example, to name retired priests accused in lawsuits filed by John Doe plaintiffs — undercuts its caring side.
Some point to the group’s petition to the world court.
Anger over abuses by some in the clergy is understandable, “but this group has gone off the deep end,” said William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a pro-priest group. “Their goal is to get the pope! Case closed.”
Clohessy earlier this month told Time magazine: “We don’t think the pope will be hauled off in handcuffs next week or next month. By the same token, our long-term chances are excellent.”
The Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese declined to comment for this story.
While SNAP has insisted on transparency and accountability within the church, critics note that the group, which has accepted donations from law firms, hasn’t specified in IRS filings who contributes to its income.
Dorris said most comes from members who wish to donate, and that listing the names of sexual-abuse victims is out of the question.
The IRS does not require a breakdown of all donors.
Law firms commonly contribute to nonprofit advocacy groups that direct clients their way, though the ethics are fuzzy.
“We’ve never engaged in any quid pro quo,” said Kansas City lawyer Randles, who said she donated $400 to SNAP last year.
“They deserve more than I’ve given them,” she added. “I provide much more in contributions to Southwest Baptist University than to SNAP.”
Even a local victim of cleric abuse questions SNAP’s intent.
Craig Wilkerson, one of the plaintiffs in Randles’ 2008 settlement with the diocese, remains a devout Catholic in Lee’s Summit. He said his faith teaches “we all need forgiveness. If we can’t forgive these perpetrators, then how do we get forgiveness in the end?”
Some of the hostilities toward SNAP reflect the sharp wedge between liberals and conservatives across Catholicism and the nation, said David Biersmith, a local director of Voice of the Faithful, a support group for sex-abuse victims still committed to their faith.
“I’m the most Catholic person you’ll ever meet,” said Biersmith, who learned that two of his sons were abused by clergy long ago.
Whereas Biersmith’s group advocates for reforms within the church, SNAP has focused its attention on the courts and law enforcement.
“We share a lot of the same concerns,” he said. “By working with lawyers, SNAP is getting things done, and I’m totally right with that.”
The main goal for both, he said, is to keep children safe.
Getting the shakes
Until Ratigan’s arrest in May, abuse cases within the local diocese reached back to crimes allegedly committed more than 20 years ago.
Though several priests and ex-priests were implicated and civil suits settled, none had been criminally prosecuted.
Charges against Ratigan relate to allegations of lewd photographs on his computer — of present-day juveniles — brought to the attention of diocese officials months earlier.
Perhaps as a result of that and the grand jury’s investigation into the diocese, whatever detractors SNAP had within the community failed to show at a recent town hall meeting in the Northland.
A packed house of angry Catholics and concerned parents joined SNAP members to share information and discuss strategies.
For SNAP volunteer Kay Goodnow, 75, of Lenexa, “the whole goal is to let these parents know there is danger” so no child gets hurt again.
But rallying to the cause can still trigger flashbacks to when she was 14 and a priest more than twice her age told her to never, never, never tell.
“Every time I get a phone call about another press conference — just knowing I’m violating that secret — for a minute I get the shakes,” Goodnow said.
Other survivors say they get queasy from the smell of incense, or tremble at the sight of stained glass.
“We call it triggering,” said Janet Patterson of Conway Springs, Kan.
In 1999, her adult son Eric relayed to his parents the cause of his debilitating depression since age 12, when he was an altar boy. Eric, sexually abused by the family priest, committed suicide at 29.
The priest later pleaded guilty to sex crimes but denied molesting Eric Patterson.
His mother has since relied on one of SNAP’s most effective tools, the Internet, to track the movements of accused priests and to shoot e-mails to inquiring Catholics.
She has used her computer and incoming messages to tally the names of more than 150 abuse victims who have killed themselves.
Still, she isn’t as active in SNAP as she used to be.
“After 11 years I’m starting to realize I need to get on with my life,” she said. “Telling the story is pivotal to getting better … but you don’t want to sit and stew in it.”
SNAP by the numbers
10,000 members
35 countries with chapters
30 media events and advisories every month
$420,000 in total revenues in 2009
$498,000 in expenses in 2009
SNAP timeline
1988 Barbara Blaine, a victim of priest sexual abuse, founds the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, holding support meetings in a homeless shelter that she runs in south Chicago. Blaine later earns a law degree and becomes a children’s advocate.1991 David Clohessy, also a priest sexual abuse victim, becomes SNAP’s national director. Clohessy, of St. Louis, begins to raise the profile of SNAP in Kansas City and nationally, later appearing on the Oprah Winfrey and “60 Minutes” TV shows.
2002 At the height of the priest sexual abuse scandal, four victims — including Clohessy — address the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops at a conference in Dallas. At the historic meeting, the bishops adopt a charter calling for better reporting of allegations.
2008 The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph reaches a $10 million settlement with more than 40 victims of priest sexual abuse. SNAP assists in the lawsuit. The settlement requires the diocese to take new steps to prevent further molestation by priests.
April 2011 At a news conference, SNAP urges the Jackson County prosecutor to launch a grand jury investigation into what it calls priest sex crimes and cover-ups in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. A county grand jury later takes up the issue.
September 2011 SNAP and the Center for Constitutional Rights file a request asking the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and three other Vatican officials for crimes against humanity, based on allegations of priest sexual abuse and cover-up.
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