Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

This is surreal. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, Katharine Jefferts Schori, knew about the sexual abuse activities of a homosexual candidate for the Episcopal priesthood, did nothing about it, and indeed allowed him to become a priest. Today, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) held a press conference outside the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph blaming members of the Catholic, as well as Episcopal, clergy.

The accused clergyman, Bede Parry, is a former member of the Benedictines of Conception Abbey in Missouri. In the 1970s, he sexually abused young males. He was later kicked out of the Abbey, and after being denied entrance into a Las Vegas monastery, he became an organist at All Saints Episcopal in Vegas. He then sought to become an Episcopal priest. In 2002, he informed the Episcopal Bishop of Nevada at the time, Katharine Jefferts Schori, of his latest (1987) sexual abuse transgression. Shortly thereafter, Bishop Jefferts Schori was told by an official at Conception Abbey about Parry’s past; she was even given damaging psychological records on him. No matter, in 2004, she welcomed him as an Episcopal priest. In July, 2011 Parry resigned from All Saints Episcopal following a lawsuit against him (he is charged with abuse when he was studying to be a Catholic priest).

It is important to note that at no time was Bede Parry a priest in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Nor is it true that the Diocese is named in the lawsuit. To top things off, Parry is not a Catholic priest. So why is SNAP advising Catholics to “come clean now” when the dirt is not on their hands? Why did it hold a press conference in Kansas City by the Cathedral? Because they hate Bishop Robert Finn? Why wasn’t it in New York City, home to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States? She’s the issue—not Bishop Finn.

Contact SNAP Director David Clohessy: SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Over the weekend, news broke that a former Penn State football coach, serving under head coach Joe Paterno, was involved in alleged sexual abuse of young boys. Although Paterno immediately notified the Athletic Director, he did not call the cops. David Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is now calling for Paterno to be investigated. Yet when Clohessy learned in the 1990s that his brother Kevin, a priest, was a child molester, he covered it up.

The Kansas City Star is working with SNAP, and its lawyers, against Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn. Only once, in a brief story in 2003, did it ever mention that the SNAP director’s brother was charged with molestation; even then it never reported that David Clohessy refused to call the cops. And in a big puff piece on the SNAP director in September, it never mentioned this juicy story. The cover up—and that is exactly what it is—is sickening.

Nor does the Star ever bother to question the spurious lawsuits that SNAP lawyers have been bringing. Isn’t it more than just a little curious that the Catholic Church is being singled out for hundreds of “repressed memory” lawsuits? A Nexis search connecting “repressed memory” with “minister” yields 551 stories; connecting it to “rabbi” yields 71; and though the nation’s teachers vastly outnumber priests, there were 1208 stories on “teachers” and 1855 on “priests.”

Between 2009 and 2010, there was a startling 42 percent increase in false accusations against priests. The data didn’t come as a surprise to California attorney Donald H. Steier. Last year, he testified that “One retired F.B.I agent who worked with me to investigate many claims in the Clergy Cases told me, in his opinion, about ONE-HALF of the claims made in Clergy Cases were either entirely false or so greatly exaggerated that the truth would not have supported a prosecutable claim for childhood sexual abuse.” A really independent newspaper would report such stories. The Star is not one of them—it’s in bed with SNAP.

Contact Star publisher Mi-Ai Parrish: mparrish@kcstar.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) announces the latest lawsuit against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. The diocese, headed by Bishop Robert Finn, knows nothing about it. But attorney Rebecca Randles does: she coordinated the attack with SNAP. Virtually all the cases date back decades, and no one from the Kansas City Star questions any of it. This isn’t an anomaly—it’s the norm.

Randles got her start with Jeffrey Anderson, the most successful Church-shakedown lawyer in the nation. “He’s the man,” she once said. On June 2, they (and another attorney) sued Bishop Finn about a matter he had nothing to do with. Since then, Randles has been on a tear, finding new “victims” at a record pace.

 Randles and Anderson came together 20 years ago to represent David Clohessy (today he is the director of SNAP). After watching the movie “Nuts” in 1988—I’m not making this up—he suddenly “remembered” being molested by a priest decades ago. The lawsuit failed because the statute of limitations had expired.

Randles then made history when she was the first attorney to file suit against a priest in Missouri. It was another one of those “repressed memory” suits where the accuser suddenly recalls being molested decades ago. After first winning, an appeals court threw it out—the clock had run out on such claims. She vowed to push for a new strategy: she argued that the “trigger” for such claims should start when alleged victims “remember” when they were abused. In 2006, her dream came true: the Missouri Supreme Court said that a guy who suddenly remembered being molested 30 years prior could sue. It argued that the clock should begin when the “victims” suddenly “remember” being hit on. Ever since, the suits against the diocese (but not the public schools or any other institution) have never stopped.

Both Anderson and Randles give generously to SNAP, and indeed Randles has been known to pressure her clients to fork over some of their settlement money to her friends. The Star knows all of this, yet it continues the cover-up.

Contact Star publisher Mi-Ai Parrish: mparrish@kcstar.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

 The SNAP-Star alliance against Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn is a natural: both are anti-Catholic. As evidence of SNAP’s bigotry, click here to read our report on its July conference. As for the Star, consider its infamous 1999 “survey” of priests.

Twelve years ago, the Star did a survey of priests across the nation. They were asked such things as: identify your sexual orientation; discuss whether you have HIV or AIDS; assess how the Church is handling this issue; and explain whether the Church should change its teachings on celibacy and homosexuality. No other religious or secular institution was surveyed. In response, I sent my own survey to a random sample of Star employees, asking questions about their sexual orientation and disease status. At least I admitted that my “survey” was a joke—the Star actually thought itself serious.

The purpose of the Star’s survey was to report that HIV or AIDS was rampant among priests and that the Church’s response was heartless. Expecting that most would disagree with celibacy and the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, the end game would then be realized: this is how the Star expected to manipulate public opinion, putting pressure on the Church to change its teachings.

What a disappointment. Almost 100 percent (99.1) said they either did not have HIV or AIDS, or did not think they had it. Two-thirds said the Church was “caring and compassionate” about priests with HIV or AIDS, and only four percent were critical. Yet virtually all the remarks printed in the Star came from priests who were critical of the Church! Angered by the results, the Star showed even more contempt for privacy rights by combing the death certificates of deceased priests looking for dirt.

By any measure, the Star showed its bias, as well as its necromania.

Contact the publisher, Mi-Ai Parrish: mparrish@kcstar.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

Yesterday’s news release on the decision by the Kansas City Star to reject the ad I wrote [click here] exposing the phony victims’ group, SNAP, and its attack on Bishop Robert Finn, reached approximately 200 employees of the Star and about 300 media outlets in the Kansas City, Missouri area; another 1500 media outlets around the nation received it. All will continue to receive our news releases on this subject.

Much of the chatter has focused on the wisdom of turning down $25,000. Consider the following:

• June 2008: 10% of the Star’s workforce is cut
• September 2008: 65 employees accept buyouts or are laid off
• November 2008: 50 employees are let go
• March 2009: 15 percent of the workforce is cut
• August 2009: More buyouts are offered; one-week unpaid furlough is instituted
• January 2010: another dozen are terminated
• May 2010: another dozen get their pink slips
• September 2010: another dozen are booted
• January 2011: 20 others are shown the door

Ten years ago, there were 1,869 employees at the Star; today there are 840. Given these data, turning down $25K—in today’s economy—must mean the Star is more concerned about getting Bishop Finn than it is the welfare of its own workers. Looks like the Star is suicidal.

The McClatchy Company owns the Star, and its advertising revenue is down 10% between the third quarter 2010 and the third quarter 2011. The Board of Directors will receive this news release, as will the three major investors: John Paulson, Stephen C. Mildenhall and Andrew Feldstein. They are not going to be happy. We’ll have more tomorrow.

Contact Mi-Ai Parrish, the publisher: mparrish@kcstar.com

SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, assisted by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has petitioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI for allegedly covering up “crimes against humanity of rape and other sexual violence committed around the world.” CCR attorney Pam Spees claims that “Crimes against tens of thousands of victims, most of them children, are being covered up by officials at the highest level of the Vatican.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:

As the Catholic League recently documented [click here], SNAP does not exist to protect children; rather, its goal is to smear the Catholic Church. That it would team up with the most radical left-wing legal organization in the nation, CCR, is hardly surprising. After all, never once has CCR bothered to protest the incredible assault on the due process rights of priests over the last decade.

Most cases of molestation did not involve children, and they did not involve rape. The most common victim was a post-pubescent male victimized by homosexuals, the most common offense being “inappropriate touching.” The figures being bandied about are nothing more than a wild guess provided by the Church’s critics; they bear no relationship to reality. How do we know? Because when hard data are available on these matters, the projections are proven wholly inaccurate.

Moreover, it is a lie to say that sexual abuse is being covered up at the highest levels of the Vatican. The homosexual scandal took place during the sexual revolution, and most of the offenses ended a quarter-century ago. To charge otherwise is scurrilous.

The Holy See is not a member of the ICC, making it difficult to prosecute. Nonetheless, the Catholic League will contact the ICC today, providing documentation of our own that demonstrates how partisan this complaint really is.

Contact SNAP president Barbara Blaine: SNAPblaine@gmail.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue notes recent lies about priests:

It has been said that Fr. Mychal Judge, the first of the First Responders to die on 9/11, was gay. Not everyone agrees. No matter, even those who allege that Judge was gay say he kept his sexual orientation private, disclosing it to only a few friends. Fr. Brian Jordan, for instance, said of his fellow Franciscan in 2002 that “I knew him for 25 years and I didn’t know that he was gay until after he died.”

It really shouldn’t matter whether Judge was gay or straight, but unfortunately some in gay circles, as well as in liberal quarters generally, are turning this issue into a national spectacle. Worse, some are lying. In the August 19 edition of a dissident Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, it says, “Judge was a Catholic priest who publicly acknowledged that he was a celibate gay man.” After reading this, I asked Jeff Field, our communications director, to e-mail Tom Fox, editor of the newspaper asking him for the evidence that Judge publicly declared that he was gay. That was yesterday, and Fox has not replied. It is a lie.

SNAP Wisconsin, the Wisconsin branch of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, posted an article on September 7 about a Philadelphia priest who has never been convicted of anything, but will go on trial next year for allegedly covering up a crime. The title of the article reads, “The Crimes of Monsignor William J. Lynn.” Field contacted the SNAP chapter yesterday asking them to correct the record. “You know very well that Monsignor Lynn has only been accused and hasn’t been convicted of any crimes,” Field said. There has been no response.

Lying is bad enough, but when it is done for political purposes, it is obscene. That priests are the primary victims these days is indisputable.

Contact Tom Fox: tfox@ncronline.org

Contact the SNAP author, John Pilmaier: pilmaier@milwpc.com