SNAP Leaders Honored
Two weeks ago, New Jersey's attorney general honored our state director Mark Crawford for his tireless work and ceaseless compassion for sex abuse victims. Crawford received the Ronald W. Reagan Award, which is the first of its kind given by the attorney general’s office.
Earlier this month, the Harvard Divinity School honored our Midwest director Peter Isley for his never-ending work for clergy sex abuse victims. Isley received the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Honors, which was established last year to honor alumni whose “excellence in life, work and service pays homage to the mission and values of Harvard Divinity School.”
Next month our western regional director Joelle Castiex will receive the Susan Laufer Award for Outstanding Contribution to Support Group Awareness from SHARE! Joelle has contributed selflessly and tirelessly to help survivors of sexual abuse find help and healing.
We’re proud of our brave and dedicated leaders, who selflessly volunteer their time and energy to help victims all over the world. Without them we would not be able to do what we do. Countless victims have been helped and future abuses have been prevented because of what they do every day.
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
Personally, I think that many victims have never heard or read the following portions of the New Testament, and I think the fact that they haven’t is precisely part of the catholic church’s continued ability of criminal evasion of responsibility and criminal abetting (both in the past, and present) of such crimes against humanity continuing on in the catholic church.
I believe that all catholics, of every age and sex, should be taught and have complete understanding of these words of Christ as recorded in the Bible: Luke 17:2, Mark 9:42 and Matthew 18: 6.
I say cursed be any catholic priest of any rank, from pope through the entire catholic church “heirarchy” who is not willing to read, understand and teach these specific words of Christ, from now until their own deaths. SHAME ON THEM, from now throughout eternity.
And, I say to all interested and effected decent, ordinary people please read, know and understand these words of Christ, because I believe you will be better protected, knowing and understanding the beliefs of Christ and what he advises us all to understand on this issue.
It’s like Mark Crawford convincing the legislature that there is such a thing as rape, of boys and young men. Quite honestly, there was a time in my own life when I would have scoffed at such a definition, and not have understood, nor believed rape of a male human, was possible.
I believe we also need to convince all catholics, that Christ himself, when asked how to deal with “scandal in the church” (including the raping of children and then trying to convince them that such victimization and heinous acts were their own fault and that they were in fact the “sinners” in these acts), these crimes (scandal in the church) Christ said such crimes were and remain crimes of such magnitude, that these “religious” rapist pedophiles deserve to be put to death, literally; by drowning.
I believe once survivor victims have read or heard or at least learned these words of THE loving Christ were in the Bible then and now, they will know that everything their perpetrators have said and done to them was and is abnormal and wrong, is lies and that they, their perpetrators, truly deserve to be at least punished and locked away, if not in fact put to death.