UNITED STATES
International Business Times
BY SHREESHA GHOSH @SHREESHA_94 ON 09/25/17
Barbara Blaine, who founded the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and was also the former president of the organization, died Sunday in Utah at the age of 61, the support group confirmed.
Last Monday, Blaine suffered a spontaneous coronary artery dissection, her family said in a statement to Reuters. The rare condition involves a tear in one or more blood vessels in the heart of the patient.
The managing director of SNAP, Barbara Dorris, issued a statement Sunday regarding Blaine’s contribution and pioneer work for the survivors of clergy sexual abuse. “Few people have done more to protect kids and help victims than Barbara Blaine. Her 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. She started-and for almost 30 years-worked extremely hard to help build the world’s most successful organization of child sex abuse victims. Her contributions to a safer society would be hard to overstate,” Dorris wrote on SNAP’s official page.
People on social media expressed their condolences for the woman who helped numerous survivors of abuse.
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