*
The real beauty of this survivor “movement” is its organic quality. So many of us were going through life thinking it was just us, just me - like I was this over sexed five year old who caused the good priest to break his vows, or other ideas pedophile priest rape crime victims live with.
If it hadn’t been for the internet, the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church would probably have continued a few hundred years more.
Something to ponder when you think Thanksgiving thoughts this weekend.
It was the internet and other early 21st century communications that made it possible to find out there are thousands of us, and that the pattern was the same in city after city. We are sex crime victims not born floozies or what not -
Happy Thanksgiving from City of Angels Network
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Two sex predator priests honored in LA black Catholic evangelical award, while Cardinal Mahony looks the other way
*
Cardinal Roger Mahony slapped the face of clergy sex crime survivors once again last week, allowing the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization to give out two awards that bear the names of two priests identified as sexual predators, Vance Thorne, who is number 67 on the LA Archdiocese's own 2004 Report, and Paul GoPaul, identified in two pedophilia charges.
At least one GoPaul victim committed suicide. At age 17 Patrick Ryan, pictured here, hung himself after a brutal sexual encounter with the traveling priest. His sister Rita Prince has written the entire story and we have it here scanned in full at City of Angels: click enarge and read. Rita handed the story out Thursday at a press conference denouncing the Bishop Carl Anthony Fisher Awards in front of the LA cathedral.
Here is Rita Prince in her own words, plus two of twelve letters which document the accusations against Paul GoPaul. Click and enlarge for a Sunday read.
Rita Prince runs SNAP Las Vegas. Here are two evidentiary documents:
Paul GoPaul taught at Cal State Dominguez Hills in South Central LA in 1971.
Cardinal Roger Mahony slapped the face of clergy sex crime survivors once again last week, allowing the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization to give out two awards that bear the names of two priests identified as sexual predators, Vance Thorne, who is number 67 on the LA Archdiocese's own 2004 Report, and Paul GoPaul, identified in two pedophilia charges.
At least one GoPaul victim committed suicide. At age 17 Patrick Ryan, pictured here, hung himself after a brutal sexual encounter with the traveling priest. His sister Rita Prince has written the entire story and we have it here scanned in full at City of Angels: click enarge and read. Rita handed the story out Thursday at a press conference denouncing the Bishop Carl Anthony Fisher Awards in front of the LA cathedral.
Here is Rita Prince in her own words, plus two of twelve letters which document the accusations against Paul GoPaul. Click and enlarge for a Sunday read.
Rita Prince runs SNAP Las Vegas. Here are two evidentiary documents:
Paul GoPaul taught at Cal State Dominguez Hills in South Central LA in 1971.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Recovered memory was Reconciliation for me. It explained everything, even lies I told as a spokesperson for NASA.
*
By Kay Ebeling
People wonder about recovered memory. I can understand why. I would wonder myself about stories like mine that are part of the clergy crisis in the Catholic Church, if it hadn’t happened to me. Even as a teenager, I was drawn like in a fugue state to movies like Sybil and parts of The Chapman Report that dealt with suppressed memories, and their effects on a person in adult life.
What people don’t realize is how the person having the recovered memory knows the memory is real. In my case and in Peter Saracino’s whose story we posted yesterday, a Reconciliation came with the recovered memory.
Funny to choose the word for the sacrament that comes with Confession, since the perpetrators of our crimes were Catholic priests, but the word Reconciliation really works. For me and others, recovering a long suppressed and affecting memory is like a gonging bell has been going off in your head for decades, and suddenly SPRROOONNNG the bell stops clanging and everything in your life falls into place.
What I created in my mind to remember instead was what any 5 year old child would create if a Catholic priest was towering over them conducting sexual activity.
I thought I had been visited by Michael the Archangel.
I went from age five through teenage and then adult years all the way to age 45 thinking, deep inside to myself, that I had some special sexual thing about me, because of this very special visit i had had from a horny archangel at age five.
Through the 1970s and 1980s therapists told me over and over again that most people remember a few things from before age six. I could never remember anything - ANYTHING - from before age six.
If you can’t remember anything from before an age it is a sign something traumatic happened at that age. I didn't remember anything from before age six.
Then there is the part about the bishop. I’ve pretty well identified him as Cardinal Stritch, who ran the Chicago Archdiocese in the 1940s and 1950s.
The strongest and most vivid memory that was not suppressed but just there in my head my whole life, was that “bishop” standing over me, in a dark room, his face was almost all you could see, and he was saying, “Stop babbling about what Father Horne did to you.” I said to him all of six years old, something like, wouldn't that be lying? And he answered “Sometimes you have to lie in order to protect a greater good.”
Sometimes you have to lie in order to protect a greater good.
That line of dialogue is all over the place in my journals.
It is also all over the case files of the LA Clergy Cases settled in July 2007.
I actually used the bishop and his lying techniques as a spokeswoman for NASA later in life
More decisively, I actually used the persona of that bishop in the Chicago archdiocese later on in my adult life.
I was working at NASA in the Public Information Office, aka Newsroom, at LBJ Space Center in Houston. It was early 1980s, the space shuttle had a lot of design problems, but especially the tiles. That's what is eerie about this connection to the lies of the bishop in Chicago, because it has to do with the tiles, the low-cost budget saving tiles that were put all over the space shuttle airship to protect it on reentry.
Lots of news people were questioning the safety of the tiles back in the late seventies, writers from places like US News and World Report and ABC and the New York Times. First launch of the space shuttle had been delayed for months, into years, and in the press room, we kept putting out stories with later and later projected launch dates for STS-1.
The tiles on the space shuttle were a serious problem as far back as 1978.
Journalists who specialized in aeronautic and space topics were causing the public information office at NASA in Houston a lot of problems.
We found ourselves having to defend a design flaw that a lot of us knew was really a flaw. A more expensive safer technique of protecting the space shuttle on reentry had been shot down, where they would spray one layer of ceramic over the entire ship, with with potential cracks. People blamed it on Nixon era federal overseers.
Journalists who specialized in aeronautic writing were asking, won't the space shuttle burn up in re-entry if there is the slightest nick in a tile.
That is exactly what happened on February 1, 2003, when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, with the loss of all seven crew members
The tiles cracked like people said they would in 1978, and the Columbia burned up leaving a trail of debris over Texas.
What does that have to do with Cardinal Stritch and my recovered memories?
At NASA we knew the shuttle could burn up in reentry because of cracked tiles back in 1978. Some public information specialists in the newsroom did not even want to deal with questions about the tiles. That is probably how I, the lowest on the totem pole of the group, ended up making any kind of comment to the press.
Probably the journalist worked his way down the office hallway until he got to my door, and since no one else would say anything, he asked me:
Won't the space shuttle burn up on reentry because of a small crack in these tiles?
I’d been briefed by Rockwell. There was a tainted but true message that Rockwell PR had suggested we use when explaining the tile problem to the media. Most of the staff in the PIO balked.
I had no problem at all giving out this almost true information.
I knew deep down inside it was okay to lie for the protection of a greater good.
I donned the persona of the “bishop” from Chicago circa 1954. As the reporter asked me about the tiles, my voice changed, became melodic and higher pitched, and a little sarcasm and condescension entered the tone-
I looked down through my nose and said to the reporter in this melodic voice.
“They have tested these tiles over and over again. They don’t chip. If they do chip or crack, it will not be a problem for the astronauts to repair them during the mission. The space shuttle tiles are not really that big a problem, you are listening to alarmists who just want to keep finding something wrong.”
Something like that. The words aren’t important, because it was me adopting the persona of the bishop. I had to in order to do my duty and tell a lie for the protection of a greater good. . .
Seven astronauts got killed in the Columbia disaster. I knew some of them, though I was long gone from NASA by 2003.
I don't adopt personae anymore. Ever since I experienced that “reconciliation” or ever since the clanging of the bell in the bell jar stopped, I have not needed to adopt persona to make it through life.
Before the recovered memory, I don't think I ever was truly myself.
When I went to work at NASA in 1978, I was adopting the persona of Faye Dunaway in Network. As a hippie mom my persona was a fantasy female in long skirts, flowers in her hair, always graceful and at peace - unless someone brought up the Vietnam War. Then I became a female version of Jerry Ruben. There were years as a yoga instructor, years as editor in chief of a tacky magazine. Through it all, I adopted personae to make it through life.
Recovering the memories caused the clanging to stop. I know I’ll probably never win a lawsuit or get any kind of acknowledgement from the Chicago Archdiocese, as I could never prove my case in court - unless some other victim of Father Thomas Barry Horne in Bartlett Illinois 1950-53 comes forward.
That would be my Confirmation.
Since I can’t prove my case to the constraints of a legal lawsuit, the Catholic Church, ever in servitude and worship of civil law and authority, does not have to acknowledge my case, or give me any help at all.
So now I'm sixty years old.
I was not myself from age 5 to age 45, I was adopting other people’s personalities, lives, mannerisms, speech patterns, not to mention physical appearance. Until age forty-five when the memories came in.
It is hard not to get stuck mourning the loss more or less of 40 years of my life. I have to appreciate that at least I get these “golden” years, to be myself for the first time.
All the behavior that was tormenting me as an aging adult, wondering with no explanation, why did I do this, why did I say that. Plus add the element of sobriety. I had been clean and sober for two years straight, probably the first time in my adult life. Plus in the story add the element that my daughter turned the age I was at the time of the molest, which is such a young age that it’s understandable the memory was suppressed.
I know who I really am now. That is something.
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
People wonder about recovered memory. I can understand why. I would wonder myself about stories like mine that are part of the clergy crisis in the Catholic Church, if it hadn’t happened to me. Even as a teenager, I was drawn like in a fugue state to movies like Sybil and parts of The Chapman Report that dealt with suppressed memories, and their effects on a person in adult life.
What people don’t realize is how the person having the recovered memory knows the memory is real. In my case and in Peter Saracino’s whose story we posted yesterday, a Reconciliation came with the recovered memory.
Funny to choose the word for the sacrament that comes with Confession, since the perpetrators of our crimes were Catholic priests, but the word Reconciliation really works. For me and others, recovering a long suppressed and affecting memory is like a gonging bell has been going off in your head for decades, and suddenly SPRROOONNNG the bell stops clanging and everything in your life falls into place.
What I created in my mind to remember instead was what any 5 year old child would create if a Catholic priest was towering over them conducting sexual activity.
I thought I had been visited by Michael the Archangel.
I went from age five through teenage and then adult years all the way to age 45 thinking, deep inside to myself, that I had some special sexual thing about me, because of this very special visit i had had from a horny archangel at age five.
Through the 1970s and 1980s therapists told me over and over again that most people remember a few things from before age six. I could never remember anything - ANYTHING - from before age six.
If you can’t remember anything from before an age it is a sign something traumatic happened at that age. I didn't remember anything from before age six.
Then there is the part about the bishop. I’ve pretty well identified him as Cardinal Stritch, who ran the Chicago Archdiocese in the 1940s and 1950s.
The strongest and most vivid memory that was not suppressed but just there in my head my whole life, was that “bishop” standing over me, in a dark room, his face was almost all you could see, and he was saying, “Stop babbling about what Father Horne did to you.” I said to him all of six years old, something like, wouldn't that be lying? And he answered “Sometimes you have to lie in order to protect a greater good.”
Sometimes you have to lie in order to protect a greater good.
That line of dialogue is all over the place in my journals.
It is also all over the case files of the LA Clergy Cases settled in July 2007.
I actually used the bishop and his lying techniques as a spokeswoman for NASA later in life
More decisively, I actually used the persona of that bishop in the Chicago archdiocese later on in my adult life.
I was working at NASA in the Public Information Office, aka Newsroom, at LBJ Space Center in Houston. It was early 1980s, the space shuttle had a lot of design problems, but especially the tiles. That's what is eerie about this connection to the lies of the bishop in Chicago, because it has to do with the tiles, the low-cost budget saving tiles that were put all over the space shuttle airship to protect it on reentry.
Lots of news people were questioning the safety of the tiles back in the late seventies, writers from places like US News and World Report and ABC and the New York Times. First launch of the space shuttle had been delayed for months, into years, and in the press room, we kept putting out stories with later and later projected launch dates for STS-1.
The tiles on the space shuttle were a serious problem as far back as 1978.
Journalists who specialized in aeronautic and space topics were causing the public information office at NASA in Houston a lot of problems.
We found ourselves having to defend a design flaw that a lot of us knew was really a flaw. A more expensive safer technique of protecting the space shuttle on reentry had been shot down, where they would spray one layer of ceramic over the entire ship, with with potential cracks. People blamed it on Nixon era federal overseers.
Journalists who specialized in aeronautic writing were asking, won't the space shuttle burn up in re-entry if there is the slightest nick in a tile.
That is exactly what happened on February 1, 2003, when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, with the loss of all seven crew members
The tiles cracked like people said they would in 1978, and the Columbia burned up leaving a trail of debris over Texas.
What does that have to do with Cardinal Stritch and my recovered memories?
At NASA we knew the shuttle could burn up in reentry because of cracked tiles back in 1978. Some public information specialists in the newsroom did not even want to deal with questions about the tiles. That is probably how I, the lowest on the totem pole of the group, ended up making any kind of comment to the press.
Probably the journalist worked his way down the office hallway until he got to my door, and since no one else would say anything, he asked me:
Won't the space shuttle burn up on reentry because of a small crack in these tiles?
I’d been briefed by Rockwell. There was a tainted but true message that Rockwell PR had suggested we use when explaining the tile problem to the media. Most of the staff in the PIO balked.
I had no problem at all giving out this almost true information.
I knew deep down inside it was okay to lie for the protection of a greater good.
I donned the persona of the “bishop” from Chicago circa 1954. As the reporter asked me about the tiles, my voice changed, became melodic and higher pitched, and a little sarcasm and condescension entered the tone-
I looked down through my nose and said to the reporter in this melodic voice.
“They have tested these tiles over and over again. They don’t chip. If they do chip or crack, it will not be a problem for the astronauts to repair them during the mission. The space shuttle tiles are not really that big a problem, you are listening to alarmists who just want to keep finding something wrong.”
Something like that. The words aren’t important, because it was me adopting the persona of the bishop. I had to in order to do my duty and tell a lie for the protection of a greater good. . .
Seven astronauts got killed in the Columbia disaster. I knew some of them, though I was long gone from NASA by 2003.
I don't adopt personae anymore. Ever since I experienced that “reconciliation” or ever since the clanging of the bell in the bell jar stopped, I have not needed to adopt persona to make it through life.
Before the recovered memory, I don't think I ever was truly myself.
When I went to work at NASA in 1978, I was adopting the persona of Faye Dunaway in Network. As a hippie mom my persona was a fantasy female in long skirts, flowers in her hair, always graceful and at peace - unless someone brought up the Vietnam War. Then I became a female version of Jerry Ruben. There were years as a yoga instructor, years as editor in chief of a tacky magazine. Through it all, I adopted personae to make it through life.
Recovering the memories caused the clanging to stop. I know I’ll probably never win a lawsuit or get any kind of acknowledgement from the Chicago Archdiocese, as I could never prove my case in court - unless some other victim of Father Thomas Barry Horne in Bartlett Illinois 1950-53 comes forward.
That would be my Confirmation.
Since I can’t prove my case to the constraints of a legal lawsuit, the Catholic Church, ever in servitude and worship of civil law and authority, does not have to acknowledge my case, or give me any help at all.
So now I'm sixty years old.
I was not myself from age 5 to age 45, I was adopting other people’s personalities, lives, mannerisms, speech patterns, not to mention physical appearance. Until age forty-five when the memories came in.
It is hard not to get stuck mourning the loss more or less of 40 years of my life. I have to appreciate that at least I get these “golden” years, to be myself for the first time.
All the behavior that was tormenting me as an aging adult, wondering with no explanation, why did I do this, why did I say that. Plus add the element of sobriety. I had been clean and sober for two years straight, probably the first time in my adult life. Plus in the story add the element that my daughter turned the age I was at the time of the molest, which is such a young age that it’s understandable the memory was suppressed.
I know who I really am now. That is something.
Onward. . .
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
His perp is a parish priest. A scream inside says children are still at risk, go public with the story from Immaculate Heart seminary in NY
*
By Kay Ebeling
The church finally admits that thousands of children were damaged by sexual predator priests and pays close to a billion in settlements to adult survivors the last decade. As crime victims we should feel vindicated. But thousands of us got no acknowledgement. The church only responds to cases that come with fully documented lawsuits. If you can’t find other victims, if there is no hard evidence, if local law makes prosecution impossible, the Catholic Church does not count your crime in with its statistics about the clergy crisis. You feel your case counts for nothing.
Survivor Peter Saracino, pictured at right, knows his perpetrator is still in a parish, the bishop more or less acknowledges the priest is a pedophile, but the Capuchin religious order “investigation” did not include interviews with those closest to the accused priest. The talk in the town, at the local bars and coffee shops, is that local kids learned to stay away from Immaculate Heart Of Mary Seminary. But many victims keep their experience at the hands of serial pedophile Catholic priests a secret, especially in regions like upstate New York, where the Catholic Church is built into the foundation of city and county governance. The crime victims’ hesitance is understandable, but in Saracino’s case it means the perpetrator priest is still in a New Jersey town, serving Mass, even “babysitting” according to the parish pastor.
“To this day I have received no confirmation from another victim that they were abused at the seminary – let alone by Father Anthony Blank. That is part of my reason for making it public now – and part of my reason for my willingness to name names. my hope that I will find other victims of this man,” says Saracino. “To this day I'm still afraid he is going to come back and rape me.”
Saracino and I deal with recovered memory as well. Pete says he always knew there was something wrong with him, and in therapy even identified, he had been molested at some time as a child. He pondered and brooded over it, who in his family would have done that. I had a similar experience. For years therapists told me I had all the signs of someone who had been molested as a child, but I couldn't imagine anyone in my family doing that. Saracino and I both recovered memories decades later as adults.
On Saracino’s new commute to a new job he drove past Geneva on the Lake resort, and as he’d get close to the former Immaculate Heart Of Mary Seminary land, memories started colliding in his brain. He pulled in to the parking lot to find out why he was going so crazy -
And the memories began to pour in.
Much like when my daughter turned five years old, I pulled her away from a window where I was sure she’d been exposing herself to neighbors, but of course she wasn’t, and then memories began to pour in of what Father Horne did to me when I was five years old, and why that made me behave the way I did, from five years old on.
It is not an experience a person gets over quickly.
It is not the kind of case attorneys like to take on either.
So Saracino and I and thousands of other pedophile priest crime victims remain un-named, un-numbered, un-resolved, and un-restituted. Still Saracino and I keep putting one foot in front of the other, hoping by getting our stories out, a few more people will see the name of the perp, the seminary, the parish, or remember other incidents, and more survivors of childhood rape by a Catholic priest come forward and make the crimes known.
In 1989 Saracino started remembering what happened to him at the hands of Father Anthony Blank, Capuchin
Now almost 20 years later Saracino is finding strength and courage to put his story into new media as a way to reach more potential victims, by posting his story here at City of Angels Network. Below in Peter Saracino’s own words, is his experience at the hands of a pedophile priest, the effect it had on his life, and his current frustration trying to run his own investigation with no help from the church, no help from attorneys (his case is too hard to prove for your usual civil lawsuit, like mine is), but with a little help from new friends he’s found in the national pedophile priest crime victim community.
He sent me his story recently, and here are excerpts.
***************
Peter Saracino, in his own words.
The seminary was run by the Province of the Sacred Stigmata out of Union City, N.J. We were kind of close to the priests there. My Father signed us up to be in the “Third Order of St. Francis, a group of lay folks who helped out with food baskets at Thanksgiving, etc. A number of these priests would often come down to St. Pat’s parish in Seneca Falls to say Mass. It was common for them to stop at our house after mass to have coffee. My mom and aunt were kind of close to these guys. It was also common for these priests to take many young boys from Seneca Falls up to the seminary to go swimming.
I believe my abuse happened on one of these swimming trips to the seminary.
While I still remembered the NAMES of the priests from back then, I couldn’t connect a name with a face. I wondered who the priest might be. I got my hands on an old year book of the place and started looking at the pictures. When my eyes landed on the photograph of the abuser, I looked down and saw his name – Father Anthony Blank, OFM Capuchin, (City of Angels cannot run his entire name as he is still alive.)
Father Anthony GiudiceOFM Capuchin.
It was the one priest who I was really hoping it would NOT be – I had just named my second child BLANK!!
***********
Saracino and I share this. My sister named her son Damian, not even remembering at the time our perpetrator was at St. Peter Damian Church outside Chicago
*****************************
Peter Saracino, In His Own Words, Cont'd:
It was a perfect summer’s day and I was so glad to be alive. The grass was so green, the sky so blue and I was going on an “adventure”
I believe something happened that day. Ever since I’ve had a “feeling”, a “perception”, a very weird “knowing”/”unknowing” that “something” happened that day. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I had a sense that, deep down inside, at my very core, I had been “changed” – and not for the better.
Throughout my life I found myself continually fighting depression, despair, sadness. It was very difficult being close to people. More than once I felt like ending it all. In spite of my best efforts, I couldn’t seem to shake these feelings. Friends grew up and got married, had families, raised kids. Pete Saracino, on the other hand, seemed to be a loner – with no wife, kids, etc.
Finally, with no hope remaining, I turned to God for help
I was now on a spiritual journey that has lasted to this very day
Little, by little, however, “it” began to surface. I gradually came to understand that I had been molested as a young boy. This, by the way, was a bit before the scandal began to surface with Frank Fitzpatrick going public with the Father James Porter story in Massachusetts. In fact, it was just a few years before that – perhaps 1989. I was shocked and dismayed………and very worried…………WHO could have done such a thing? Was it my dad, my uncle, a brother, WHO?
Around this time I was commuting to a job by a road that took me past the old seminary. It is now a world class resort called “Geneva on the Lake”
As I drove by, I knew I did NOT like the place…..that something horrible had happened there. T hen, one day as I drove by and again said to the little guy within me, can you please tell me……………………….and then, just after I spoke these words, came to my mind the image of a face……………it was a Capuchin priest – the dark eyebrows, the beard……..the face. I was shocked; I was absolutely dumbfounded. It couldn’t be possible…..A priest? I had to be the only person in the world ever molested by a priest. Who would ever believe me.
I wondered who the priest might be. I got my hands on an old year book of the place and started looking at the pictures. When my eyes landed on the photograph of the abuser, I looked down and saw his name – Father Anthony Blank, OFM Capuchin. It was the one priest who I was really hoping it would NOT be – I had just named my second child the same name as the priest!!
I gradually began working up the courage to begin investigating. I called Barb Pedeville, a woman who works with the Diocese of Rochester as an advocate for abuse victims. Little by little, with each phone call, I began telling her my story – WITHOUT telling her my name. She promised to “ask around” to see if she could dig anything up. At one point she told me that she had spoken with the Bishop – at the time, a retired former bishop of the Rochester Diocese. She informed me that when she questioned him about any “goings-on” of a sexual nature at the seminary back then, his reply was “that place was a mess…………that’s why it closed” . I gradually found the courage to identify myself. Slowly I developed a relationship with Barb.
Meanwhile, through spiritual direction and therapy, the memories began to surface. They continue to this very day.
*****************
'If you ever tell, no one will believe you over a priest.' It is little wonder that my mind kept this experience hidden from me for so many years
********************************************
Peter Saracino in his own words, continued:
I just remember a feeling like being a “pig on a spit” – being pierced through both ends and slowly being turned and cooked over a fire…….
I remember his words to me – more devastating than the abuse itself………..”if you ever tell, no one will believe you over a priest…………….if you ever tell, the Blessed Mother (Mary) won’t love you………besides, she won’t love you because YOU did this horrible thing…………….if you ever tell, I will come and kill you!
It is little wonder that my mind “kept” this “experience” hidden from me for so many years………….
I finally found the courage to have a meeting with Bishop Clark to disclose the whole story.
Bishop Clark seemed to believe me
Bishop Clark said that he had little jurisdiction over Father Anthony Giudicebecause he was a Capuchin and not a priest of the Rochester Diocese
****************************
Yes, we knew he was raping children, but he is in a religious order, we are an archdiocese. So it is not our responsibility.
Me, I am tired of hearing that excuse - ke
********************************************
Peter Saracino In His Own Words, continued:
When I first approached the Capuchins of Union City, NJ, I spoke with the Provincial who did tell me that Father Anthony Giudicehad been sent to St. Luke’s in Maryland for “testing”. Evidently he stayed there for just a day and the tests – according to the Capuchins, showed no cause for concern.
The Capuchins did agree to an investigation.
For their investigation they spoke with people about Father Anthony Giudice– friends of Father Anthony Giudicewho had nothing but great things to say about him.
They decided that it was his word against mine. Nothing was done to him. In fact, shortly thereafter, I was told that he had returned to Geneva and was babysitting!!!
**************
His perp was in Geneva New York Babysitting
BABYSITTING!!!
************************
Peter Saracino in his own words, continued:
I continue investigating
A psychologist told me that in group therapy, two of his clients mentioned they had been sexually abused at Immaculate Heart Seminary. While the therapist could not give me their names, he promised to give those patients my name and phone number in the event they wanted to call me. To this day I have never heard from them.
My mom recently told me that when I was little - during the days of kids going to the seminary to swim – there came a day when I began begging her NOT to make me
******************
Fr. Anthony Giudicefound out Saracino was asking questions about him around town. The priest reacted like a criminal, almost stalking Saracino, intimidating him into a few more years of silence.
********************************
Peter Saracino In His Own Words continued:
Anthony Giudicekept asking my friend and neighbor the name of the street where we lived. My friend began to feel uneasy and refused to tell him. That night, Anthony Giudiceshowed up on the street where I lived. He simply sat in a parked car looking down the street toward my apartment. His presence was discovered when this same friend came out to jog and ran right by the car. As he passed the car he realized that he recognized the face……it was Father Anthony Blank. Realizing that he had been caught, Anthony Giudicesped down the street at about 45-50 miles/hour.”
Also in my investigation I discovered that a number of important individuals – including priests who were family friends and who were at the seminary at the time of the abuse – Fathers (Names cut) and another Capuchin Brother, were Never asked if they knew anything!!!!
I also spoke with Father "Blanket" who also said he knew nothing. Angelus told me, however, that, as a young seminarian, he, himself, had been abused by a Capuchin friar. In order to force Fortunato to call these priests himself, I was forced to write a letter to his Superior in Rome!!!! Then, and only then, did he contact them. Then, and only then, were they even an official part of this “investigation”.
Meanwhile I continue in therapy, both individual and group. I participated in a male survivors’ group in Rochester, NY for four years.
At one meeting, I personally called Father Anthony Giudiceand “had it out”. I confronted him. His answers were very short. He was denying everything I said. You could tell he just wanted to get off the phone. I finally said to him: “Do the people in Geneva you come back to visit know the kind of person you really are? Do they know you are a murderer of souls?” For the first time there was silence at the other end……then he dropped the phone! Then he hung up.
*******************
‘To this day – and much to my disappointment – I have received no confirmation from another victim that they were abused at the seminary’
***************************************
Peter Saracino In His Own Words, continued:
Of late, I continue on my healing journey. For the past six years I have co-facilitated a support group for men who were abused by priests. We hold our meetings in Geneva, NY.
I have tried to be a voice for the voiceless – I have appeared a couple of times on TV; written an op-ed piece in the local paper in response to a B.S. piece written by the local bishop. I have also written a number of letters to the editor. I have attending four national conferences for clergy abuse survivors – two in Chicago, one in Toronto, and one in Louisville. A few days ago I visited the local police department and reported my abuse as a crime. I now have an official record of the horrible events.
I called down to St. Francis of Assisi parish in Hackensack, NJ and confirmed that Father Anthony Giudiceis a priest there.
Also, to this day – and much to my disappointment – I have received no confirmation from another victim that they were abused at the seminary – let alone by Father Anthony Blank. Part of my reason for making it “public” now – and part of my reason for my willingness to “name names” is my hope that I will find other victims of this man.
(Unfortunately City of Angels had to replace the name of the man Peter says raped him, because he is still alive and could sue me for - my typewriter. . . )
A recent Good Friday, I once again phoned Father Blanket who is now at a capuchin friary in Beacon, NY. As stated before, I told him of my conversation with my mom and asked him if he could/would shed light on it. He said that he knew nothing about the conversation or any abuse at the seminary. He was put off that it was Good Friday and that I had “bothered” him. I told him that, with all due respect, every day of my life since I was seven had been a “Good Friday” for me. This means I have struggled my entire life with feelings of despair, depression, unworthiness before God and other people, an inability to be close to people’ feelings of suicide, etc.
What would I like to have happen? I would like to continue regaining my “voice” – my sense of myself taken away by the abuse. I would like to continue healing from the pain, of the past. I would like to protect little children. So, In this order:
1. I would like to have the abuse acknowledged.
2. I would like an apology from both the order and Father Anthony Blank
3. I would like to see Anthony Giudice“retired” and jailed………….at the very least, I would like for him to be unable to hurt any more kids.
4. I would like to find other survivors of Father Anthony Giudiceand the Immacualte Heart of Mary seminary. As I’ve said, I’ve been unable to locate any – including my cousin, Jim, who claims he knows nothing about any abuse happening there.
5. I sure would like Father Anthony Giudiceand the Capuchin Order held accountable………..Anthony Giudicefor his abuse; the order for their lack of willingness to even attempt a good-faith effort to arrive at the truth
6. If being “accountable” means paying monetary restitution, then so be it.
END OF PETER SARACINO IN HIS OWN WORDS
***************
Pete told me, to this day he is “always afraid Father Anthony Giudiceis going to come back and rape me.” He said:
“In light of what I'm going through now, I look back and realize, I used to think what's the matter with me.
“I’d see friends getting married. . . .”
“In spite of efforts to enter pain and move through it, it’s there’s always more stuff inside. It’s surprising and disconcerting the depth of it and how profoundly you're affected by it.
"It is like a scream."
Peter Saracino: My Big Concern is Children are still in harm’s way.
**************************************
Psychologists cite the number as about 1 in 10 or even 1 in 20 persons come forward about child sex abuse. The numbers are likely higher when the perpetrator is a Catholic priest, which is probably a reason pedophiles flock to the profession.
*************
The statute of limitations makes justice a crap shoot for sex crime victims, depending on what state you are in, you get some kind of justice or none at all.
****************************
The statute of limitations to file criminal charges or a civil lawsuit is a crap shoot, depending on what state you were in at the time of the rape. In Maryland and Delaware, there is no SOL on sex crimes, in California they opened a one-year window in 2003 for civil lawsuits then reinstated the SOL on January 1st 2004. In New York you have from age 18 to 21 to file suit, then the statute of limitations runs out.
I was raped by a priest outside Chicago, so I'm left with restrictions of Illinois law, and of course the Chicago Archdiocese has no need to respond to me, I’ll never file a lawsuit.
Those of us who can take no civil or criminal action are invisible to the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has no legal or financial obligation to the thousands of crime victims unless they arrive armored by lawsuits with blatant evidence.
To get a response of confirmation from the Catholic Church you have to make them an allegation they can’t refuse.
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
The church finally admits that thousands of children were damaged by sexual predator priests and pays close to a billion in settlements to adult survivors the last decade. As crime victims we should feel vindicated. But thousands of us got no acknowledgement. The church only responds to cases that come with fully documented lawsuits. If you can’t find other victims, if there is no hard evidence, if local law makes prosecution impossible, the Catholic Church does not count your crime in with its statistics about the clergy crisis. You feel your case counts for nothing.
Survivor Peter Saracino, pictured at right, knows his perpetrator is still in a parish, the bishop more or less acknowledges the priest is a pedophile, but the Capuchin religious order “investigation” did not include interviews with those closest to the accused priest. The talk in the town, at the local bars and coffee shops, is that local kids learned to stay away from Immaculate Heart Of Mary Seminary. But many victims keep their experience at the hands of serial pedophile Catholic priests a secret, especially in regions like upstate New York, where the Catholic Church is built into the foundation of city and county governance. The crime victims’ hesitance is understandable, but in Saracino’s case it means the perpetrator priest is still in a New Jersey town, serving Mass, even “babysitting” according to the parish pastor.
“To this day I have received no confirmation from another victim that they were abused at the seminary – let alone by Father Anthony Blank. That is part of my reason for making it public now – and part of my reason for my willingness to name names. my hope that I will find other victims of this man,” says Saracino. “To this day I'm still afraid he is going to come back and rape me.”
Saracino and I deal with recovered memory as well. Pete says he always knew there was something wrong with him, and in therapy even identified, he had been molested at some time as a child. He pondered and brooded over it, who in his family would have done that. I had a similar experience. For years therapists told me I had all the signs of someone who had been molested as a child, but I couldn't imagine anyone in my family doing that. Saracino and I both recovered memories decades later as adults.
On Saracino’s new commute to a new job he drove past Geneva on the Lake resort, and as he’d get close to the former Immaculate Heart Of Mary Seminary land, memories started colliding in his brain. He pulled in to the parking lot to find out why he was going so crazy -
And the memories began to pour in.
Much like when my daughter turned five years old, I pulled her away from a window where I was sure she’d been exposing herself to neighbors, but of course she wasn’t, and then memories began to pour in of what Father Horne did to me when I was five years old, and why that made me behave the way I did, from five years old on.
It is not an experience a person gets over quickly.
It is not the kind of case attorneys like to take on either.
So Saracino and I and thousands of other pedophile priest crime victims remain un-named, un-numbered, un-resolved, and un-restituted. Still Saracino and I keep putting one foot in front of the other, hoping by getting our stories out, a few more people will see the name of the perp, the seminary, the parish, or remember other incidents, and more survivors of childhood rape by a Catholic priest come forward and make the crimes known.
In 1989 Saracino started remembering what happened to him at the hands of Father Anthony Blank, Capuchin
Now almost 20 years later Saracino is finding strength and courage to put his story into new media as a way to reach more potential victims, by posting his story here at City of Angels Network. Below in Peter Saracino’s own words, is his experience at the hands of a pedophile priest, the effect it had on his life, and his current frustration trying to run his own investigation with no help from the church, no help from attorneys (his case is too hard to prove for your usual civil lawsuit, like mine is), but with a little help from new friends he’s found in the national pedophile priest crime victim community.
He sent me his story recently, and here are excerpts.
***************
Peter Saracino, in his own words.
The seminary was run by the Province of the Sacred Stigmata out of Union City, N.J. We were kind of close to the priests there. My Father signed us up to be in the “Third Order of St. Francis, a group of lay folks who helped out with food baskets at Thanksgiving, etc. A number of these priests would often come down to St. Pat’s parish in Seneca Falls to say Mass. It was common for them to stop at our house after mass to have coffee. My mom and aunt were kind of close to these guys. It was also common for these priests to take many young boys from Seneca Falls up to the seminary to go swimming.
I believe my abuse happened on one of these swimming trips to the seminary.
While I still remembered the NAMES of the priests from back then, I couldn’t connect a name with a face. I wondered who the priest might be. I got my hands on an old year book of the place and started looking at the pictures. When my eyes landed on the photograph of the abuser, I looked down and saw his name – Father Anthony Blank, OFM Capuchin, (City of Angels cannot run his entire name as he is still alive.)
Father Anthony GiudiceOFM Capuchin.
It was the one priest who I was really hoping it would NOT be – I had just named my second child BLANK!!
***********
Saracino and I share this. My sister named her son Damian, not even remembering at the time our perpetrator was at St. Peter Damian Church outside Chicago
*****************************
Peter Saracino, In His Own Words, Cont'd:
It was a perfect summer’s day and I was so glad to be alive. The grass was so green, the sky so blue and I was going on an “adventure”
I believe something happened that day. Ever since I’ve had a “feeling”, a “perception”, a very weird “knowing”/”unknowing” that “something” happened that day. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I had a sense that, deep down inside, at my very core, I had been “changed” – and not for the better.
Throughout my life I found myself continually fighting depression, despair, sadness. It was very difficult being close to people. More than once I felt like ending it all. In spite of my best efforts, I couldn’t seem to shake these feelings. Friends grew up and got married, had families, raised kids. Pete Saracino, on the other hand, seemed to be a loner – with no wife, kids, etc.
Finally, with no hope remaining, I turned to God for help
I was now on a spiritual journey that has lasted to this very day
Little, by little, however, “it” began to surface. I gradually came to understand that I had been molested as a young boy. This, by the way, was a bit before the scandal began to surface with Frank Fitzpatrick going public with the Father James Porter story in Massachusetts. In fact, it was just a few years before that – perhaps 1989. I was shocked and dismayed………and very worried…………WHO could have done such a thing? Was it my dad, my uncle, a brother, WHO?
Around this time I was commuting to a job by a road that took me past the old seminary. It is now a world class resort called “Geneva on the Lake”
As I drove by, I knew I did NOT like the place…..that something horrible had happened there. T hen, one day as I drove by and again said to the little guy within me, can you please tell me……………………….and then, just after I spoke these words, came to my mind the image of a face……………it was a Capuchin priest – the dark eyebrows, the beard……..the face. I was shocked; I was absolutely dumbfounded. It couldn’t be possible…..A priest? I had to be the only person in the world ever molested by a priest. Who would ever believe me.
I wondered who the priest might be. I got my hands on an old year book of the place and started looking at the pictures. When my eyes landed on the photograph of the abuser, I looked down and saw his name – Father Anthony Blank, OFM Capuchin. It was the one priest who I was really hoping it would NOT be – I had just named my second child the same name as the priest!!
I gradually began working up the courage to begin investigating. I called Barb Pedeville, a woman who works with the Diocese of Rochester as an advocate for abuse victims. Little by little, with each phone call, I began telling her my story – WITHOUT telling her my name. She promised to “ask around” to see if she could dig anything up. At one point she told me that she had spoken with the Bishop – at the time, a retired former bishop of the Rochester Diocese. She informed me that when she questioned him about any “goings-on” of a sexual nature at the seminary back then, his reply was “that place was a mess…………that’s why it closed” . I gradually found the courage to identify myself. Slowly I developed a relationship with Barb.
Meanwhile, through spiritual direction and therapy, the memories began to surface. They continue to this very day.
*****************
'If you ever tell, no one will believe you over a priest.' It is little wonder that my mind kept this experience hidden from me for so many years
********************************************
Peter Saracino in his own words, continued:
I just remember a feeling like being a “pig on a spit” – being pierced through both ends and slowly being turned and cooked over a fire…….
I remember his words to me – more devastating than the abuse itself………..”if you ever tell, no one will believe you over a priest…………….if you ever tell, the Blessed Mother (Mary) won’t love you………besides, she won’t love you because YOU did this horrible thing…………….if you ever tell, I will come and kill you!
It is little wonder that my mind “kept” this “experience” hidden from me for so many years………….
I finally found the courage to have a meeting with Bishop Clark to disclose the whole story.
Bishop Clark seemed to believe me
Bishop Clark said that he had little jurisdiction over Father Anthony Giudicebecause he was a Capuchin and not a priest of the Rochester Diocese
****************************
Yes, we knew he was raping children, but he is in a religious order, we are an archdiocese. So it is not our responsibility.
Me, I am tired of hearing that excuse - ke
********************************************
Peter Saracino In His Own Words, continued:
When I first approached the Capuchins of Union City, NJ, I spoke with the Provincial who did tell me that Father Anthony Giudicehad been sent to St. Luke’s in Maryland for “testing”. Evidently he stayed there for just a day and the tests – according to the Capuchins, showed no cause for concern.
The Capuchins did agree to an investigation.
For their investigation they spoke with people about Father Anthony Giudice– friends of Father Anthony Giudicewho had nothing but great things to say about him.
They decided that it was his word against mine. Nothing was done to him. In fact, shortly thereafter, I was told that he had returned to Geneva and was babysitting!!!
**************
His perp was in Geneva New York Babysitting
BABYSITTING!!!
************************
Peter Saracino in his own words, continued:
I continue investigating
A psychologist told me that in group therapy, two of his clients mentioned they had been sexually abused at Immaculate Heart Seminary. While the therapist could not give me their names, he promised to give those patients my name and phone number in the event they wanted to call me. To this day I have never heard from them.
My mom recently told me that when I was little - during the days of kids going to the seminary to swim – there came a day when I began begging her NOT to make me
******************
Fr. Anthony Giudicefound out Saracino was asking questions about him around town. The priest reacted like a criminal, almost stalking Saracino, intimidating him into a few more years of silence.
********************************
Peter Saracino In His Own Words continued:
Anthony Giudicekept asking my friend and neighbor the name of the street where we lived. My friend began to feel uneasy and refused to tell him. That night, Anthony Giudiceshowed up on the street where I lived. He simply sat in a parked car looking down the street toward my apartment. His presence was discovered when this same friend came out to jog and ran right by the car. As he passed the car he realized that he recognized the face……it was Father Anthony Blank. Realizing that he had been caught, Anthony Giudicesped down the street at about 45-50 miles/hour.”
Also in my investigation I discovered that a number of important individuals – including priests who were family friends and who were at the seminary at the time of the abuse – Fathers (Names cut) and another Capuchin Brother, were Never asked if they knew anything!!!!
I also spoke with Father "Blanket" who also said he knew nothing. Angelus told me, however, that, as a young seminarian, he, himself, had been abused by a Capuchin friar. In order to force Fortunato to call these priests himself, I was forced to write a letter to his Superior in Rome!!!! Then, and only then, did he contact them. Then, and only then, were they even an official part of this “investigation”.
Meanwhile I continue in therapy, both individual and group. I participated in a male survivors’ group in Rochester, NY for four years.
At one meeting, I personally called Father Anthony Giudiceand “had it out”. I confronted him. His answers were very short. He was denying everything I said. You could tell he just wanted to get off the phone. I finally said to him: “Do the people in Geneva you come back to visit know the kind of person you really are? Do they know you are a murderer of souls?” For the first time there was silence at the other end……then he dropped the phone! Then he hung up.
*******************
‘To this day – and much to my disappointment – I have received no confirmation from another victim that they were abused at the seminary’
***************************************
Peter Saracino In His Own Words, continued:
Of late, I continue on my healing journey. For the past six years I have co-facilitated a support group for men who were abused by priests. We hold our meetings in Geneva, NY.
I have tried to be a voice for the voiceless – I have appeared a couple of times on TV; written an op-ed piece in the local paper in response to a B.S. piece written by the local bishop. I have also written a number of letters to the editor. I have attending four national conferences for clergy abuse survivors – two in Chicago, one in Toronto, and one in Louisville. A few days ago I visited the local police department and reported my abuse as a crime. I now have an official record of the horrible events.
I called down to St. Francis of Assisi parish in Hackensack, NJ and confirmed that Father Anthony Giudiceis a priest there.
Also, to this day – and much to my disappointment – I have received no confirmation from another victim that they were abused at the seminary – let alone by Father Anthony Blank. Part of my reason for making it “public” now – and part of my reason for my willingness to “name names” is my hope that I will find other victims of this man.
(Unfortunately City of Angels had to replace the name of the man Peter says raped him, because he is still alive and could sue me for - my typewriter. . . )
A recent Good Friday, I once again phoned Father Blanket who is now at a capuchin friary in Beacon, NY. As stated before, I told him of my conversation with my mom and asked him if he could/would shed light on it. He said that he knew nothing about the conversation or any abuse at the seminary. He was put off that it was Good Friday and that I had “bothered” him. I told him that, with all due respect, every day of my life since I was seven had been a “Good Friday” for me. This means I have struggled my entire life with feelings of despair, depression, unworthiness before God and other people, an inability to be close to people’ feelings of suicide, etc.
What would I like to have happen? I would like to continue regaining my “voice” – my sense of myself taken away by the abuse. I would like to continue healing from the pain, of the past. I would like to protect little children. So, In this order:
1. I would like to have the abuse acknowledged.
2. I would like an apology from both the order and Father Anthony Blank
3. I would like to see Anthony Giudice“retired” and jailed………….at the very least, I would like for him to be unable to hurt any more kids.
4. I would like to find other survivors of Father Anthony Giudiceand the Immacualte Heart of Mary seminary. As I’ve said, I’ve been unable to locate any – including my cousin, Jim, who claims he knows nothing about any abuse happening there.
5. I sure would like Father Anthony Giudiceand the Capuchin Order held accountable………..Anthony Giudicefor his abuse; the order for their lack of willingness to even attempt a good-faith effort to arrive at the truth
6. If being “accountable” means paying monetary restitution, then so be it.
END OF PETER SARACINO IN HIS OWN WORDS
***************
Pete told me, to this day he is “always afraid Father Anthony Giudiceis going to come back and rape me.” He said:
“In light of what I'm going through now, I look back and realize, I used to think what's the matter with me.
“I’d see friends getting married. . . .”
“In spite of efforts to enter pain and move through it, it’s there’s always more stuff inside. It’s surprising and disconcerting the depth of it and how profoundly you're affected by it.
"It is like a scream."
Peter Saracino: My Big Concern is Children are still in harm’s way.
**************************************
Psychologists cite the number as about 1 in 10 or even 1 in 20 persons come forward about child sex abuse. The numbers are likely higher when the perpetrator is a Catholic priest, which is probably a reason pedophiles flock to the profession.
*************
The statute of limitations makes justice a crap shoot for sex crime victims, depending on what state you are in, you get some kind of justice or none at all.
****************************
The statute of limitations to file criminal charges or a civil lawsuit is a crap shoot, depending on what state you were in at the time of the rape. In Maryland and Delaware, there is no SOL on sex crimes, in California they opened a one-year window in 2003 for civil lawsuits then reinstated the SOL on January 1st 2004. In New York you have from age 18 to 21 to file suit, then the statute of limitations runs out.
I was raped by a priest outside Chicago, so I'm left with restrictions of Illinois law, and of course the Chicago Archdiocese has no need to respond to me, I’ll never file a lawsuit.
Those of us who can take no civil or criminal action are invisible to the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has no legal or financial obligation to the thousands of crime victims unless they arrive armored by lawsuits with blatant evidence.
To get a response of confirmation from the Catholic Church you have to make them an allegation they can’t refuse.
Onward. . .
Monday, November 17, 2008
LA Update: Progress toward new referee for document release. And if survivors wonder about the cross, it is no concern to Mahony
*
By Kay Ebeling
Attorneys will file the application this week for Dickran Tevrizian to be the new referee in the LA Clergy Cases. Tony DeMarco said he received the retired federal judge’s Certificate of Availability last week so he can now take the next step towards replacing Edward A. Panelli as referee. If approved, Tevrizian will review personnel records and other items from the 560 plus cases, which settled with the stipulation that documents would be released to plaintiffs in July 2007.
Meanwhile the documents themselves are in geographic locations around the city, including attorneys’ offices, and the Archdiocese Archives building in Granada Hills. Don’t know who’s to keep those very ethical church employees from accidentally shredding the most condemning documents before they get to the new referee.
Call me hopelessly untrusting but it also bothers me that the Survivors Cross was never returned to LA plaintiffs, in fact no one really knows where it is. “It has pictures of the plaintiffs when they were the age of their abuse on it,” I hollered into someone’s ear in a recent phone conversation. “Doesn't it bother you that now the cross in a basement somewhere in the archdiocese for any pervert to come across?”
Last July, activist Debbra Bodkin wrote this in a letter to Roger Mahony, and the man did not even deign to respond:
Dear Cardinal Mahony:
I am a Catholic wife, mother and active supporter of justice and peace; especially as it relates to
the clergy sex abuse crisis that erupted in June 2002. This letter is written with respect and concern, hoping to clarify and disprove the serious accusations circulating throughout Southern California Catholic communities.
In June 2003, a group of sex abuse survivors, families and supporters proceeded toward the Cathedral’s entrance and placed a cross with photographs, in the alcove specifically “designated” by you for observance of the suffering of sex abuse victims. Unfortunately, there was a debate in front of live cameras at the time; however, the procession stopped at the entrance to the alcove, a brief statement was made to the press and the cross remained on display at the Cathedral since June 2003. However, we were recently told that the cross and photos have been removed from the site you specifically “designated” for observance of the suffering of sex abuse victims.”
Actually, City of Angels Lady is the one who discovered the cross had been removed. As one of the few pedophile priest rape survivors who can walk into the cathedral without barfing - (Yay though I walk into the valley of death I fear no evil) - I was the one who first saw way last spring that the survivor cross was no longer in its display area.
From what I understand, no one can get a straight answer or any answer at all from Tod Tamberg the archdiocese spokesman, or from Mahony or anyone else.
Hey, they paid the settlement, what more do you want?
What more do you expect?
Consideration?
*************
The cross meant a lot to many of the LA plaintiffs. Here is how one of the persons who helped carry the cross inside recently described the incident to me (name withheld):
The last Sunday in May 2003, Mahony calls the media and dedicates little alcove in the cathedral to the victims of sex abuse.
He had advance notice that we were going to hold a demonstration, and he thought his announcement would steal our thunder.
So we went ahead with our plan. We had about 150 people outside, we had every damn news station in LA with TV, we had all sorts of preparations, we had people with pictures around their necks, we had lots of placards. It was like, you know, it was like a fiesta on Olvera Street, it was just teeming with people.
Even Mahony came out and Tamberg and at first they said no you can’t put that cross in here.
We kept insisting and then when there was a lull we were inside.
I don't remember the exact details, but a couple of people just looked around and said let’s just take it inside. I ran ahead and someone got the door. They had people standing in front of him, Mahony, some woman with her maroon security coat and her walkie talkie and the other guys were just moving forward. I recall seeing Tamberg shake his head, like don’t stand in their way.
So they stood aside, someone held the door open and they took it into the cathedral and we looked for the alcove. People were already there and they said over here. the alcove where Mahony had a little plaque for the survivors.
‘
Someone grabbed each end of cross with and they said there’s a space in the corner let’s go. It was all caught on tape, on Channel 11.
They had this plaque that said:
This space is dedicated to those who were affected by childhood sexual abuse.
Or something like that.
Well several months into this, they left it there, but they took down the plaque.
A lot of people saw the cross and pictures of children and didn't know what it was about, and so they put pictures of their kids who were shot in gang violence and who had leukemia and who had other illnesses and the whole thing was diluted.
Originally, a survivor wrote something like “I was four years old when father so and so ripped my hymen and I’ve had physical problems with my sexual organs ever since.”
The archdiocese employees would tear those pages out.
Then people started writing things in Spanish about the husband in jail and kids taking drugs please Angel Gabriel come and help, so it turned into that kind of thing, my nina lost his leg and he needs a job, stuff like that.
*********
Also coming up:
The church tries to seal documents that should have been unsealed, or unseal documents that shouldn't have been sealed - in a hearing December 10th.
Will report more later. Right now, my boss is calling me.
From LA Superior Court website:
12/10/2008 at 10:00 am in department 308 at 600 South Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005 Hearing-Oral Argument
1) RE MTN. TO UNSEAL COURT RECORDS FILED ON 6-13-08
2) HRG. RE OBJECT.TO CT. ORDER OF 10-31-08
3) OSC REPROOF OF BOND AND PROBATE CASE
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
Attorneys will file the application this week for Dickran Tevrizian to be the new referee in the LA Clergy Cases. Tony DeMarco said he received the retired federal judge’s Certificate of Availability last week so he can now take the next step towards replacing Edward A. Panelli as referee. If approved, Tevrizian will review personnel records and other items from the 560 plus cases, which settled with the stipulation that documents would be released to plaintiffs in July 2007.
Meanwhile the documents themselves are in geographic locations around the city, including attorneys’ offices, and the Archdiocese Archives building in Granada Hills. Don’t know who’s to keep those very ethical church employees from accidentally shredding the most condemning documents before they get to the new referee.
Call me hopelessly untrusting but it also bothers me that the Survivors Cross was never returned to LA plaintiffs, in fact no one really knows where it is. “It has pictures of the plaintiffs when they were the age of their abuse on it,” I hollered into someone’s ear in a recent phone conversation. “Doesn't it bother you that now the cross in a basement somewhere in the archdiocese for any pervert to come across?”
Last July, activist Debbra Bodkin wrote this in a letter to Roger Mahony, and the man did not even deign to respond:
Dear Cardinal Mahony:
I am a Catholic wife, mother and active supporter of justice and peace; especially as it relates to
the clergy sex abuse crisis that erupted in June 2002. This letter is written with respect and concern, hoping to clarify and disprove the serious accusations circulating throughout Southern California Catholic communities.
In June 2003, a group of sex abuse survivors, families and supporters proceeded toward the Cathedral’s entrance and placed a cross with photographs, in the alcove specifically “designated” by you for observance of the suffering of sex abuse victims. Unfortunately, there was a debate in front of live cameras at the time; however, the procession stopped at the entrance to the alcove, a brief statement was made to the press and the cross remained on display at the Cathedral since June 2003. However, we were recently told that the cross and photos have been removed from the site you specifically “designated” for observance of the suffering of sex abuse victims.”
Actually, City of Angels Lady is the one who discovered the cross had been removed. As one of the few pedophile priest rape survivors who can walk into the cathedral without barfing - (Yay though I walk into the valley of death I fear no evil) - I was the one who first saw way last spring that the survivor cross was no longer in its display area.
From what I understand, no one can get a straight answer or any answer at all from Tod Tamberg the archdiocese spokesman, or from Mahony or anyone else.
Hey, they paid the settlement, what more do you want?
What more do you expect?
Consideration?
*************
The cross meant a lot to many of the LA plaintiffs. Here is how one of the persons who helped carry the cross inside recently described the incident to me (name withheld):
The last Sunday in May 2003, Mahony calls the media and dedicates little alcove in the cathedral to the victims of sex abuse.
He had advance notice that we were going to hold a demonstration, and he thought his announcement would steal our thunder.
So we went ahead with our plan. We had about 150 people outside, we had every damn news station in LA with TV, we had all sorts of preparations, we had people with pictures around their necks, we had lots of placards. It was like, you know, it was like a fiesta on Olvera Street, it was just teeming with people.
Even Mahony came out and Tamberg and at first they said no you can’t put that cross in here.
We kept insisting and then when there was a lull we were inside.
I don't remember the exact details, but a couple of people just looked around and said let’s just take it inside. I ran ahead and someone got the door. They had people standing in front of him, Mahony, some woman with her maroon security coat and her walkie talkie and the other guys were just moving forward. I recall seeing Tamberg shake his head, like don’t stand in their way.
So they stood aside, someone held the door open and they took it into the cathedral and we looked for the alcove. People were already there and they said over here. the alcove where Mahony had a little plaque for the survivors.
‘
Someone grabbed each end of cross with and they said there’s a space in the corner let’s go. It was all caught on tape, on Channel 11.
They had this plaque that said:
This space is dedicated to those who were affected by childhood sexual abuse.
Or something like that.
Well several months into this, they left it there, but they took down the plaque.
A lot of people saw the cross and pictures of children and didn't know what it was about, and so they put pictures of their kids who were shot in gang violence and who had leukemia and who had other illnesses and the whole thing was diluted.
Originally, a survivor wrote something like “I was four years old when father so and so ripped my hymen and I’ve had physical problems with my sexual organs ever since.”
The archdiocese employees would tear those pages out.
Then people started writing things in Spanish about the husband in jail and kids taking drugs please Angel Gabriel come and help, so it turned into that kind of thing, my nina lost his leg and he needs a job, stuff like that.
*********
Also coming up:
The church tries to seal documents that should have been unsealed, or unseal documents that shouldn't have been sealed - in a hearing December 10th.
Will report more later. Right now, my boss is calling me.
From LA Superior Court website:
12/10/2008 at 10:00 am in department 308 at 600 South Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005 Hearing-Oral Argument
1) RE MTN. TO UNSEAL COURT RECORDS FILED ON 6-13-08
2) HRG. RE OBJECT.TO CT. ORDER OF 10-31-08
3) OSC REPROOF OF BOND AND PROBATE CASE
Onward. . .
Friday, November 14, 2008
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
The 18 hundred pound gorilla in the United States living room is the continued influence and power of an organized crime conglomerate that includes sexual trafficking of children, harboring and abetting pedophiles, and a conspired fraud perpetrated on thousands of Americans. The criminals - Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals, who to this day hide behind legal maneuverings by shady lawyers, meet in secret places flying in on private jets, make back room deals, are even implicated in murders.
Roman Catholic bishops are a national syndicate of organized crime.
The 18 hundred pound gorilla in the United States living room is the continued influence and power of an organized crime conglomerate that includes sexual trafficking of children, harboring and abetting pedophiles, and a conspired fraud perpetrated on thousands of Americans. The criminals - Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals, who to this day hide behind legal maneuverings by shady lawyers, meet in secret places flying in on private jets, make back room deals, are even implicated in murders.
Roman Catholic bishops are a national syndicate of organized crime.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Pedophile priests at large in New Jersey. James Tully in Wayne and Robert Petrella in North Arlington. Survivors alert neighborhoods
*
By Kay Ebeling
Pedophile priest Robert Petrella got an eighteen month sentence, convicted of unnatural and perverted sex practices against children. He served nine. The pedophile priest finished parole in Maryland last year and David Fortwengler, whose testimony as one of the victims helped get the conviction, followed his tracks, as Petrella moved in with his mother, at 106 Ilford Ave, North Arlington, New Jersey.
Around the same time last October, as Bill Nash packed for his trip to confront his perpetrator in Italy, the ephebophile priest James Tully (recent photo at left) came back back to the United States, and now lives at the Xaverian Religious Order headquarters at 12 Helene Court in Wayne, New Jersey.
Both Fortwengler and Nash produced flyers to hand out to people where their perpetrators now live in New Jersey. Those flyers are copy and pasted below, first Bill Nash's flyer about James Tully:
Protect your kids
Sexual Predator just moved here
Who we are?
We are victims of childhood sexual abuse by clergy.
Why we are here?
We want to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded. We are worried about a serial sexual predator who recently moved here from Italy.
Who is this molester?
Father James Tully is a Xaverian Missionary Priest. He abused boys in Boston in the 1970s; a seminarian in Wisconsin in the 1980s; and several more boys in Milwaukee in the 1990s. Tully was finally arrested in 1991, sent to a treatment center, the put on probation.
What have Catholic officials done?
Even after Tully was arrested and was convicted, Church authorities protected him and quietly moved him, first to Sierra Leone, then to New York, and eventually to work at the Vatican itself! Now they moved him from Italy to the Order’s headquarters at 12 Helene Court in Wayne, New Jersey.
What can you do?
• Learn more about Tully.
• http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/longterm/stories/close_to_home.5f10ac9b.html
• Protect your children, keep them away from his home.
• Tell your friends and neighbors about Tully.
• Contact law enforcement authorities immediately if you see or hear any suspicious behavior by Tully or his colleagues.
• Call Tully’s supervisors. Prod them to publicly disclose whether they have housed or are housing other child molesting clergymen nearby.
• Contact the Patterson diocese and ask them to announce Tully’s presence here so parents will be warned and kids will be protected.
• Let us know that you have taken these steps.
Contacts:
Wayne Police Department 973-694-1800
Road to Recovery 862-368-2800
SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) 877-762-7432 - P.O. Box 6416, Chicago, IL 60680-6416 http://www.snapnetwork.org/
*********************
And here is David Fortwengler's flyer about Robert Petrella:
Convicted pedophile ex-priest, living in North Arlington community.
Robert Joseph Petrella of 106 Ilford Ave., has been convicted four times in Prince Georges County, Md. for Unnatural and Perverted Sex Practices against children. The Archdiocese of Washington, his former employer, has admitted at least 25 known victims.
Due to a loophole Maryland law he is not required to register as a sex offender.
In April of 2004, ex-priest Robert Petrella was released from a Md. Prison., In May of 2007 he was released from his probation with the State of Maryland. Because he was convicted of crimes that occurred before Megan’s Law was passed, he is not required to register as a sex offender.
Legislation in Maryland to close this loophole failed last spring, but will be re-introduced in January by
Del. Christopher Shank.
Please contact him at
christopher.shank@house.state.md.us
to support passage of HB761.
Petrella was defrocked in 2003 by Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul. Information about his past is available at http://bishopaccountability.org/
********************
END OF FLYERS
********************
Nash had tracked Tully to Vicenza, local media ran with the story that a pedophile was in the village. Nash goes to Italy in late November to speak at a pedophile conference in Vicenza, the village where Tully had been dwelling. (See September 15 post here at City of Angels Network.)
Nash said recently: “I was concerned that if I didn't open my mouth, Tully was a danger to someone else. I was told he went to Rome to work in the archives with no contact with young people. Then the Dallas Morning News did the Runaway priest stories and I realized the Vatican was becoming a refuge for pedophiles.
“I'm not going to stop having press conferences,” Nash said.
Fortwengler said recently: “I got to see Robert Petrella convicted of unnatural and perverted sex practice. I know I'm fortunate, compared to other survivors, because I got to see him convicted.
“Robert Petrella is the same as all of them, a serial predator confident that nobody would ever say anything. Three people did, and that was enough to get him convicted in Maryland. Now I don't have to talk about it anymore. All the details of the crime are public record in court documents.”
However, in Maryland, where Petrella was convicted, any sex crimes from before Sept. 1995, when the sex offender registry was created, do not have to register.
Coming up in January is a new Maryland law that would fill the sex offender registry gap and force Petrella to add his name. Fortwengler will be there to testify.
***********************
"David Fortwengler is a man on a mission. He traveled by car from his home in Gaffney, South Carolina on Saturday, Sept. 6 and stayed at a motel in Clifton until Monday, Sept. 8.
"His quest – to let the residents in North Arlington, especially those on Ilford Avenue, know that defrocked priest Robert Joseph Petrella, the convicted predator who raped him when he was a 11-year-old altar boy, was living in their midst incognito.
"Petrella, 70, is reported to be staying with his mother Josephine at 106 Ilford Avenue where he grew up. A relative at the residence named Joe said Petrella
'only visits.'
"Petrella is not registered as a sex offender in this state or any other he has lived in."
The Observer
October 2nd., 2008
*****************
Fr. Jim Tully (at right, click to enlarge) at large in New Jersey.
"I remember when we took that picture, back in the seminary," Nash said. "Some college kids gave him that t-shirt.
More about both these priests at http://bishopaccountability.org/ under P for Petrella or T for Tully. Or just start from A and read about all five thousand and counting pedophile priests with allegations credible enough for them to make the bishop accountability database.
Then tell me pedophile priests in the Catholic Church were only a tiny minority.
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
Pedophile priest Robert Petrella got an eighteen month sentence, convicted of unnatural and perverted sex practices against children. He served nine. The pedophile priest finished parole in Maryland last year and David Fortwengler, whose testimony as one of the victims helped get the conviction, followed his tracks, as Petrella moved in with his mother, at 106 Ilford Ave, North Arlington, New Jersey.
Around the same time last October, as Bill Nash packed for his trip to confront his perpetrator in Italy, the ephebophile priest James Tully (recent photo at left) came back back to the United States, and now lives at the Xaverian Religious Order headquarters at 12 Helene Court in Wayne, New Jersey.
Both Fortwengler and Nash produced flyers to hand out to people where their perpetrators now live in New Jersey. Those flyers are copy and pasted below, first Bill Nash's flyer about James Tully:
Protect your kids
Sexual Predator just moved here
Who we are?
We are victims of childhood sexual abuse by clergy.
Why we are here?
We want to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded. We are worried about a serial sexual predator who recently moved here from Italy.
Who is this molester?
Father James Tully is a Xaverian Missionary Priest. He abused boys in Boston in the 1970s; a seminarian in Wisconsin in the 1980s; and several more boys in Milwaukee in the 1990s. Tully was finally arrested in 1991, sent to a treatment center, the put on probation.
What have Catholic officials done?
Even after Tully was arrested and was convicted, Church authorities protected him and quietly moved him, first to Sierra Leone, then to New York, and eventually to work at the Vatican itself! Now they moved him from Italy to the Order’s headquarters at 12 Helene Court in Wayne, New Jersey.
What can you do?
• Learn more about Tully.
• http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/longterm/stories/close_to_home.5f10ac9b.html
• Protect your children, keep them away from his home.
• Tell your friends and neighbors about Tully.
• Contact law enforcement authorities immediately if you see or hear any suspicious behavior by Tully or his colleagues.
• Call Tully’s supervisors. Prod them to publicly disclose whether they have housed or are housing other child molesting clergymen nearby.
• Contact the Patterson diocese and ask them to announce Tully’s presence here so parents will be warned and kids will be protected.
• Let us know that you have taken these steps.
Contacts:
Wayne Police Department 973-694-1800
Road to Recovery 862-368-2800
SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) 877-762-7432 - P.O. Box 6416, Chicago, IL 60680-6416 http://www.snapnetwork.org/
*********************
And here is David Fortwengler's flyer about Robert Petrella:
Convicted pedophile ex-priest, living in North Arlington community.
Robert Joseph Petrella of 106 Ilford Ave., has been convicted four times in Prince Georges County, Md. for Unnatural and Perverted Sex Practices against children. The Archdiocese of Washington, his former employer, has admitted at least 25 known victims.
Due to a loophole Maryland law he is not required to register as a sex offender.
In April of 2004, ex-priest Robert Petrella was released from a Md. Prison., In May of 2007 he was released from his probation with the State of Maryland. Because he was convicted of crimes that occurred before Megan’s Law was passed, he is not required to register as a sex offender.
Legislation in Maryland to close this loophole failed last spring, but will be re-introduced in January by
Del. Christopher Shank.
Please contact him at
christopher.shank@house.state.md.us
to support passage of HB761.
Petrella was defrocked in 2003 by Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul. Information about his past is available at http://bishopaccountability.org/
********************
END OF FLYERS
********************
Nash had tracked Tully to Vicenza, local media ran with the story that a pedophile was in the village. Nash goes to Italy in late November to speak at a pedophile conference in Vicenza, the village where Tully had been dwelling. (See September 15 post here at City of Angels Network.)
Nash said recently: “I was concerned that if I didn't open my mouth, Tully was a danger to someone else. I was told he went to Rome to work in the archives with no contact with young people. Then the Dallas Morning News did the Runaway priest stories and I realized the Vatican was becoming a refuge for pedophiles.
“I'm not going to stop having press conferences,” Nash said.
Fortwengler said recently: “I got to see Robert Petrella convicted of unnatural and perverted sex practice. I know I'm fortunate, compared to other survivors, because I got to see him convicted.
“Robert Petrella is the same as all of them, a serial predator confident that nobody would ever say anything. Three people did, and that was enough to get him convicted in Maryland. Now I don't have to talk about it anymore. All the details of the crime are public record in court documents.”
However, in Maryland, where Petrella was convicted, any sex crimes from before Sept. 1995, when the sex offender registry was created, do not have to register.
Coming up in January is a new Maryland law that would fill the sex offender registry gap and force Petrella to add his name. Fortwengler will be there to testify.
***********************
"David Fortwengler is a man on a mission. He traveled by car from his home in Gaffney, South Carolina on Saturday, Sept. 6 and stayed at a motel in Clifton until Monday, Sept. 8.
"His quest – to let the residents in North Arlington, especially those on Ilford Avenue, know that defrocked priest Robert Joseph Petrella, the convicted predator who raped him when he was a 11-year-old altar boy, was living in their midst incognito.
"Petrella, 70, is reported to be staying with his mother Josephine at 106 Ilford Avenue where he grew up. A relative at the residence named Joe said Petrella
'only visits.'
"Petrella is not registered as a sex offender in this state or any other he has lived in."
The Observer
October 2nd., 2008
*****************
Fr. Jim Tully (at right, click to enlarge) at large in New Jersey."I remember when we took that picture, back in the seminary," Nash said. "Some college kids gave him that t-shirt.
More about both these priests at http://bishopaccountability.org/ under P for Petrella or T for Tully. Or just start from A and read about all five thousand and counting pedophile priests with allegations credible enough for them to make the bishop accountability database.
Then tell me pedophile priests in the Catholic Church were only a tiny minority.
Onward. . .
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
31 allegations against Bishop of Sioux City, a pedophile who preyed on young boys, though the Iowa diocese does its best to hide the story
*
By Kay Ebeling
“31? Did you say 31?”
“Uh-huh, there are 31 credible accusations against Soens,” Janet Clark said, so I went to the Davenport Iowa Catholic diocese website and there it was at http://www.davenportdiocese.org/comm/commlib/prRevised_Priest_List_11_03_2008.pdf
"Acused by 31 male minors."
The November 3, 2008, press release barely mentions retired bishop Lawrence Soens (pictured at left). Instead the diocese headline reads: “Msgr. Drake Shafer found not guilty of abuse,” with a nice little bio of the one monsignor who was found Not Guilty in the recent diocese review board report. You have to go to the Amended List of Accused Priest Assignments at the home page and then go down to the middle of page 2 in the middle of a chart to find out about the midwestern bishop: "Lawrence Soens: Accused by 31 male minors."
“The Review Board found that certain allegations of sexual abuse against Retired Bishop Lawrence Soens are credible," reads a paragraph in the middle of the previous page of the pdf file and continues: "Then-Father Soens was accused of sexually abusing students at Iowa City Regina High School in the 1950's and 1960's when he was its Principal. He was also accused of sexually abusing a male minor when he was rector of St. Ambrose Seminary. The Review Board did not review all of the allegations against him because some claimants did not want their claims reviewed by the Board.”
That paragraph makes it appear there was maybe one more allegation at Iowa Regina High School, and then one more from St. Ambrose Seminary. Then the news release about the review board report came out on November 3rd when almost everyone in the United States was focused on the presidential election.
“That decision came out Monday, right before the election," Clark said, "and of course nobody heard a thing about it."
When the news broke on Monday, SNAP contacted Clark, who is a survivor from Iowa herself. She said the survivors watchdog group contacted the media, and when Janet arrived, “There were three TV stations and several print reporters there. Every news outlet in Sioux City was there.
"I felt really good about it.”
Janet went on: “I went over there to protest the way Sioux City has handled him.
Clark first became energized about Soens and the Sioux City Diocese in 2005
"In June 2005 their Catholic magazine The Globe printed an article saying Soens was innocent - in 2006 their current bishop Walther Nicholas wrote an article saying he was sorry for the victims but the article was another very pro-Soens.
“I wrote in my journal that I got a copy of the Globe and saw this article and was mad about it.” Clark, in picture at right, sent me the entry from her journal:
Quote from my journal:
June 2005 Inside (the Globe, Sioux City diocese newspaper) was a story about a former bishop, Laurence Soens, who's been accused of sexual abuse, surprise, surprise. The article was all pro-Soens--the people are behind him, he's denying the allegations, etc. etc. BLAH! The newspaper struck me as full of contridictions- articles proclaiming good moral values, like canceling the debt in poor nations, and celebrating the Catholic community, and yet this continued hideous treatment of abuse victims. I felt really raw, in alot of pain.
(Clark’s case was part of 2007 Iowa settlement.)
Janet Clark has written a fiction novel, Blind Faith, which is about priest sexual assault, for more information go to http://www.janeteclark.com/
Her Throat literally opened back up:
About the press conference last week, Clark said,
“I felt really empowered.
“When I was assaulted back in 1979 my throat literally closed, I literally could not speak. And when I tried to tell people afterwards, my throat would close up again.
“Even in 2006 when I went through litigation, I had the same physical sensation in my voice. When I spoke in depositions, as memories came back I would feel my throat closing up.
"So it felt good to get up and speak in front of all those people Thursday."
Her perpetrator is Patrick McElliott and there are plenty of stories about him at http://bishopaccountability.org/ under M.
As for Lawrence Soens:
More About Soens:
From a Richard sipe affidavit located online at:
http://www.qctimes.com/multimedia/documents/080217_soens_2.pdf
“According to all accounts of his punishing behavior at the school, in the hallways or in his office, he wore a cassock - a garment that would conceal his erection.”
“By multiple reports, Soens’ persistent habit of painfully twisting, pinching, fondling, massaging, or “purpling” the nipples of male students was commonly known by the Regina high School, and frequently observed in the hallways of the school.”
This is a little “ditty” Sipe reports kids sang at the school?
“L.D. is a queer,
a stinking queer is he,
when he is wlaking down the hall,
he will pinch your tit with glee.”
Several students report him touching their penis during meetings in his office.
He told one of his victims that a priest can’t have sex with a woman but “it was permissible with a male.”
Meanwhile:
JANET CLARK HAD A COUPLE VICTORIOUS DAYS LAST WEEK
“I canvassed four days for Obama,” Clark said.
“One day to a little town called Calendar near where I live, knocked on doors and gave people information about Obama.”
“Then we set the press conference up for Thursday.”
“These boys,” Janet said, “he would twist their nipple when passing them in hallway the boys called it purpling. He’d call boys into office and unzip pants and rub genitals while scolding.”
*****************
One survivor told me he’s concerned that pedophiles might read this blog and get turned on by some of the graphic description.
Oh yeah?
Get outta here you crappy perverts, this is a blog for crime survivors, not perpetrators. Creeps!
************************************
Clark added: “We know there are other victims of Lawrence Soens that have not come forward.”
You can always email city of angels lady at: cityofangelslady@yahoo.com
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
“31? Did you say 31?”
“Uh-huh, there are 31 credible accusations against Soens,” Janet Clark said, so I went to the Davenport Iowa Catholic diocese website and there it was at http://www.davenportdiocese.org/comm/commlib/prRevised_Priest_List_11_03_2008.pdf
"Acused by 31 male minors."
The November 3, 2008, press release barely mentions retired bishop Lawrence Soens (pictured at left). Instead the diocese headline reads: “Msgr. Drake Shafer found not guilty of abuse,” with a nice little bio of the one monsignor who was found Not Guilty in the recent diocese review board report. You have to go to the Amended List of Accused Priest Assignments at the home page and then go down to the middle of page 2 in the middle of a chart to find out about the midwestern bishop: "Lawrence Soens: Accused by 31 male minors."
“The Review Board found that certain allegations of sexual abuse against Retired Bishop Lawrence Soens are credible," reads a paragraph in the middle of the previous page of the pdf file and continues: "Then-Father Soens was accused of sexually abusing students at Iowa City Regina High School in the 1950's and 1960's when he was its Principal. He was also accused of sexually abusing a male minor when he was rector of St. Ambrose Seminary. The Review Board did not review all of the allegations against him because some claimants did not want their claims reviewed by the Board.”
That paragraph makes it appear there was maybe one more allegation at Iowa Regina High School, and then one more from St. Ambrose Seminary. Then the news release about the review board report came out on November 3rd when almost everyone in the United States was focused on the presidential election.
“That decision came out Monday, right before the election," Clark said, "and of course nobody heard a thing about it."
When the news broke on Monday, SNAP contacted Clark, who is a survivor from Iowa herself. She said the survivors watchdog group contacted the media, and when Janet arrived, “There were three TV stations and several print reporters there. Every news outlet in Sioux City was there.
"I felt really good about it.”
Janet went on: “I went over there to protest the way Sioux City has handled him.
Clark first became energized about Soens and the Sioux City Diocese in 2005
"In June 2005 their Catholic magazine The Globe printed an article saying Soens was innocent - in 2006 their current bishop Walther Nicholas wrote an article saying he was sorry for the victims but the article was another very pro-Soens.
“I wrote in my journal that I got a copy of the Globe and saw this article and was mad about it.” Clark, in picture at right, sent me the entry from her journal:
Quote from my journal:
June 2005 Inside (the Globe, Sioux City diocese newspaper) was a story about a former bishop, Laurence Soens, who's been accused of sexual abuse, surprise, surprise. The article was all pro-Soens--the people are behind him, he's denying the allegations, etc. etc. BLAH! The newspaper struck me as full of contridictions- articles proclaiming good moral values, like canceling the debt in poor nations, and celebrating the Catholic community, and yet this continued hideous treatment of abuse victims. I felt really raw, in alot of pain.
(Clark’s case was part of 2007 Iowa settlement.)
Janet Clark has written a fiction novel, Blind Faith, which is about priest sexual assault, for more information go to http://www.janeteclark.com/
Her Throat literally opened back up:
About the press conference last week, Clark said,
“I felt really empowered.
“When I was assaulted back in 1979 my throat literally closed, I literally could not speak. And when I tried to tell people afterwards, my throat would close up again.
“Even in 2006 when I went through litigation, I had the same physical sensation in my voice. When I spoke in depositions, as memories came back I would feel my throat closing up.
"So it felt good to get up and speak in front of all those people Thursday."
Her perpetrator is Patrick McElliott and there are plenty of stories about him at http://bishopaccountability.org/ under M.
As for Lawrence Soens:
More About Soens:
From a Richard sipe affidavit located online at:
http://www.qctimes.com/multimedia/documents/080217_soens_2.pdf
“According to all accounts of his punishing behavior at the school, in the hallways or in his office, he wore a cassock - a garment that would conceal his erection.”
“By multiple reports, Soens’ persistent habit of painfully twisting, pinching, fondling, massaging, or “purpling” the nipples of male students was commonly known by the Regina high School, and frequently observed in the hallways of the school.”
This is a little “ditty” Sipe reports kids sang at the school?
“L.D. is a queer,
a stinking queer is he,
when he is wlaking down the hall,
he will pinch your tit with glee.”
Several students report him touching their penis during meetings in his office.
He told one of his victims that a priest can’t have sex with a woman but “it was permissible with a male.”
Meanwhile:
JANET CLARK HAD A COUPLE VICTORIOUS DAYS LAST WEEK
“I canvassed four days for Obama,” Clark said.
“One day to a little town called Calendar near where I live, knocked on doors and gave people information about Obama.”
“Then we set the press conference up for Thursday.”
“These boys,” Janet said, “he would twist their nipple when passing them in hallway the boys called it purpling. He’d call boys into office and unzip pants and rub genitals while scolding.”
*****************
One survivor told me he’s concerned that pedophiles might read this blog and get turned on by some of the graphic description.
Oh yeah?
Get outta here you crappy perverts, this is a blog for crime survivors, not perpetrators. Creeps!
************************************
Clark added: “We know there are other victims of Lawrence Soens that have not come forward.”
You can always email city of angels lady at: cityofangelslady@yahoo.com
Onward. . .
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Walk Across Oregon 2009 will go through Wallowa Valley where Chief Joseph said I Will Fight No More Forever
*
By Kay Ebeling
As a recent convert, Virginia Jones (pictured at right) was shocked to hear that a Franciscan brother at her parish was removed for pedophilia. She handed out copies of news articles and as she puts it, “Got thrown out of the parish.” But a new pastor reached out to Virginia, she returned to the church, and is now an advocate for child sex abuse survivors. She put together among other things, the first annual Walk Across Oregon in September 2008.
“We are walking through Wallowa Valley in August 2009,” Jones said, “where Chief Joseph made the ‘I will fight no more forever’ speech. We will walk through the same land that he was forced to leave.” The route includes campouts under waterfalls, and a route through rural towns in Northern Oregon.
“I was thrown out of my parish after advocating for abuse survivors,” Jones says, “but a compassionate Franciscan priest named Armando Lopez reached out to me along with other parishioners. What healed me was them welcoming me back to the parish.”
Today at Ascension Church in Portland, Jones helps run support meetings the second Saturday of every month from 10 to noon. Jones put together a screening of Hand of God two years ago that led to the organizing of Walk Across Oregon 2008 last September.
“We followed Old 99 along the I-Five. We had 15 people with us in, Portland, in Salem six. We went through Independence, Winston. We walked most of it. It’s hard because of the I-Five. The old 99 could be busy and fast in places.
“So many people came up and said thank you for what you're doing,” Jones said. “Some felt real healing. People will see you and talk to you awhile before telling you they're a survivor, or they know a survivor.”
They Saw wild turkeys and people panning for gold along the route this year. There’s lots of tourists in Oregon in the summer - so next year’s walk should reach even more people. And it’s a reason to get out of the heat in mid-summer.
I Will Fight No More Forever
At left - when they encountered freeways, the Walk Across Oregon last September had to hop on a van to cross areas where no pedestrian could possibly cross. In August 2009 the second Walk Across Oregon will spend a month hiking and camping in small towns in the north state, with several nights spent at waterfalls. Watch for news updates beginning next spring.
Virginia Jones believes God has put her where she is for a reason, at Ascension Church in Portland, Oregon, she educating parishioners and Oregonians at large about child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
Isn’t It Ironic File:
For Raping Boys, we can turn our backs, but steal our money?
The priest forced sex on teenager boys for years, one crime victim filed charges as an adult that the clergyman essentially paid him hush money, close to $50 thousand dollars over time, to keep quiet about the rapes and their shared use of drugs. As a result Rev. Charles Newman will go to trial in early 2009, not for serial ephebophilia, but for embezzlement of $900K from the Archbishop Ryan High school in Philadelphia. Three former students have accused Newman publicly, they estimate 25 other victims of what the Inquirer calls his “illicit relationships,” but last December the Philadelphia Grand Jury only brought down charges for “misappropriated funds.”
You are a Homosexual? Leave the priesthood immediately. You are a pedophile, the archdiocese sends you on an paid vacation
The California election moved one parish priest to deliver a sermon saying he believed in gay marriage last month, in fact he was gay himself. Within days Fresno Bishop John T. Steinbock removed the former Fr. now Mr. Geoffrey Farrow, 50, as pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center on a Cal State campus, saying, "Your statement contradicted the teaching of the Catholic Church and has brought scandal to your parish community as well as the whole Church." Steinbock was the auxiliary bishop in Orange County CA who welcomed serial pedophile Fr. Richard Coughlin when the archdiocese of Boston sent him to Orange, CA. Steinbock arranged an instant vacation for Fr. Eleuterio Ramos after he admitted raping teenagers at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Santa Ana.
But no way could Bishop Steinbock of Fresno tolerate a homesexual priest.
Nationwide Altar Boys Groped Before Mass, in city after city the same M-O.
If anyone doubts Catholic priests have a special and unique open access to children because of being Catholic priests, consider this from a recent conversation with a former altar boy.
“There’s a whole ritual they do before Mass when they get dressed. The altar boys help them dress. The cassock you hold it up like helping somebody on with a coat, then the boy holds up the sash. The priests kiss the sash before they put it on. We were in the sacristy five minutes before mass, and as I'm standing back against this closet, he goes to tuck in my shirt”
This happened more than once, more than a dozen times.
I hear scenes like the one above over and over again when talking to former altar boys AND altar girls. This was organized crime, serial felonies, aided and abetted by a national pedophile network that operated freely inside archdioceses all across the country.
In there was ever a need for RICO investigations, the Roman Catholic Church in the USA is ripe for one.
-------
PLUS CAMPING UNDER WATERFALLS!!!
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
As a recent convert, Virginia Jones (pictured at right) was shocked to hear that a Franciscan brother at her parish was removed for pedophilia. She handed out copies of news articles and as she puts it, “Got thrown out of the parish.” But a new pastor reached out to Virginia, she returned to the church, and is now an advocate for child sex abuse survivors. She put together among other things, the first annual Walk Across Oregon in September 2008.
“We are walking through Wallowa Valley in August 2009,” Jones said, “where Chief Joseph made the ‘I will fight no more forever’ speech. We will walk through the same land that he was forced to leave.” The route includes campouts under waterfalls, and a route through rural towns in Northern Oregon.
“I was thrown out of my parish after advocating for abuse survivors,” Jones says, “but a compassionate Franciscan priest named Armando Lopez reached out to me along with other parishioners. What healed me was them welcoming me back to the parish.”
Today at Ascension Church in Portland, Jones helps run support meetings the second Saturday of every month from 10 to noon. Jones put together a screening of Hand of God two years ago that led to the organizing of Walk Across Oregon 2008 last September.
“We followed Old 99 along the I-Five. We had 15 people with us in, Portland, in Salem six. We went through Independence, Winston. We walked most of it. It’s hard because of the I-Five. The old 99 could be busy and fast in places.
“So many people came up and said thank you for what you're doing,” Jones said. “Some felt real healing. People will see you and talk to you awhile before telling you they're a survivor, or they know a survivor.”
They Saw wild turkeys and people panning for gold along the route this year. There’s lots of tourists in Oregon in the summer - so next year’s walk should reach even more people. And it’s a reason to get out of the heat in mid-summer.
I Will Fight No More Forever
At left - when they encountered freeways, the Walk Across Oregon last September had to hop on a van to cross areas where no pedestrian could possibly cross. In August 2009 the second Walk Across Oregon will spend a month hiking and camping in small towns in the north state, with several nights spent at waterfalls. Watch for news updates beginning next spring.
Virginia Jones believes God has put her where she is for a reason, at Ascension Church in Portland, Oregon, she educating parishioners and Oregonians at large about child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
Isn’t It Ironic File:
For Raping Boys, we can turn our backs, but steal our money?
The priest forced sex on teenager boys for years, one crime victim filed charges as an adult that the clergyman essentially paid him hush money, close to $50 thousand dollars over time, to keep quiet about the rapes and their shared use of drugs. As a result Rev. Charles Newman will go to trial in early 2009, not for serial ephebophilia, but for embezzlement of $900K from the Archbishop Ryan High school in Philadelphia. Three former students have accused Newman publicly, they estimate 25 other victims of what the Inquirer calls his “illicit relationships,” but last December the Philadelphia Grand Jury only brought down charges for “misappropriated funds.”
You are a Homosexual? Leave the priesthood immediately. You are a pedophile, the archdiocese sends you on an paid vacation
The California election moved one parish priest to deliver a sermon saying he believed in gay marriage last month, in fact he was gay himself. Within days Fresno Bishop John T. Steinbock removed the former Fr. now Mr. Geoffrey Farrow, 50, as pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center on a Cal State campus, saying, "Your statement contradicted the teaching of the Catholic Church and has brought scandal to your parish community as well as the whole Church." Steinbock was the auxiliary bishop in Orange County CA who welcomed serial pedophile Fr. Richard Coughlin when the archdiocese of Boston sent him to Orange, CA. Steinbock arranged an instant vacation for Fr. Eleuterio Ramos after he admitted raping teenagers at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Santa Ana.
But no way could Bishop Steinbock of Fresno tolerate a homesexual priest.
Nationwide Altar Boys Groped Before Mass, in city after city the same M-O.
If anyone doubts Catholic priests have a special and unique open access to children because of being Catholic priests, consider this from a recent conversation with a former altar boy.
“There’s a whole ritual they do before Mass when they get dressed. The altar boys help them dress. The cassock you hold it up like helping somebody on with a coat, then the boy holds up the sash. The priests kiss the sash before they put it on. We were in the sacristy five minutes before mass, and as I'm standing back against this closet, he goes to tuck in my shirt”
This happened more than once, more than a dozen times.
I hear scenes like the one above over and over again when talking to former altar boys AND altar girls. This was organized crime, serial felonies, aided and abetted by a national pedophile network that operated freely inside archdioceses all across the country.
In there was ever a need for RICO investigations, the Roman Catholic Church in the USA is ripe for one.
-------
PLUS CAMPING UNDER WATERFALLS!!!
Onward. . .
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Will we ever make it to Oprah? Maybe in the year 2040. Meanwhile we lie in wait digitally at bishop accountability dot org
*
By Kay Ebeling
From the Vatican: "One cannot forget that unsuitable people with inconsistencies in their sexual, affective, and relational life provoke negative consequences on the church and on the faithful." (Oh, so now I am a negative consequence?)
At a press conference last week, the church announced a new policy: Applicants for the priesthood will now take psychological evaluations about sexuality. The Boston Globe, Irish Times and others said new questions are to weed out priests with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies, unclear sexual identity, difficulty with the celibate life, excessive rigidity of character, and lack of freedom in relations."
Nothing in there about sexual attraction to children.
Thousands of damaged people roam the world with ruined souls due to being raped as children by priests, a small percentage of whom have made our presence known through civil and criminal cases. You would think new questions for incoming priests would address pedophilia with aggression, asking, "Do you get aroused looking at children?" in a variety of wordings.
Nope, the pope's gotta "get rid of them homos." (Funny. I just wrote the pope sounding like Billy Bob born lobotimized living in a swamp in Alabama. Same mentality.)
But my chest did push out in pride for a minute thinking the Vatican started these new priest candidate evaluations as a result of my blog two weeks back where I said there was nothing in place to prevent pedophiles from entering the priesthood. I had been wondering who does all those clicks here in the middle of the night.
The Pope Must Read My Blog!!!
So feeling empowered I dashed off another email to someone who is totally out of my reach, a "player" in Hollywood who may be able to help get a series or film produced about pedophile priests, another name I encountered on my job in reality TV. Now if I were a real producer I would be out every night at every event, schmoozing, throwing parties for the people I meet schmoozing. But I am a slightly crippled grey haired lady with pain grimaces scrawled in deep lines on my face, I just don't think personal one on one schmoozing is the way I am going to get a series produced. Besides Hollywood events happen way after my bedtime.
So instead I write emails to people after tracking down links over the internet to find them. This email I sent to Robert Tercek, who spoke as a "digital media strategist" at a conference for art directors in Long Beach last week. I transcribed Tercek's speech, so feel now I know him well enough to email him. I wrote him this:
Crime story blog could be webcast phenom w/justice
Please visit my site. It could be developed to air the stories of crime victims who have not gotten justice in the courts.
Since I started writing about my own experience as a crime victim, I have found thousands of other victims who do not get justice in the courts. I write now about the crime I survived, and other survivors like me; we were all raped as children by Catholic priests, and the similarities in our crimes all across the country is alarming.
NONE of us has experienced justice.
I want to use my blog to produce videos and post them, about crimes like mine, as well as other crimes and the survivors, shooting b-roll, interviewing the subjects.
It would be narrowcasting to a niche audience, a way to allow victims of all kinds of crimes to get a sense of justice they cannot get in the courts, by telling their stories to the world on City of Angels Network.
I need development money to produce our stories. Can you help me get this project going?
Sincerely,
****
Okay, I sent that to Robert Tercek and then read his most recent blog post himself, and realized, forget it, he just got promoted to president of Digital Media for
The Oprah Winfrey Network
Oprah is starting her own network now
Robert Tercek has just gotten a job at Oprah Winfrey Network.
Which means, even if I could actually talk with this producer, his goal now is to bring in millions and millions of viewers for Oprah. So like all mainstream producers, be will be looking for those wide appeal mass audience topics.
If they air stories of pedophile priest crimes,
it might
Oh No!
OFFEND!!!!!
You want offense?
Live my life for a year, you'll know what offense is.
Mainstream media always turn their backs. That is what I have learned in years of trying to get my own story going.
"Pedophile Catholic priests? Oh I can’t do a story about that, my boss is Catholic. And please do not call here again."
So okay, I have to learn to accept that I am probably not the person who will produce these stories. In fact, I may not see these stories come out, at least not while I am in this body on Earth. I am beginning to accept it that these stories will continue to be buried for years.
However, as long as bishopaccountability is alive and well and living in Boston, the stories will be there for future researchers.
People will come back to this topic in twenty years or maybe forty years when a new crop of middle aged people start remembering pedophile priest rape as children, or maybe even fifty years from now.
Because even with these revolutionary new psych evals for incoming seminarians, as long as the church keeps the key elements in place -- the secrecy, the emphasis on hiding sexuality, seminary homosexuallity a source of subtle blackmail, portraying the priest as something other than human -
And of course celibacy, what a lie -
Now with these new psych evaluations, gay men have to slide deeper into secrecy if they want to become priests, so gay men will to have to lie on psych evaluations -
THE LIES AND SECRECY CONTINUE
As long as key elements don’t change
The pedophile epidemic will happen again. They did not root out the virus, only treated some of the symptoms.
Meanwhile
City of Angels blog posts will lie in wait in digital code sizzling, then steaming, then just simmering, until that next batch of researchers in 2050 or so discovers us. . . .
SO FOR NOW
Back to work on my latest job, this time on Ax Men - reality series with true stories of the lumber jack trade, fascinating.
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
From the Vatican: "One cannot forget that unsuitable people with inconsistencies in their sexual, affective, and relational life provoke negative consequences on the church and on the faithful." (Oh, so now I am a negative consequence?)
At a press conference last week, the church announced a new policy: Applicants for the priesthood will now take psychological evaluations about sexuality. The Boston Globe, Irish Times and others said new questions are to weed out priests with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies, unclear sexual identity, difficulty with the celibate life, excessive rigidity of character, and lack of freedom in relations."
Nothing in there about sexual attraction to children.
Thousands of damaged people roam the world with ruined souls due to being raped as children by priests, a small percentage of whom have made our presence known through civil and criminal cases. You would think new questions for incoming priests would address pedophilia with aggression, asking, "Do you get aroused looking at children?" in a variety of wordings.
Nope, the pope's gotta "get rid of them homos." (Funny. I just wrote the pope sounding like Billy Bob born lobotimized living in a swamp in Alabama. Same mentality.)
But my chest did push out in pride for a minute thinking the Vatican started these new priest candidate evaluations as a result of my blog two weeks back where I said there was nothing in place to prevent pedophiles from entering the priesthood. I had been wondering who does all those clicks here in the middle of the night.
The Pope Must Read My Blog!!!
So feeling empowered I dashed off another email to someone who is totally out of my reach, a "player" in Hollywood who may be able to help get a series or film produced about pedophile priests, another name I encountered on my job in reality TV. Now if I were a real producer I would be out every night at every event, schmoozing, throwing parties for the people I meet schmoozing. But I am a slightly crippled grey haired lady with pain grimaces scrawled in deep lines on my face, I just don't think personal one on one schmoozing is the way I am going to get a series produced. Besides Hollywood events happen way after my bedtime.
So instead I write emails to people after tracking down links over the internet to find them. This email I sent to Robert Tercek, who spoke as a "digital media strategist" at a conference for art directors in Long Beach last week. I transcribed Tercek's speech, so feel now I know him well enough to email him. I wrote him this:
Crime story blog could be webcast phenom w/justice
Please visit my site. It could be developed to air the stories of crime victims who have not gotten justice in the courts.
Since I started writing about my own experience as a crime victim, I have found thousands of other victims who do not get justice in the courts. I write now about the crime I survived, and other survivors like me; we were all raped as children by Catholic priests, and the similarities in our crimes all across the country is alarming.
NONE of us has experienced justice.
I want to use my blog to produce videos and post them, about crimes like mine, as well as other crimes and the survivors, shooting b-roll, interviewing the subjects.
It would be narrowcasting to a niche audience, a way to allow victims of all kinds of crimes to get a sense of justice they cannot get in the courts, by telling their stories to the world on City of Angels Network.
I need development money to produce our stories. Can you help me get this project going?
Sincerely,
****
Okay, I sent that to Robert Tercek and then read his most recent blog post himself, and realized, forget it, he just got promoted to president of Digital Media for
The Oprah Winfrey Network
Oprah is starting her own network now
Robert Tercek has just gotten a job at Oprah Winfrey Network.
Which means, even if I could actually talk with this producer, his goal now is to bring in millions and millions of viewers for Oprah. So like all mainstream producers, be will be looking for those wide appeal mass audience topics.
If they air stories of pedophile priest crimes,
it might
Oh No!
OFFEND!!!!!
You want offense?
Live my life for a year, you'll know what offense is.
Mainstream media always turn their backs. That is what I have learned in years of trying to get my own story going.
"Pedophile Catholic priests? Oh I can’t do a story about that, my boss is Catholic. And please do not call here again."
So okay, I have to learn to accept that I am probably not the person who will produce these stories. In fact, I may not see these stories come out, at least not while I am in this body on Earth. I am beginning to accept it that these stories will continue to be buried for years.
However, as long as bishopaccountability is alive and well and living in Boston, the stories will be there for future researchers.
People will come back to this topic in twenty years or maybe forty years when a new crop of middle aged people start remembering pedophile priest rape as children, or maybe even fifty years from now.
Because even with these revolutionary new psych evals for incoming seminarians, as long as the church keeps the key elements in place -- the secrecy, the emphasis on hiding sexuality, seminary homosexuallity a source of subtle blackmail, portraying the priest as something other than human -
And of course celibacy, what a lie -
Now with these new psych evaluations, gay men have to slide deeper into secrecy if they want to become priests, so gay men will to have to lie on psych evaluations -
THE LIES AND SECRECY CONTINUE
As long as key elements don’t change
The pedophile epidemic will happen again. They did not root out the virus, only treated some of the symptoms.
Meanwhile
City of Angels blog posts will lie in wait in digital code sizzling, then steaming, then just simmering, until that next batch of researchers in 2050 or so discovers us. . . .
SO FOR NOW
Back to work on my latest job, this time on Ax Men - reality series with true stories of the lumber jack trade, fascinating.
Onward. . .
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