Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to the news that an elderly New York priest was arrested for a sexual infraction:
A 16-year-old girl started working in a Bronx parish last Saturday and now claims she was inappropriately touched by an 87-year-old priest. She returned to work on Monday, where she now says she was touched the wrong way again. Then she voluntarily decided to go back to work on Tuesday, where she now claims she was wrongly touched for the third time. On Wednesday, the cops show up, with TV cameras rolling, and handcuff the elderly priest—who has never had a single allegation made against him in over 60 years as a priest—treating him as if he were Jack the Ripper.
If this isn’t surreal enough, consider that the phony victims’ group, SNAP, is accusing New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan of covering up the alleged misconduct, even though Dolan knew nothing about it. Moreover, when Dolan learned of the arrest, he immediately informed the cleric that he cannot function as a priest and must leave the parish until the matter is settled. So to accuse the New York Archbishop of a cover-up is obscene.
SNAP also says that Archbishop Dolan was guilty of “acting secretively” in a previous case involving Msgr. Wallace Harris. This is libelous: Dolan was the Archbishop of Milwaukee when Harris was suspended. When Cardinal Edward Egan, Dolan’s predecessor, learned of the alleged misconduct by Harris—which supposedly happened 30 years earlier—he notified the D.A.’s office.
According to SNAP’s press release today, these cases also show the Church’s tolerance of pedophilia. But neither of the two cases involved pedophilia: in both instances, the alleged victims were teenagers. The name of the game is to paint priests as child abusers, which is a bold-face lie. It’s time the media turned its cameras on the liars at SNAP.
Contact SNAP honcho David Clohessy: SNAPclohessy@aol.com
