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Blaine suffered a spontaneous coronary artery dissection last
Monday, her family said in a statement. The rare occurrence
involves a tear in one or more blood vessels of the heart.
She died on Sunday with her husband, Howard, and her sisters at
her side, the family statement said.
The organization she founded in 1988 is a leading advocacy and
support group for victims of sexual abuse by clergy. It has
thousands of members and works to help people from a range of
faith traditions.
Blaine, who was born in Toledo, Ohio, held her first meetings of
the Survivors Network of those Abuse by Priests (SNAP) in a
homeless shelter that she ran in Chicago. At the time, Blaine
was part of the Catholic Worker Movement.
"Few people have done more to protect kids and help victims than
Barbara Blaine," Barbara Dorris, the managing director of SNAP,
said in a statement.
As a child, Blaine was abused by a priest at the Catholic school
she attended in Toledo, but she was unable to tell anyone about
it for years because of the shame and trauma she experienced,
according to her biography on the website of SNAP.
Blaine resigned as president of SNAP in February, after she was
named in a lawsuit that accused SNAP officials of connecting
attorneys with potential clients in return for financial
kickbacks to SNAP, the Chicago Tribune reported at the time.
Blaine said then that her resignation as president was unrelated
to the lawsuit, the newspaper reported.
The 2015 film "Spotlight," which won the Oscar for best picture
and portrayed the true story of Boston Globe journalists
investigating abuse and cover ups in the Roman Catholic Church,
included a character from SNAP.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Toby
Chopra)
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