A reply to SNAP

David Clohessy, executive director of SNAP, was brave enough the other day to comment on this post about an accused priest from Yakima hounded out of his assignment as an associate pastor in Missouri. I think Mr. Clohessy's points and my response deserve a post of their own. (He was responding to commenter MP, who's a member of the Missouri parish that Fr. Mitchell was run out of.) Their words will be in italics and labeled with initials, to try to keep it from getting too confusing.

MP: I still think that you are innocent until proven guilty.

DC: of course. no one disputes this. no one is arguing Mitchell should be locked up.

If I see a man and a woman struggling in the alleyway behind my house, and he's got a knife, and she's screaming, I'm not gonna invite the guy into my house. He's 'innocent until proven guilty.' But I'm not going to be irresponsible and disregard the safety of my kids by letting him inside. That's simple common sense.

It sounds very well to say, "well of course he's innocent until proven guilty," but a look at SNAP's website contradicts this in practice. One of the first assertions it makes is that "most allegations of abuse are true," which leads directly to the assumption that most accused are guilty. There may be some truth in this, when it's children involved, although anybody who lived through the Wenatchee witchhunts knows even that isn't infallible. But we're talking about adults in most cases, and usually adults who stand to make money. But of course, nobody would lie for money, would they?

MP: Let me get this straight: somebody said he had "pictures" on his computer.
DC: Read the Yakima paper. No one is disputing that they're photos (not sketches, drawings, art), they're boys (not teens, not young adults), they're nude (not partially clothed), that Mitchell is responsible for them (A Catholic handpicked by his bishop to head the Yakima review board publicly admits this), that Mitchell had access to his computer AFTER the photos were discovered but before the police investigation began (thus, he had the chance to destroy evidence), and finally, that he installed on his computer some program that makes it much harder for police to track which website had been visited. (All of these facts have been in newspaper accounts.)

Okay, let's take this one step at a time. They are indeed photos. The age of the boys wasn't specified. They were naked, but not pornographic according to the FBI's standards. Fr. Mitchell seems to have admitted to the person who found the pictures that he was the one who downloaded them, but that person wasn't Russ Mazzola (the "handpicked" review board leader). It was a computer to which Fr. Mitchell had access, but he wasn't the only one who used it, apparently.

As for the computer side, there are several problems with your insinuations. First, there's no way short of burning a hard drive to ashes to completely prevent reconstruction of data, and the FBI has the tools to retrieve anything. That's their job, and they're equipped for it. Second, if Fr. Mitchell eliminated evidence, wouldn't it make sense to eliminate all of the pictures? Unless he's a lawyer or a cop, he's not likely to know what the dividing line is for pornographic material, so getting rid of the pictures would have been a smart thing to do. Third, privacy programs are commonly used for internet security. To infer guilt from that is no different from the old Puritan belief that if people pulled their shades at night they must be up to something sinful.

MP: The FBI came out and confiscated the computer and came back saying: "there is nothing bad or pornographic on that computer."

DC: First, the FBI makes no such determination. Those judgments are made by prosecutors. And many prosecutors are competitive (so they tend to 'pass' on cases that aren't clear 'slam dunks' with overwhelming evidence). Many are elected (and therefore cautious about taking cases that might be politically risky for them, like ones involving priests). Many are overworked and underfunded (so they gravitate toward easy, simple cases with clear victims, unlike child porn cases, where the victims may never be known).

I don't know how things stand in Missouri, Mr. Clohessy, but Washington is the most unchurched state in the country. There's not only no political risk in prosecuting a priest, but Zirkle's career could well be made if he managed to convict one. Even though eastern Washington (where Yakima is) is rather more religious than the more populous west side, it's mostly Protestants and Mormons, many of whom buy into the stereotype of priest-as-pervert. No, I think Ron Zirkle would have prosecuted if he had a case.

DC: The bottom line is that many wrongdoers are never caught, many are never prosecuted, and many who ARE prosecuted get off on technicalities, insufficient evidence, etc. Should this be our standard for the priesthood: you get to wear the collar and be around kids as long as you've never been convicted of a sex crime? That seems to be a particularly risky standard.

Well, Bp. Sevilla had Fr. Mitchell thoroughly checked out. Our bishop isn't a Mahoney or a Law; if he thought there was a danger, he wouldn't have given a recommendation to Abp. Burke. It appears that Fr. Mitchell was being supervised in any case. My guess is that he did something stupid, saw that the consequences were serious, and is unlikely ever to do it again. Nobody was harmed, and I very much doubt that Bp. Sevilla would have returned him to ministry if anybody were likely to be.

You mention the bottom line, but I don't think that's where it is. The bottom line, for SNAP, appears to be ensuring that as many priests as possible are branded as permanently as possible. Let me ask you this: Has any priest, ever, been exonerated in the eyes of your organization after being accused? Has SNAP ever said, "This man has been cleared of any wrongdoing and is no danger to children"? If so, I've never seen it, and I'd love an example. Your recommendations for how people should respond to an accusation encourage them to speak out if they think their priest is guilty and shut up if they think he's innocent. That in itself indicates how your group feels about the potential innocence of priests.

DC: Anything's possible. but do you really value the privacy of one educated, powerful adult over the safety of innocent kids? why take the risk?

Mr. Clohessy, my own pastor is on indefinite leave while a charge against him is cleared. (And it will be, if he lives out the year.) I believe there is no risk whatsoever in trusting my children to him, and I have done so when he was in active ministry. There's not that much risk for parents who are careful in deciding whom to trust. As for an educated, powerful adult, well, the priesthood is a hard, thankless, lonely job, and my hat is off to any man who takes it on, especially knowing that vultures like SNAP are out there watching for a chance to pin something on him. He's more vulnerable to you than children are to him.

An organization like SNAP could serve a godly purpose, I think, if it were as interested in protecting the innocent as hounding the (possibly) guilty. As it is, I think it's more a weapon against the Church at large than a support network for victims.