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Thursday, May 24, 2018

Abused By SNAP

It should come as no surprise that SNAP who pretends to help victims of sexual abuse are abusers themselves especially when it comes to priests (such as Father Jiang) who were falsely accused.  SNAP is also anti-Catholic.  It is important to note that the Junglewatch Nation supported this anti-Catholic organization as they went on their witch hunt against Archbishop Apuron, labeling him already guilty without due process of a trial. 

The following article was written by Father Gordon MacRae (the bold red are mine).  Notice what I placed in red.     
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Image result for Father Gordon MacraeIf there exists a Catholic priest still in denial about the agenda of SNAP, it’s because he has lived with his head in the sand blind to the threat lying in wait for him.
In 2009, at the same time I began writing for These Stone Walls, Catholic League President Bill Donohue invited me to write a feature article for the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst. My article, “Due Process for Accused Priests,” began by describing an important phenomenon.
In 2002, just as the national story of Catholic priests and sexual abuse emerged out of Boston to sweep the country, psychologist Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on a phenomenon called “availability bias.” It revealed the power of the media to not just report the news, but to reshape it to fit media bias, to cultivate it, to take a story’s small microphone and turn it into a megaphone.
Activist organizations have trained people to harness this force to sway what others adopt as a bias. It is not new, just newly analyzed. One of the most potent deployments of “availability bias” is one I have quoted before in these pages. It comes from Mein Kampf, the 1926 book by Adolf Hitler that gave rise to the Nazi party in Germany:
“The great mass of people will more easily fall prey to a big lie than to a small one.”
After my 2009 Catalyst article was published, I was subjected to an open assault by David Clohessy, Executive Director of the activist organization, SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Matt Abbott at Renew America forwarded my article to Mr. Clohessy and invited a response posted at Renew America entitled, “Imprisoned Priest, Sex Abuse Victim Clash.”
David Clohessy was obviously perturbed by what I exposed about the law suit settlement process and how it is advanced and cultivated by “self-serving contingency lawyers and various agenda driven groups using scandal for their own ends.” Mr. Clohessy had long derided Church officials for entering into secrecy agreements to keep settlement amounts from public view.
On January 17, 2017, former SNAP employee Gretchen Rachel Hammond filed a lawsuit against SNAP in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. Ms. Hammond had been SNAP’s Director of Development before leaving the organization and filing her lawsuit. The named parties in the suit included David Clohessy, SNAP’s Executive Director, and Barbara Blaine, SNAP’s founder and president, and a member of SNAP’s board of directors.
Ms. Hammond’s lawsuit alleged that she was a victim of retaliatory discharge for questioning the allegedly corrupt practices of this organization. These included claims that SNAP and its leaders received substantial kickbacks in the form of “donations” from attorneys to whom SNAP officials referred clients or potential clients.
The lawsuit exposed that lawyers in California, Chicago, Seattle, and Delaware made major “donations,” some of them in six-figure amounts, and that SNAP leaders “concocted a scheme to have other attorneys make donations to a front foundation” to mask “attorneys’ kickbacks” to the organization.
The lawsuit also alleged a pattern of collusion between SNAP officials and plaintiff lawyers to maximize publicity for the purpose of fueling bigger payouts. It accused SNAP officials of callous disregard for the real interests of real sexual abuse survivors. Among the lawsuit’s other allegations were these:
  • SNAP engaged in a commercial enterprise motivated by its directors’ and officers’ personal and ideological animus against the Catholic Church.
  • SNAP conducted business premised on farming out abuse survivors as clients for specific attorneys who file lawsuits and collect settlements from the Catholic Church.
  • Attorneys routinely gave SNAP confidential plaintiff claims and other privileged information in order for SNAP to maximize payouts with sensational press releases.
  • SNAP claimed that it existed to provide support for survivors of clergy sexual abuse, however at all relevant times, SNAP did not have a single grief counselor or rape counselor on its payroll. SNAP would ignore survivors who reached out to SNAP for legitimate counseling.
  • Ms. Hammond alleged that she was told by SNAP official Barbara Dorris to ignore calls from survivors who were seeking only counseling.
  • Despite accepting funds for counseling and aiding survivors of sexual abuse, SNAP squandered those funds to advance its own interests and those of its leadership.
  • SNAP set out to deliberately jeopardize the ability of accused priests to receive due process and fair trials.
  • In 2011, SNAP oversaw fundraising for a charge brought against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Court at The Hague; however SNAP used the funds to pay for lavish hotels and other extravagant travel expenses for its leadership.
THE FALLOUT
When the lawsuit became public, David Clohessy resigned as Executive Director, and SNAP founder and president, Barbara Blaine also resigned. They have since settled the lawsuit by a secrecy clause just like the ones for which Mr. Clohessy had railed against Catholic bishops over the last two decades.
After the settlement, others among SNAP’s more notorious leaders also resigned as reported by David F. Pierre, Jr. at The Media Report in “SNAP R.I.P.” Barbara Dorris, who replaced David Clohessy as Executive Director, and Regional Director Joelle Casteix both resigned. Among the revelations uncovered by David Pierre was that SNAP published the email addresses and personal phone numbers of accused, priests to generate harassment.
Ms. Hammond’s lawsuit was only one of several brought against SNAP, but it was the one that appeared to finally expose what had long been suspected of SNAP and its leaders. Simultaneously in 2017, Father Joseph Jiang, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, filed a defamation lawsuit against SNAP.
Charges brought against Father Jiang were heavily promoted by SNAP leaders who, as they do whenever a priest is accused, issued a public call for anyone else who wants to accuse the priest. When Father Jiang passed a polygraph test [I did, too, by the way, twice] the charges were dismissed in 2015.
In 2016 a federal judge ruled that SNAP made false statements against Father Jiang “negligently and with reckless disregard for the truth.” SNAP and the parents of the minor who had falsely accused him settled the lawsuit.
As part of its settlement, SNAP issued a public apology, but the ever complicit news media failed to mention that SNAP was forced to do so in the wake of a false claim and lawsuit SNAP’s apology, written by its legal counsel, included this statement:
“The SNAP defendants never want to see anyone falsely accused of a crime Admittedly, false reports of clergy sexual abuse do occur. SNAP apologizes for false or inaccurate statements… its representatives made which in any way disparaged Father Joseph Jiang.”
In reporting this story, some Catholic media outlets continued to refer to SNAP as “a victims’ support group” or “a victim advocacy group.” It’s a bad habit that blindly gives legitimacy of purpose to SNAP which it does not have, and has never had.
POPE BENEDICT’S “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY”
The most important and visible source exposing SNAP’s corruption and reckless disregard for truth is a document by Catholic League President Bill Donohue entitled, “SNAP Implodes.” It provides a comprehensive and compelling account of the path of destruction SNAP and its leaders have left in the Church and priesthood under the false guise of advocating for real victims.
Among the most manipulative of David Clohessy’s “advocacy” was an instruction to accusers to attend SNAP press conferences. To play on the emotions of reporters, Clohessy urged those awaiting settlements to “display holy childhood photos” before the news cameras, and… if you don’t have compelling holy childhood photos we can provide you with photos of other kids that can be held up for the cameras.”
If that doesn’t infuriate Catholics who have any regard left for truth, then what would? SNAP had a much worse perversion of justice that was first hyped, and then covered up, by the news media. It was the most destructive publicity stunt SNAP and its leaders have devised or condoned to date.
Both Bill Donohue and the Hammond lawsuit cited this one (see the final bullet point in Ms. Hammond’s lawsuit above). What they do not reveal is that SNAP used the false case against me to help bring it about.
I first wrote of this story in October 2011 in “SNAP’S Last Gasp! The Pope’s Crimes Against Humanity.” That was before I even knew that I was a part of this story. In 2011, SNAP and the Center for Constitutional Rights – located at 666 Broadway in Manhattan – jointly filed a “crimes against humanity” charge against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court.
The ICC is an independent judicial institution with the power to hold trials and impose sentences for the most serious crimes of international concern: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The ICC was approved by international treaty in 1998 and officially came into being on July 1, 2002, after 60 countries ratified the treaty.
The court is headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands. Of interest, in May of 2002, President George Bush declined to sign the treaty and refused to allow the ICC to have jurisdiction over United States cases. So SNAP’s target was not U.S. Catholic priests and bishops, but the Pope himself.
SNAP duped the left-leaning Center for Constitutional Rights to compose and file the briefs with information provided by SNAP in collaboration with plaintiff lawyers hoping for a precedent to tap Vatican assets in their never-ending quest for big bucks. I first learned of my involvement in this story from an article by journalist JoAnn Wypijewski, in “Spotlight Oscar Hangover: Why ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film.” Here is an excerpt:
“The Center for Constitutional Rights [CCR] . . . joined with SNAP to file a grotesque brief to the International Criminal Court demanding ‘investigation and prosecution’ of the Vatican for crimes against humanity… To CCR’s shame, Father [Gordon] MacRae is specifically mentioned in that brief with respect to allegations… which prosecutors threw in at sentencing but for which there is no evidence according to the lead detective in the case [as] cited by [Dorothy] Rabinowitz.”
SNAP, apparently in retaliation for my Catalyst articles calling for independent investigation of dubious claims, fed information to the Center for Constitutional Rights that would fuel a case against the Vatican. They made no attempt to contact me or my defense, nor did they contact Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal who researched and published extensively on the same story, but with a polar opposite conclusion.
And SNAP did this without attempting to contact James Abbott, the former FBI Special Agent who spent three years investigating this case before dismissing it as a fraud. (Agent Abbott’s affidavit is cited at the end of Ryan MacDonald’s recent post, “#MeToo & #HimToo: Jonathan Grover & Father Gordon MacRae” which also lays out the fraud behind this story).
In the end, to its great credit, the International Criminal Court declined to accept jurisdiction or the crimes against humanity charge against Pope Benedict XVI, but that was no surprise. Everyone involved knew that this fiasco would go nowhere, and it was never really SNAP’s goal. It was merely a publicity stunt for David Clohessy and SNAP to heighten pressure for quick and lucrative financial settlements.
The people who terrorized American Catholic priests for the last quarter century are gone now. Their fraud is exposed. Their coffers are empty. Their leaders have fled. In “SNAP Implodes,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue summed up what I had come to know at a very personal level in this moral panic that SNAP promoted and extorted for profit over the last 25 years:
“SNAP officials function as borderline gangsters out to destroy innocent persons. It is motivated by hate and exploits the very people it claims to serve Justice demands that it be shut down by the authorities before it does any more harm.”
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Once again, you would serve the cause of truth and justice if you share this post and ask your contacts to do the same. Eyes may also be opened by these related posts from These Stone Walls:

37 comments:

  1. Dear Diana, pulling articles from a priest in prison makes the impression that NCW is somehow walking in the shoes of "wrongly accused" clergy. Why do you think it is necessary?

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    1. Dear Anonymous at 3:04 pm,

      There are priests who have been wrongly accused, but the Archdiocese is not concern with that. They are only concern with settling out of court.

      The points he brought up about SNAP is an excellent one. You can see that the things SNAP has put into practice is being done in the jungle. And it is no surprise because they supported SNAP. The issues he raised is also correct.

      There is already 170 lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana, but it is not going to stop there. More lawsuits will come out because of the lure of money.

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    2. "There are priests who have been wrongly accused, but the Archdiocese is not concern with that."

      Name just one, Diana, who is wrongly accused. Do not state hearsay, state the facts including the the Vatican trial.

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    3. Dear Anonymous at 5:14 pm,

      Father Joseph Jiang. See the weblink below:

      https://neocatechemunal.blogspot.com/2017/11/snap-apologizes-to-father-jiang.html?m=1

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    4. So the diocese should worry about a priest in St. Luis? Why?

      Don't you have any local example?

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    5. Dear Anonymous at 6:23 pm,

      What happened in St. Louis is already happening in Guam. Father Gordon brought out the fact that the accused priest is labeled guilty without due process of a trial. That happened to Archbishop Apuron and is now happening to Father Adrian. Father Gordon brought out the fact that his bishop did not support him. That has happened to Archbishop Apuron. Archbishop Byrnes judged Archbishop Apuron as guilty of child sexual abuse without even knowing what he was found guilty of. Father Gordon brought out certain facts about SNAP. In Guam, we see the jungle cooperating with SNAP, using the same tactics. Father Gordon was found guilty and a close review of his case found discrepancies in his trial. And he is currently appealing his case. Archbishop Apuron was found guilty of something which the Vatican will not even name, and he is appealing his case. Father Gordon’s post is a warning that there is an anti-Catholic movement to destroy all Catholic priests in the interests of money. Money is the guiding force of the lawsuits. Money and the destruction of the Church was the reason the jungle pushed for the lifting of the statutes of limitations.

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    6. Are you saying then that the 170+ lawsuits are frivolous, the Archbishop should not pay the penalties and the Vatical tribunal was a farce?

      Ummm, what is your evidence?

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    7. Tim Rohr made Guam a St. Louis. Exactly the same situation. Priests are wrongly accused by the Archbishop support who don't say a word in defense. Do you know what is due process, anonymous? I cannot understand why people are so biased, they don't see how many wrong accusations are targeting NCW priests without due process. Is this fair, anonymous?

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    8. Dear Anonymous at 8:11 pm,

      Where were these 170 people in 2011? The Archdiocese called out for all to come forward who have been sexually abused by the clergy. The only difference between 2011 and today was that the Archdiocese did not offer any money in 2011. As for the Vatican, they did not reveal what the Archbishop was guilty of. They were silent on that part. Nevertheless, canon experts revealed that it could NOT be child sexual abuse. Even Rohr is starting to believe that, which is why he continues to put the pictures of the accusers at the top of his blog until Archbishop Apuron is found guilty in the Appeals Trial. It is not over until the Appeals is over.

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    9. Diana, why don't you try to be constructive? How would the problems be solved by you? The 170+ lawsuits are very painful for the bishop. He did not offer money for those victims who come forward with complaint against Catholic clergy. But when they do come out, he is required to act on behalf of the Catholic Church.

      What you recommend is not constructive, cannot be done. Going out to the media denying the validity of 170+ complaints would be suicidal. Just ask Joelle, what would she or her organization do?

      Our bishop is doing the only thing that can be reasonably done by acknowledging the trouble and offering remedy. People view the Vatican verdict as an admission that AB Apuron will have to face major charges at court. The anticipated loss of sexual abuse law suits involving a former Archbishop would be detrimental to the Catholic clergy.

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    10. Dear Anonymous at 2:52 pm,

      The bishop should have remained neutral because there are two sides to every story. It really looked very bad for Archbishop Byrnes when he publicly condemned a brother bishop for child sexual abuse especially when the Vatican never revealed exactly what Archbishop Apuron was found guilty of. And to top it off, expert canon lawyers came forward declaring that the guilty verdict could not have been child sexual abuse due to the lenient penalty.

      As for SNAP, it is anti-Catholic. Now that Tim Rohr has been accused of child sexual abuse, where is SNAP? Why don’t they come out and condemn Rohr the way they condemn Archbishop Apuron without due process? Do they not call themselves the child abuse advocacy group? Or are they the child abuse advocacy group only when the allegations are against Catholic priests and bishops?

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    11. Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)

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    12. "Archbishop Byrnes publicly condemned a brother bishop for child sexual abuse."

      Not for child sexual abuse! Sorry, Diana, this is false information. He never condemned AB Apuron for child sexual abuse. Could you, please, provide reference for what you say?

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    13. Diana, until the archbishop and his aids who could defend him stay away from Guam, it will be very hard to save their reputation. The damage has been done. You should see this objectively.

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    14. Dear Anonymous at 4:24 pm,

      News report quoted Archbishop Byrnes in his press release dated March 19, 2018:

      "We hang our heads in shame for the grave evil one member inflicted upon others, in this case the most vulnerable," he said in remarks, which were later released in a written statement.

      "Our prayers for the victims of child abuse by Bishop Apuron and all victims of abuse here and worldwide continue; so shall our efforts to bring healing and restoration to all victims of clergy sexual abuse and to ensure this never happens again," he said.

      https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/after-vatican-verdict-guam-archbishop-apologizes-predecessors-harm

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    15. As you can see from his press release, Archbishop Byrnes condemned a brother bishop for child sexual abuse when the Vatican never revealed what Archbishop Apuron was guilty of. Archbishop Byrnes simply took it upon himself to make assumptions. It would have been better if he had simply stuck to the facts.

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    16. That was said about Bruillard and not Apuron. Our bishop gave press release after the Vatican verdict that was the due process. Prayers were called for the possible victims of every clergy, including Apuron. According to English grammar, it was not a charge or condemnation.

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    17. The Vatican tribunal made a verdict after giving due process and consideration. We have information that charges included sexual abuse against minors. We don;t have information about any other charges. Can your canon lawyers tell what other charges were tried at the tribunal?

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    18. Dear Anonymous at 5:14 pm,

      Apuron’s name was on the press release, not Brouillard; therefore, it was about him. And he was condemned for child sexual abuse.

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    19. Dear Anonymous at 5:17 pm,

      Some of the canon lawyers stated that he may have been been found guilty of revealing something that should not be revealed such as a confession. It may even have to do with the promise he made regarding the 2 million dollars he obtained to purchase RMS. Whatever it is, the Vatican remains silent.

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    20. Diana, are you saying there could have been something wrong with the way Archbishop Apuron handled the 2 million dollars donation?

      Just asking.

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    21. Dear anonymous 5:17, Diana explained it what we know and what we don't know. We don't know what charges AB Apuron was convicted for. But we do know that not for sexual abuse of minors. I repeat, NOT for abuse. Is this clear? We have firm information at the canon law level that the verdict was not for sexual abuse. Please, leave your dirty fantasiy at home because you don't know either. So what are you really talking about?!

      Guam is a nice place, we don't have those troubles Chileans have right now that is completely different story. Thanks God we don't have the undeniable cases you see in Chile. We only have some by one undeniable person who is against Louis Bruillard a 96 years old isolated hermit in Minnesota.

      We have many questionable charges against honest clergy on Guam that have not received the due process. CCG leaders and Rohr, Sablan, SNAP incited village people to get rich on the expense of Catholics. They made up testimonies for money. Do you see already? Truly, I cannot understand Co. Archb. Byrnes Jude that he does not want to see many made-up allegations. These allegations are not a bit undeniable. On the contrary he should deny all these allegations and refuse the charges perhaps except against Bruillard who is an awfully big freak, anyway!

      We ask the Co. Arch. not to make a bad name for our priests by accusing them without due process, especially not against his own bishop brother whom he wrongly placed on the hot seat. We ask him to thoroughly negotiate and deny all allegations against our priests. Only people like you believe all the bad stuff Rohr and Co. invented. Shame on you, anonymous.

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    22. Lookie, another pelagian heresy, 5:17. I don't know, some people cannot read the only true teaching of the Catholic church that palegianism is heresy. So please, do not propagate false teaching at this blog. I know you are pelagian because you think people can be corrected without Jesus. They cannot be. That is exactly the heresy. We had the seminary on Guam to bring Jesus into your life so that we convert you. But be courage! This story is not yet over. One day there' ll be a seminary on Guam. That is what we pray for day and night.

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  2. The information Fr. MacRae presented is worth looking at. SNAP uses the photos of children to emotionally convince people rather than the truth. JW does the same thing if you just look at the top of Rohr's post. SNAP is not concerned about the truth and branded all the accused guilty without a trial. That's also what JW did.

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  3. This article is not correct. I was a volunteer and was never paid by SNAP, nor was I ever involved with the Jiang case. This NCR article is a better explanation of why Barb and I left. https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/barbara-dorris-two-board-members-latest-snap-leaders-leave

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    1. Dear Joelle,

      You may not have gotten paid, because you were a volunteer worker, but others have. It was not just you and Barbara who resigned. David Clohessy, the drector of SNAP also resigned. The timing of all these resignations is suspect.

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  4. Fr. John Wadson was here and wrongly accused.... that is one....
    Excuse me if I spelled his name wrong...
    Accused by CCOG and you anon 05:14 PM

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    1. Dear Anonymous at 9:46 am,

      Thank you. Yes, Fr. John was wrongly accused. And even when his name was cleared, he was still branded "guilty" by the jungle.

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    2. He was listed in California.

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    3. Dear Anonymous at 2:57 pm,

      He was wrongfully accused in Guam without due process.

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    4. Diana, how was Fr. Wadeson accused on Guam? He is not on the list of lawsuits by Atty Lujan. What due process are you talking about? All that was said about him was that he was on a list of credible violators published in California. Is this not true? Please, clarify what you say because your use of "due process" does not seem to be proper or consequential.

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    5. Dear Anonymous at 4:14 pm,

      Father Wadeson was cleared on April 2015. This is what Tim Rohr wrote about Father Wadeson dated October 28, 2016:

      "In the case of Wadeson, which we will review in more detail very soon, after being "cleared" by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles of sex abuse charges dating back to the 70's, Apuron was quick to celebrate his so-called exoneration and just as quick to hide him again. Wadeson remains incardinated in this diocese and thus, on our payroll, but provides no known benefit to the diocese and does not show up "on loan" to any bishop (as with Fr. Jason Granado who is "on loan" to Saipan). If Wadeson, is "innocent" of all the charges, why hide him?"

      http://www.junglewatch.info/2016/10/the-ncw-place-to-hide.html

      Does this sound like Rohr believed in Father Wadeson's exoneration? So, who should you believe......the Diocese of Los Angeles who cleared him or Tim Rohr who believes that Father Wadeson is not exonerated and is in hiding?

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    6. Diana, there were no charges against Wadeson. Otherwise show court documents detailing the charges. These were allegations based on a list of violators from California. A charge is a court document filed at an appropriate jurisdiction. An allegation is a something you read in the news. The two have completely different legal status.

      The fact remains that Fr. Wadeson was on that list until at least April 2015.

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    7. Dear Anonymous at 5:21 pm,

      And the fact remains that even after he was cleared, the jungle still accused him of child sexual abuse and claimed he is in hiding because of it.

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  5. Father Adrian is being wrongfully accused, the SARC has never returned my calls so I can give testimony, yet he’s being sanctioned already.

    God is not sleeping

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    1. The bishop did not make any charges. Chrages came from outside sources. He only requested a return. He cannot defend FR. Adrien without his return to the island. Compliance would be 100% necessary to move forward.

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  6. Dear Joelle,

    If you say you resigned from SNAP, how come your involvement with clegry abuse on this island of Guam, you represent SNAP in the media here teaming with Tim R. on cases here without investigating the clergy side possibly leading to a case like Jiang? Do you just enjoy destroying a catholic church just because? It don't seem like your not a fair person or you just enjoy being in Guam media advocating a cause your not sure about?
    It seems in your last post that you are trying to find a way to clean your slate..just wondering....

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