Ethics & Religion
Column #1,883
September 28, 2017
Barbara Blaine & Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
By Mike McManus

Few people change history. Barbara Blaine, who died this week at 61, was such a pioneer on behalf of children who were sexually abused by Catholic priests.

She created the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, in 1988. She had been molested by a priest from age 13-17, and years later as a lawyer, thought there might be 200-300 other victims who had been similarly sexually abused. However, there are now 20,000 SNAP members who suffered from such abuse in America and 5,000 SNAP members abroad.
http://www.snapnetwork.org

What sparked her leadership was a series of articles in The National Catholic Reporter by Jason Berry who was one of the first journalists to write about a serial pedophile priest in Louisiana. It reminded her of Rev. Chet Warren, the priest who ravished her, yet told her that she was an "evil temptress."

Berry's articles helped her realize that the priest's actions had been a crime and that she was not at fault. As an adult she confronted him and his superiors. They agreed to pay for therapy for her, but the priest was allowed to remain in ministry for years.

She conceived of SNAP as a support group for others who had been molested. However she "became an heroic figure who forced church officials to reckon with the long history of concealing sex offenders," Berry asserted in an interview.

"She spearheaded a survivor's movement, unlike anything the Catholic Church has ever seen. Today literally millions of kids are safer, millions of parents no longer think a priest or a person with an illustrious title - means you can't be a predator."

David Clohessy, an abuse survivor who served as SNAP's Director for decades, said that Barbara Blaine "showed that support groups and collective action is the only real way to prevention. Support groups help victims of sexual violence realize that they are not alone - and it's not their fault, and recovery is possible. Collective action helps them to realize that they were once powerless, but now are not."

A group called BishopAccountability.org has collated data from all dioceses and reported that there were 6,721 priests and 27 bishops who have been "credibly" accused of sexually molesting 18,565 minors from 1950-2016 according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

However, the late Father Andrew Greeley estimated that 2,500 priests - less than half the total - might have molested "well in excess of 100,000" children.

After all, there are 20,000 SNAP members, and there are only 18,565 officially identified victims.

Barbara Dorris, the current director of SNAP, said that Barbara Blaine's "relentless advocacy enabled millions to eventually accept a long unbelievable reality - that tens of thousands of priests raped and fondled hundreds of thousands of kids while bishops hid these heinous crimes."

In fact, bishops are still hiding many molesters! Of the 6,721 identified priest molesters, 2,836 accused clerics have not had their names published. "In other words, of the current 6,721 total, at least 42 percent of the names are still being kept secret by bishops," charged BishopAccountability.org.

SNAP's visibility was elevated after the Boston Globe published its 2002 investigative series on clergy sexual abuse and the "culture of silence" in the Catholic Church. It reported that one priest had molested 130 children while the church moved him from parish to parish. That series won a Pulitzer Prize. One result: Boston's Catholic Church paid $85 million to victims of Boston's priests. The Globe's pioneering reporting was documented in the recent movie "Spotlight" that won the 2015 Academy Award as best film.

Barbara Blaine's work is unfinished. She resigned from SNAP earlier this year to start the Accountability Project, an effort to pressure Vatican officials to stop clergy sexual crimes around the world, where there are 1.2 billion Catholics. She had only just begun when she died unexpectedly of a sudden tear in a heart blood vessel.

In fact, SNAP's first meetings were held in a Chicago homeless shelter which Blaine managed. SNAP had no budget or staff, but developed a network of sex abuse victims. Only after the Globe series was she able to raise money for full-time work.

One reason clergy sexual abuse was unknown is that children who have been molested - repress the memory, as Blaine did. When they awaken to what happened to them, they are often unable to sue for damages due to statutes of limitations. Alabama requires that claims be filed within two years of the injury!

However, thanks to SNAP these laws are being changed and 5,679 victims have sued the church and received $3 billion in settlements.
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Copyright (c) 2017 Michael J. McManus, a syndicated columnist and past president of Marriage Savers. For previous columns go to  www.ethicsandreligion.org. Hit Search for any topic.