UNITED STATES
Religion and Politics
By Lilly Fowler | June 20, 2017
David Clohessy often looks as if he’s on the verge of tears when he talks about survivors of sexual abuse. When his vivid blue eyes start to well up, he’ll reach for his glasses and wipe his eyes. He comes across as emotional, but sincere and well-intentioned. We sit at a coffee shop near his home in Maplewood, a neighborhood of St. Louis. Clohessy is recovering from minor surgery and wears a cast on one foot. He says since his resignation in January from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, he’s focused on his health. The sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church consumed Clohessy for nearly 30 years. Now his own organization is under fire for alleged malfeasance.
Barbara Blaine, a lawyer and former social worker who is an abuse survivor herself, founded SNAP in 1988 in Chicago. Clohessy joined the organization in 1991, and it became one of the premiere advocacy groups for victims of sex abuse. The group operated in obscurity until the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-prize winning series on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church ran in 2002. After that, SNAP’s phones wouldn’t stop ringing.
Both SNAP and Clohessy have received widespread media coverage over the years. SNAP makes a cameo in Spotlight, the 2015 Oscar-winning film about the Globe investigation. Clohessy has garnered high-profile media coverage, including a New York Times profile and appearances on Oprah, 60 Minutes and Good Morning America. Today SNAP boasts 25,000 members, but foes and friends alike are unsure if the organization will be able to survive its latest scandal.
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