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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. . .
In 2009 our ongoing coverage of the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church will be at http://cityofangels5.blogspot.com/ .
Read more stories by Kay Ebeling, LA city buzz Examiner at http://www.examiner.com/x-1960-LA-City-Buzz-Examiner
Read more stories by Kay Ebeling, LA city buzz Examiner at http://www.examiner.com/x-1960-LA-City-Buzz-Examiner
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1 comment:
Hi Kay
Isn't it funny that the document is enforced voluntarily? And that a seminarian who has previously failed a test has to approve releasing those results if he attempts to enter another seminary? And what about the seminarians who will lie? I have had personal experience of that- and more than once!!!
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