National- Victims blast Supreme Court porn ruling
For immediate release: Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, [email protected])
In light of today's U.S. Supreme Court child porn ruling, we urge lawmakers to redouble their efforts to deter future child sex crimes and help those who suffer because of these heinous crimes.
Most child sex offenders are never caught, charged or convicted, so hundreds of thousands of boys and girls keep getting severely hurt.
So we challenge those who celebrate today's decision to come up with better ideas. For kids, the status quo stinks. So if you think this award isn't appropriate, what will you do instead to stop this horror and expose the perpetrators?
It's fine to say 'this is unreasonable.' So too, however, is the sexual exploitation of tens or hundreds of thousands of kids. It's not enough, then, for adults to say 'this amount of money is excessive." It's incumbent on critics to come up with a better plan.
To those who back this ruling, how much would someone have to pay you to sexually violate your child? What price should be put in this devastation?
We hope lawmakers will remedy this injustice as quickly as possible.
(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 15,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)
Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Dorris (314-503-0003 cell, [email protected])
Winter Appeal 2023
To our friends,
2023 has been a long year with many ups and downs for us all. As we close out the year, we at SNAP hope that you are feeling like you are on your way to being healthy, fulfilled, and happy. This past year has brought both successes and challenges. Thanks to the support you have shown in the past, we’ve been able to celebrate the good days and weather the stormy ones. Now, we are once again asking for your support as we work to support survivors new and old as we ‘Move SNAP Forward.’
At SNAP we are proud to have hosted a very well-attended conference in August 2023. This event allowed us to gather friends, survivors, advocates, and allies for a weekend of camaraderie and connection. We were so happy to be able to welcome many first-time attendees to gather in person and are already looking forward to the next conference.
To strengthen our movement for justice, healing, and prevention, SNAP will be expanding our peer support and providing more volunteer opportunities in the coming year. Through this great work, we are ensuring survivor voices are represented as we work for significant change that will benefit children and survivors.
Right now, survivors worldwide are getting the help they need from SNAP, and more and more reach out to us daily, but we need your help to keep those programs going and get our volunteers the training they need to thrive.
Your tax-deductible gift to SNAP can help offset the cost of our important mission. If you are not in a position to contribute, you can still support us by sharing this letter with those who can. As we continue to fight for survivors across the globe, your donation or sharing the great work SNAP does will help us continue our work to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded, and prevent abuse.
Your donation ensures SNAP will be there for those who need us more than ever!
Warmly,
Michael W. McDonnell, C.P.S.
Interim Executive Director
Showing 2 comments
I remember reading of her plight, in a book that has been described as a definitive study of pedophelia, recently. In general I believe that pedophiles cause such a horrible mess of children’s lives and long lasting excrutiating pain both physical and emotional for victims who in fact survive being attacked.
I also believe that when the pedophile is an active priest or female religious, that the damage done is even more heinous, because of the seemingly “authorized” and encouraged crimes, and active cover-up and subsequent bullying attacks on victims by the church hierarchy, and sometimes, the victim’s own family who are in denial.
I think it would be useful, to both secular and religious organizations who have law-enforcement capacities, to first finally acknowledge that there is NO known cure for pedophelia; and that thus, the only responsible way of dealing with known, convicted and, finally, admitted pedophiles is to sentence them to life in prison without the possibility of parole and, very importantly, without the possibility of viewing ANY pornography of ANY kind, whether in print or online or on television.