When the Jurist Loses Prudence, Goliath Hammers David

By Vinnie Nauheimer
Minnesota SNAP
March 19, 2012

http://mnsnap.wordpress.com/vinnie/

It is obvious to the most casual observer that jurist prudence was snapped by the decision to allow lawyers for the Catholic Church carte blanche to pilfer, pour over and ponder twenty three years of personal files in the hands of the survivor's group known as SNAP. One has to ask just how blind justice is when an organization steeped the sexual abuse of children, the Roman Catholic Church, is allowed to compel the leading advocate group for survivors of clergy abuse to turn over confidential records unrelated to the case in question.

The Roman Catholic Church is an internationally recognized promoter of child abuse having multiple documented allegations of sexual abuse in over thirty countries around the world including its home base, Italy and its home city, Rome. The Roman Catholic Church was been found guilty of acts of genocide against Native American Children in Canada by an International Tribunal in 1998.1 In Ireland, they enslaved and abused children for years in workhouses.2 The European commission has accused the Vatican of money laundering.3 The NY Times recently reported that priests and nuns in Spain and Argentina were guilty of trafficking in babies and selling them for profit.4 That report generated a similar complaint out of Australia.5 Every grand jury convened in the United States to investigate clergy abuse and their equivalent in Ireland roundly criticized the church for their always abominable and in some cases, criminal behavior. In Germany, the largest Catholic publishing company, Weltbild, with 1.7 billion Euros in sales has been publishing pornographic novels for years. The biggest source of revenue is from what the owners of the publishing house, the bishops, call Erotic novels; others have called titles such as Sluts Boarding School and Lawyer's Whore, porn.6

Based on the truths above, giving the lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church unfettered access to Snap files is the moral equivalent of giving the Mafia unlimited access to FBI files. It is simply unconscionable! Did the church take advantage of the hole created by an imprudent jurist? You bet they did. They opened a six-lane highway and lined it with dumpsters prepared to take away everything they could get away with. The proof is in the transcripts from Mr. Clohessy's deposition. The church went back twenty-three years though the incident in question only happened recently. In six hours of deposition given by Mr. Clohessy, most of the questions had nothing to do with the case of Rev. Michael Tierney who is accused by four people of sexual abuse. The NY Times tells us, "most of the questions were not about the case but about the network — its budget, board of directors, staff members, donors and operating procedures." Surely the jurist could have limited the scope of the deposition as has been done so many times to so many victims trying to depose church leaders.

This is an unparalleled attack on Snap and as Bill Donohue, the church's mouthpiece, tells us; it was a centrally planned attack supported by the fact they recently filed a similar fishing expedition suit in St. Louis. Hopefully the jurist deciding this case will see through the charade and act with more prudence by refusing to allow Kansas City to set precedence.

The target of the Holy Roman Empire is David Clohessy and the organization known as SNAP. Total income for SNAP in 2010 was $352,903; probably less that than the value of almost any church property in any US city. Some twenty years ago when the clergy abuse scandal could no longer be contained due the enormity of the abuse, several groups formed to aid survivors in their quest for justice. The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church was not then or now interested in justice. They adamantly oppose anyone who would dare bring scandal upon the church by complaining that their child had been victimized in a criminal act by a priest or bishop. Having no other recourse, victims sought the arbiter of last resort, the courts. The church steeped in their hypocrisy, conceit and self adoration deemed themselves above the law and used every legal and underhanded trick in their voluminous playbook to thwart survivors and their families who had the audacity to complain. Thus the survivor groups of the day sprung into existence. Snap went on to be largest survivor group and became the defacto spokesmen for survivors of clergy abuse. In that position, many survivors of clergy abuse have turned to the SNAP for help. Help in dealing with their abuse, help for finding resources to deal with the inherent problems of sexual abuse and of course, help in seeking justice for the crimes committed upon their bodies and souls. It is the latter that has enraged the hierarchy for it has cost them in terms of credibility and more dear to them than their integrity, their money.

And now we are the crux of the matter, money: the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church worships at the altar of dead presidents. The clergy abuse scandal has cost them dearly and they are targeting the organization which the largest number of survivors seeking help turn to when they wish to go public. The church holds SNAP responsible for their losses. How sad that after ten years in the spotlight, hundreds of millions of dollars spent fighting the truth, and countless survivors trampled, some so badly they committed suicide, that the hierarchy has still refused to look in the mirror. They are the source of their own problems and have yet to come to grips with it. However, the laity is beginning to recognize the source of the church's problems, which is causing the bishops more angst and money. Thus in the fashion of a cornered animal, they are lashing out.

Regardless of the outcome in either Kansas City or St. Louis, survivors will continue to come forward and expose sexually abusing priests. If David Clohessy and SNAP are martyred, another will take their place and another after that. Like the early apostles of the church, the word will spread regardless of how heavy handed the tactics of the Roman Empire become. The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is corrupt and suffers from the same moral decay as the original Roman Empire. Lions and tigers and gladiators couldn't stop the word from spreading two thousand years ago and it is not going to prevent the truth from seeing the light of day now.

Let those that have ears hear and those that have voices speak out against this travesty.