Founder and president of clegy abuse victims network steps down

By Joel Currier
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 4, 2017

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/founder-and-president-of-clegy-abuse-victims-network-steps-down/article_8aa62b83-6b64-5411-88e5-423775ed9958.html

David Clohessy, National Director of of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, addresses the media condemning the recent statements and actions of Archbishop Robert Carlson on clergy sex abuse cases during a vigil on Wednesday, June 11, 2014, outside the New Cathedral Basilica. Last month, under oath Archbishop Carlson claimed 193 times that he didn't recall specifics about clergy sex abuse cases, said he wasn't sure if he knew in the 1980s whether child sex abuse was illegal and admitted that he never once called police to report abuse in 24 years as a Catholic official. Photo by Laurie Skrivan

David Clohessy (2nd L) and Mark Vincent Serrano (2nd R) speak to the press following the announcement that bishops had agreed to bar pedophile priests from acting as clerics in their afternoon session at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 14 June 2002 at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas. Clohessy and Serrano, who holds a picture of himself at 12, are both victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests and are both members of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused

A small group holds a moment of silence for victims of clergy abuse in front of the Catholic Diocese of Vermont in Burlington, Vt., Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2007. They urged Vermont's Catholic bishop to post on the diocesan Web site the names of all admitted or accused clergy and to notify parishes where those clergy served. From left are, former priest Bill Cleary, and David Clohessy and Michael Gay, who say they were abused by priests. SNAP stands for Survivors' Network for those Abused by Priests. Photo by Toby Talbot

ST. LOUIS • Barbara Blaine, founder and president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, has stepped down after 29 years, the organization said.

Blaine’s resignation from the nonprofit group was effective Friday. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to have found and been your president,” Blaine said in a statement.

Blaine and SNAP’s new managing director, Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, said Blaine’s decision had “absolutely nothing” to do with recent litigation. In the lawsuit, a former development director for SNAP claims she was fired in retaliation for confronting the organization for making referrals to lawyers in exchange for donations.

Dorris will now serve as the group’s highest ranking official. She said she will continue to work with SNAP’s board to help sex abuse survivors everywhere.

Blaine’s departure follows that of David Clohessy of St. Louis, who resigned as SNAP’s executive director Dec. 31. Clohessy started with SNAP in the late 1980s.

SNAP was sued last month in Cook County, Ill., by Gretchen Hammond, a former employee who raised money for the organization from 2011-2013.

SNAP was based in Chicago until moving to the Central West End late last year. The group has denied allegations in the lawsuit that 54 percent of the $440,000 in contributions to SNAP in 2003 came from plaintiff’s sex abuse attorneys.

SNAP also has denied Hammond’s claims that it is a counseling organization but rather a volunteer, peer-support network of survivors.

SNAP said it is accurate that it refers sex abuse victims to lawyers and has accepted donations from attorneys but that “SNAP has never and will never enter into any kickback schemes as alleged by Ms. Hammond in her lawsuit, nor has SNAP ever made donations an implied or express conditions of the referral of victims.”