At Last: After SNAP Attacks Pope Francis’ Outreach to Abuse Victims, National Catholic Reporter Publishes Piece Criticizing SNAP

Joelle Casteix : Pope Francis : David Clohessy

Double-barreled attack on Pope Francis: SNAP's Joelle Casteix (l) and David Clohessy (r)

Recognizing perhaps that whether they like it or not, the sex abuse story line is getting so long in the tooth that they will soon be out of business, the bigots at the anti-Catholic group SNAP have now become more and more unglued in their public statements, if that were even possible.

When Pope Francis recently announced that he would be personally meeting with abuse victims in the near future (something Pope Benedict repeatedly did, by the way), SNAP's National Director David Clohessy – who was recently feted by the radical, pro-abortion group Feminist Majority at a high-priced Hollywood gala in Los Angeles – derided the Pope's gesture as simply "another savvy public relations move" and claimed the meeting would be "just utterly, utterly meaningless."

Then Joelle Casteix, SNAP's "western regional director," actually went as far as to claim that Pope Francis' gesture was actually "intended to promote complacency," without, of course, providing any evidence for her claim.

(These statements from Clohessy and Casteix came on the heels of another recent wild media statement from SNAP which claimed that the Church's groundbreaking and unprecedented abuse prevention programs were somehow intended "to trick parishioners." "Trick parishioners"??)

Church cranks finally jump ship on SNAP

Mary Gail Frawley O'Dea

Persistent Church critic
Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea

However, SNAP's statements about Pope Francis' outreach to victims were so far off the rails that even those at the left-wing National Catholic Reporter – who rarely miss an opportunity to bludgeon faithful Catholic clerics – could not agree with it.

In an opinion piece in the Reporter by the psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea (best known for her appearance in the discredited 2006 documentary Deliver Us From Evil), wrote that SNAP's stance towards Pope Francis' gesture was "arrogant and guilt-inducing."

"Neither David [Clohessy] nor anyone else can predict ahead of time with such certainty what the outcome of this meeting will be for anyone involved in it or for the wider church and [it's] hubris to say otherwise," Frawley-O'Dea continued.

Could it be possible that more people are finally realizing that SNAP will always savagely attack the Church no matter what it does with regards to child safety or any other issue for that matter? We are reminded of a terrific quote from C.J. Doyle at the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts a few years ago:

"If the Catholic Church were to put out a press release today saying that they were going out of business, SNAP would say, 'Why didn't they do this sooner?' No matter what the Church does, it will never satisfy SNAP."

Amen.

Comments

  1. Publion says:

    In regard to the comment of the 18th at 1134AM: the characterization of “yea abuse of children” is certainly not justified by anything that reporter said in the link I gave. Once again we have a fabricated characterization utterly unsupported by anything. Or else JR didn’t even read the linked-to material I put up. Or both.

    Then we informed that it is not possible that there are so many media stories about “catholic abuse”. Who are we going to believe: JR’s assertion or the search engine results? (And the figures I got are probably on the low side, given the parameters I noted that I entered into the search engine.)

    Thus the rest of it in that paragraph fails, either because of the search-engine results (and I explained clearly how I got them) or the fact that JR confuses a) media stories about Catholic abuse with b) individual abuse-claim stories.

    On then to the 18th at 1144AM: Apparently JR hadn’t actually read – or at least comprehended – the explication I gave on the 18th at 844AM. To repeat: That would be the number of allegants (maybe 12 or 13 thousand) plus the number of references to Catholic abuse in excess of such media references to any other denomination’s or organization’s abuse (I got 2.35 million in a search engine for ‘catholic sex abuse stories’ and 20 million for ‘catholic sex abuse’; other readers may get many more depending on the parameters they enter).

    And the rest of it in that paragraph fails, either because of the search-engine results (and I explained clearly how I got them) or the fact that JR confuses a) media stories about Catholic abuse with b) individual abuse-claim stories.

    Then on the 19th at 949AM – and again from the bottom of the mental shoebox of 3x5s – the attempt to equate suing for an abuse-story with suing because one has been hit by a truck.

    But if an individual (in a car or on foot) is hit by a truck, there will be a) clear and unmistakable injuries b) demonstrably caused by the truck having hit the individual. Which is precisely not the case in the allegations and claims and stories of the Stampede.

  2. Jim Robertson says:

    Here's a study from the AMA regarding the out come of sex abuse.https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#inbox/146c5d2fc14602ef