The weekly St. Louis alternative newspaper, Riverfront Times, recently published an exchange between a reporter and SNAP director David Clohessy.
Clohessy was quoted as saying the following about St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson: “Archbishop Carlson and his brother Catholic bishops have hired, hidden, transferred, defended and enabled child molesters. SNAP hasn’t. Carlson and his colleagues have ignored and concealed their crimes. SNAP hasn’t.”
We left it to Archbishop Carlson’s lawyers to respond to Clohessy, but we couldn’t allow Clohessy to lie about his own personal involvement in the cover-up of a known child molester.
In the 1990s, David Clohessy knew about his brother Kevin’s sexually predatory behavior and never called the cops. Yet he had the audacity to condemn others for not doing what he manifestly refused to do when he learned that Kevin, a priest, was abusing young men. The SNAP director said at the time, “he’s my brother; he’s an abuser. Do I treat him like my brother?” Well, Mr. Clean, accused priests are the brothers of their bishop, so what would you say to both parties?
Dr. Steve Taylor is a psychiatrist who is sitting in prison for downloading child pornography from his computer. He is well known to SNAP—he was one of their go-to shrinks for years. Indeed, the convict is so well loved by SNAP that the founder of the organization, Barbara Blaine, intervened on his behalf and wrote to the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners pleading with them to cut Taylor some slack.
In other words, SNAP has hired, hidden, defended, enabled, ignored, and concealed the crimes of child molesters.
