More than two dozen people have left their positions at a national support group for clergy sexual abuse survivors amid concerns over the group’s mental health network and financial issues.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, provides support across the United States and other countries. The group was founded in the late 1980s and gained prominence in 2002 after the Boston Globe first reported on the Catholic church sex abuse scandal.
Last week, 27 SNAP group leaders and supporters submitted a collective resignation letter to the board of directors. The group had expressed concerns about budget transparency, adherence to the group’s bylaws and mission, and the board’s governance practices. “These concerns — including issues of transparency, accountability, and response to protected internal reporting — have not been meaningfully addressed through appropriate or independent review,” they wrote in the resignation letter.
The former SNAP group leaders said they formed a new organization called Abuse Survivors Coalition, through which they plan to continue supporting and advocating for abuse survivors.
The group said they made the decision to break away after an 18-month effort seeking resolution with the SNAP board of directors. Members of the group kept a detailed timeline of events and correspondence leading up to their resignations, including raising concerns about budget discrepancies, actions that appeared out of line with the group’s mission, and board members’ behavior. The group also discovered their names and details of virtual support groups had been removed from SNAP’s website.
“We had two different ideas of what helping survivors was, and they had erased us from the website,” said Myra Russell, a clergy abuse survivor who lives in Waltham. “If a survivor went to the website to try and look for a group, they weren’t even up there or the schedule wasn’t up there. You couldn’t even figure out what leaders were even there anymore.”
As a child, Russell was abused by priests in Albany, New York. Last week, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany agreed to pay $148 million to 440 survivors who were sexually abused by clergy, religious employees, and volunteers of the diocese. But Russell said no amount of money will fix what happened to her.
She served as a leader of a women’s support group of SNAP for nearly six years before resigning.
Russell said problems began in 2024 during a SNAP conference in Texas. According to her and other support group leaders in attendance, the conference included inappropriate behavior such as meet-ups in bars with alcoholic beverages being served. That is considered unsanctioned behavior due to some abuse survivors’ issues with alcohol and repressed memory, which could be triggering for them.
Russell said she tried to engage the then-executive director about concerns at the conference, but he wouldn’t talk to her. A mediator was brought in, but that effort failed.
Mary McKenna, a licensed clinical social worker, said she resigned because she no longer felt valued or seen by the board of directors.
“They were a wonderful, wonderful organization,” McKenna said. ”I still love SNAP, but I don’t love the present board of directors and what’s going on.”
Russell and McKenna both said part of the issue was a change in leadership.
Last year, SNAP hired Executive Director Angela Walker, the group’s only full-time employee. Walker has worked in survivor advocacy for decades, including positions at international organizations including Coffee Watch, the INSPIRE Partnership, and the Brave Movement. Walker told GBH News she was brought on board to “professionalize the organization.” She said SNAP remains committed to their mission and core values of protecting, healing, preventing abuse and fighting for justice. Walker added that the organization’s new strategic plan includes changes to the organization, peer support groups, website, fundraising, outreach and internal communication.
Walker said only 11 registered support leaders resigned from SNAP, and the organization removed others that she said were “self-proclaimed” leaders.
“Some volunteers chose to resign from SNAP. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors to support survivors,” Walker wrote in a statement on the organization’s website.
Walker acknowledged that recent changes at SNAP weren’t well received by everyone.
“People may decide that the strategic changes that are happening — which started before I arrived and now are happening during my tenure as well — some people don’t like that direction,” she told GBH News. “But what I keep saying to everyone is I wish them well. Heaven knows there is so much work to be done, unfortunately, that we are all supporting survivors and we wish them well in however they are going to do that in future.”
Walker disputes any claims of financial improprieties, citing SNAP’s publicly available Form 990 tax documents. She told GBH News SNAP is audited every year by an outside firm, Wieland CPAs, based in Chicago.
Boston-based attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented hundreds of clergy sexual abuse survivors, said though this change was borne of frustration, it could lead to positive change for survivors.
“If the breakup [is about] SNAP assisting survivors in one way, but the new group coalition assisting survivors in another way, then that’s a good thing,” he said. “The sexual abuse crisis and the clergy sexual abuse has reached such a magnitude that one support group cannot do it all.”
Garabedian said many survivors who were sexually abused decades ago still call him because they want to obtain a degree of validation.
“I’m often asked if the Catholic Church is going to change its ways, and it might to a small, small degree, but what is changing is the survivors keeping the issue of clergy sexual abuse in the public’s eye,” he said.
The Catholic Church in the United States has paid billions of dollars in settlements for clergy sex abuse scandals with the National Catholic Reporter reporting more than $5 billion spent over the last three decades.
