I noticed on the blog of His Eminence Timothy Card. Dolan, who in his capacity as President of the USCCB has been called on to defend the rights of the Church in the midst of a deepening kulturkampf, a comment about SNAP, founded on work of The Catholic League. It took me by surprise, but… not really. SNAP is part of a larger phenomenon and Card. Dolan is right to bring it up, particularly because of his local newspaper (Hell’s Bible), SNAP’s ideologically blinkered advocate.
On the heels of reading that, I received a missive from The Catholic League:
SNAP’S DEFENDERS SHOW TRUE COLORS
March 21, 2012
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on those who continue to defend the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP):
Last week we released a report on SNAP that showed beyond a reasonable doubt what an utter fraud the organization is (click here to read it). It was not an essay; it was not an op-ed; it was not conjecture; it was not our opinion. It was the voice of David Clohessy, the director of SNAP. When coupled with our report last summer on the proceedings of its national convention (it offered irrefutable proof of its hate-filled agenda) it cannot be maintained by any serious observer what SNAP is all about.
The credibility of those who continue to defend this wholly discredited organization is on the line. That would include the editorial board of the New York Times and the Newark Star-Ledger (the latter offered a particularly vicious statement), as well as pundits such as Andrew Sullivan. That the near-moribund National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority should weigh in is not surprising: though SNAP has nothing to do with women’s rights, it has everything to do with attacking the Catholic Church, and that is music to the ear of radical feminists. But it is Frank Bruni, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, who needs to be answered more than anyone; he loves SNAP.
Bruni notes that “some Catholic leaders have contended” that what drives wide media coverage of the issue of priestly sexual abuse is “an anti-Catholic and anti-religious bias.” Wrong, he says, it’s because of the “magnitude of the violation of trust.” No, sir, it isn’t. If it were, then the Times would be covering the incredible explosion of child sexual abuse by rabbis (in Brooklyn alone, 85 arrests have taken place in the last two years, yet the Times has never reported on any of this). Moreover, the media treat with a yawn the alarming rate of child sexual abuse in the public schools. So what else, if not anti-Catholicism, would be driving the disproportionate coverage? I’m still waiting for the evidence that I am wrong.
Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
E-mail: cl@catholicleague.org
