An update on the story of Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City, who is under criminal indictment for shielding Father Shawn Ratigan, after child pornography was found on Ratigan's computer and after Finn permitted Ratigan continued access to children: as Mark Morris reports in the Kansas City Star last Friday, prosecutors have petitioned the court for the criminal case to move forward. This is in response to a motion filed by Finn's lawyers last month to have the charges against Finn dismissed without trial.
As these legal filings come before the court, the deposition that SNAP leader David Clohessy gave in January in response to court orders in Kansas City was made public by SNAP at the start of March, and Joshua McElwee reports on it at National Catholic Reporter, as does Nicholas Phillips at Riverfront Times (St. Louis)--both with links to the full deposition. Mark Serrano at SNAP has posted a rundown of what the courts in Missouri are asking of SNAP as they demand the disclosure of information SNAP leaders maintain is confidential. I've linked to this document in the past but want to remind readers of it again as David Clohessy's deposition becomes public.
As Serrano's statement notes, acting through their lawyers,
Catholic officials [in Kansas City and St. Louis] want private, personal records and e mails involving hundreds of individuals who have never even heard of or met the accused or the accusers in the two suits [in which SNAP depositions are being demanded]. This is a misuse of judicial processes designed to crush a support and advocacy group that protects the vulnerable and heals the wounded. It’s cleverly orchestrated to keep clergy sex crimes and cover ups concealed.
To repeat: these depositions and the unprecedented demands for disclosure of SNAP's private communications with victims of clerical sexual abuse are being made in cases in which SNAP is not even involved, and has never even been involved.
As both McElwee and Phillips note, the vast majority of the questions lawyers asked Clohessy in the grueling six-hour deposition period to which they subjected him have to do with questions about how SNAP operates internally, how it deals with the legal needs of victims who approach it for assistance, and so forth. As Phillips indicates, there seems to be a concerted effort on the part of the attorneys who bombarded Clohessy with 800 or so questions to establish that SNAP is not akin to a rape-crisis center--and is therefore not subject to the confidentiality laws that obtain for rape-crisis centers.
A striking point in the deposition: only a single attorney--and this is an attorney connected to SNAP, Jeff Jensen--asked what you'd think would have been the key question of the deposition: namely, whether SNAP has had any contact with the unnamed victim suing Father Brian Tierney in Kansas City for which these depositions were ordered. None of the lawyers representing Bishop Finn and other Catholic officials involved in the Tierney case even bothered to ask about SNAP's alleged connection to the case for which the depositions were demanded.
Which seems to be a strong indication that the purpose of these depositions was, as SNAP has maintained all along, for Catholic officials to go on an unrestricted fishing expedition in SNAP's private records, when SNAP has no connection at all, as they know very well, to the case for which they're demanding this right to go on a fishing expedition.
A fishing and a bullying expedition, since the attempt to undermine SNAP's confidential relationship with those who approach it for assistance is designed to intimidate victims of sexual abuse, to make them fearful of coming forward. And to punish and bully SNAP and its leaders for pushing back when Catholic officials like Finn protect known child molesters and keep abusive priests in contact with children.
Instead of focusing on the Tierney case and on SNAP's alleged connection to the John Doe victim of that case, the attorneys representing the Catholic church chose to grill David Clohessy about matters such as the following: whether SNAP donates to any charities, who donates to SNAP and why they make donations to SNAP, and so forth. Questions that are in no conceivable fashion connected to whether Tierney may have molested John Doe and/or whether Kansas City Catholic officials had knowledge of and concealed his crimes . . . .
A fishing expedition, a bullying expedition, and a brazen attempt to break the back of one of the most important victims-advocacy organizations assisting those who suffered abuse from Catholic authority figures in the past: all along, there has been a clear attempt on the part of the attorneys working for Catholic officials in these Missouri cases, and with Catholic groups allied with the bishops in attacking SNAP, to undermine the public's confidence in the integrity of SNAP leaders.
And so it is not surprising that Michelle Bauman of the Catholic News Agency closely connected to Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia tries to seize on a one-word reply that Clohessy gave to one of the 800 questions thrown at him over the course of six hours, and to turn that one-world reply into a broadside attack on Clohessy's integrity and that of SNAP.
Clohessy was asked, "Has SNAP to your knowledge ever issued a press release that contained false information?" And he replied, "Sure."
As any honest person who works for any organization that has existed since 1989, and has issued one press release after another for over 20 years now, would be very likely to do. Because the odds of any organization of any kind that persistently releases press releases to the public never issuing a press release at some point that contains false information are very slim.
And honest people working for honest organizations are inclined to admit that they've made mistakes at times with information they've released to the public, only to discover later that their information was erroneous. But the attorneys didn't ask Clohessy whether SNAP has erroneously and deliberately disseminated false information to the public, which would be another question altogether. Nor did they ask whether SNAP has issued false information and never corrected it.
They asked--only and flatly--whether to Clohessy's knowledge, SNAP has ever issued a single press release that contained false information. On the basis of Clohessy's reply--"Sure"--Catholic News Agency now wants to vilify him and suggest he and SNAP are liars.
I'm inclined to reach the opposite conclusion: this is the response of an honest and humble man admitting a truth that surprises no one--and doing so under tremendously stressful conditions, as a team of skilled lawyers hammers him for more than six hours in order to fish, bully, and smear.
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