UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic
By Bryan Cones
Legal action taken by two Missouri dioceses against the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests is starting to gain traction in the media–op-eds here and here–beginning with a New York Times story by Laurie Goodstein, which quoted the ever-ready-to-talk Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, saying that the U.S. bishops were acting “collectively” against SNAP: “I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys,” he said. Bishops’ spokesperson Sister Mary Ann Walsh says that there has been no such meeting.
(Side note: Why does Bill Donohue get to speak for the church without correction from the bishops on anything he wants, while Sister Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association gets criticized from none other than N.Y. Cardinal Timothy Dolan for expressing her own “Catholic” opinion about health care reform and the contraceptive mandate? Discuss.)
Donohue aside, it is clear that lawyers for the dioceses of Kansas City-St. Joseph and St. Louis have taken aggressive legal action–what some call a fishing expedition–against SNAP, seeking discovery of years of internal documents. Already hit with $50,000 in legal bills, SNAP is looking for donations and fears being forced to shut down. (You can read SNAP’s David Clohessy here on the matter.)
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