MISSOURI
Riverfront Times
By Nicholas PhillipsTue., Jan. 10 2012
Recently in both Kansas City and St. Louis, lawyers defending the Catholic Church against clerical sex abuse allegations have have tried to subpoena years worth of emails and records from their long-time adversary, SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests).
SNAP director David Clohessy often impugns the Church for failing to deal transparently with clerical sex abuse. Is it hypocritical for him to balk at releasing his group’s correspondence with victims, journalists and others?
Catholic League president Bill Donahue apparently thinks so, suggesting in the Post-Dispatch last week that:
Clohessy never tires of lecturing the Catholic Church on the need for transparency, yet when he is in the hot seat, he rebels.
Daily RFT asked Clohessy by e-mail for his reaction.
He roundly rejects any moral equivalence. Here’s what he wrote to us:
Transparency about criminals helps protect the vulnerable. Transparency about victims hurts the already-hurting.
When victims’ privacy is respected, more victims are able to speak up, protect others, expose predators and start healing. When victims’ privacy is violated, more victims stay silent, more predators walk free and more innocent people are assaulted.
Who benefits when the private e mails of a struggling teenager, who was sexually assaulted for years by her priest, are given to Archbishop Carlson and his lawyers? That’s not “transparency.” That’s a travesty. That’s brutality. That’s betrayal.
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