cityofangels13 - Epimeno*

2011-01-24T07:44:00.001-08:00

Trauma can empower a person, as PTSD symptoms are also skills. More hope for 2009

2008-12-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

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By Kay Ebeling

We are signing off until next year at City of Angels and in 2009 our ongoing coverage of the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church will be at http://cityofangels5.blogspot.com/ .

The word at the top of the page next year is "Hope," in part because of Obama’s election, in part because there have been thousands of lawsuits against the Catholic Church for its pandering to pedophiles, in part because of this paragraph in a book about surviving with PTSD.

“Although Frannie was disabled by her traumatic experience, she was also, in certain ways, empowered by them. Frannie was a natural at using imagery and the altered state to help herself heal. The trance state was her powerful ally, and she was adept at achieving it, rapidly and deeply, thanks to a trauma-induced intensification in her brain’s visual, sensorimotor, and emotional centers.” *

In other words, use your skills at dissociation to get you out of a bad place.

After reading that, when a memory started to interrupt, I tried this technique, and found I can literally jump my thoughts and feelings deep into a piece of music, or a beautiful picture nearby, or just look up and dive into cloud formations in the sky and marvel at the beauty.

It is so easy for me to just dissociate myself away from the memory that is bothering me, BECAUSE I’ve learned to dissociate BECAUSE of the memories. It’s hard to explain, but here’s another place where I'm using this technique.

Since September the PTSD induced pain that some people call fibromyalgia has gotten so bad in my legs I can go weeks without being able to walk. I live up two flights of stairs, so I end up being stranded up here for days, sometimes weeks.

For the first two months or so all I could focus on was how isolated I was. I kept getting angrier and angrier and it wasn’t making the situation any better. So I applied my invisible hero, the imagination that I probably developed because of the hours of dissociation in my life when I was so young.

Now I play Space Station.

Now I have a game I play called Space Station, where I'm no longer stranded in my apartment, I am on duty out in Earth orbit.

Once a day a Space Shuttle brings provisions - the Meals on Wheels hot lunch delivery. I spend hours each day at my work as an astronaut, probing expanses in space where almost no man has gone before - reading through clergy case lawsuit documents to find new stories to write here at City of Angels.

Occasionally I hear from mission control - my daughter or a friend calls or emails.

The very ability to adopt personae that got me through my weird childhood, is now a skill I’ve developed, and I can use and manipulate the dissociation, it is me at the terminal typing in commands. I may end up having a better aging life than a lot of people who never went through enough trauma to learn how to totally take themselves out of a bad experience.

So next year at City of Angels 5 we will report on stories from Florida to Philadelphia, from Maine to Alaska and go document diving in LA and other cities as well.

City of Angels, reporting from high Earth orbit.

The word at the top at City of Angels 5 for 2009 is “Hope” in part because Obama getting elected means a new Department of Justice, in part because thousands of civil lawsuits created a million or so pages of case files, which are a wealth of resources for me and any other journalist who cares to dive in -

Page after page of felonies committed by church hierarchy, in order to keep kids as catamites for their sex-depraved priests.

Catamite - a word humans had taken out of use - making its way back into the language.

Won’t even think about being a catamite again until next year.

Happy Christ-ma-Quanza-Hanukah

The Story Goes Onward

* Quote from "Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal" by Belleruth Naparstek

2008-12-18T05:08:00.000-08:00

It happened again this morning. I'm prowling around my rooms thinking something is missing. What did I forget. I sit with coffee and the news - nothing unusual there. Lean back and get ready for the flush of tears - I have been crying almost every morning, and yes EVERY DAY for years - but last few weeks it has stopped.

I leaned on the couch and realized that is what's missing. I really don't have anything to feel bad about.

What changed?

An acceptance first about being crippled so stuck at home, then made a game out of it. I play Space Station all the time now. Meals on Wheels is the shuttle bringing food. I spend a lot of time at the monitor communicating with people on earth and other places in space.

The other thing that's changed is a different job, now I am writing about something else as well as pervert priests.

Pervert priests

Think I'll start using that expression more often.

It could be because Barack Obama got elected, so you can almost see the future will have Social Security after all, and maybe my daughter can still get to college, like through the government (joining a peacetime Air Force) ....

I don't know what it was but I changed in the last month or so. . . and it feels really good.

Raped by Episcopal clergy as a teen, 80 year old victim still trying to get justice from Diocese in PA. Gets doubletalk, empty promises instead

2008-12-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

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The diocese says, sure, we will post your story, then hides it in an apology that does not even name the perpetrator. Ralph White faces obstruction from the Episcopal Church, eerily similar to treatment received by Catholic victims.

At age 80, White wants the story about abuse he suffered at the hands of Gibson Bell at All Saints Parish published widely, as he still believes there are other victims. Story distributed by Janet Patterson, clergy sex crime victims' advocate, who can be reached at: snapkansas@hotmail.com

For more than 60 years, a Philadelphia man has been on a quest. In his attempts to tell his story of clergy sexual abuse during his teen years, he has been rejected, stonewalled, and intimidated.

Ralph E. White, Jr. endured physical abuse and institutional imprisonment following his threats to reveal his sexual abuse by the family minister, the late Rev. Dr. Gibson Bell.

After appealing to successive bishops and church authorities over a 30 year period, including extensive correspondence with indicted former bishop Charles Bennison, Mr. White received a written apology by church officials this year.

As his health declines from congestive heart failure, he wants follow through by church officials on their promise to publish his story/church apology in their newsletter and their agreement to help him financially for medical care.

Church leaders are ignoring repeated letters, e-mails, and phone calls from his pro bono attorney. Time is running out for Ralph White.

Short videos with Ralph White at YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g6brUJCEZTw

The Episcopal Diocese apology to White from January 2008, can be read at; http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:gy5zkSpNfTgJ:www.diopa.org/assets/downloadables/Resolution-White.pdf+Gibson+Bell+Episcopal&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Wade, Goldstein, Landau & Abruzzo attorneys in Pennsylvania issued this statement about the case of Ralph White:

Mr. White, as an adolescent was sexually abused by Rev. Dr. Gibson Bell, his family’s minister and close friend. That he was sexually abused is tragic in itself, that the perpetrator was a member of the clergy made it all the more horrific. That it was covered up, worse—but comprehensible.

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When he tried to speak out as a young man, the perpetrator and his family conspired to have him committed to a state mental hospital
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Attorney statement continued:

But Mr. White’s story, and his suffering, is all the more horrific, because when he tried to speak out as a young man, the perpetrator and his family conspired to have him committed to a state mental hospital.

While he was imprisoned, his father died, and his mother rewrote her will to disinherit her son and gave her entire estate, his inheritance, to the very perpetrator.

When Dr. Bell died, he left a portion of his estate to the parish where much of the abuse took place.

It is suffering piled on suffering.

Despite all that Mr. White, so traumatized that he cannot set foot in a Christian Church, has never once lost faith in God, and has found some comfort and solace in the expression of faith in Judaism.

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The Diocese offers car fare as retribution
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Attorney statement continued:

He has, for years, tried to obtain redress and justice from the Episcopal church, and has been almost always rebuffed, and when not rebuffed entirely, his suffering has been minimized and his pleas for some kind of restitution have been turned away or, most recently, been made light of through insulting diminimus offers of “car fare”.

In January of this year, Mr. White managed, with the help of others, to get a hearing in front of the Standing Committee for the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

There, they took what seemed to be the extraordinary step of acknowledging the harm that had been done to Mr. White, and published an apology, which if one looks for it hard enough can be found on the Diocesan web-site.

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Published apology left out name of perpetrator
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Attorney statement continued:

They did not provide the perpetrator’s name, and the Committee has not done any more to publicize the matter as it had indicated it would do, by publishing Mr. White’s story. Finally, in response to a request for some financial restitution, the Committee has fallen back on a statement that it is in a finically tough situation, and cannot afford to do anything for him beyond some nominal assistance with transportation.

This firm became involved on Mr. White’s behalf, late this spring to try to open a dialogue as to how his story might conclude. Mr. White is old and in poor health, and we wanted to, without instituting a lawsuit, see if we could bring to completion, Mr. White’s 60 year long quest for justice—which the Standing Committee had taken the first (seemingly) courageous step to bringing about.

We proposed the following to them:

1. The Resolution, posted January 25, is difficult to find. The story should appear on the main site with a link to the Resolution and Mr. White’s narrative. The Resolution, with its acknowledgement and apology needs to be made more public in order to be effective. The Resolution and the narrative should also appear on the All Saints Parish web-site (All Saints is the place where Dr. Bell was recor at the time of the abuse and where some of the abuse actually took place).

2. Naming the wrong is important, but just as important is naming the perpetrator and those who helped him. History and justice are in the details. Rev. Bell’s name appears nowhere in the Resolution. Neither do the names of those who helped him to maintain the cloud of secrecy, or who turned away from Mr. White’s pleas for help, appear. They should. Again, by publication of Mr. White’s narrative and supporting documentation, this can be corrected.

3. As noted above, Mr. White’s saga has a particular twist—the perpetrator inherited what should properly have been the victim’s inheritance. He then gave a portion of that ill gotten gain to the very institution that assisted him in his wrongdoing.

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the Diocese did not have the financial resources to assist him other than to help arrange for rides to his various doctors appointments
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Mr. White asked the Standing Committee for some financial assistance so that the few remaining years he has to live might be made easier, bridging the gap between his resources and his living expenses. The Committee responded to Mr. White’s request with a statement that the Committee and the Diocese did not have the financial resources to assist him other than to help arrange for rides to his various doctors appointments.

In light of the magnitude of the wrongdoing by Rev. Bell, as well as by the Church in its concealment and turning a deaf ear to Mr. White, the offer of assistance with rides is hardly the kind of restitution that would help to make right what was once so wrong. Indeed, if anything, it makes light of the harm—harm that the Church benefited from.

The Episcopal Church’s “Safe Church Manual” speaks of restoration of “right relationship” and of justice to the victims of abuse. Canon law speaks of making restitution for the kind of wrongs inflicted on Mr. White. Assistance with rides is not enough.

Given the above, we specifically asked for:

• The creation of a trust for the benefit of Mr. White to provide him with an annuity for the remainder of his years, the value to be based on the present value of what the Church received when Rev. Bell died in 1979. Given the direct link between the wrongdoing, the concealment and failure to act to the receipt of tainted money, I think that may be an appropriate way to approach the issue of restitution.

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'When it comes to restitution, all they have to give him in return for ill gotten gain is some money.'
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To be sure, there is no amount of money large enough to compensate Mr. White for the suffering, the loss of relationship with his family, friends and community, or for the years of being unable to hold meaningful employment. That said, when it comes to restitution, all we have to give him in return for ill gotten gain is some money. Mr. White is not looking to get rich through a settlement (nor is it our position that this act of restitution should do so).

He is looking for assistance. It will not do to say that there are no resources.

There are a number of complicit parties, all of whom need to step forward and correct, as best they can, what was, and continues to be an ongoing wrong.

• Upon Mr. White’s death, the proceeds would go to such charitable organization as he would direct by will for the prevention of, and restitution for, clergy sexual abuse as well as the promotion of reconciliation.

• As noted above, a greater search optimization and publication of Mr. White’s narrative and the Standing Committee’s Resolution—which narrative will name those who participated in the wrongdoing.

• A Healing Service to be held, jointly and in conjunction with Mr. White’s Synagogue, if it wishes to participate, the details of which could be worked out.

• The participation by representatives of the Standing Committee and the Diocese in articles to be published in a variety of settings. It may seem difficult to believe, but Mr. White and this firm feel that the opportunity for justice to take place here correctly involves giving the Church an opportunity to help write the end of the narrative of this tragic story.

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The corporate and institutional guilt associated with Rev. Bell’s actions
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Attorney statement continued:

It does so by publicly accepting the responsibility (more publicly than a hard to find Resolution on a not highly trafficked web-site) for the corporate and institutional guilt associated with Rev. Bell’s actions and telling its story of the actions it has taken and is now taking, to rectify the wrongs of the past and what it is doing to confront those problems going forward.

The latter, the current actions and statement, after all, are all that the Church--or for that matter, any of us—is responsible for at the end of the day. We cannot undo the wrongs of the past; we can only do right, right now. Allowing the Church to present its story in this context, allows for that to happen.

Unfortunately, the Committee has never responded to our proposal made to and through its attorney, Chancellor Michael Rehill. He has not responded to phone calls or emails. The only communication to Mr. White was that it was a mistake for him to engage an attorney.

The Committee’s and Mr. Rehill’s stonewalling, coupled with Bishop Bartlett’s back-door attempts to sweep this problem under the carpet, and the Standing Committee’s initially insulting offer to do justice by offering him assistance with transportation, are less than one would have hoped for, but unfortunately are not surprising.

The admission of responsibility for Rev. Bell’s horrific abuse of Mr. White and the subsequent cover-up and ill-treatment of Mr. White by the church came undoubtedly only after a determination had been made that such admission could not result in any financial exposure. Such is the quintessential cynical act by a cynical body more concerned with the appearance of justice than the real thing.

Bishop Bartlett has stated to Mr. White that the Standing Committee desires to deal openly and honestly with this terrible crime, and that is why the Standing Committee has listened to Mr. White, believed him and apologized to him—even though they had “no direct responsibility” for what was done to him.

It may be that no one on the Committee was “directly” involved in the abuse that took place. It may also be that none of the current members of the Committee were involved in keeping the truth of Rev. Bell’s monstrous behavior from coming to light, although the active silencing of Mr. White has only recently ended. Even so, All Saints Parish, the Committee and this Diocese are the direct beneficiaries of Rev. Bell’s actions, having received some of the money wrongly bequeathed to him.

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It is a duty the Committee is mocking by refusing to address it
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But were that not so, they still have a duty—directly to Mr. White--to redress the wrongs he suffered at the hands of those who preceded him and who were acting for and on behalf of the Church when they abused him, imprisoned him and then actively and maliciously silenced him, taking his voice and crushing his spirit.

This is a duty that goes beyond those that might be imposed by civil or even canon law. It is a duty the Committee is mocking by refusing to address it, to respond with even a simple return telephone call to open discussions.

Again, we invite the Diocese to dialogue with Mr. White and to take the affirmative actions we have asked them to take previously to do the justice the Gospel demands they do.

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(CAN: Good luck. City of Angels googled Rev. Gibson Bell and found this interesting note on Page 166 of The Handbook of Private Schools by Porter Sargent, published 1918:)

Montgomery School, Wynnewood, is a country day school providing instruction for boys from seven years old upward, opened in 1915 by the Rev. Gibson Bell

-- From Google Books at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=8bEAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=rev+Dr+Gibson+Bell&source=web&ots=Sh0O5aHSmF&sig=ZNctbYA9E3Kl5qsKb9dtDSHw0Zk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result

In Wynnewood, PA, there is now a Montgomery School Lane.

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The Story Goes Onward. . .

Franciscans are a Public Nuisance for letting children be raped over decades, says Santa Barbara lawsuit, which could work in other states as well

2008-12-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

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By Kay Ebeling

With 24 perpetrators and 59 children assaulted in one town, the Franciscans constitute a public nuisance against the entire community, reads a lawsuit progressing towards pre-trial hearings in Santa Barbara.

There is no SOL on these charges. "Because the cause of action is based on conduct that is a continuing Public Nuisance, it is not subject to any statute of limitations set forth in 340.1," the lawsuit states.

Church attorneys tried to get the Santa Barbara public nuisance case moved to Los Angeles, but Judge Emilie Elias quickly turned them down. Now January 15, 2009, the Superior Court in SB will hear arguments on the church's motion to strike major portions of the original complaint. Plaintiffs come armed with decades of evidence, as shown in the brief copy and pasted in full below.

Other states have public nuisance law, including Illinois, where I was raped at age five by Father Horne. In FindLaw is news of an Illinois Supreme Court decision striking down public nuisance cases against the gun industry, and Justice Rita Garman appears to leave the door wide open for pedophile clergy lawsuits against the Chicago Archdiocese, which would include my case.

Justice Garman wrote that guns in a neighborhood do not affect the entire community the same way “offensive conduct emanating from a ‘bawdy house’- would affect all equally." With priests raping altar boys in sacristies and motels, and priests teaching girls to talk dirty in First Confession, and volumes of other charges, the Archdiocese of Chicago among others is ripe for a public nuisance lawsuit.

No SOL when the 'bawdy behavior' and its after effects are still going on.

The brief filed for the plaintiffs in Santa Barbara reads almost like an article in the New Yorker or Vanity Fair in its narrative parts. It is a public document, so here for a Sunday read below in its entirety is the Opposition to Demurrer and Motion to Strike the First Amended Complaint, by Timothy Hale of Nye, Peabody, Stirling, & Hale.

Email this story to every lawyer you know, and maybe public nuisance suits are the way we can get the public to see these felons disguised as holy men for who they really are. Here is Tim’s brief:

(To see related First Amended Complaint go to Sept. 22, 2008, post here at City of Angels.)

I. INTRODUCTION

A - Half of the truth may obviously amount to a lie, if it is understood to be the whole. Prosser & Keeton, The Law of Torts (5th ed. 1984) Misrepresentation and Nondisclosure, ' 106, p. 738 (italics added).

For decades the Franciscan Friars have told half-truths to the communities in which they perform their ministry, and in doing so have lied. In no community has the lie been greater, or been the source of more tragedy, than Santa Barbara.

Since their Provinces creation on January 19, 1916, the Franciscans have invited the community into their missions, parishes and schools, and sent their Franciscans out into the community. Each of those Franciscans have born the title of Roman Catholic AFather@ or ABrother.@ Each has worn the garb immediately identifying his status, sometimes the brown robes of the Franciscan order, sometimes the white collar identifying the wearer as a priest.

Inherent in each of these titles and garb is the unequivocal Franciscan message to the community that the individual is honest, trustworthy, and perhaps even the voice of god. Each Franciscan has enjoyed an undeniable presumption of goodness as a result.

Unfortunately, in the case of at least 25 of these men, these titles and garb expressed half-truths that in reality were lies being told by the Franciscans - the perpetrators’ employers - to the community. While these men were priests and brothers, the Franciscans learned long ago they were also criminals, wolves in sheep=s clothing. Or in this case, pedophiles held out to the community as trustworthy Roman Catholic Priests and brothers of the highest character, a secret Defendants still fight to preserve.

The results of Defendants’ lies have been undeniably horrific. With the community justifiably assuming these titles and garb have stated the whole truth about each Franciscan's background and character, 25 perpetrators have exploited the presumption of goodness they enjoy in their capacities as priests or brothers in Defendants’ employ.

This presumption has allowed them to prey upon at least 59 children in Santa Barbara since 1964, with countless children abused by Franciscans in other communities as well. Despite this overwhelming evidence of the harm caused by their continuing conduct, Defendants refuse to change their ways, and in fact fight to preserve them. Plaintiff seeks such change through this lawsuit.

Defendants’ demurrer alleges that Plaintiff=s action was not filed within the applicable statute of limitations.

In this regard, Defendants argue that neither the statutory delayed accrual provision housed within Code of Civil Procedure ' 340.1(a)(2), nor the equitable delayed discovery doctrine determines the accrual date of Plaintiff=s action, arguing instead that Plaintiff was required to file her action prior to her 19th birthday, notwithstanding that she had no understanding of the wrongfulness of the conduct at that time, and no facts within her knowledge that could have led her to believe that she had a cause of action.

Defendants ignore the fact the causes of action for Public Nuisance and Unfair Competition (AUCL@), and the claims premised on the 2007 fraud allegations, are subject to distinct statutes of limitation. Finally, Defendants challenge Plaintiff=s individual causes of action, and seek to strike the factual allegations that support the Public Nuisance and UCL causes of action.

For the reasons discussed herein, Defendants’ positions are unsupportable, and the demurrer and motion to strike must be overruled.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A demurrer tests the sufficiency of a complaint as a matter of law. Wilner v. Sunset Life Ins. Co. (2000) 78 Cal.App.4th 952, 958. In ruling on a demurrer, all material facts pleaded in the complaint and those that arise by reasonable implication are deemed admitted. Wilner, 78 Cal.App.4th at 958. The complaint must be liberally construed, drawing reasonable inferences from the facts. See Wilner, 78 Cal.App.4th at 958. A>A demurrer on the ground of the bar of the statute of limitations will not lie where the action may be, but is not necessarily barred.=@ Lockley v. Law Office of Cantrell et al. (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 875, 881. A[I]t is error for a . . . court to sustain a demurrer when the plaintiff has stated a cause of action under any possible legal theory.@ Fox v. Ethicon (2005) 35 Cal.4th 797, 810.

III. THE LAW OF PUBLIC NUISANCE

Since at least the early 1960s, and most likely much earlier, the Franciscans have ignored the civil and criminal law, and essentially followed their own standards when dealing with their child-abusing employees.

Plaintiff's counsel are aware of only one instance where a Franciscan has reported another child-abusing Franciscan to law enforcement, and even in that case the report did not take place until approximately thirty years after the fact, long past the expiration of the criminal statute of limitations.

Equity must end the horrific public nuisance created by the Franciscans. For decades the Franciscans have imposed on communities the Franciscans’ standards of conduct regarding the protection of children. The results have been and continue to be tragic. And despite such an outcome the Franciscans refuse to change their ways.

Simply pupt, they must be stopped.

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Simply put, they must be stopped.
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A - The very concept of ordered liberty precludes allowing every person [or in this case, corporation] to make his own standards on matters of conduct in which society as a whole has important interests. People ex rel. Gallo v. Acuna (1997) 14 Cal.4th 1090, 1102 (quoting Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) 406 U.S. 205, 215-216).

"In the public nuisance context, the community's right to security and protection must be reconciled with the individual's right to expressive and associative freedom. . . . the security and protection of the community is the bedrock on which the superstructure of individual liberty rests." Id.

A principal office of the centuries-old doctrine of the public nuisance has been the maintenance of public order-tranquillity, security and protection-when the criminal law proves inadequate.@ Id. at 1103.

Nowhere has the criminal law proven more inadequate than in the communities where the Franciscans continue to conceal perpetrators, particularly in Santa Barbara where all but 2 of 25 Franciscan perpetrators have escaped criminal prosecution despite assaulting at least 60 Santa Barbara children since 1936.

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The public nuisance doctrine is aimed at the protection and redress of community interests
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Unlike the private nuisance- tied to and designed to vindicate individual ownership interests in land - the >common= or public nuisance emerged from distinctly different historical origins. The public nuisance doctrine is aimed at the protection and redress of community interests . . .." Id. at 1103. There can be no question that the protection of children from childhood sexual abuse is one of the most recognized community interests in California. See First Amended Complaint (AFAC@), page 14.

California defines nuisance as anything that is Ainjurious to health, ... or is indecent or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property, or unlawfully obstructs the free passage or use, in the customary manner, of any navigable lake, or river, bay, stream, canal, or basin, or any public park, square, street, or highway.@ Civ.Code, ' 3479. Civil Code sections 3480 and 3481 divide the class of nuisances into public and private.

A public nuisance is one which Aaffects at the same time an entire community or neighborhood, or any considerable number of persons.@ (Civ.Code, ' 3480.) Rounding out the taxonomy of the Civil Code, section 3491 provides that A[t]he remedies against a public nuisance are: [] 1. Indictment or information; [] 2. A civil action; or, [] 3. Abatement.@ Acuna, 14 Cal.4th at 1104.

"To qualify, and thus be enjoinable, the interference must be both substantial and unreasonable." Id. at 1105. A[T]he question is not whether the particular plaintiff found the invasion unreasonable, but >whether reasonable persons generally, looking at the whole situation impartially and objectively, would consider it unreasonable.= @ Id.

Plaintiff's counsel has identified 24 Franciscan perpetrators and 59 Santa Barbara children victimized just since 1960.

The Franciscans recently admitted those numbers
actually are higher (again without providing the public with any information about the identities or current whereabouts of the 27 perpetrators to which they now admit).

Plaintiff respectfully submits no reasonable person could find anything remotely reasonable about these numbers, or about the continuing pattern of Franciscan conduct that resulted in these numbers.

A. Defendants’ Duty Argument Is Unsupportable

According to the Franciscans, they have no duty to warn a community if they receive reports of abuse regarding one of their employees, subsequently allow him to hold titles and wear garb that inherently convey to all who encounter him that, at the least, he is trustworthy and of good character, and then assign him job duties requiring community interaction that inevitably results in contact with children.

Similarly, according to the Franciscans, they have no duty to warn anyone if they received a report of abuse by one of their employees, helped him evade conviction and having to register as a sex offender by either not reporting his crimes to law enforcement or doing so only after his criminal statute of limitations had expired, and then allowed him to leave their employ to work in communities who have no clue as to his criminal propensities because he has never had to register as a sex offender, and has no criminal record.

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Repeat: Similarly, according to the Franciscans, they have no duty to warn anyone if they received a report of abuse by one of their employees
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In addition to being outrageous, not to mention illustrative of the Franciscan mentality that both has resulted in this tragedy and drives the conduct that is a continuing public nuisance, these arguments are contrary to the law, and to the compelling state interest in preventing childhood sexual abuse.

The Franciscans find no support for their "no duty" argument in the authority they cite. None of those cases contain facts like those found herein: an employee accused of abuse who not only is allowed to continue in his employment, but, as part of his job duties, is allowed to enter into a community or to interact with community members while having job titles and wearing garb that inherently communicate to each person he encounters, whether they are Catholic or otherwise, that he is trustworthy and of good character.

Defendants cite two cases for this repugnant proposition, Thompson v. County of Alameda (1980) 27 Cal.3d 741 and Eric J. v. Betty M. (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 715. Defendants’ attempt to analogize themselves to the defendants in these two lawsuits fail miserably. In Thompson, the defendant was a county that paroled a convicted offender who was a threat to young children. In Eric J., the defendants were family members who knew their relative was convicted child abuser but did not warn his girlfriend or her young son. Unlike Defendants herein, neither the county nor the family members helped the perpetrators in Thompson or Eric J. escape criminal prosecution, and avoid registration as sex offenders. Also unlike Defendants herein, neither the county nor the family members hired or continued to employ the perpetrators, assigning them job titles or uniforms that would convey trustworthiness to the communities in which they worked. And neither the county nor the family members then sent the perpetrators out into the community, or invited the community to their place of business where they employed the perpetrators, all in furtherance of their business interests. These distinctions render Thompson and Eric J. inapplicable to the facts of this lawsuit.

Defendants next claim notification to the community is unworkable. There is nothing unworkable about notifying the administration of local parishes and schools in the community where an accused is assigned, nor about notifying local media. Obviously, law enforcement must be notified.

And there now are online databases that can be notified, such as bishop accountability dot org, that childcare custodians can look to determine if a priest or brother has been accused of abuse. The time has long since passed for communities to submit to the Franciscans' insistence that they be allowed to handle such matters internally.

Sixty victims later in Santa Barbara alone, it is clear that approach has failed miserably. And yet that is exactly the status quo the Franciscans seek to preserve.

A greater degree of care is owed to children because of their lack of capacity to appreciate risks and avoid danger.@ Juarez v. Boy Scouts (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 377, 410. Generally, a person has no duty to control the conduct of a third person, nor to warn those endangered by such conduct, in the absence of a special relationship either to the third person or to the victim. Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, 17 Cal.3d 425, 435. However, an exception to this rule exists where the defendant, through his or her own action creates a foreseeable risk of harm from the third person. Under those circumstances the question of duty is governed by the standards of ordinary care. Pamela L. v. Farmer (1980) 112 Cal.App.3d 206, 209; Bastian v. County of San Luis Obispo (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 520, 530. Additionally, A[a] duty may be based on the general character of the activity engaged in by the defendant.@ Bastian, 199 Cal.App.3d at 530.

Here, although not necessary to create a duty, there can be no question Defendants were in a special relationship with the perpetrators giving rise to a duty as they employed the perpetrators, sent them for treatment for pedophilia, and sent them out into communities with job titles and garb communicating the perpetrators were of the highest character.

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Defendants employed the perpetrators in the utmost positions of trust, and allowed them to work with children. As a result it was and is foreseeable that the perpetrators would abuse children
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Determining the existence of a tort duty requires consideration of foreseeability of harm, degree of certainty of harm, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the burden to the defendant, and the consequences of imposing liability. Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 112-13. Here, there was ample notice to Defendants of the risk posed by the perpetrators, and in many cases Defendants were well aware of repeat offenses by the same perpetrator.

Similarly, Defendants employed the perpetrators in the utmost positions of trust, and allowed them to work with children. As a result it was and is foreseeable that the perpetrators would abuse children, and that members of the communities where the Defendants conduct their business would lose the ability to leave their children unsupervised anywhere Defendants’ employees are present.

There can be no question of certainty of harm, connection between the conduct and the injury, and the moral blame that flows from Defendants’ conduct, nor of the compelling state interest in preventing child abuse. And Defendants’ only burden would be ending their timeless policy of secrecy, a burden that crumbles under the weight of the compelling state interest in preventing child abuse.

As to the consequences of imposing liability, they are far outweighed by the cost to society of allowing Defendants’ conduct to continue.

B. Defendants’ Causation Argument Is Without Merit

Defendants’ causation argument would be comical if the facts that refute it were not so tragic. Defendants argue Plaintiff is "unable to allege any purported abuse by a Franciscan that post dates the 1980's." Demurrer Ps and As, p. 6, l. 9. This statement is false.

First, Defendants are well aware of two victims abused by Fr. Robert Van Handel in the 1990s. Express allegations to this effect can be found in the complaint titled John F., Robert F. v. Franciscan Friars of California, Inc. et al., filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court Case No. 1164855, &&s 7, 13.

Prior to settling that lawsuit in 2006, the Franciscans were notified in writing, repeatedly, of the dates of abuse. Hale Decl., & 4. Similarly, Defendants are also well aware that two adolescent boys were sexually abused by a Franciscan brother at the Serra Retreat House in Malibu in approximately 1993. Tang Deposition, p 155: 21 to p. 162: 22; p. 166: 15 to p. 167: 10, Hale Decl., Exh. 2.

Second, Plaintiff's FAC in fact does allege, at page 9, lines 11 20, abuse by a Franciscan earlier in this decade: Fr. Steven Kain, a former faculty member at St. Anthony's Seminary. Fr. Kain was one of 4 Franciscans accused of childhood sexual abuse in another 1993 Santa Barbara Superior Court lawsuit, Larson v. Franciscan Friars of California, Inc. et al., Case No. 719033 7. In the recent coordination litigation Franciscan Fr. Xavier Harris testified he and Fr. Kain worked together for a period of 2-3 years at St. Williams, a parish in Los Altos at least as recently 2001.

Fr. Harris confirmed Fr. Kain (misspelled "Kanne" in the transcript) abused again at St. Williams, and was transferred to St. Boniface in San Francisco. Harris Deposition, starting at pages 41:13 - 46: 3, Hale Dec., Ex. 2. Fr. Harris’ testimony made the pattern of conduct clear: Reports of abuse by Fr. Kain at St. Anthony's in Santa Barbara in 1993; transfer of Fr. Kain to St. Williams in Los Altos; no warning provided to parishioners at St. Williams; Fr. Kain sexually abuses a child at St. Williams in or around 2001; the Franciscans transfer Fr. Kain again, to St. Boniface in San Francisco; and again, the Franciscans provide no warning to the parishioners at his new parish. This abuse did not take place in the 1980s or even the 1990s. These are relatively recent events.

****************
Defendants’ causation argument would be comical if the facts that refute it were not so tragic
**********************************

In addition to misinformation provided to this Court, Defendants play semantic games in an effort to avoid responsibility for the abuse committed in 2007 by Louis Ladenburger.

As alleged more fully starting at page 10 of the FAC, Ladenburger pled guilty last year to sexually assaulting two children in Idaho. In the apparent belief they no longer bear any responsibility for Ladenburger because he left the Order in 1996, the Franciscans argue Plaintiff cannot allege abuse "by a Franciscan that post dates the 1980s."

Ladenburger was employed by a school in Idaho; his victims were students. Had the Franciscans acted when they first learned of his propensities in the 1980s, reported Ladenburger to authorities, and warned the communities in which he was and had been assigned, Ladenburger would most likely have been a registered sex offender, and never would have been hired by the Idaho school.

Instead, the Franciscans sent him for treatment for his pedophilia in the 1980's, and again in the 1990's, told no one, and now disclaim any further responsibility for him because he left the Order in 1996. For all intents and purposes, they set loose a ticking time bomb that exploded in 2007. One of the main purposes of this litigation is to force the Franciscans to disclose how many other current or former Franciscan time bombs exist.

Finally, even if there had been no reports of abuse being committed by a Franciscan in the 1990s or the 200's, such a fact would be meaningless to a determination of the current threat posed by current and former Franciscan perpetrators.

**************
It takes most victims at least 20 years to either recover repressed memories, or to recognize and come to terms with the wrongfulness of the conduct by a man they associated with god
*********************************

The Franciscans are well aware that most victims of such abuse never come forward, and carry their horrible secret to their grave. And when such victims do come forward, it is extraordinarily rare for them to do so as soon after the abuse ends as the two Ladenburger victims.

To the contrary, it takes most victims at least 20 years to either recover repressed memories, or to recognize and come to terms with the wrongfulness of the conduct by a man they associated with god, much less find the courage to speak about their experiences.

*****************
5 waited more than 30 years after the abuse ended before finding the courage to come forward. 4 waited at least 20 years, 2 waited at least 18, and two more waited 12.
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For instance, in the recent coordinated proceedings, of the 14 survivors represented by Plaintiff's counsel who came forward between 2003 and 2005, 5 waited more than 30 years after the abuse ended before finding the courage to come forward. 4 waited at least 20 years, 2 waited at least 18, and two more waited 12.

One other survivor who was abused in the 1960's notified the Franciscans in the 1970s, but did not actually file a lawsuit until 2003. Hale Decl., & 7. In short, in addition to being indisputably false, it is far too early for the Franciscans to be patting themselves on the back and claiming no Franciscans have abused children since the 1980's. The public nuisance is continuing.

In support of their causation argument, Defendants cite In re Firearms Cases, 126 Cal.App.4th 959. It should be noted at the outset that Defendants’ causation argument cannot provide the basis for sustaining a demurrer. AFacts relating to the issue of causation is a job properly left to the trier of fact.@ Bastian, 199 Cal.App.3d at 531. In fact, In re Firearms was an appeal from an order granting a motion for summary judgment. 126 Cal.App.4th at 967. Additionally, the trial court granted summary judgment after the plaintiffs failed to offer any factual evidence that the practices of gun manufacturers was causally connected to the acquisition of firearms by criminals. To the contrary, plaintiffs argued in appealing the order granting summary judgment that they were not required to link any specific instance, of a criminal acquiring a gun, to a gun manufacturer, and instead relied solely on Aexpert testimony based on statistical studies of illegal gun purchases.@ In re Firearms Cases, 126 Cal.App.4th at 969. The exact opposite is true in this case.

After ten years of litigating Franciscan abuse cases, Plaintiff's counsel has amassed nearly 7 decades worth of fact-based evidence showing the causative link between Defendants’ conduct and the resulting harm. That evidence is alleged in detail in the allegations Defendants now seek to strike from the FAC.

With at least 59 Santa Barbara children abused by Franciscan perpetrators since 1960, there can be no denying the causative link between the alleged conduct and the harm to the general public in the loss of the ability to leave children unsupervised wherever the Franciscans conduct their business.

C. Plaintiff Has Standing To Assert A Public Nusiance Claim

Plaintiff's FAC is unambiguous, setting forth in detail the harm to the public and the unique harm to plaintiff giving her standing to bring a Public Nuisance claim. See FAC, paras. 14 15. Defendants take creative license and rewrite the allegations of Plaintiff's FAC to fit their argument.

Specifically, they incorrectly argue that Plaintiff claims the harm unique to her is "that perpetrators, in general, are dangerous to society." Paragraph 15 of the FAC makes clear this is not Plaintiff's special injury. Defendants' conduct is harmful to the general public as they place perpetrators into positions of trust, but cannot be trusted to warn the public of the identity of the perpetrators, thus restricting the ability of the public to leave their children unsupervised anywhere Defendants conduct their business.

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7 decades worth of fact-based evidence
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The special injuries to Plaintiff are separate and distinct: the sexual abuse she suffered, and the recent trauma she suffered, both as a result of Defendants' conduct. These special injuries are different in kind from that suffered by the public, and thus give Plaintiff standing to file suit on behalf of the general public under the authorities cited by Defendants.

There is more than a degree of difference between being sexually assaulted as a child, or being deceived and traumatized by a misrepresentation that one was the only victim of a particular perpetrator, and the loss of the ability of a childcare custodian to leave their child unsupervised in any location where Defendants are conducting their business.

Apparently recognizing their argument tries to fit a square peg into a round hole, Defendants argue in the alternative that Plaintiff must allege there is an "impending threat" to her specifically. The only authority they cite, ' 158 of 13 Witkin, Summary of California Law, offers no support for imposing such a pleading burden, and simply confirms Plaintiff's obligation to allege, as she has, a special injury different in kind from the general public's.

Finally, Defendants argument that the Public Nuisance claim "lapsed many years ago" misstates the law.

Because the cause of action is based on conduct that is a continuing Public Nuisance, it is not subject to any statute of limitations set forth in ' 340.1.

While the abuse Plaintiff suffered is a special injury giving her the right to bring a Public Nuisance claim, it is Defendants' continuing pattern of conduct that governs the limitations period for the cause of action. Plaintiff has alleged and will prove that the Franciscans' misconduct with regard to their perpetrators continues to the present day.

And it is this continuing conduct that determines the timeliness of the Public Nuisance claim. "No lapse of time can legalize a public nuisance, amounting to an actual obstruction of public right." Civil Code section

3490. IV. PLAINTIFF=S LAWSUIT IS TIMELY UNDER EITHER STATUTORY OR COMMON LAW DELAYED ACCRUAL

A. The History, Purpose And Language Of Section 340.1
Section 340.1 represents the Legislature=s recognition that the comprehension of harm inflicted as a result of childhood sexual abuse can be delayed for many years into adulthood. Curtis T. v. County of Los Angeles (2004) 123 Cal.App.4th 1405, 1421. As a result, the Legislature enacted the statute to provide Avery generous limitations periods for adults who belatedly realize >that psychological injury or illness occurring after the age of majority was caused by the sexual abuse= that occurred many years ago in childhood.@ Id.
The purpose of the expanded limitation provided by ' 340.1(a) is to allow victims Aa longer time period in which to become aware of their psychological injuries and remain eligible to bring suit against their abusers.@ Debbie Reynolds v. Superior Court (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 222, 232. As a result, A[t]he limitations period begins to run [i.e. the claim accrues] only after the victim, who is then an adult, appreciates the wrongfulness of the . . . conduct.@ Tietge v. Western Province of the Servites (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 382, 387.

In 1998, the statute was amended to allow plaintiffs 8 years from the date of majority to seek redress from responsible third parties under a theory of direct liability; whereas the previous versions applied only against the perpetrator of abuse. ' 340.1(b)(1), stats, 1998, ch. 1032, '1. Such actions were required to be filed prior to the plaintiff=s 26th birthday. Id. In 1999 the Legislature clarified that the 1998 provisions relating to non-abuser liability applied to Aactions begun on or after January 1, 1999, or if filed before that time, actions still pending as of that date, >including any action or causes of action which would have been barred by the laws in effect prior to January 1, 1999.=@ Shirk v. Vista Unified School District (2007) 42 Cal.4th 201, 208 citing Stats, 1999, ch. 120 ' 1.

In 2002 the Legislature allowed the filing of claims against responsible entities by plaintiffs over the age of 26 who could show the entity possessed a requisite level of notice of the perpetrator=s actions and failed to take actions to prevent further abuse. ' 340.1(b)(2).

The 2002 amendments also revived, for 1 year, claims that Awould otherwise be barred as of January 1, 2003, solely because the applicable statute of limitations has or had expired . . .@ ' 340.1(c). The 1-year window for filing such claims closed on December 31, 2003. Id.
Last year our Supreme Court recognized A[S]ubdivision (b)(2) is a remedial statute that the Legislature intended to be construed broadly to effectuate the intent that illuminates section 340.1 as a whole; to expand the ability of victims of childhood sexual abuse to hold to account individuals and entities responsible for their injuries.@ Doe v. City of Los Angeles (2007) 42 Cal.4th 531, 536. The Court noted that the 2002 amendment:

is intended to ensure that victims severely damaged by childhood sexual abuse are able to seek compensation from those responsible. [&] . . . [T]his bill provides that the extended statute of limitations in childhood sexual abuse cases against a third party extends beyond age 26 of the victim, when the third party knew, had reason to know, or was otherwise on notice, of unlawful sexual conduct by the individual and the third party failed to take reasonable steps and to implement reasonable safeguards to avoid future acts of unlawful sexual conduct by that individual . . . In support of the measure, the author states: [&] This bill is essential to ensure that victims severely damaged by childhood sexual abuse are able to seek compensation from those responsible. While current law allows a lawsuit to be brought against a perpetrator within three years of discovery of the adulthood aftereffects of the childhood abuse, current law bars any action against a responsible third party entity (such as an employer, sponsoring organization or religious organization) after the victim=s 26th birthday . . . [&] . . . This arbitrary limitation unfairly deprives a victim from seeking redress and unfairly and unjustifiably protects responsible third parties from being held accountable for their actions that caused injury to victims.

Doe, 42 Cal.4th at 544. The Assembly Judiciary Committee understood that under SB1779 A[p]eople who discover their adulthood trauma from the molestation after the effective date of the bill will have three years from the date the victim discovers or reasonably should have discovered that the adulthood trauma was caused by the childhood abuse.@ LH0142.
The Legislature also repeatedly recognized that A[t]his bill would provide that the absolute age of 26 limitation in actions against a third party does not apply, and the broader >within three years of discovery= statute of limitations in subdivision (a) applies@ when the defendant was on notice. LH0047; LH0068; LH0073; LH0088; LH0109; LH0112; LH0124. The Legislature=s justification for the expansion was that A[t]he promotion of justice appears to be served by extending the statute of limitations@ when the culpable third party was on notice of prior molestations. LH0106. That justification does not support the arbitrary distinction urged by the Defendants.

Clearly then, the Legislature's goal in enacting subdivision (b)(2) was to expand the ability of victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue those responsible for the injuries they sustained as a result of that abuse. This reading of subdivision (b)(2) is also consistent with the Legislature=s larger purpose in enacting section 340.1. . . to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse a longer time period in which to bring suit against their abusers. . .@ Doe, 42 Cal.4th at 545.

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It is Defendants' continuing pattern of conduct that governs the limitations period for the cause of action.
*****************************

This provision also serves the remedial purpose of abrogating the Aarbitrary limitation@ that Aunfairly and unjustifiably protects responsible third parties.@ From the enactment of ' 340.1 in 1986, through the most recent amendments in 2002, the Legislature has consistently acted to expand and liberalize the Avery generous limitations@ period afforded by ' 340.1. McVeigh v. Does 1 through 3, (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 898, 903-904 (' 340.1 Ahas been amended numerous times since its enactment in 1986 . . . [e]ach time, plaintiffs’ access to the courts was expanded.@).

B. Plaintiff=s Action Was Timely-Filed In Accordance With The Delayed Accrual Provision In Section 340.1(a)(2)

When the Legislature enacted SB1779, its aim was to create a comprehensive statutory scheme that would permit all victims of childhood sexual abuse the opportunity to hold responsible third parties accountable. See Doe, 42 Cal.4th at 536. In furtherance of that goal, the Legislature permitted victims of childhood sexual abuse to utilize the limitation periods codified in ' 340.1(a)(2) and (a)(3), while simultaneously allowing actions to be commenced after the plaintiff=s 26th birthday, thereby allowing actions such as Plaintiff=s to be commenced in accordance with the statutory delayed accrual provision.

This expansion of the statute of limitations, alone, still resulted in the exclusion of hundreds of victims of childhood sexual abuse who had discovered the cause of their adulthood injuries prior to the enactment of SB1779.

To fill this gap in the statute's coverage, the Legislature revived such claims, for a period of one year. ' 340.1(c). The resulting statutory framework, provided all victims of childhood sexual abuse a reasonable opportunity to hold responsible third parties accountable for their actions.

Any other interpretation would arbitrarily exclude victims who were over the age of 26, but had not discovered the connection between the sexual abuse and their adulthood injuries until after the effective date of SB1779.

Such a construction is at odds with the statute=s remedial purpose, and contravenes the Legislature=s intent.
1. Section 340.1 applies the Athree year from discovery@ provision to actions commenced after January 1, 1999

A plaintiff must bring a claim within the limitations period after the accrual of the cause of action . . . [I]n other words, statutes of limitation do not begin to run until a cause of action accrues.@ Fox, 35 Cal.4th at 806; Cal. Code Civ. Proc. ' 312.

The accrual of Plaintiff=s claims under ' 340.1, and the concomitant commencement of the running of the statute of limitations, is determined through a confluence of the 1998, 1999, and 2002 amendments.

The 1998 amendment applied the three year from discovery statutory provision to claims against non-perpetrator defendants. The 1999 amendment expressly and unequivocally applied that provision retroactively, and revived all claims barred by the previously-existing statute of limitation. The 1999 amendment applied to all actions filed after January 1, 1999.

Thus, the accrual of a claim under ' 340.1 was redefined to occur when the plaintiff discovers the cause of her adulthood injury. Since Plaintiff=s action was commenced after January 1, 2003, her claims are subject to the delayed accrual provision of ' 340.1(a).

i. The plain language of Section 340.1 supports Plaintiff's interpretation of the statute

The Legislature's choice of words in crafting the revival provision of subdivision (c) supports Plaintiff=s reading of the statute. The one year revival provision of SB1779 expressly applied to any action Athat would otherwise be barred as of January 1, 2003.@ ' 340.1(c). This language provides a dramatic distinction from the language enacted by the Legislature with respect to the 1999 amendment, where the statute expressly revived actions that were barred by the Alaw in effect prior to 1999."

The Legislature's decision to revive cases that were time-barred Aas of@ January 1, 2003, rather than actions that were time-barred, prior to the statute's effective date, as it did in 1999, is significant. See Cel-Tech Communications v. L.A. Cellular Tel. Co. (1999) 20 Cal.4th 163, 210.

Had it intended to revive only those actions that were barred under the statute of limitations at the time of the touching, or by the age 26 limitation, the Legislature would have revived causes of action that were Abarred by the law in effect prior to January 1, 2003.@ The distinct language used by the Legislature indicates that the revival applies to actions that are time-barred under the law in effect on January 1, 2003. On that date, subdivision (b)(2) permitted victims over the age of 26 to file actions within three years of discovering the nexus between the childhood sexual abuse and adulthood psychological injuries. A claim was barred Aas of@ January 1, 2003, if the victim had previously discovered the causal connection between the abuse and her injuries such that the claim had accrued and the statute of limitations had expired as of the effective date of SB1779.

ii. The Legislature=s decision to re-enact the statute=s previous retroactivity provisions without limitation demonstrates its intent that the 2002 amendment apply retroactively

If additional support for Plaintiff's position is needed, it resides in the Legislature's decision to re-codify the 1999 amendment, without limitation, in 2002.

In 1999, the Legislature expressly applied the three year from discovery provision of Section 340.1(a) to claims against third parties by noting that the 1998 changes Ashall apply to any action commenced on or after January 1, 1999 . . . including any action or causes of action which would have been barred by the law in effect prior to January 1, 1999.@ Stats. 1999, ch. 120 ' 1, subd. (s).

In 2002, the Legislature amended ' 340.1 and extended the right of plaintiffs over 26 to sue responsible third parties. Stats. 2002, ch. 149 ' 1, subd. (b)(2). Subdivision (s) was not substantively altered by SB1779, but was expressly renumbered. The Legislature declined to provide that subdivision (s) was inapplicable to the 2002 amendment.

The plain language of the statute provides that an action may be filed against a third party by a plaintiff of any age, even if that plaintiff=s claim would have lapsed under the laws in effect prior to January 1, 1999.

A strikingly similar course of events took place with respect to the question of standing in wrongful death actions as set forth in ' 377.60. In Bouley v. Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, the Second District Court of Appeal analyzed the statutory history of the amendments to ' 377.60 and determined that the Legislature intended the 2002 amendment to apply retroactively. (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 601, 606-607. The court held that:

[T]he legislative intent is unmistakable. In subdivision (d), section 377.60 provides that Athis section applies to any cause of action arising on or after January 1, 1993.@ With that language, the Legislature unambiguously provided that the 2002 amendments must be applied [retroactively].@

Id. at 607. Although the court recognized that subdivision (d) was added in 1997, rather than by the amendments in 2002, the court stated that:
[T]he Legislature is presumed to be aware of existing law [citations] and may certainly be presumed to know the full text of the laws it is amending. The Legislature was free to remove subdivision (d) from the statute once it served its original purpose [in 1999], or to amend it to specify that it did not apply to the 2002 amendments. The fact that the Legislature chose not to do so can only lead us to conclude that the Legislature intended that subdivision (d) would apply to the 2002 amendments, making those amendments retroactive.@

Id. Similarly, in ' 340.1, the Legislature signaled its clear intention that the 2002 amendments be applied retroactively because it did not remove or limit the retroactive language of subdivision (u). Moreover, the Legislature is presumed not to enact surplusage. See Doe, 42 Cal.4th at 547 (AWe must, of course, avoid any construction that would create such surplusage@). Section 340.1 must be interpreted in a way that gives meaning to subdivision (u). The construction urged by Defendants declines to afford any meaning to that subdivision, while subdivision (u) continues to have meaning under Plaintiff=s interpretation. 2. Hightower does not control when a plaintiff=s claim did not accrue prior to the enactment of SB1779
Defendants afford too much significance to Hightower v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Sacramento (2005) 142 Cal.App.4th 759. AIt is axiomatic that language in a judicial opinion is to be understood in accordance with the facts and issues before the court. An opinion is not authority for propositions not considered.@ People v. Knoller (2007) 41 Cal.4th 139, 154-155. The factual and legal distinctions between the case currently before the court, and Hightower, are so significant that Hightower cannot be viewed as controlling.

In Hightower the complaint was filed in 2004, and the plaintiff argued he had complied with the statutory delayed accrual provision. The court found that the record belied Hightower=s assertion, and that factually no delayed discovery could be alleged in light of the plaintiff=s recognition of psychological injury in 1982. Id. The court nonetheless noted that:
[ ] Effective 2003, the Legislature extended the limitations period for claims such as Hightower's to the later of the plaintiff's 26th birthday or the date when the plaintiff discovered that his psychological injuries were caused by sexual abuse. At the same time, the Legislature revived for only one year all such claims that were already time-barred. The Legislature therefore drew a clear distinction between claims that were time-barred and those that were not. Hightower's interpretation would obliterate that distinction by allowing his time-barred claim to take advantage of the new limitations period. Therefore, the new delayed discovery rule does not revive Hightower's previously lapsed claims.
Id. at 767-768.
i. Hightower is factually distinguishable
Plaintiff has alleged that she did not appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct, and did not discover the connection between her molestation and resulting adulthood injuries, until after the effective date of SB1779. Mr. Hightower, conversely, discovered the wrongful cause of his adult psychological illness two decades before SB1779 was enacted. This factual distinction is significant in light of the Legislature=s understanding that A[p]eople who discover their adulthood trauma from the molestation after the effective date of the bill [SB1779] will have three years from the date the victim discovers or reasonably should have discovered that the adulthood trauma was caused by the childhood abuse.@ LH00142. In the light of the intended legal distinction between claims accruing under ' 340.1(a) after January 1, 2003 and claims accruing prior to the effective date of SB1779, Hightower is not controlling in this case.

C. Plaintiff Has Adequately Alleged That the Equitable Delayed Discovery Doctrine Prevented the Accrual of Her Claim So That the Action Was Timely-Filed in 2007

Plaintiff=s action was timely commenced in accordance with equitable delayed discovery principles.

Statutes of limitation do not begin to run until a cause of action accrues.@ Fox, 35 Cal.4th at 806. A cause of action generally accrues at Athe time when the cause of action is complete with all of its elements.@ Norgart v. Upjohn Co. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 383, 398. AAn important exception to the general rule of accrual is the >discovery rule,= which postpones accrual of a cause of action until the plaintiff discovers, or has reason to discover, the cause of action.@ Fox, 35 Cal.4th at 807; see also Evans v. Eckelman (1990) 216 Cal.App.3d 1609, 1613 (equitable delayed discovery delays accrual of the cause of action Auntil the plaintiff has discovered or reasonably should have discovered the facts establishing the essential elements of her cause of action.@) The discovery rule may be Aexpressed by the Legislature or implied by the courts.@ Norgart, 21 Cal.4th at 397. AUnder the discovery rule, suspicion of one or more of the elements of a cause of action, coupled with knowledge of any remaining elements, will generally trigger the statute of limitations period[.] . . . [B]y discussing the discovery rule in terms of a plaintiff=s suspicion of >elements’ of a cause of action [the court] was referring to the >generic= elements of wrongdoing, causation, and harm. Id. If the plaintiff remains blamelessly ignorant of one or more of those generic elements, the plaintiff=s cause of action cannot accrue.

After the passage of section 340.1, courts began to adopt a more liberal view of delayed discovery in sexual abuse cases . . .@ Sellery v. Cressey (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 538, 545. AKnowledge of the act and injury is not in itself sufficient to start the limitations period: >[U]nder the discovery rule, the statute of limitations begins to run when the plaintiff suspects or should suspect that her injury was caused by wrongdoing, that someone has done something wrong to her.=@ Evans, 216 Cal.App.3d at 1611; see also Jolly v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1103, 1114 (A. . . the limitations period begins to run when the plaintiff suspects, or should suspect, that she has been wronged@). AAwareness of wrongdoing is a prerequisite to accrual of the action under the delayed discovery rule.@ Evans, 216 Cal.App.3d at 1611, 1619 (court could not Astate as a matter of law that it is psychologically impossible for plaintiffs to have lived in such continuing ignorance that what happened to them was wrong@); see Jolly, 44 Cal.3d at 1114; Curtis T., 123 Cal.App.4th 1405, 1422-23.

Here, at the young age of approximately six Plaintiff was molested repeatedly by a respected authority figure. FAC at & 5. As a direct result of the Perpetrator's exploitation of religious doctrine, his status as both an authority and much wanted paternal figure to plaintiff, and plaintiff's Roman Catholic faith, Plaintiff was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the perpetrator's conduct until many years later. FAC at & 10.1.

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In short, Plaintiff was induced to submit to the molestation by ruse, rather than by force.
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In short, Plaintiff was induced to submit to the molestation by ruse, rather than by force.

Under Evans, allegations that, due to the youth and inexperience of the plaintiff, or the discrepancy in perceived authority between victim and abuser, the plaintiff could not recognize the wrongfulness of the touching are sufficient to invoke the doctrine.

D. Each Of Plaintiff's Causes Of Action Are Properly Pled

1. The 5th And 13th Causes Of Action Alleging Fraud

The direct and specific pleading rule argued by Defendants for fraud is mitigated where the following circumstances are present: 1) Ait appears from the nature of the allegations that the defendant must necessarily possess full information concerning the facts of the controversy@; 2) practicality; and 3) the realistic setting of the case. Committee on Children=s Television, Inc. v. General Foods Corp. (1983) 35 Cal.3d 197, 217, 219 (children not expected to recall specific advertisement that lead them to desire a product). The Arequirement of specificity is relaxed when the allegations indicate that >the defendant must necessarily possess full information concerning the facts of the controversy [citations omitted], or >when facts lie more in the knowledge of the opposite party.@ Tarmann v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. (1991) 2 Cal.App.4th 153, 158. Even with the discovery and investigation conducted by plaintiff=s counsel in prior lawsuits, there can be no dispute that facts related to Defendants’ concealment or failure to disclose knowledge of their perpetrators’ tendencies to abuse children are far more available to Defendants than Plaintiff.

Additionally, Plaintiff has properly pleaded a cause of action for fraud based on concealment.

Fraud by concealment or non-disclosure is committed when: 1) the defendant concealed or suppressed a material fact; 2) the defendant had a duty to disclose the fact; 3) the defendant intentionally concealed or suppressed the fact with the intent to defraud plaintiff; 4) the plaintiff must have been unaware of the fact and would not have acted as she did if she had known of the concealed or suppressed fact, and 5) plaintiff sustained damage as a result of the suppression.

Marketing West v. Sanyo Fisher (USA) (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 603, 613. ADeceit may be affirmative or negative. Affirmatively, it is a false statement. Negatively, it includes the suppression of a fact by a person who is obligated to disclose it.@ Nussbaun v. Weeks (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 1589, 1594. AA duty to disclose known facts arises when the party having knowledge of the facts is in a fiduciary relation.@ Richelle L, 106 Cal.App.4th at 271 (quoting Vai v. Bank of America (1961) 56 Cal.2d 329, 337-38).
Notwithstanding the relaxed pleading requirements, the FAC is replete with allegations of intent by the Franciscans to conceal and suppress allegations of abuse by the perpetrators, including plaintiff=s perpetrator. See FAC, page 12: 16-26, page 16: 18-24. These allegations include the Ahow, when, where, to whom and by what means@argued for by defendants. Additionally, the FAC sufficiently pleads constructive fraud, which does not require fraudulent intent. See Engalla v. Permanente Med. Group (1997) 15 Cal.App.4th 951, 981 n.13.

As to the perpetrator's misrepresentations, Plaintiff incorporated the allegations, specific misrepresentations, and allegations of her reliance set forth at Page 16, lines 18-24 of the FAC into the 13th cause of action. Thus, the misrepresentations and reliance are stated in detail, and the 13th cause of action is properly pled.

Similarly, with regards to the 2007 misrepresentations allegations of reliance and change in plaintiff=s legal position are set forth at Page 12, lines 16-26 of the FAC and incorporated into each cause of action. Although the word Areliance@ is not used, it is implicit in the allegations. To the extent the Court disagrees, plaintiff requests leave to so amend.

Finally, under the 3 year statute of limitations for fraud set forth in Code of Civil Procedure section 338(d), the causes of action for fraud, and emotional distress based thereon, related to the 2007 misrepresentations are timely.

2. The 6th And 7th Causes Of Action Alleging Breach Of Fiduciary Duty/Confidential Relationship

Defendants misstate and/or omit the allegations of the FAC that make it clear the confidential relationship is not predicated solely on the nature of Plaintiff's religious faith, and in fact alleges secular grounds for the existence of a confidential relationship.

See FAC Paragraphs 43-44 and 54-55. Conversely, the plaintiff in Richelle L. v. Roman Catholic Archbishop (2003) 106 Cal.App.4th 257 relied solely on her piety to establish the confidential relationship. Richelle L., 106 Cal.App.4th at 280. Accordingly, because Plaintiff has alleged a confidential relationship based in large part on her youth, and that is not predicated solely on the nature of Plaintiff=s religious faith, nor on the Perpetrator=s status as a Franciscan, the existence of such a relationship is a question of fact that cannot be decided on demurrer as a matter of law. Id. at 273 fn. 6.

3. The 8th Cause Of Action Alleging Negligent Failure To Warn, Train And Educate

Whether Defendants had an educational program regarding child abuse in place during the period of abuse is presumptively within the knowledge of Defendants.

Additionally, plaintiff incorporates by reference the duty analysis set forth at page 8. Under the facts alleged in the FAC, Defendants had a duty to warn, train and educate Plaintiff. Juarez, 81 Cal.App.4th at 402. To the extent the Court agrees Plaintiff=s allegations are insufficient in this regard, Plaintiff requests leave to amend to correct any such deficiencies.

4. The 9th and 10th Causes Of Action Alleging Intentional and Negligent Infliction Of Emotional Distress

Plaintiff has not alleged Pastoral Malpractice anywhere in the FAC. In fact, as a result of the abuse she suffered, she has not been a practicing Catholic for many years. When plaintiff made contact with the Franciscans in approximately 2005-06 it was to report the sexual abuse she suffered, and to ask the assistance of the employer (the Franciscans) in identifying their employee who sexually abused her.

FAC, p. 12, lines 8-11. There is no claim of Apastoral malpractice@ in the allegations setting forth her reason for contacting the Franciscans. Id. Nor is there any such allegation in either of the emotional distress counts. FAC, && 61- 70. To the contrary, the allegations in those counts are purely secular in nature. Following Defendants’ flawed logic, a victim who reports her sexual abuse by a hospital employee to hospital administrator has sought medical treatment just by making such a report. The fact plaintiff reported her abuse to an employer who happened to be a religious brother does not render the contact pastoral. Defendants have simply taken it upon themselves to rewrite the emotional distress counts to fit the defense they seek to raise. The lone case Defendants cite in support of their argument, Nally v. Grace Community Church, (1988) 47 Cal.3d 278, further illustrates why plaintiff=s emotional distress counts are not claims for clergy malpractice. The plaintiffs in Nally were the parents of a young church member who committed suicide while participating in his church=s pastoral counseling program. Id. at 284. Here, while plaintiff was a practicing Catholic at the time of the abuse, it has been many years since she was active in the Roman Catholic faith. Accordingly, and unlike in Nally, there was no Areligious relationship@ when she made contact with the perpetrator=s employer in hopes the employer could help identify the abuser.
Recognizing that the pastoral malpractice defense has no application to these facts, Defendants next try to cloak their conduct in the litigation privilege.

Plaintiff submits the evidence will make clear the 2007 misrepresentations are not entitled to the protection of that privilege.

More importantly, whether a prelitigation communication is protected by the litigation privilege is an issue of fact that cannot be resolved by demurrer. Action Apartment Ass'n, Inc. v. City of Santa Monica (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1232, 1251; see also Eisenberg v. Alameda Newspapers, Inc. (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 1359, 1381 (trial court erred in granting summary judgment on basis of privilege as A[i]t remain[ed] a triable issue of fact whether ... imminent litigation was seriously proposed and actually contemplated in good faith)

5. The 12th Cause Of Action Alleging Violation of Business & Professions Code section 17200

Defendants take creative license and rewrite the allegations of Plaintiff's complaint to fit their argument. Specifically, Defendants argue the business practice Plaintiff seeks to enjoin is the sexual abuse of Plaintiff. P=s and A=s, p. 13, ll. 12-14.

Plaintiff's FAC, however, is unambiguous regarding the actual business practices she seeks to enjoin.

See FAC, para. 85. Plaintiff has ample evidence to prove these have been and continue to be Defendants’ business practices.

Plaintiff seeks to end these practices through injunctive relief pursuant to this and the Public Nuisance causes of action.

Defendants’ argument that damages are not available through the 17200 cause of action is irrelevant as the primary goal of this cause of action has always been to end these business practices via injunctive relief.

Finally, the subject cause of action is based on Defendants’ continuing business practices with regards to their employees who abuse children, and not just on the abuse of plaintiff as argued by Defendants. As set forth in the allegations Defendants now ask this Court to strike from the FAC, plaintiff has ample evidence, and expects to develop even more through discovery, that Defendants continue to place today=s children at risk through these practices.

***************
Plaintiff seeks to end these practices through injunctive relief pursuant to this and the Public Nuisance causes of action
********************************

Accordingly, Plaintiff's complaint was filed well within the 4-year statute of limitations applicable to this cause of action. Business & Professions Code section 17208.

6. The Vicarious Liability Component of the 13th Cause Of Action Alleging Fraud And Deceit

The Franciscans can be held liable for the torts of their priests and brothers under one of three theories:

1) that the Franciscans authorized the perpetrators’ conduct;

2) that they ratified said conduct; or

3) that public policy dictates they should be vicariously liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior.

See White v. Ultramar, (1999) 21 Cal.4th 563, 571 (discussing these three concepts); Murillo v. Rite Stuff Foods, Inc., (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 833, 852 (failure to terminate after notice of wrongdoing is evidence of ratification).

Defendants rely solely on Rita M. v. Roman Catholic Archbishop (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 1453, 1461 to support their argument Defendants have no vicarious liability. This reliance is misplaced.

While in 1986 it might have defied every notion of logic and fairness to say that sexual activity between a priest and a parishioner is characteristic of the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, twenty-two years of clergy-abuse litigation later it has become tragically clear sexual abuse by Catholic priests and brothers has been far too common an occurrence, especially with the Franciscans.

Defendants ignore analysis in Rita M. that, when applied to the facts of this lawsuit, make it clear these defendants can and should be held vicariously liable:

There is simply no basis for imputing liability for the alleged conduct of the individual defendant priests in this instance to the respondent Archbishop. Similarly, appellant has not pointed out any fact which could lead this court to a conclusion that the Archbishop Aratified@ the concupiscent acts of the priests.

Id.

Here, plaintiff has alleged there were at least 10 or 15 instances where the perpetrator induced her to strip naked in the presence of at least one other Franciscan, including one incident in which a third Friar and apparent hierarchy member walked in on such abuse.

See FAC, Para. 7. The perpetrator=s abuse of plaintiff, however, continued. Id. Plaintiff also has alleged that Franciscan perpetrators have sexually assaulted no less than 60 Santa Barbara children since 1936. FAC, Para. 8.

And plaintiff has alleged the Franciscans have, as with plaintiff, been receiving notice of this abuse since at least 1964 but allowed it to continue.

Plaintiff will allege all of these facts in greater detail if necessary, but respectfully submits these facts as alleged provide ample basis Ain this instance@ for imputing liability to the Franciscans under all three theories of vicarious liability.

Finally, the applicability of respondeat superior is a factual question. Lisa M. v. Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hosp. (1995) 12 Cal.4th 291, 299-300; Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles (1991) 54 Cal.3d 202, 213. Accordingly, the challenge to Plaintiff=s theory of vicarious liability is inappropriate at this time, and should not be decided on demurrer.

7. The 14th Cause Of Action For Premises Liability
It has long been established that landowners and/or business proprietors have a Aduty to take affirmative action to control the wrongful acts of third persons which threaten invitees where the occupant has reasonable cause to anticipate such acts and the probability of injury resulting therefrom.@ Taylor v. Centennial Bowl, Inc. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 114, 121. Numerous cases involving third party conduct have met the definition of foreseeably dangerous activities giving rise to premises liability.
An attack in a hospital parking lot where emergency room operations in a high crime neighborhood drew persons under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Isaacs v. Huntington Mem=l Hosp. (1985) 38 Cal.3d 112, 130-31. A rape in a condominium unit located in a high crime wave area which lacked exterior lighting. Frances T. v. Village Green Own Ass’n (1986) 42 Cal.3d 490, 498. A rape where several of a building=s female tenants had been attacked, but where the landlord failed to warn of this danger. Kwaitkowski v. Superior Trading Co. (1981) 123 Cal.App.3d 324, 333. A sexual assault in the women=s room of a public rest stop by a hidden assailant where such was Adismally predictable.@ Constance B. State of Cal. (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 200, 206-07. The law recognizes that a landowner can be liable for the intentional unlawful conduct of others. Here, the legal nexus is even closer because the individuals committing the criminal acts were Defendants’ employees.

Here, Plaintiff's FAC alleges that Defendants controlled the church property where the sexual abuse took place; that Defendants’ use of the property consisted of placing children in the care of men with known tendencies for sexual abuse of children; that Plaintiff was sexually abused on the property; and that the harm to Plaintiff was caused by Defendants’ negligence.

Plaintiffs have satisfied the legal elements of the cause of action for premises liability. Defendants attempt to force a distorted employer negligence argument into a premises liability defense.

In support they rely upon an inapposite case: Farmers Ins. Group v. County of Santa Clara (1995) 11 Cal.4th 992, 1004-05 (governmental tort claims action). This case does not stand for the proposition that a landowner cannot be held liable for reasonably foreseeable intentional criminal conduct that occurs on his or her property. In fact, it does not even address the issue of premises liability.
In the two cases cited by Defendants that reference premises liability B Juarez, 81 Cal.App.4th 377 and Eric J., 76 Cal.App.4th 715 B Defendants misconstrue the holdings. Contrary to Defendants’ suggestion that Juarez precludes premises liability where the plaintiff had been molested on Church property, Juarez actually holds that the plaintiff had not met the pleading requirements because:
[M]aterial facts [have not] been proffered by Juarez to support his cause of action against the Church alleging premises liability . . . Juarez does not claim there were facts that put or should have put the Church on notice of the molestation, nor does he claim the Church could have taken effective steps to the sexual molestation. [Instead,] Juarez implies that the Church was strictly liable for anything occurring on its premises. This is not the law in California.
Juarez, 81 Cal.App.4th at 413. Plaintiff=s case is not just distinguishable from Juarez, but the exact opposite in terms of allegations of notice to defendants. Unlike in Juarez, Plaintiff has alleged facts that put Defendants on notice not only of her molestation, but that of numerous other children at St. Anthony=s and the Mission. Plaintiff further alleges Defendants could have taken effective steps to prevent sexual molestation of plaintiff and these other children.

Defendants reliance on Eric J. is similarly misplaced. In addition to the fact Eric J. is an appeal from a motion for a nonsuit, the bases for premises liability that were missing in Eric J. are present in this case. Specifically, the Eric J. court noted the fact the property at issue were Ajust homes@ as opposed to businesses, that there was no activity on the property implicating liability, and that there was no entrustment of a child to any of the defendants. Eric J., 76 Cal.App.4th at 727. Here, St. Anthony=s and the Old Mission served both as a school and a parish, the latter attended by plaintiff and both open to the public.

Additionally, plaintiff was not only brought to the property and abused there by the perpetrator, but was seen, repeatedly and during the abuse, by other Franciscans. And there can be no question of the activity on the property implicating liability, with the first known abuse of a Santa Barbara child having taken place at St. Anthony=s during the 1936-37 school year.

8. The 11th and 15th Causes Of Action For Violation of PC 11166/Procurement

Section 340.1(e) defines childhood sexual abuse by reference to various Penal Code sections. The first such Penal Code section referenced in ' 340.1(e) is PC section 266j, the crime of procurement of a child which is the basis for the 15th cause of action.

By including section 266j in section 340.1's definition of Achildhood sexual abuse, the legislatures’ intent is clear. And the fact 266 and 11166 were not enacted until 1980-81 is irrelevant under either statutory or common law delayed discovery.

DATED: December 13, 2008

NYE, PEABODY, STIRLING & HALE

By:

TIMOTHY C. HALE
Attorneys for Plaintiff

***

Kay here again.

Keep in mind, other states have similar Public Nuisance law, including Illinois where I was raped at age five. We now know Catholic priests sexually assaulted children in 'quite a few' places, to put it mildly. Allowing pedophiles to operate freely for decades, resulting in hundreds of thousands of victims, is probably grounds for public nuisance lawsuits such as the one going forward in Santa Barbara against numerous religious orders and archdioceses.

***************
By refusing to identify its pedophiles and notify the public of all their locations, the Catholic Church is creating an ongoing public nuisance -
**************************

Onward -

And Don't Forget the High Five Campaign, please pay for readership of City of Angels Blog by putting $5 or higher on the PayPal account linked in the top left column - just every now and then to keep the cosmos balanced . . .

Do you Doubt the release of Doubt was timed to create Doubt in American minds about pedophiles in the Catholic Church?

2008-12-11T11:21:00.000-08:00

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By Kay Ebeling

(Reaction, Not a review)

Releasing Doubt in 2008 is as if in the 1970s, after humans had gotten to the moon and back and found out it is indeed uninhabited, someone put out a serious sci fi thriller about a race of creatures on the moon.

As a person who watches the Catholic Church bend and stretch the truth about pedophiles in the priesthood, I wonder, why was the movie Doubt released now, after the country has witnessed a stream of lawsuits judged against the church since 2002. For one, now media such as the Catholic News Service can run a review saying the film Doubt is “a reminder of a dark chapter in the church's recent history.”

Doubt presents itself as though the last 20 years of civil and criminal action, concerning close to five thousand priests, just never happened. I think people will see Doubt and come out thinking maybe there were just a few isolated cases of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, and there is still doubt.

In 2008 we know the crime was so widespread, it was equal to an epidemic of pedophilia among Catholic priests with thousands of American crime victims who have not truly seen justice. Most of the crimes involve serial sodomy and other ways of penetration with pre-pubescent children. When you look at the evidence, tehre is NO DOUBT these crimes took place.

So why would Miramax put this film out now? The title gives it away. I'm paranoid enough to think that PR consultants representing American bishops met with Miramax executives to clinch the deal,

To once again create doubt in American viewers' minds.

I would not be surprised if the Bishops through their PR firms arranged the release of Doubt at this time to create Doubt in American audiences. To make it appear that these felonies were one or two isolated cases with no other precedent, and no one ever really knowing for sure if the abuse even took place.

Exactly what the bishops want Americans to think.

The release of Doubt makes this viewer feel like the past twenty years of civil discovery and priests being convicted of serial sodomy on prepubescent children never happened - or at least the powers that be at Miramax would like everyone to think they never happened. . .

************
"Less than 1 percent present questionable narratives"
***********************

Udo Strutynski had this to say about Doubt:

As a survivor of childhood clerical sex abuse, I have advocated justice from the Catholic Church for my fellow survivors these past six-plus years. I should add I am also a lawyer, and trained in assessing the credibility of plaintiffs.

During this time I have personally come to know nearly 300 persons molested by priests, nuns, seminarians, brothers, and the like. Of that number, less than one per cent presented questionable narratives. And when diocesan documents were finally pried loose by persistent judges, even those doubts were quashed by the stark, unambiguous evidence of admissions and clinical conclusions in episcopal files.

In light of my experience, I can say that doubt of the accused predator's guilt rarely emerges as a defense issue even at the beginning of the process, and almost never survives by the end of the investigation.

So, I am bemused that a play based on the premise of the fundamental, or necessary, uncertainty of just such an accusation should achieve the Pulitzer Prize.

Shanley's thesis flies in the face of a horrific reality supported by overwhelming odds. Moreover, it insults the lifelong pain involuntarily borne by abuse survivors everywhere, and thereby revictimizes them.

It may be that Shanley is merely plying an art that is anecdotal and removed from familiar reality, but in such case, it would be largely irrelevant, and not at all praiseworthy, much less prizeworthy. Methinks this playwright is still very much tied to the apron strings of Mother Church.

Udo S
*******************

Lucky for us, Doubt is apparently such a bad movie that not many people will see it or if they see it they will not like it, so the church did not get what it wanted from this suspected PR move, releasing the film now to re-create doubt where activists have erased it.

Most the victims I talk to are angry about the release of Doubt, none of us will go see it until it is free, and a boycott of Doubt would be a way to show support for the victims of rape by pedophile Catholic priests.

Also from the CNS review: “Though sexual misconduct is at the heart of the story, it is the balance between doubt which, forms the principal thematic subtext....” While you view that thematic subtext, you are getting exactly the message American Catholic Bishops want you to get ... that these rapes are isolated cases and there is doubt whether they even took place ... whether that was producers' and author's intent or not.

“The film contains a discreetly handled sexual abuse theme. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults.”

Wait until people see some of these case files.

Onward. . .

No I am not going to run the trailer as a video here. . .

Hearing on LA documents postponed to January 20

2008-12-09T15:18:00.000-08:00

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Another hearing postponed to January, as California becomes once again entrenched in holiday distraction and enterprise comes almost to a halt. How can you get anything accomplished when half the people you need are on vacation? What else can you do but -

Join them.

Take a day off - A week off.

But City of Angels Network plunders on, always finding new ways to blast through the obstructions.

huh?

It takes five minutes to come up with solution to Catholic Church crisis of crime victims

2008-12-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

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By Kay Ebeling

In this morning's Abuse Tracker I read this:

WASHINGTON DC: "Catholic bishops must make safe environment programs and reaching out to those hurt by sexual abuse by clergy priority issues, said Bishop Blase Cupich, new chair of the bishops' Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People." (Last update: 9:41 a.m. EST Dec. 8, 2008 PRNewswire-USNewswire.)

I can give Bishop Blase some suggestions.

Perpetrator priests went off to sanctuary type environments, rural retreat acreage set aside for their “recovery” at the same time many pedophile / sexual predator priest assault survivors are trying to get therapy through the government or uninformed insurance programs, having little or no success getting to see therapists who do not understand our specific issues once or twice a month, let alone long term care.

Just treat the crime victims with the same concern you gave to the priests.

Survivors need recovery centers as lush or more luxurious than anything the Catholic Church set up for perpetrator priests. For example, the land that used to be Servants of the Paracletes in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. That property where hundreds of pedophile priests spent months and years at a time in "treatment" could be redeveloped for survivors in western states to go to.

For

LONG TERM RECOVERY

I'm sure there are other survivors out there who feel they need long term therapy, in a serene environment, like so much of the property owned by the Catholic Church.

There’s the Salesians campground property near Santa Cruz, acreage right on the ocean.

The Franciscans are going to be out of business soon in Santa Barbara and they have the old mission and property surrounding it, on the Pacific Ocean.

There’s a nice little retreat in Hollywood just below the Hollywood sign. If you go up Gower Street above Franklin you pass a Cross that used to be visible all over the city, today just from the alleyway that is Gower Street north of Franklin. There are two or three nuns living on that Hollywood proptery, aging, and part of their practice is to never interact with the public.

So no one really knows if there even are anymore nuns living in there.

That Hollywood land would be a wonderful retreat for Central LA people, a therapy center with outpatient treatment.

I'll run it for you.

It takes me five minutes to come up with ideas on how the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy can:

Obey their own pope

Start showing some compassion and concern for the thousands of Americans walking around damaged from being in the pathway of one of the Catholic Church’s thousands of sexual predators.

PERSONAL NOTE:

At least the doctor in SF gave me Darvon. Today I go to the Free Clinic or whatever is available in this aftermath of President Bush style neglect of poverty programs.

Medical Help for uninsured people just disappeared in the last few years.

Not only do I have to self medicate, I have to self diagnose.

Some of us are living with 40 to 50 years of damage in our lives. In my case it’s resulted in pain that flashes out from the pubic region to all over the body. The one good doctor I had in San Francisco in the nineties just shrugged and said, “A lot of times women who’ve been promiscuous in the past live with pubic pain.”

I would never have lived that kind of life if it hadn't been for being sexually assaulted by a priest when I was five years old by Fr. Thomas Barry Horne, a priest who was coddled and protected by the Chicago Archdiocese for 30 years.

Onward. . .

Hearing in LA on doc release next week, case re Fransciscan public nuisance goes forward in SB, more stories in progress at City of Angels Network

2008-12-06T18:55:00.000-08:00

By Kay Ebeling

At a hearing next week on Motion to Unseal Documents, plaintiffs from the LA cases should get the final order on which documents will be released to a referee judge, then after review finally released to the public. Attorneys for the church continue to function in Wonderland, arguing that occasional contradictions in the judges' decisions, most of which are a result of the church attorneys’ own flurries of filings, are now a reason to maintain documents sealed.

“They want to keep some of these filings secret,” plaintiff liaison attorney Tony DeMarco said in a recent interview. The tentative ruling by Judge Emilie Elias should be made final at the December 10th hearing in Department 308, and complete a major hurdle in release of documents as ordered in the July 2007 settlements.

“There’s going to be a flood of documents available,” De Marco said.

Meanwhile in Santa Barbara, plaintiffs won their argument that the Public Nuisance lawsuit against the Franciscans should be tried in Santa Barbara and not be added in the year 2008 to the settlement decisions of July 2007, through a recent Judge Elias decision, released quietly.

Tim Hale filed the lawsuit after representing plaintiffs for two decades in cases against the Fransciscans. His firm has mountains of evidence proving the Franciscans allowed the rape of children over a 40-50 year period in Santa Barbara, constituting a public nuisance for the entire community.

Considering the Fransciscans MO in hiding felonies is the same MO as every other religious order and archdiocese in America, this is a lawsuit to watch. Whether similar lawsuits could go forward in other regions depends on that state's public nuisance law.

Paul E. Gaspari argues on behalf of the Franciscans to cut out major portions of the original public nuisance complaint, and the hearing on that motion to strike is on calendar in Santa Barbara Superior Court January 14, 2009.

In Boston, the church held a special Mass for its 200th anniversary November 23rd. There may have been thousands of people inside the cathedral, but outside, a good fifteen, maybe more, protesters stood their ground, the same ground they have stood on every Sunday now for nearly seven years, holding signs like the one pictured at right to remind people that this clergy “crisis” is in no way resolved.

The Boston advocates handed out a flier which said this:

Protecting God’s Children?

Please urge Cardinal O’Malley not to place our children at risk

In the case of admitted child predator Rev Jerome Gillespie the Cardinal has stated:

“Father Gillespie … has been determined fit to return to ministry. …It is expected that he soon will receive a formal assignment within the Archdiocese of Boston."

This position recklessly disregards our children’s safety and violates the principles of the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children.

Please write,

Most Rev Sean Cardinal O’Malley,
75 Union Park St., Boston MA 02118

or email http://rcab.org/Information/contactform.html
the Cardinal asking him to publicly reveal the whereabouts and status of Rev Gillespie.

For more about Gillespie go to bishop accountability and click on the letter G.

--------
MORE ABOUT LA CASES:

Here is a sampling of motions the Catholic Church in LA has filed recently, inundating the courts as usual, all paid for by that bottomless briefcase full of cash, much of which comes from parish donations:

13 motions filed by defendant church on October 23rd alone:

10/23/2008 Opposition Document (TO P'S SUR-REPLY ISO MTN TO UNSEAL COURT RECORDS (RE BC308301, BC294323, BC308555, BC346875, BC307686))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Motion to Quash (and TO DISMISS COMPLAINT FOR FAIL- URE TO COMPLY WITH CCP 340.1 (RE BC363768))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Request for Judicial Notice (ISO DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO QUASH AND TO DISMISS COMPLAINT FOR FAIL- URE TO COMPLY WITH CCP 340.1 (RE BC363768))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Notice of Lodging (/LODGMENT OF EXHIBITS ISO D'S MTN TO QUASH AND TO DISMISS COMPLAINT FOR FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH CCP 340.1 (RE BC363768))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Demurrer (SPECIAL, RE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS (RE 07CC05290))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Memorandum - Other (OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES ISO DE- FENDANT'S MTN TO QUASH AND TO DIS- MISS COMPLAINT FOR FAILURE TO COM- PLY WITH CCP 340.1 )
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Declaration (OF MARIA C ROBERTS ISO DEFENDANT'S MTN TO QUASH AND DISMISS COMPLAINT FOR FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH CCP 340.1 (RE BC363768))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Notice of Hearing (ON SPECIAL DEMURRERS (STATUE OF LIMITATION) AND MEMORANDUM OF POINTS & AUTHORITIES ISO SPECIAL DEMURRERS TO FIRST AMENDED COM- PLAINT (RE 07CC05290))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Request for Judicial Notice (REVISED, BY ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCH- BISHOP OF L.A. ISO MTN TO STRIKE; SPECIAL DEMURRERS; AND MTN FOR SANCTIONS (RE 07CC05290))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Demurrer (OMNIBUS, BY D'STO COMPLAINTS FILED BY JANE AA DOE, JOHN TH DOE AND GERARD ARMOGIDA; DEMURRER; (RE 30-2008-00070113, 30-2008- 00046614, AND 07CC05290) )
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Motion for Sanctions ( (RE 07CC05290))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent
10/23/2008 Declaration (OF LEE W. POTTS ISO MTN TO STRIKE SPECIAL DEMURRERS; AND MTN FOR SANCTIONS (RE 07CC05290))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

10/23/2008 Motion to Strike (FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT (RE 07CC05290))
Filed by Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

Church attorneys are beating down new lawsuits, while continuing to keep the documents from old lawsuits from going forward.

Personal:

Hollywood Mass Choir Update

I had to quit

I realized singing in a choir meant I’d have to go to church. My first performance I ended up posting that “here is Mable from the planet Oblique” story about infiltrating the church. I was compulsed to accompany that post with a sexy picture. I searched online for a photo of slutty angel and used that picture in the October 19th post here at City of Angels.

I just realized something is not right about my drive to sing in these churches. I realized I'm faking it, I don't really believe 80 percent of what they say they believe.

When I started having “intrusive thoughts” as PTSD scholars cal it about getting up on the altar to sing in a Frederick’s shelf bra, I knew it was time to stop going.

I have to be honest. My conception of God is much more connected to my time with Timothy Leary and later with the Yoga Ashram, than it is connected to fundamentalist evangelical churches.

So I'm back to radio ministry, you can go there daily with me, at 102.3 F-M Los Angeles, linked at the bottom of the page here. Monday through Friday at 1:20 PM LA time, you can get your daily massage. For me “fellowship” has to be totally non-denominational and impersonal this way on the radio.

HERE ARE PICS

FROM SNAP's LOBBY DAY

And demonstrations outside the Bishops meeting in Baltimore last month:

(Click pics to enlarge)

Above: Lobby Day in DC last September

Below: Vigil in Baltimore, where bishops and others arriving at hotel could see the demonstrators, night before bishops' Baltimore confab. . . .

Above, a survivor speaks, below, more from Vigil.

"So I’ll say it again very f***ing loud this time ‘Safe Sex for Altar Boys’ and that means when they are legally old enough to have consensual sex with someone they choose and not have to suffer the indignation that men like myself have experienced." - Healing Trees for Men

Go to
http://healingtreesformen.wordpress.com/
to read more.

Onward. . .

********
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In that way you can pay for "readership."
**********************************

Thugs as guards, answering only under oath, the Church comes across like organized crime. Jeff Anderson on the brotherhood, on KCTU last week

2008-12-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

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By Kay Ebeling

It’s not a church, it’s a compound. As you approach the LA cathedral downtown, you see organized crime at work. Thug security guards, who look like they can kill with their bare hands, stand at each entrance, barely two feet between them. The local don, Cardinal Roger Mahony, carries himself with the same sense of doomed destiny as does Godfather Michael Corleone. Both men live deep in the compound, separated from their foes by shields of concrete and state of the art security, living out their years in hiding.

The Catholic Church does not even try to hide its resemblance to the MAFIA anymore. Attorney Jeff Anderson spoke about the brotherhood that is Church heirarchy on KCTU Wichita last week:

“When I ask a bishop the question, why didn't you immediately report these crimes to the police and remove the priest, so often I get the answer, we thought we could handle it internally and we felt a loyalty to our fellow priest. They answer, It’s like a brotherhood it’s our family.”

Sounds like Michael Corleone in The Godfather to me.

The conversation with Jeff Anderson took place on Educating to End Abuse, and we have more quotes below. Peggy Warren hosts the caller participation webcast the third Thursday of each month.

December 18, the guest is Tom Doyle.

“Every month the Catholic Church gives us new stuff to talk about,” Warren, who is a predator priest survivor herself, said recently. “They really make it easy for us to come up with topics, but I wish we didn't have to have this conversation at all. What I do want to push/mention on every show is the importance of lengthening the statute of limitations on childhood sex abuse. The SOL needs to be at the top of everyone's list of priorities.”

Similarities between church hierarchy and The Sopranos slip out in depositions for civil lawsuits against different archdioceses around the country. Cardinals and bishops under subpoena have to answer civil plaintiff attorneys under oath, meet them eye to eye, one-on-one.

“There are documents that have surfaced in litigation, documents generated by the Vatican and maintained at every archdiocese. And every archdiocese shows a pattern.

"Bishops who know about these crimes are required to be complicit and protect themselves and perpetrators against scandal."

ME: So they are committing felonies, right?

Jeff Anderson on Educating to End Abuse, November 2008, continued:

“Not just priests offending children, but documented back hundreds of years, there is a pattern and a practice, a protocol that requires them (church heirarchy) to handle any criminal behavior in secret and keep it secret.

“Bishops have to respond the way they do because of orders from the Vatican. They are required to keep secrets by the Vatican. By Secret I mean not reporting the abuse, not making it public, and protecting themselves.

"The justification they give is, 'we didn't understand the scope of the problem.'"

Moderator Warren took a call from the father of a pedophile priest crime victim. The caller said, he feels the church is a place where pedophiles are protected.

Warren said, as long as statute of limitation changes are not passed, the criminals are off the hook.

CALLER: It’s a collective crime that comes from the pope down and anybody in the church who knows about it in the church is responsible, each and every one of them.

Caller (Cont'd):

“What, have people got rocks in their heads? Why do they still take their kids in there and give the church money?”

PEGGY WARREN : Lay people are living in denial. We need to convince them this is a real serious enormous problem that is continuing. It’s going to take victims’ stories, people like yourself, parents, saying enough is enough, we're not going to let our children be hurt anymore.

CALLER: The way the church has concealed the abuse, they've enabled these guys to avoid prosecution and they're probably serial abusers. These guys are out there. They've never been convicted. The only way to find them is to open SOL windows in other states like they did in California, so victims can come forward.

“Because these guys are out there."

The Caller to KCTU Educating to End Abuse continued:

“How does the church get away with having lobbyists. Isn’t that against the Constitution? Why does a church need lobbyists?”

JEFF ANDERSON: The observations about the SOL couldn't be more right on. In Legislatures across the country statute of limitation laws protect the offenders and those that protect them. SOL laws keep victims from being able to expose offenders through the criminal and civil courts. SOL reform is going to be necessary to protect children in the future.

“In California the one year period of time where survivors could come forward brought up close to a thousand lawsuits, just in California.

"250 Catholic priests, over two dozen bishops were exposed by that one year window in the Statute of Limitations in California.

“250 priests who committed abuse that had not been exposed before and two dozen bishops who took part in the coverup were exposed,” Anderson said.

“250 priests we found in California because the SOL was open and we were allowed to expose them.”

Warren commented about Denial:

"Why is this being allowed to happen. Catholic Church hierarchy denying that they are the problem. It’s not a few offending priests, as the pope suggested in America, there are a lot of offending priests, and the problem is the bishops in control of them are in denial. They're the ones responsible for not dealing with it.

"They are offenders themselves, thinking they could deal with it themselves instead of allowing law enforcement to handle it.

"The dynamic of denial is allowing molestations and rapes to continue in so many ways.

CALLER: Why doesn't the church handle these cases with more consideration for the parishioners? They’d have a lot more credibility if they’d take a hard line against the priests that are being reported.

ANDERSON: My answer to that is it’s baffling as to why the Church hasn’t taken a different approach.

“When I ask a bishop that question, why didn't you immediately report this to the police and remove the priest, so often I get the answer, we thought we could handle it internally and we felt a loyalty to our fellow priest. It’s like a brotherhood it’s our family

ME(at home listening): As in MAFIA
The bishops when forced to answer under oath, reveal it is a Mafia

ANDERSON: So that's the answer that they give, and as unsatisfactory as it is, that's the answer that I'm still getting from the church hierarchy when I ask them that question.

************

Security thugs glared into the group of eight advocates who showed up for a SNAP press conference in front of the cathedral late last month. Coincidentally all three Godfather movies have shown repeatedly on cable TV lately, and you can really feel the similarity between the LA Cathedral and Michael Corleone’s compound.

Everywhere inside and out the cathedral grounds are these thugs, either in maroon jackets to identify themselves as security or sitting solo, behind dark glasses, invisible receivers in their ears.

Nothing about the concrete slab of real estate that is the LA cathedral emanates anything resembling religion or church.

Why should it?

Onward. . .

Don't forget the High Five Campaign, please put five dollars or higher on City of Angels PayPal account, by using the Donate Button at the top of the left-hand column.

You can in that way pay for Readership.

Cross for survivors replaced in LA cathedral with exhibit about Rwanda genocide in 1994

2008-12-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

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A cross commemorating victims of sex crimes by pedophile priests in the LA Archdiocese used to be in a promenade area, where people passing through the cathedral as tourists or going to Mass could see it. The LA archdiocese replaced the survivor exhibit with a photo spread about genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the introduction is pictured here. (This photo was taken the day before my camera broke. When I went back the next day to shoot more, the camera died.... inside the cathedral. When I brought the camera home, it had stopped working.

Did someone from the Church ZAP me with a BEAM while I was shooting the Rwanda exhibit on my Aiptek HD Cam, knowing I would be criticizing them about the loss of the cross here at City of Angels Network? Or am I paranoid and it is just a coincidence that the camera died right after I took shots and video of the Darfur exhibit, and several other scenes at the cathedral that day.

I was unaccompanied, and there were guys with sunglasses and hats watching my every step. . . .)

Catholic officials replaced the survivor exhibit without notifying anyone who represents survivors in LA, such as persons who carried the cross into the cathedral in 2003 or the artists who produced the cross. Survivors did find out that the church at some point last year removed the cross and took it to an "archive."

(I do not call the archdiocese PR guy anymore, as they always see my caller ID and let it go to Voice Mail, then never return the call.)

Probably the LA Archdiocese staff trashed the survivor cross, considering the care and concern our local Cardinal Mahony has shown for pedohpile priest rape survivors here in Southern California so far.

The cross had photos of several survivors as children, the age they were when being raped by a pedophile priest in the LA Archdiocese.

Since the archdiocese appears to actually have no idea where the cross is, some of us are concerned it could get into the hands of a pervert, for example any one of the 100-plus perpetrator priests who were charged in the civil cases which settled July 2007.

Most of the pedophile priests identified in the 500 plus lawsuits which settled in LA last year are roaming the world free. Most pedophile priests do not have to register as sex offenders, but live unidentified today, anywhere in the world, still getting monthly stipends from the church or living on Social Security.

Meanwhile in order for the LA Times to have a story about concern and compassion coming from an archdiocese for the crime victims, they have to go to Oakland to write yet another article linked here http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-memorial1-2008dec01,0,3235386.story about the one decent act the church has taken in California, the little garden at the new Oakland cathedral for crime victims. Most news media covered the Oakland garden opening weeks ago. I guess the LA Times was waiting for some response from Cardinal Mahony.

Mr. Cardboard?

Considering LA was a major player in the national pedophile epidemic which was allowed to thrive from the first years the archdiocese formed, the LA archdiocese owes ALL the victims a lot more concern and attention than it has given so far, by giving settlements to a fraction of the victims who live here.

More to come later today

kay

Happy Thanksgiving from Thriving City of Angels Network

2008-11-25T07:44:00.000-08:00

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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

Two sex predator priests honored in LA black Catholic evangelical award, while Cardinal Mahony looks the other way

2008-11-23T09:50:00.000-08:00

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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.

Recovered memory was Reconciliation for me. It explained everything, even lies I told as a spokesperson for NASA.

2008-11-20T09:20:00.000-08:00

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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. . .

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

2008-11-19T06:57:00.000-08:00

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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. . .

LA Update: Progress toward new referee for document release. And if survivors wonder about the cross, it is no concern to Mahony

2008-11-17T11:45:00.000-08:00

*
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. . .

2008-11-14T06:26:00.001-08:00

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.

Pedophile priests at large in New Jersey. James Tully in Wayne and Robert Petrella in North Arlington. Survivors alert neighborhoods

2008-11-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

*
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. . .

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

2008-11-11T16:55:00.000-08:00

*
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. . .

Walk Across Oregon 2009 will go through Wallowa Valley where Chief Joseph said I Will Fight No More Forever

2008-11-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

*
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. . .

Will we ever make it to Oprah? Maybe in the year 2040. Meanwhile we lie in wait digitally at bishop accountability dot org

2008-11-02T05:38:00.000-08:00

*
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. . .

2 new pics of my perp - look what I found!

2008-10-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Feels good to post these. I was going through boxes of pictures and found two shots of Father Thomas Barry Horne. With drinks on the table in front of him he grins for the camera at a party c. 1953 at right, and with a drink in his hand he toasts during his retirement in 1974 below.

Send pics to City of Angels to post

30 more victims of one priest come forward when book gets published, probably just the tip of the iceberg

2008-10-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

By Kay Ebeling

"I’ve sent the bishop eight survivors of Neary and each one said the bishop told them they were the only person that had come forward about Neary," said Charles Bailey, pictured at right. He is getting justice today for brutal sex crimes committed against him at age ten by Father Thomas Neary, by putting his story out in the public. His book In The Shadow Of The Cross gives graphic shocking disgusting PTSD-inducing detail of the serial felonies, and you cannot put it down. More alarming, Bailey went on a small book tour in the Syracuse area where the book takes place, and in venue after venue, people came up after he spoke and said, "my brother was also raped by Neary," or my uncle, my husband, my dad - dozens of people with the same horrid story of the same horrid modus operandi.

With young Bailey and numerous others, Neary insinuated himself into families, convinced reverent mothers that their young boys were almost perfect for the priesthood, they just needed personal counseling. In household after household in towns like Onondaga Hill, Hannibal, Jordan, and Skaneateles, Father Neary convinced mothers to keep the rest of the children aside as he took a 9 or 10 year old boy into a room - then while reciting The Lord’s Prayer he sodomized them, prepubescent boys, or forced his face-sized penis into the their mouths, all the time telling the boys that sodomy and fellatio are part of their training to be a priest.

In the Shadow of the Cross tells so outlandish a story, even I began to wonder if it could be true, especially since Charles Bailey says probably 30 people have come to him so far, saying they or a family member were assaulted by Neary. Yet, NONE OF THEM will tell their story alongside Charlie in public, or even to a reporter or blogger like me, even if we keep details anonymous.

No one will go public yet at least.

However go to Google and type in Father Thomas Neary and you begin to see the tip of the iceberg toppling. Two bloggers, one a renowned political satirist, the other the Editor of City Eagle in New York document the slow coming forward of other victims of pedophile priest Father Thomas Neary, (blogs quoted and linked below).

After Bailey spoke at Creekside Books in 2007, he said, “a dozen or fifteen people came forward, all of them to talk about young men assaulted by Neary. A woman said her husband, a Neary victim, committed suicide when their son was in his teens. She hoped the book would help her son, who a decade later still hates his father. She wouldn't talk about it much but she did say that after reading this book maybe her son would let go of his bad feelings about his dad.”

Neary, pictured below right, devastated Bailey’s body from age 10 to 12, and Bailey dives right in with detailed portrayals of Neary’s assaults. On page 4 he describes “I see him grin and groan as if he is in a really happy state” asNeary has an orgasm, how “he tells me to stop crying and clean myself up. I now know enough to keep a box of Kleenex on the floor under the edge of the bed. Just for his visits." Bailey writes: "I stuff tissues in my bottom and make my way to the bathroom. Don’t get blood anywhere, he tells me. I know that it has to be private between he and my priest, because I don't want to anger you more, God. As I close the bathroom door, I hear him telling my mother not to worry, as I may be upset. It is very emotional to be ‘counseled’ to become a priest.”

This is from Page 6:

“He makes me kneel before him and clasp my two little ten-year-old hands together, like when we receive communion. What are we doing? We pray the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Thy will be done,’ Father Neary repeats that part. I am on my knees staring at his zipper."

This is from Page 7:

“As he helped me to lower his zipper, here was this hard penis staring me in the face. It was hard, hairy, and smelly. Why is there hair? I have no hair except on my head. ‘This is special, just for men of God,’ Neary said. ‘You too will be like this when you get older and help other young boys become priests.' ”

*****************
You can buy the book at: http://www.intheshadowofthecross.net/home.asp
********************************

For three years Bailey endured brutal crimes more than a hundred times, with the pain, the systematic cleaning up, bleeding into the toilet, then stuffing tissues into his rectum to keep the rest of the blood from dripping down his legs. You picture him, carefully folding paper towel into one pocket, Kleenex into the other, he lived in fear that Neary would pick him up when he wasn’t prepared with tissue in one pocket Kleenex in the other exactly as Neary demanded.

Today Charles Bailey plagued with degenerative disk disease, neuropathy, the chronic pain with which it seems so many pedophile priest rape survivors live.

(Continued below after this commercial)
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I asked Bailey,

Do you ever think that because you were so young - at ten years old you are still growing, your cells are still forming - that having these experiences with Neary sodomizing you, all that pain and the horror -- that it somehow put a kind of neural poison into your cells -- that the serial rapes with all that pain and internal confusion, actually damaged you at a cellular level, and is the reason you have all these health problems today?

BAILEY: I do think that. I’ve had two lower back surgeries as a young man and two cervical spine surgeries and I definitely think there’s a connection to the sexual assaults by Neary, because like you said.

Assaults by pedophile priests do damage to us at a cellular level, especially when we are young children when it happens, our bodies growing and cells still forming as we experience this trauma and process it the way we process it.

In fact as I read Bailey’s book In the Shadow of the Cross over a period of weeks, my own body pained up in its own brand of neuropathic dystrophy, whatever you want to call it - I couldn't write, could barely get my tape transcription jobs done - for the entire time I was reading his book.

Bailey said, “I went to pain management and was on 28 pills a day not long ago, and just the side effects the upset stomach and the nausea were awful

“And I was still in pain.

“So I quit them all, all the pharmaceuticals.’

How do you deal with the chronic pain?

“I just mentally tell myself that it goes along with the arena. It’s like the story, you feel bad about not having any shoes until see a guy with no feet. I tell myself I'm in agony, this hurts, but at least I can feel, there are people out there worse off than me.

“Many times, hair in the back of my neck stands up when people say pedophilia is only about power. It’s not.”

Bailey describes this scene in the book, and in a recent interview:

“I was holding onto the bedspread and I could see his expression. He’s having the time of his life back there and I was not a willing participant. It is about sexual pleasure for pedophiles.”

Bailey vents more on the topic of in Chapter 10: “Put It Behind You”

“Everywhere I have researched it, I have read that anal intercourse performed on a young boy by a man in his forties, (much less a Catholic priest) is illegal. It is a crime, and it should not be labeled as simply a mistake or mischief. It is not only a crime, but it is a felony crime. That is, it seems, unless you belong to the Catholic Church. . . .”

“These people who utter these ignorant words, put it behind you , it was so long ago, just forget about it, Move on. - and many other hurtful words, they just don’t get it. I sometimes feel they have ‘chosen ignorance,’ as I have dubbed it. they cannot allow themselves to believe the facts, of the sexual abuse by clergy, because then they would have to admit to the abuse done by their priests to countless children.

“These Catholics can’t seem to handle the truth. Otherwise they would be as outraged at their church as the victims are.”

*********************
BAILEY CONTINUES ON PAGE 68 of
In the Shadow of the Cross:
************************************

“Strange too, how there exists no statute of limitations on murder. Years passing mean nothing to a murder case. The victim can’t be there for the trial either. But I am here, and I can testify as to what, where, and how it happened. Isn’t that a leg up on a murder trial?”

I asked, Do you feel frustrated by survivors who won't go public or tell their stories to the media?

Almost every place Bailey speaks in the rural area near Syracuse pictured here (click to enlarge), he finds more victims of the prolific pedophile priest Thomas Neary. “One mother came up and said her son committed suicide about eight years ago, that he was he was an altar boy, in Skaneateles. Another guy is coming up from (a southern state). He says since reading the book, he realizes he has unfinished business. He’s a (professional) and this journey has interrupted his life but he has to come back. So he’s taking an indefinite period of time off work to come here and find out what happened to him.”

Still none of them wants to come forward in the public with their stories and stand beside Bailey, which frustrates the author as well as myself.

“The more people that come forward, the more credible this becomes,” Bailey said.

He understands the fear of “coming out”

Sort of. Bailey says:

“Most of the new Neary victims are prominent people in the area here. They're still in a job or career, some are politicians or doctors or lawyers, and they don't want their name associated with being a survivor of this, and I have to admit if I wasn’t retired, I would probably feel the same way.”

BUT

“I think the more victims stay silent in the case of Neary and other perpetrators the more these guys are out there still abusing children,” Bailey said. “By not coming forward, they're, I don't know if I’d use the word enabling -

“But yeah-

“By not coming forward, they're pretty darn close to enabling their perpetrator and others like him to continue perpetrating.”

So the iceberg topples.

POLITICAL SATIRIST and Radio commentator BARRY CRIMMINS, pictured at right, says Neary tried to make him a victim but he didn't succeed because he was savvy from a previous childhood experiences. In his BLOG, July 2007, Crimmins wrote this about encountering Charles Bailey in Skaneateles, that he almost got assaulted by Neary. Crimmins says he fought off Neary.

“(Neary) knew he couldn't sexually abuse me. On two occasions, when he started to massage my shoulders, I literally hit him as hard as I could with an elbow and fled.

“I had an added-on survival reflex (due to a previous assault) that kicked in as soon as the monstrous Neary put his slimy hands upon me. He persisted a bit and offered me rides in his car.

“Most of the children in town soon knew you should never take a ride from Father Queery."

FATHER QUEERY
Hey, they were kids, they did not know any better

You can read Crimmins entire post at:

http://www.barrycrimmins.com/index.php?page=news&display=317

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In addition

Here is another account of a survivor of Neary coming out because of Charles Bailey’s book In the Shadow of the Cross at:

http://cnylink.com/cnynews/view_news.php?news_id=tE1188488025t46d6e35912b85

by Ellen Leahy, Editor/City Eagle 08/30/07

“Alfie and my friend started again to discuss the book, as Alfie had had a run-in with Rev. Neary. He said that as a young boy he had worshipped with his family at St. Mary’s and had really looked up to Neary. You have to put yourself into a young boy’s mind, and the reverence one has for their priest, especially 40 years ago.

(emphasis mine, Neary picture below left)

“Alfie said Neary started out with some inappropriate touching that was very confusing and then he made a move on him, which included shoving his tongue down the young Rossi’s throat. Alfie went home and told his father he didn’t want to go to church anymore and his father without question said, okay. They never discussed why at the time.”

**************************

BAILEY: “My Wife Susan is the angel God sent me, at least half the reason why I'm here at all."

They have been married 35 years

BAILEY: She is my personal pit bull.

Read why below:

“We can forgive if you clean this up,” Susan Bailey said.

STORY CONTINUES AFTER VIDEO

HERE AT CITY OF ANGELS 4 WE EMBED THE VIDEO FROM YOUTUBE OF SUSAN BAILEY

Susan, in picture at right, told me:

“I called Bishop Moynihan in Syracuse and I met with him. At first he said I don't want to talk about this, but after awhile, I talked him into giving my husband free counseling once a week for six years.

“Charles got stronger with each therapy session. In the very beginning Charlie was truly a victim. He was broken down and he needed counseling. I'm the one that went in and talked to the bishop."

***********
She even tracked down the pedophile priest's brother, and went to his house. She wanted to know everything.
***********************************

Susan Bailey continued:

“I was so angry I even went to Fr. Neary’s brother’s house and wanted to know everything.

“Oh he doesn't live too far. My husband got on the computer we found Mr. Neary to see if he would apologize for his brother.

"I went to the brother’s house, banged on the door and said, I used to live in this neighborhood and wanted to talk to you. I went in and I said, I want to talk to you about your brother and he automatically said, leave the room to his daughter.

"I sat down with him for at least two hours and he told me everything and spent hours with me.

"Then before he left he said, I would like to apologize to your husband. And he did."

*****************
She realized it was the same house where much of the abuse of Charlie Bailey by Father Thomas Neary took place -

It was the same exact house
**********************************

Susan Bailey continued:

What was freaky is the house. I was looking around the house and it was all antiques..

In that very room Mrs Neary, his wife, used to give Charlie and other boys cookies after they were molested in the room nearby.

SUSAN: I said did Father Neary bring children to the house? And he said, yes, all the time. They would go to the back room and he would counsel them.

***********
And so the iceberg topples a little bit more
*************************************

Wherever Bailey and his wife Susan go, they take cards with an 800 number and information about the book, Bailey still makes public speeches.

They continue to find more survivors of Neary and other priests in the region but:

“They don’t want to talk,” Susan Bailey says.

“In the beginning, I understand it. I found this one survivor. One of my friends called me and said, I know this guy that's a cop and firefighter on the weekends and he was a victim of Father Neary. I know because he was always with him, I just know he was.

Susan Bailey continues:

“I picked up the phone and called him at the police station. He called me back. I said I heard you were abused by Father Neary. So was my husband. He wanted to meet right away.

"I got in my car and met him in a restaurant, then he came to our house and he spent five hours at our house.

But he said I don't want anyone to know about this and don’t use my name even with the bishop. He gave us the name of other possible victims.

Then by the time he left, he said okay to say his name to the bishop but not in the news media.

*******************
Well City of Angels has expressed before how we feel.

Keeping the story secret of felonies committed on you by pedophile priests secret is being self destructively timid - the only way we will ever see justice is when there are hundreds of stories documented and we can see the similarities from state to state, city to city:
**************************************

“So many of them do the same thing,” said Susan Bailey.

“Constantly you can pick up any book, almost every story is exactly the same. When you talk to other victims, these guys do the same thing to their victims, it’s like they were taught in seminary.”

*****************
BAILEY: I’ve sent the bishop eight survivors of Neary and each one said the bishop told them they were the only person that had come forward about Neary
********************************

“I’ve sent the bishop eight survivors of Neary and each one said the bishop told them they were the only person that had come forward about Neary

“Eight Neary victims I know of were told that nobody spoke about Neary before they did by Bishop Moynihan..

BAILEY: What I found is, I’ve spoken to 4 to 500 abuses so far doing the hotline and some of the peer counseling I do. When it comes to someone that's a victim of the same perpetrators. it kicks it up a notch. It’s a lot more difficult to, I don't know what the right word is even. You connect but it’s almost like you connect too much.

Bailey is documenting Thomas Neary’s 45 year career of raping kids

“I disclosed in 2002 what happened to me, and after the one article they've been calling me to say they too are a victim.

“One guy called me at midnight and said I just had to call you. You were on the news talking about sexual abuse with a picture of Neary. He just sat up and said that's him that's him. His wife said what, and he said, that's what I’ve been holding in 37 years. Then he took next days off from work to tell his family and friends.

“He had thought about it but he thought he was the only one.

"These guys (pedophile priests) are masters. I also thought Neary was an anomaly. I thought he was maybe one or a couple."

CHARLES BAILEY: Thomas Neary had a 45-year career of raping children, and the story is just beginning to come out.

***
Giving credit where credit is due: I got the tip to track down Charles Bailey for a story after Peggy Warren interviewed the author on her monthly internet webcast/cable TV show Educating to End Abuse from Wichita, Kansas on WCTV.

For more information go to: http://www.educatingtoendabuse.com/id36.html

Onward. . .

Interview with Charles Bailey to be posted on Sunday - preview video at City of Angels 4 or linked here:

2008-10-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

*
This is going to be a very difficult story to write. Watch here Sunday October 26, the story of one crime victim coming forward, self publishing a book about his experiences, and finding dozens of other survivors of the same perpetrator, Thomas E. Neary, of Syracuse, New York.

Watch here tomorrow for the story. (At City of Angels 4 is an embeeded video) where Susan Bailey talks about her husband's journey or you can go to it at YouTube by following this link. We do not post videos at City of Angels 13, for readers with slow speed connections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj0o_akG-ag

Susan is the "angel that God sent to me" says Charles Bailey.

Because so many of Neary's victims have committed suicide.

Story to come Sunday evening.

Coming Soon

2008-10-24T18:28:00.000-07:00

Author Charles Bailey's journey since publishing In The Shadow of the Cross in 2006, story coming Sunday. Click http://www.intheshadowofthecross.net/home.asp for more info. Pic of book cover at rigth (click to enlarge)

2008-10-24T08:33:00.001-07:00

The American Catholic Church was so desperate to find priests that it took anybody, especially in the last half of the twentieth century. So when one got caught raping a child, it was more important to hold onto the priest than protect and treat the children. So they transferred the priest and made it look like nothing bad really happened.

A church that would make that kind of a policy decision on a national level - is something other than a gospel believing and practicing church.

Bishops ask taxpayers to fund research on pedophile priests. Just cooperate with subpoenas, testify under oath, and no study would be needed

2008-10-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

*****
By Kay Ebeling

In St. Anthony Messenger released this morning an interview explains the Catholic Church's next step in bandaging its hemorrhage with pedophile priests, by doing a study as to why there are pedophile priests. The Roman Catholic Church wants American taxpayers to pay for its research.

"We’ve made applications to several federal agencies that would ordinarily fund studies of this kind, like the Centers for Disease Control," says Judge Michael R. Merz, the current chair of the Catholic's own National Review Board, in the November issue of the Catholic's own magazine released this morning.

Come on, bishops. Stop hiding behind the First Amendment and priest-penitent privilege every time someone asks a question as to what you knew about pedophiles proliferating in the inner sanctums of the church. Or fire the PR Firms and three fourths of the lawyers the bishops hire to fight the crime victims, and the Church will have plenty of money to fund its studies.

Shoot, just tell the truth and you do not need to do any study.

Of course Americans HAVE been spared the expense of civil trials re pedophile priests, with settlements reached just in time to keep bishops from testifying. And the same taxpayers are also spared any expense for criminal trials, because the Catholic Church hides behind the statute of limitations to keep from answering anything, in most cases.

In fact, if the church cooperated with public prosecutors and civil attorneys, the Review Board could use that documentation to do its study, and the truth would have been found out by now through civil and criminal trials.

Instead, The Church turns to American Taxpayers to pay for its study on why pedophiles seem to proliferate in Catholic Churches -

NO WAY -

Not until the church opens its files, turns over documents, stops having bishops answer “I don't remember” to every question in a deposition,

AND when the church starts paying taxes on some of its structures like parking lots -

The church bleeds cash in settlements to a small portion of victims, the ones with the most blatant and easily prosecutable cases. The settlements surrepticiously stop victims from talking.

The Church carries briefcases full of cash to myriad PR firms and consultants to convince the public the church is still benign.

Instead of just being benign.

Of course this is the same institution that thinks firing pedophile priests and turning them loose on society with no monitoring is somehow sacrificial and compromising on the part of the church.

Not only do the defrocked pedophile priests have free reign to find children anywhere in the world, American taxpayers support them as they are unemployable and usually end up on Social Security and Medicare

The church needs to take off this smiling face image it is paying millions to PR firms to propagate, and start wearing the same scowl worn by most of the crime victims, while facing the reality of the crimes committed:

Serial sodomy on hundreds maybe thousands of young boys who thought they were being prepared for the priesthood,

The same patterns of crime committed in thousands of cities across the country as priests used their position to insinuate themselves on families and rape the children

Refusal to turn over documents to Grand Juries or testify truthfully under oath when subpoenaed.

-

If the church wants to prove it is facing its problem:

Stop coddling the criminal priests and above.

Start offering significant treatment and services to crime victims

Acknowledge the true nature of the crimes, open up your files and stop lying.

Don’t ask taxpayers to fund a study and tell us it is more good works by a gospel preaching church.

Here is the entire quote:

Q. Was it the seminary training they had?

A. The preponderance of offenders reported in the “Nature and Scope” study are priests who were trained before Vatican II. Nobody coming out of the seminary immediately began abusing. There’s a lapse time for everybody. And we’ve got to figure out why.

That is why it is really important to do a serious social-science study of the pattern, instead of accepting people’s off-the-cuff explanations, like suggesting that the sexual revolution hit Catholic priests the same as everyone else, but 10 years later. Or suggesting this all could have been avoided if Catholic priests were allowed to marry. Or suggesting gay priests be eliminated. None of these things will explain the data we now have

Q. Is the reason for the upcoming “Causes and Context” study?

A. Yes, that’s precisely what we’re studying. The “Causes and Context” study is ongoing, but needs more funding. The bishops pledged a million dollars for this study, and have already released, I think, $400,000. There are other sources from which we are trying to raise the money. We’ve made applications to several federal agencies that would ordinarily fund studies of this kind, like the Centers for Disease Control. And we have made some requests to various foundations and individuals who are known to contribute to Catholic causes. So at present we are not expecting to have to go back to the bishops for more money.

The entire interview is at (Have barf bag handy, they never mention that religious order priests are not covered by the Dallas Charter, by the way):

http://www.americancatholic.org/messenger/Nov2008/feature3.asp

Onward. . .

Coming Soon

2008-10-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

I stand by what I said

2008-10-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

*
Altar boys were originally "Acolytes" in the Roman Mass, that would be at least 400 years past the time of Christ. The acolytes set up to pretty much do the priests' bidding, whatever they needed - and with celibacy this developed into altar boys, young adolescents who provided an outlet for celibate priests having trouble being celibate.

Read the stories from the 20th Century, how priests just helped themselves to altar boys between Masses, on outings, as if the youngsters were there just for the taking and services of the man of cloth.

So no, I think if a person really understands the depth and degradation of the organized crime that is the pedophile network in the Catholic Church, that you would not insult and further denigrate the crime victims by continuing to go to Catholic churches.

Become a Methodist, try out the Presbyterians, they are SO CLOSE to Catholic, without the secrecy and inherent sexual deviancy that goes with men taking an oath of celibacy. There is something evil at the very core there, and we crime survivors have had enough knives in our souls.

In fact it is an insult to me, seeing people continue to walk into Catholic Churches, especially with their numerous children in hand. . .

To me it belittles the crimes committed against me as well as all the altar boy, and altar "servers" (girls) and children of reverent families with vulnerable structures --

**********
It is belittling to me, a crime victim, watching people continue entering and supporting the institution that perpetrated these thousands of crime. It belittles the crimes, makes them meaningless.
**********************

It belittles these HEINOUS crimes committed against us when people who KNOW about these crimes continue to go to that church.

Yes, there ARE other churches.

Pedophile priests are criminals who are indigenous to Roman Catholic church heirarchy and structure. That's why there are thousands of us who live with the collateral of these crimes -

there has never been any real justice -

AARGH it made me feel so. . . defeated, to see both Obama and McCain sitting on either side of Cardinal Egan of New York, his pudgy goofy-eyed smile throughout the event revealing the depth of the roots. Roman Catholic heirarchy are a network of little George Bushes, same goofy smiles, same front men standing up in public while the real crime goes on behind doors that are WAY closed.

Not just closed doors, steel encrusted gated tentacles that stretch into the courts, the media, the schools, local and national and international politics.

Truth is once we really root out the story of these pedophiles and those who protected them - we will also see all the other crime which they protected the pedophiles to prevent the public from seeing.

So No I am not going to quit this blog. . .

2008-10-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

I do not know how anyone can witness the lies, hundreds of lies, shattered lives, concerning pedophiles in the priesthood - priests who are supposed to be celibate having secret sex with chidren - how can you see that and continue to believe anything that comes out of that church? Especially the lie they tell you that if you go to other churches you are somehow damned - DAMN that is incredible control they have over people. DAMN, that so many people can't let that go.

People who still bring children to Catholic events must have cataracts filtering truth from their brains

2008-10-21T09:24:00.001-07:00

*
By Kay Ebeling

Nothing has changed really. The elements that allowed the pedophile priest who got to me are all still in place, in spite of recent "reforms" done by Catholic dioceses. All the new sex education classes and screenings are for the lay teachers, the coaches.

None of the reforms can keep the kind of men who enter the priesthood to have access to children from entering the priesthood. Plus no religious orders have agreed to go along with the Dallas Charter from 2002.

The whole reason they invented altar boys was to give "celibate" priests an outlet, with medieval values of children that carried over into the Twentieth Century. Culturally children were disposable, not too many centuries back. The current Catholic Church response with reform has literally been to do as little as they can get away with.

Nothing has changed in the way priests are trained in isolation or in the unrealistic way they are forced to live - celibacy. This ability they have to live a life devoid of normal human sexual impulse - makes you believe the priest is something higher up than human.

Hah.

Secrecy is still at the core of Catholic church operations - and lies told for the greater good of the church are not sinful, even when told under oath. Read any transcript of a bishop deposition. They lie bare faced outright, while under oath.

I cannot get the image out of my mind of families with children in hand filing into St. Peter Damian Church in Bartlett last summer, the church my perpetrator Thomas Barry Horne founded outside Chicago in 1949, where two more pedophiles served on staff through the 1990s, a church named after a Saint whose main contribution was writings against "paedophilia" and other sex crimes among Catholic priests in the 11th century, St. Peter Damian.

All those people with their kids still in the pews, it's as if they have cataracts on their eyes, filtering truth from their brains. Don't they even read the news? Don't they see that the same people telling them they HAVE TO keep coming to the church are the ones perpetrating these crimes? How can anything this church does still have crediblity?

They continue to think that man in a dress blowing incense in your face and repeating hypnotic words could not possibly represent anything evil. . .

2008-10-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

A good analogy is = pedophile priest rape survivors are much like persons who have been picked up and taken on trips by UFOs. We have this bizarre experience that most people do not even believe took place, yet when we reach out on the internet we find there are thousands of other people around the world who had similar experiences, right down to the details.

The truth is in the details.

2008-10-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

I keep getting shot down. I'll have a story developing and the hearings get canceled, the judge just issues a decision with no public hearing, or worst yet, the survivors decide they want to keep their stories secret.

Every time I get something going, it gets shot down. I was shooting stuff at the cathedral when my camera got too hot, so now I have lost that major form of expression.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT for survivors in LA, or if there is, I do not hear about it. The real result I think of giving a lot of people settlements is they become of another class and -- disappear. Everyone disappears.

The two or three people who are supportive of me here are great, but truth is, I am doing this very much alone, and this is not a pursuit that should be undertaken completely alone. You start to imagine things and there is no one to tell you it's your imagination.

I feel overwhelmed by the sheer wealth and endless strength of archbishops etcetera to control everything, keep people mystified, brainwashed. The most discouraging thing in my life, perhaps, was seeing all those families filing into the church with their children, when I went to visit my perpetrator church last summer, and realizing no matter what we do --

They just keep doing what they have always been doing and kids are still in danger in Catholic churches, and I have to sit here on the sidelines and just watch, unable to do anything.

This blog is done on zero resources, created literally out of thin air. Some months I cannot even buy bus fare downtown to go to hearings. My perpetrator church has acquired acreage and has perfect landscaping on every square foot. . .

This blog has caused me to lose all my friends, and make no new ones. . . it wears me out, puts worry lines on my face, and has made me have a defeated attitude and lose the flower child faith I used to have in people. . .

I don't know if I will be able to put out any more posts. I feel like Tinkerbell fading, and no one is applauding.

How soon they forget. . .

Follow-up: A church is just a building. Stained glass is just a way to play with light. From burlesque to Mass it is all just entertainment...

2008-10-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

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Here is Mabel from the planet Oblique - infiltrating one of these so called church places by becoming a member of the choir.

She says, I am Kay and only whispers Oblique, come to observe your spiritual ceremony and oh I get it, it is all a show. That explains how you can say the priests are celibate, when they are really banging altar boys backstage.

From burlesque to High Mass it has all been nothing but entertainment, really. And towards the end they pass the hat.

Not that there’s anything wrong with these Sunday shows. I am Kay from the planet Oblique come to watch you do church. Coming in the backdoor almost. Been so caught up in stories about children being raped by priests, and all the ceremonies that went with it, I have been denying myself this experience.

And It is All a Show. An entertaining one at that.

What finally got me back into a church was standing in the front, on the “altar” which is, when you get down to it, really just a stage.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Something wonderful happens when people pray together and sing praise songs. Why not find a way to do that and be theatrical at the same time. People have a show to come to every week, and towards the end we pass the hat. It’s theater. When you get down to it, the ceremony on Sunday in a church, from a Mass to snake handling, it is theater.

The basest of all theater where you pass a hat. I loved it being in the choir. I was talking to them, not passively letting them talk to me.

But being from the planet Oblique I scanned the crowd for fellow travelers. Maybe someone read the blog and would come up after to talk? Go for coffee? No. I don't know where the “survivor community” went in LA, it’s hard to believe 500 plus people just got settlements - what happened to the cross? No one seems to care. Where did everybody go?

Being on the altar in the choir, it was me, I have something to say to you, not me, okay I will listen

Then the Presbyterian preacher started talking. Apparently with Presbyterians a long sermon is a major part of the ceremony.

You know what?

I’d rather be singing.
The Mass, the songs, it is all a performance.

The ones who do it better have bigger churches. Like those who produce big movies get big studios.
The ones who do it better have bigger churches. Like those who produce big movies get big studios.

So for those wondering how it went today, it was a release. Entering the church from behind the altar, being on the altar facing the pews - I wanted it to change my perspective and it may have. I'm going back next Sunday because at this church the 11:00 o'clock service has no ceremony to it at all. Instead people who are performers and Christians locally get up and sing, it’s mostly singing together, performances

Except for that long sermon.

We could start a group there and call it Damaged Catholics. I think they would give us a room at Hollywood Pres.

I wish someone would have shown up today.

I'm getting frustrated with this population of people, pedophile priest rape survivors. I keep holding long conversations with people, and they know I am a journalist, and then after telling me their whole story, they say, oh but don’t write anything about me. It’s especially exasperating if the interviewee knows I'm not just another survivor but a journalist who is taking busy notes, actually working quite hard, the whole time the story is coming out of the person’s mouth, and then after all that you say, oh but don’t write about me.

If I call you and say tell me your story and I'm asking you how do you spell that again, etcetera and say to you, I'm writing this down - it’s on the record. When you are talking to me, the story IS going to end up here.

IT HELPS EVERYONE when you tell your story…publicize it. Put it in print and Video if you can and post it on YouTube.

What makes our stories significant is the similarities, the areas where we can point out patterns that prove collusion on the part of the bishops, communication across state lines. One of the reasons I keep trying to put people’s stories up is to in the end prove the organized crime element of what happened to us.

But people in this population keep disappearing. A survivor will emerge, say a few words, speak at a conference, and then suddenly be afraid to tell their story anymore. So of course that means never returning a phone call from me again.

So I am Mabel from the Planet Oblique, wondering if any of my fellow infiltrators on Earth will ever contact me.

It’s happened over and over again since I’ve been producing this blog. People appear in my life, become intimate even deep inside me, as we share our stories, and then two days or two weeks later, they have disappeared.

I am paranoid enough to think someone calls them after we talk and tells them not to talk to me again. There is almost no other explanation for it.

This pattern keeps happening over and over again.

Keeping silent plays into the hands of the priest bishop felons. They don’t want you to talk at all. They are the ones who don’t want these stories to come out.

Meanwhile I'm back to work, 50 percent pretty much since our mini recession started. Have to put in eight hours between now and tomorrow morning on “Make Me A Supermodel” season 2.

Girl’s gotta make a living…

So please put a high five or higher on the PayPal button as I need to raise $200 to buy a new camera. My old one got fried in the last heat wave.

Onward

My first singing gig in years - and it is in a church - Yikes!

2008-10-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

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By Kay Ebeling

I haven't been able to post in more than a week. I was beating on a pillow at 3:00 in the morning, crying through gritted teeth, “What they did to us was heinous and they're getting away with it.” Then at 3:20 I was standing beside the bed laughing out loud. No I can’t just put it behind me, this pedophile priest rape survival experience follows me wherever I go.

For years I haven’t been able to walk into a church, so instead I found storefront parishes, living room Bible studies. A few months ago I started singing with Hollywood Mass Choir. We sing black rooted gospel songs like the ones I feature in videos here at City of Angels 4. A big highlight of my little old lady life lately has been Wednesday night practice with this choir. I'm opening up the voice I got as a gift and putting it to use again. I used to sing Joni Mitchell songs and pass the hat as a hippie, so singing with Hollywood Mass is reawakening the performer in me, opening up my voice so I can hit those notes, singing this music that to me is as passionate as anything that came out of the sixties, or HAIR! I think black gospel music is going to accompany America’s recovery from 8 years of Bush, and this music is Hot- I Mean! Janet Jackson born again now talking to God is what I channel as I belt out those high notes, “Emanuel” --

At 3:20 in the morning other day I realized, oh no, singing in a choir, that means I'm going to be performing in churches. I'm being forced to return to a church, not as a parishioner, but through the back stage entrance, up on the altar, performing.

This experience should be empowering - if I don't have to run out in the middle of a song and puke on the doorstep.

In a conversation I had this morning, I suddenly remembered, this all harkens back to when we were homeless. My daughter and I lived in our car and shelters in LA from 2003 to 2005. As a result we got to know a lot of other homeless people in LA. That is how I learned about this inner city deep in the ghetto gospel music, the Massage on KJLH 102.3 FM in LA every weekday and the music they play on Sunday afternoons. I started listening to those songs and singing along, then I found Hollywood Mass Choir.

We sing in those same songs in Hollywood Mass Choir, the songs that became part of my life when we were homeless.

I keep saying, nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Now in order to sing these songs I love,

I have to get over it

a bit

and be able to sing in a Church.

Starting tomorrow morning at 11 AM.

I am a little scared.

Along the side of this blog I run YouTube videos of different choirs performing the type of songs we perform in Hollywood Mass Choir. I sing them around my house all the time. I wanted to get back to performing --

For years I heard about this group Hollywood Mass Choir, but thought they were a Catholic group because of the word "Mass." In the choir's name the word "mass" has to do with Masses of people - most of our songs we try to get people to sing along with us.

It just did not dawn on me until 3:20 AM the other day that singing in a choir means singing in churches. The particular church where we will be performing tomorrow is one I have tried two maybe three other times to attend. Because I know I need the social structure of a church in my life, I have tried for years to be part of churches. I’ve seen so many people do better than I do through hard times because they have a church in their lives.

So for years, no decades, I have tried to join different churches.

Honest.

I’ve jumped up and down at Pentecostal services when I was living deep in the redwoods of Northern California.

Oh, and I really wanted to join up with a polygamous family in a Mormon sect for a while back in the late 1970s. I really “got” the way they connected God with sex and procreation and all that, polygamy in Mormonism really turned me on for a while.

It still does. I could not take my eyes off episodes of Big Love, watching them over and over again just last year.

But recently I’d given up on trying out churches. Because to be honest, every time I go to a church and then let the pastor know I am a pedophile priest rape survivor, I have felt doors close in my face. My calls stop being returned.

In some cases I have suspected that the pastor himself was afraid I was there to investigate him, and he was carrying on with someone, maybe even a minor, I don't know.

I can’t trust any of them. That's a big part of it too. I sit there in the pew watching almost any pastor and start wondering who he’s banging behind closed doors. It’s hard to keep my mind from going there.

Now I find myself singing tomorrow at Hollywood Presbyterian Church where the architecture, even the structure of the service, harkens really close to a Catholic cathedral. When I’ve tried to attend a service at this very Hollywood church, I’ve had to get up and run out of this church - as recently as two or three months ago.

In fact it was during one of those panic attacks out in the church garden area, that someone told me about Hollywood Mass Choir. They rehearse Wednesday nights in that building right over there.

All I really want to do is sing.

When I sing I feel no pain.

So at the same time I was running out of the church, I joined up with the choir. We rehearse in the music room on Hollywood Pres grounds. Still it just didn't dawn on my until 3:20 AM that day that I am going to be performing in this church and other churches on Sunday mornings.

I didn't plan for this to happen. I was just looking for a group to sing these gospel choir songs with.

You have to remember that one thing that made me vulnerable and available to the pedophile priest was a passion I had, even as a child, to find out more about Jesus. I remember “getting it” at a really early age. But since the same person teaching me Catechism classes and preparing me for First Communion was this priest who also took advantage of whatever chance he had to get sexual with me and get me aroused. Me and my sister, he really liked pretty little girls. So to this day I am confused. Am I drawn to spiritual pursuits in spite of a pedophile priest arousing me at age five, or because of the pedophile priest arousing me at age five.

Or there is no connection at all.

Right now I have to convince myself not to let the architecture of a church keep me from taking part in performing Sunday with the choir.

This morning I held a conversation with a woman in the middle of the country who was raped as an altar server in the 1970s. She and her mom had worked hard to get the church to allow her to be the first female altar server, and she at age 10 was also full of a passion for god and Christ. The first time she put on the robes of an altar server she felt better than she ever had in her life.

Within weeks the parish priest had her alone in the rectory sitting on his lap - you know the rest. This morning as she related experiences in her life to me, there were so many similarities between her story and mine, between her story and hundreds of others I’ve listened to in the past two years.

One of the most amazing things about being a priest rape survivor is finding out there are people all over the country who have had almost exactly the same experience you had, even though the experience had set you apart as awkward, antisocial, unable to connect with people, outright unable to be intimate - most of your adult life. It’s almost like we are all visitors from another planet, forever aliens in our communities, but with this connection to each other all over the country, when in actuality, in many cases we have never met in person, just communicated with through electronics, through the Internet and phone.

For years I’ve been yearning to go back to performance, some kind of performance, even though I'm approaching old lady-hood and my energy really isn’t there to audition, get an agent, and build up a portfolio, the way people do here in LA. But I have this voice. As a hippie girl I traveled around with a guitar and sang a lot of Joanie Mitchell songs, imitated Joan Baez, I have this gift of a soprano voice that goes about as high as a soprano can go, and sounds good doing it. I even used to do Mariah Carey type arias, but that part of my voice is long smoked and Jacked away.

I really joined this choir just for the fun, the spiritual release, of rehearsing on Wednesday nights, but now I'm going to have to face demons from whom I have run most of the last years. I have to go perform in the sanctuary of a church that I could not even enter without getting physically sick just two months ago.

Tomorrow at 11 AM

To read about how I trashed my performing career go to City of Angels 1 and read the chapters about Hollywood in the 1960s, I don't want to go there right now, that's why I posted it at City of Angels 1 two years ago. I don't ever want to think or write about it again.

Just going to sing, starting tomorrow at 11 AM.

And no I am not going to stop producing this blog. Just have to replace the camera.

Beating the pillow that night turned into hysterical laughter, laughing out loud in the dark of my room 4 AM. Because so far I have never been able to stand being in the sanctuary of this church, a huge Presbyterian Church in the middle of Hollywood. I sing with Hollywood Mass Choir now and we rehearse in their music room. But every time I’ve tried to attend a service in the sanctuary of Hollywood Presbyterian Church I’ve had to run out of the church, the architecture itself has triggers. For some reason this Presbyterian church almost looks like a Catholic cathedral, all that is missing are Confessionals along the sides.

Thank God there are no confessionals along the side.

That's where I’ll be singing 11:00 tomorrow morning, unless I'm outside puking.

Stay tuned.

2008-10-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry, folks, I am still too sick to post a story, but I have things cooking up for the future. . . ke

2008-10-14T10:42:00.001-07:00

I have been sick, but I will be back. Also the camera broke, because of being out in the heat a week or so ago. So the goal now is to raise money to really do this right, like with a travel budget. Apply for grants. Stay tuned, there will be more to come shortly. - ke

2008-10-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

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Below, click to enlarge, the foreward to Charles Bailey's book, In the Shadow of the Cross, reproduced with permission of the author. We are reading this book, for a story to come soon...

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2008-10-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

The heat comes in from the windows facing south, even though they are covered with thick heavy dark red curtains. I push up farther and father away from the windows, seal off all but one room, point every fan in the house towards me, and stay just in that one spot in the room - day after day, October heatwave in LA.

Still the heat comes in further and earlier each day.

Nuclear blasted cells of poison air seeps in through cracks under the door. I wanted to see a while a go, is it cooling down? Opened the door. The skanky smell of concrete, gas, smoke, garbage, all the odors of the city cooks into the sidewalks and stucco walls and stays there all night. It stays in all night then as the new heat comes with morning, the molecules all generate up -- gazillions of recombining atoms, days' accumulation in the air,

Stays here for days, weeks, never washes away as rain is something we remember from last February or March.

Dust and dirt everywhere, leaves of trees, cracks in sidewalks, grime, everything covered with grime, you try not to touch anything as you walk to run a day's errands. A few hours after dark I venture out thinking it will be cooler, but it is not. A strange red haze hovers over all the streets and buildings, making the heat wave night look like an eerie kind of dark daytime.

Your first instinct is to stay inside, hide from the poison, but there is an allure of the hot night. Lights further up the boulevard shimmer in the never ending heat emanating from the streets.

LA. It's home to me. I watch it deteriorate and daydream about crystal clear lakes in Northern Territories. . . .

Are these people on Long Island behaving scandalously?

2008-10-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

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Signs like these below are too shocking for parishioners? I say where was their shock at priests raping children?

Actually I take issue with the above slogan, as nothing can murder my soul.

And in New Jersey Sunday October 5. . .

2008-10-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

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Pictures and comments from Robert Hoatson:

Today, in Mount Ephraim, New Jersey, approximately a dozen supporters of Paul Fanuka gathered to offer him support and leaflet Sacred Heart Parish where his abuser is pastor. Paul’s mom and dad, two brothers, and wife joined several others to get the word out that the continued presence of Fr. Robert Dunphy in that parish is unacceptable. The attached are some photos of the day’s events.

Unfortunately, no media showed up, but we are trying other ways to pique their interest.

Special thanks are extended to Chris Naples who went “public” two weeks ago regarding his abuser, and Barbara and Karen Polesir, veterans of the “leafleting movement,” for supporting Paul in his efforts to hold Dunphy accountable. The attached photos are courtesy of Karen Polesir’s camera.

In general, the parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish were as rude and un-compassionate as most of the Catholics we encounter. When several parishioners were told to meet Paul so he could tell them his story, they refused…TYPICAL!

A few months ago, Paul was found credible by the Diocese of Camden, but the Diocese has refused to remove Dunphy from ministry, violating the letter and spirit of the Dallas Charter.

Congratulations to Paul for his courage and perseverance. We are planning other events to get the word out about Dunphy.

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Click photos to enlarge

2008-10-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

Spiritual Redirection and Reaching Out drive the founding of upcoming events in Wichita, Kansas, and in Encino and Carlsbad, California

2008-10-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

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By Kay Ebeling

I went to bishop accountability to read the stories about each pedophile priest in the database, starting with A. So I opened Rubin Abaya and found "Milla v. Tamayo, 187 Cal.App.3d 1453," where the State dismissed a Los Angeles decision. Abaya was one of seven perpetrator priests. In this case, a teenage girl got gang banged several times by a group of priests in South LA. The LA archdiocese did not deny the crimes took place, but won their

appeal to dismiss the case, because the family sued the church more than a year after the baby that was fathered by one of the priests was born, and besides, it was not the parents who were raped, how were they hurt enough to sue? The men of god tried but could not persuade young very Catholic girl to get an abortion, so they sent her to the Philippines to have her baby in abandoned squalor, until a family member finally found out and brought her home with the baby, both malnourished. That is just the first story under the first entry under A in bishop accountability - and it is so shocking most people reading it would not be able to get past the fact that Catholic priests would gang bang a 14 year old girl.

In 2005 I started getting regular emails from SNAP with a collection of recent news stories, and I had to unsubscribe at the time, as I could not read stories of priests raping altar boys between Masses without getting physically sick, back then. Now I dive into Abuse Tracker every morning and nothing surprises me. I have to stop and think. This could not be good for my soul.

Two “veterans” of the clergy sex assault survivor movement are running events in the coming weeks that open doors for survivors who are ready to take steps in new directions. In Wichita October 10-11, Hope in the Heartland connects clergy sex abuse with survivors of other child sex crimes and other forms of abuse.

“The lines cross,” says conference founder Janet Patterson. “All of us can help each other and so many times where can people go that have been verbally or physically but not sexually abused.” It is not too late to register for Hope in the Heartland this week in Wichita. Write to Janet at snapkansas@hotmail.com .

“It could be that because of our experiences, as horrible as they are, we have something remarkable we can do to the other extreme,” says Jaime Romo, “First step is to get out of the damaged place and start rebuilding.” Romo is running one-day Healing Hearts workshops in Carlsbad October 18 and in Encino November 23rd, in part because after five years running a SNAP group in San Diego, he saw the number of attendees dwindling. For more about Jaime’s workshops and workbook write to him at jr@jaimeromo.com

Romo’s case was part of the 2007 San Diego settlements, and he says, “This is new for me. I have a long career as a teacher of teachers.” These first workshops are free of charge and participants will go through the first two chapters of a workbook Romo has in development.

I plan to use Jaime’s workshop to work on healing the damage I’ve accrued. For years I have been so angry at these entities that are so huge, so overwhelming, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church as well as the entire American justice system from a city to national level, for cooperating with these thugs in gowns instead of seeing their way to the real truth enough to stop serious felony crimes being committed against children. I know I need some spiritual healing.

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JAIME
ROMO
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Romo said, “For a long time my anger was about wanting something back, as well as the things that had happened, a kind of mourning. I wanted to get back that comforting connection to what was familiar for a long time.”

Spirit and Hope in the Heartland

There is an element of spirit in the roots of Hope in the Heartland conference next week as well.
Organizer Janet Patterson told me how she found the location for the conference: “The Baha’ii faith believe in social justice. So here in Wichita when Baha’ii members found out what had happened to our family, they wanted me to speak to them, so I did speak at a Baha’ii event. Then they were so gracious and non judgmental, I asked them if we could hold a conference there. They said not only that but we'll give you the space free of charge.”

What Happened to Janet's Family?
Robert K. Larson molested Eric Patterson when he was a 12 year old altar boy, and at 29, after years of turmoil and hospitalizations and after finally telling people in his family what Larson did, Eric shot himself, committed suicide at age 29. Janet Patterson, grieving over her son, did enough research to find out that bishops knew Larson was a molester and just transferred him, and that this was the modus operandi for a pedophile network in the church. She became an advocate, and spoke to the bishops in Dallas in 2002.

This year is the third Hope in the Heartland conference, and some people, including City of Angels Network Staff of One, had to cancel travel plans, as a result of money disappearing from arenas across the country in late September early October 2008 in America.

I'm only working about 50 percent as much as usual. Last few weeks they've “pulled the plug” on a lot of TV production, even the skinflint budget reality shows on which I, first when the stock market crashed two weeks ago and now who knows what's going to happen.

A side trip about the PayPal campaign

Money to fund productions just dried up. So please click my PayPal button, not to send me on lavish trips to places like Wichita, but to help City of Angels pay the rent in November.

But I digress.

Janet Patterson is reaching out to Wichita area homeless organizations and women’s shelters, inviting them to the Hope in the Heartland conference, which I its third year is still relatively small, under 50 people.

The retreat center in Encino has paths laid out for walking meditation.

I can’t wait. At the retreat center in Encino where Romo’s workshop is in November they have spaces for walking meditation. I rediscovered walking meditation the other day in of all places, the LA Cathedral Plaza, before a SNAP press event was going to take place. I went exploring, and way in the back on the cathedral grounds,
as far away from the street as you can get, is a little landscaped area, large enough for about 10 small trees, and a pathway. It criss crosses and stops in front of statues of animals sculpted with pure whimsy. You can stop and contemplate one of these statues, or do what I did, bringing up from a deep memory from the days I used to spend in yoga ashrams in the 1970s.

You take one step, and stop, repeat a phrase, any phrase, then take another step, stop, repeat the phrase. Some people use the words Hari Om, or some people say Jesus save me, or you can even say God Bless Rock and Roll. The idea is to quiet the mind. On a meditation pathway, there are usually small stones, so you can take one small step then stop, say your mantra, then take one more step.

For a person in Los Angeles this is a challenge, as you always want to just take off across the lawn a straight line to the end, the quickest route. What you develop from this exercise is patience. You HAVE to stop, say god bless rock and roll or hari om or jesus save me, then take the next step and repeat.

About two-thirds of the way through a walking meditation, you start to appreciate the specialness of each moment - and laugh at people walking by in a frenzy as you slowly take your next step. Because in the end, we'll end up in the same place at about the same time anyway. This little meditation walk area on the LA Cathedral property appears to have been designed and maintained by Japanese zen masters posing as landscape workers. . . .

The meditation walks pictured above in this blog are on the grounds of the retreat center in Encino where Jaime Romo is holding his free workshop in November.

I’ll be there, unless I'm singing that Sunday with Hollywood Mass Choir.

Me, I'm going in November, unless we're singing that Sunday (I'm in Hollywood Mass Choir now).

I can’t wait to do these two questions from the workbook: “Which image that I have created or accepted of myself am I willing to let go of? Where did I get that image I have of myself?”

Those questions relate so much to me.

I know that as a result of being sexualized by a priest at such a young age, my image of myself was “party girl”: Fast, cheap, easy, which led to heavy drinking, loud swearing tough woman.

Truth is

That's not me, that's not who I see today.

I'm really this bookish, quiet woman with thick lens glasses who produces a lot more from her head than her body. I mourn today, the decades of my life I lost to pursuing the party animal identity when it wasn’t even real.

It wasn’t even really me.

I have plenty to write in Jaime Romo’s workbook when I get it.

City of Angels will try to run photos and a story through phone interviews with people at Hope in the Heartland next Saturday, so while they are partying in Wichita, we will be here being studious and bookish working with the words and pictures in LA.

Onward

Church Objection to Transfer of Personnel Files (on behalf of 31 priests) says: No one agreed to release of private papers belonging to the Pope

2008-10-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

*****

Objection brief by church attorneys is copy and pasted here at City of Angels Network below. List of 31 priests is just before "Conclusion."

Quotable quotes: “These priests are presumptive child molesters. Not a single one of the objecting individuals consented to a process where a retired judge reviewed their files. The relationship between a Roman Catholic priest and his employer, the Archdiocese in this case, is a uniquely close, all-encompassing one, in which the employer is also the direct spiritual superior of the employee, and between them there can be no secrets.”

So is the relationship spritual or business, or are the crimes of pedophile priests part of whichever relationship is convenient for the Los Angeles Archdiocese at the moment. Apparently Cardinal Roger Mahony knows everything these priests did, and he knew it from the time they committed the crimes. Why the US Attorney or local DA does not cease these documents, I do not understand. More quotable quotes:

“Two important interests that will be seriously damaged or destroyed by the process of forwarding their files for public disclosure after the cases have been dismissed: their Constitutionally protected privacy rights will be violated, and their reputations will be harmed.”

“While the plaintiffs pursued monetary damages, these (31) individuals had no interest in the outcome of that litigation. (Then) settlement documents sought to reach farther than monetary damages. "The cases have been dismissed," and the proposed process "threatens public disclosure of employee records.”

“Hearing-Oral Arguments” on this and similar filings, October 8th in Dept. 308, the Superior Court on South Commonwealth Ave. Here is the objection in full filed by Donald Steier, who has testified in Supreme Court of CA that he is paid by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

OBJECTION TO PROPOSED TRANSFER AND RELEASE OF EMPLOYEE RECORDS AND ASSERTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PRIVILEGES AND RIGHTS TO ALL PARTIES AND THEIR RESPECTIVE ATTORNEYS OF RECORD:

The individuals listed below, none of whom are parties to the settlement and release executed between Plaintiffs and Defendants in these coordinated actions, by and through their attorney Donald H. Steier, appearing specially, hereby OBJECT to the proposed transfer of their personnel files and employee records to Justice Panelli or any other judicial officer or referee for the purpose of eventual public disclosure of any part of the contents.

This objection is made on the following grounds:

1. THESE OBJECTING NON-PARTIES ARE “INDISPENSABLE PARTIES” WHO ARE NOT SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THIS COURT.

In this historic litigation, the Plaintiffs pursued monetary damages from various religious institutions that employed individuals as clergy. With few exceptions, the individual alleged tort feasors were never parties to the litigation, but were referred to as non-party “Perpetrators.”1 All of the persons objecting herein were alleged perpetrators in the litigation.

While the plaintiffs pursued monetary damages, these individuals had no interest in the outcome of the litigation. However, the settlement documents sought to reach farther than monetary damages. Although the plaintiffs have accepted monetary payment and the cases have been dismissed, the plaintiffs and religious entities-defendant agreed to create a process that threatens public disclosure of the employee records of the objecting individuals herein, as well as other non-party priests.

The plaintiffs have contended they must disclose the contents of these private files to notify the public that these priests are presumptive child molesters. Not a single one of the objecting individuals consented to a process conferring jurisdiction to permit a retired judge to review their files. All employees enjoy legally protected rights in the contents of their personnel records.

*****************
"Now, after all the cases have been dismissed, the plaintiffs seek to exact vigilante justice...
***********************

While a corporate employer may not have a right of privacy from the California Constitution, Article I, Section 1, the individual employee does enjoy such a right as to the entire contents of his employee files. “[I]t is clear . . . personnel records and employment history are within the scope of the [privacy] protection provided by the state and federal Constitutions.”

San Diego Trolley, Inc. v. Superior Court [2001]
87 Cal. App.4th 1083, at 1097; Board of Trustees of Stanford University v. Superior Court
[1981] 119 Cal. App.3rd 516; Harding Lawson Associates v. Superior Court [1992] 10 Cal. App.4th 7; El Dorado Savings & Loan Assn. v. Superior Court [1987] 190 Cal.App.3d 342.

In many of these cases, the personnel files contain records pertaining to psychotherapy obtained by the employees, as well as ecclesiastical disciplinary information, medical records, financial information, and other extremely private and even intimate information concerning the employee, and sometimes, other third persons who are not parties to this litigation. The relationship between a Roman Catholic priest and his employer, the Archdiocese in this case, is a uniquely close, all-encompassing one, in which the employer is also the direct spiritual superior of the employee, and between them there can be no secrets.

Disclosure of the information contained in these confidential employee files will clearly violate the Constitutional privacy rights of these objecting individuals. In Susan S. v. Israels [1997] 55 Cal. App.4th 1290, the court held that the unauthorized “reading and dissemination” of private files obtained by court process was a “serious invasion of the person's privacy.” And it was found to be actionable.

*************
"Simply put, the Panelli process part of the settlement agreement was made by parties who had no right."
*********************

California adheres to the “primary rights” principles to define causes of action. One of those primary rights is the right to freedom of injury to reputation. Burdette v. Carrier Corp. [2008] --- Cal. App.4th ___, WL 152706; 4 Witkin, Cal.Procedure, Pleading § 23. The clear goal of the plaintiffs in attempting to finesse a post-settlement disclosure of the personnel records of these objecting non-parties is to further destroy their reputations.

Thus, these objecting individuals have two important interests that will be seriously damaged or destroyed by the process of forwarding their files for public disclosure after the cases have been dismissed: their Constitutionally protected privacy rights will be violated, and their reputations will be harmed.

In contrast to these damages, the settling entity-defendants, as custodian of records, have no rights at risk in the process – the contents of the files relate only to the individual priest-employees, and only those priests will have their privacy rights invaded and personal reputations damaged. The Archbishop, as employer and custodian of these confidential records belonging to the priest-employees, has an affirmative legal duty, in fact – to defend the contents of these files from disclosure.
People v. Superior
Court [Laff] [2001] 25 Cal.4th
703 Code of Civil Procedure § 389

provides that a person is “indispensable” to litigation when that person “claims an interest relating to the subject of the action and is so situated that the disposition of the action in his absence may . . . as a practical matter impair or impede his ability to protect that interest.”

The disposition of this action by the process of exposing these individual objectors to disclosure of their confidential personnel records will definitely “impede or impair” their privacy and reputational interests. Failure to join indispensable parties so that they may defend their interests violates the Due Process of those persons.
Shields v. Barrow [1854] 58 U.S. 129;
Fletcher Aircraft Co. v. Bond [1977, D.C. Cal.] 77 F.R.D. 47.

But plaintiffs cannot now join them, because the applicable statute of limitations has lapsed as to all of these individuals.

Code of Civil Procedure § 340.1;
Sierra Club, Inc. v. California Coastal Commission [1979]
95 Cal. App.3rd 495.

With regard to those individuals not included in this objection, but similarly situated, the court has an independent duty to raise the issue of an absent indispensable party sua sponte.
Francis v. United Technologies Corp. [1978]
458 Fed. Supp. 84.

************
No one “agreed to settle a dispute by releasing private papers belonging to the Pope.”
*************************

Plaintiffs have attempted to manipulate this court into being their unwitting instrument for violating the important rights of the non-party employees, but their stratagem is clearly prohibited by statute and important Constitutional principles. Inasmuch as all of the cases at issue have been dismissed, the court is without jurisdiction over the priest-employees whose private files and reputations are at risk, and in their absence may not enter an order that might have the effect of jeopardizing the rights of these objecting and “indispensable” individuals.

2. DUE PROCESS PROHIBITS THE COURT FROM MAKING ORDERS AFFECTING THE INTERESTS OF PERSONS NOT UNDER ITS JURISDICTION.

Closely akin to the concept of “indispensable parties” is the more fundamental protection of Due Process, part of Anglo-American jurisprudence since the Magna Carta.

A court cannot adjudicate directly upon a person's rights without such person being either actually or constructively before the court.
Hanson v. Denckla [1958] 357
U.S. 235; Mallow v. Hinde [1827] 1 Ohio Fed. Dec. 150.

A judgment cannot be amended to affect the rights of a person not under the court’s jurisdiction.
Boyer v. Jensen [2005] 129 Cal. App.4th 62.

As noted above, it is clear that none of these objecting priest-employees is, or can be, under the jurisdiction of this court. For the court to make an order that will affect their rights would be the most basic violation of the Due Process Clauses of the United States and California Constitutions.

3. THE PLAINTIFFS AND ENTITY-DEFENDANTS HAD NO RIGHT TO ENTER INTO A SETTLEMENT THAT SACRIFICES THE LEGALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS OF OTHERS

Another way in which the proposed Panelli process provisions of the release agreements violates basic principles of law is that it does not involve a ripe “case or controversy” between adverse parties.

It would be no different if one of these objecting non-parties agreed to settle a dispute by releasing private papers belonging to the Pope – they would have no right to do so. Neither did the Archbishop have a right to satisfy the plaintiffs by agreeing to public disclosure of the confidential employee files protected by the Right of Privacy of these priest-employees.

The recent case of O'Grady v. Superior Court [2006] 139 Cal. App.4th 1423 discussed these important principles. “The doctrine arises from several considerations. The requirement of a genuine controversy reflects the desirability of avoiding not only collusive litigation, but cases in which one or both parties lack a real motive to diligently contest the issues. If the competing considerations are not adequately explored and presented, the court may reach a less-than-circumspect result, potentially sending the law down a wrong precedential trail.”

In People ex rel. Lynch v. Superior Court [1970] 1 Cal.3rd 910, the Attorney General filed suit to declare rights under a prejudgment garnishment act – but the suit failed to include as a party anyone who actually was subject to such garnishment. The Supreme Court characterized the matter as an effort to obtain an “advisory opinion,” in violation of the ripeness doctrine.

That rule was followed recently in Phelps v. State Water Resources Control Bd. [2007] 157 Cal. App.4th 89. Similarly here, there is no party who agreed to the proposed Panelli process whose rights are actually affected by it – and thus, the matter is not “ripe” and suitable for this court to enforce.

*************
"The Archbishop (Mahony) threw in disclosure of these confidential personnel records to satisfy plaintiffs’ demands"
***************************

In this case, the Archbishop, having neither privacy nor reputational rights at stake, lacks the motive to protect those rights.2 “Throwing in” the disclosure of these confidential personnel records to satisfy plaintiffs’ demands has no cost to the settling entity, but it means everything to the individuals whose rights actually will be violated.

Simply put, the Panelli process part of the settlement agreement was made by parties who had no right to agree to any disposition that destroyed the privacy rights and reputations of these non-party objecting individuals. In Constitutional terms, it could be said to be a collusive settlement or a matter that is not ripe – but in any event, it cannot be permitted.

Indeed, the plaintiffs and the Archdiocese “have priors” in this regard. In December, 2004, in connection with this same litigation, plaintiffs and the Archdiocese agreed among themselves to disclose publicly mediation “proffers” derived from the contents of many of the same personnel files at issue here.

The appellate opinion of Doe 1 v. Superior Court [2005] 157 Cal. App.4th 89 prevented them from violating the rights of the priest-employees because the priests had not agreed to the process.

4. THE CONTENTS OF THE FILES ARE PROTECTED FROM DISCLOSURE BY THE RIGHTS OF PRIVACY AND OTHER PARTICULAR PRIVILEGES.

The objecting non-party individuals further hereby assert the following

Constitutional Rights and Constitutional and statutory privileges concerning the contents of the files, and thereby object to their disclosure:

Right of Privacy established in California Constitution, Article I, Section 1,
Therapist-Patient Privilege [Evidence Code 1010 et seq.]

Right to be Free of Unreasonable Searches and Seizures as provided in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution Privilege Against Self-Incrimination as provided in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Attorney-Client Privilege [Evidence Code 950 et seq.]

Work Product Privilege [Code of Civil Procedure 2018]

Priest-Penitent Privilege [Evidence Code 1030 et seq.]

Sexual Assault Victim-Counselor Privilege [Evidence Code 1035 et seq.]

Right to Free Exercise of Religion as established by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Physician-Patient Privilege [Evidence Code 990 et seq.] California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act [Civil Code 56.20]

Settlement Privilege [Evidence Code 1152]

Mediation Privilege [California Constitution, Article I, Section 1, and Evidence Code 1115 et seq.].

These individuals reserve the right to assert additional privileges in the event that they discover that the contents of their files include documents protected by such other privileges.

The foregoing objections are made on behalf of the following individuals:

MICHAEL BAKER
FRANKLIN BUCKMAN
MICHAEL CARROLL
LYNN CAFFOE
SEAN CRONIN
JOHN DAWSON
EDWARD DOBER
DONALD FARMER
WALTER FERNANDO
DAVID GRANADINO
RODERIC GUERRINI
BRIAN HANLEY
RICHARD HENRY
STEPHEN HERNANDEZ
PAUL KREUTZER
RICHARD LOOMIS
RICHARD MARTINI
GEORGE MILLER
DONAL O’CONNOR
SAMUEL ORELLANA
MICHAEL PECHARICH
JOSEPH PINA
DONALD ROEMER
MICHAEL ROBERT
GEORGE RUCKER
MANUEL SANCHEZ
CARL SUTPHIN
MICHAEL TERRA
FRANCISCO VITELLA
MICHAEL WEMPE
G. PATRICK ZIEMANN

CONCLUSION

************
The plaintiffs and entity-defendants have agreed between themselves...
******************************

The plaintiffs and entity-defendants have agreed between themselves to refer these individuals’ employee records to Justice Panelli for possible disclosure of their contents to the public. The plaintiffs, having signed releases in which liability by the alleged perpetrators is expressly denied, now, after all the cases have been dismissed, the plaintiffs seek to exact vigilante justice with the court’s help, and publicly brand all of the priests with infamy without the Benefit of any trials.

No matter what the reason or purpose for such a process, it cannot be undertaken without impairing and prejudicing – destroying, in fact – the legal rights these objecting individuals have in their own employee records.

Since all of the cases involving the objecting individuals have now been dismissed, and none of these individuals stipulated to confer jurisdiction for the proposed Panelli process, this court should not permit the transfer of files for any objecting person whose rights will be impacted by the relief sought by the plaintiffs.

January 2008 Respectfully submitted,

GUZIN & STEIER
DONALD H. STEIER
Attorney for Non-Party Objectors

DONALD H. STEIER [SBN 58391]
GUZIN & STEIER
4525 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD
SUITE 201
LOS ANGELES, CA 90010
[323] 932-1600 / Fax [323] 932-1873

Special Appearance by Attorney for Non-Parties Whose Interests Will Be Impaired
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
COORDINATED PROCEEDING
SPECIAL TITLE [Rule 1550 (b)]

The Clergy Cases
JUDICIAL COUNCIL COORDINATION
PROCEEDING NOS. 4286

Trial Coordinating Judge:
Hon. Emily Elias
Department 308 [CCW]

In Boston for almost seven years a crew has shown up at the Cathedral every Sunday to protest the pedophile priest epidemic. Pictures from today. .

2008-09-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

***
Below, pictures, as they continue to vigil in Boston, rain or snow. (Click to enlarge.)

Left to right: Paul Kellen, Stan Doherty, Richard Orareo, Rosemary Morgan, and Eileen Doherty.

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Dear Kay,

We continue to vigil here in Boston on the sidewalk in front of the Cathedral. It was a warm rainy day today, with Hurricane Kyle just off the coast. That didn't dampen our spirits or prevent us from "calling to order" our weekly meeting.

Stan Doherty displayed his new designed "Reserved Space" signs for the rod iron fence which we have used to prop up our posters for the past six and a half years. Into her eighties now, Rosemary Morgan to continues participate each Sunday from her lawn chair with her prestigious title "Our Lady of the Lawn Chair."

Others participating today were Eileen Doherty, Richard Orareo, Paul Kellen, and myself (the eye behind the camera).

Ruth Moore

Next week Rockville Center. . .

Onward....

Click to enlarge

While in Los Angeles. . .

2008-09-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

That priest lied to me last July in Chicago, saying no one else had reported my perp as a molester. It took me until last week to realize the truth

2008-09-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

*****
By Kay Ebeling

He must have been lying, because I know for a fact there had been a previous report of child abuse about Father Thomas Barry Horne.

Sitting here thinking about why am I so angry, at one point last week even scared this anger would give me a heart attack, in the middle of writing about something else, some other lies some other criminal priest or bishop told a different survivor -- it just came out of me. I wrote it down, repeated it to a person or two, cogitated on it --

Then this morning it SLAMMED into my head as I was adjusting the caption under my picture from age five that is at the top of this blog. Just typing away I was on a new caption and then SLAM into my head.

HE WAS OUTRIGHT LYING
He must have been.

Last July I got myself to Chicago, hauled my suitcases out to Bartlett to go to my perpetrator church, and ran into the current pastor there, Rev. Thomas Hoffman. He freaked me out on contact, because he looks almost exactly like my perp, the pastor who founded St. Peter Damian Church, Father Thomas Barry Horne.

When I told him my mission, the current Father Tom said something like, "I'm astonished. No one has ever mentioned Father Horne around here in a way that has anything at all to do with child sex abuse."

I reeled, stopped functioning for what I thought was just a few days, missed out on a chance to have lunch with Barbara Blaine even. Flew home, and just destroyed a few things, raging at odd moments, throwing objects across the room so hard they'd splatter to pieces against the wall, sending out snarling emails globally so I could destroy a few new friendships. Pain. So much pain I told everyone the Lyrica had stopped working.

It did not even dawn on me until three days ago.

OF COURSE

There had been a report about Thomas Barry Horne as a pedophile priest at St. Peter Damian Church in Bartlett, Illinois, in the 1950s.

I MADE THE REPORT

TWICE
Once in 2006 and again in 2007

TO THE CHICAGO ARCHDIOCESE

Their Victim Assistance office assured

INSISTED

Cardinal George's victim assistance office did a thorough investigation, they said, and they also said, "There have been no other allegations against Father Horne. Here is the phone number of a psychiatrist near you."

If the Chicago Archdiocese did investigate, they must have made at least one phone call to Father Tom Hoffman out there in Bartlett to say, hey, Father Tom, have any little old ladies come forward and mentioned to you they used to bounce on the knees of good old Father Horne, founder of that parish?

If the Chicago Archdiocese did any investigation, they must have contacted Father Hoffman.

So how could Father Tom Hoffman now in July 2008 tell me that no one had ever filed a complaint against Father Tom Horne?

When I had filed a complaint myself in 2006 and again in 2007?

As I stood there on the church grounds last summer, the current Father Tom at St. Peter Damian Church in Bartlett, looked at me with that intellectual quizzical face arrogant intellectuals use to make people around them feel stupid, and said,

"No one has ever said anything at all before about Father Horne doing anything at all like molesting a child."

Yes someone had.

I had.

So between the Chicago Archdiocese and the Current Father Tom, one of them was lying.

Probably both of them.

This story is not over.

OH

Another sign that nothing happens in God's world by mistake: Last Thursday we mentioned Monsignor Richard Loomis alias Brother Beckett is the pastor at a church in San Marino, Calif. Beckett/Loomis is the perpetrator in two cases of child molest that were part of the LA Clergy Cases that settled July 2007.

Just to make sure he is still listed as pastor, I clicked over to the church website, St. Felicitas and Perpetua, an oddly familiar name for me, as my family, during a period of greater prosperity, actually lived in San Marino, it was when I was in junior high and my dad was this corporate exec and --

At St. Felicitas and Perpetua church website is a picture of the church and nearby school and --

SLAM!@!

It was THAT church. All this time I thought it had been a church in Temple City, when I was older, but

NO. It was that church in San Marino!

Where I totally trashed the girls bathroom one Sunday in the early 1960s when I was 12-13 years old

In a fit of uncontrollable rage.

You can almost see the entrance to the girls room in the back of the church in the picture at the website. Age 13, I tore the towel rack down, scrawled "Hypocrites, Catholics are Hypocrites" on all the walls with lipstick.

(See http://cityofangels1.blogspot.com to see what I am talking about.)

That story is not over yet either.

ONWARD

When will we see raids on Catholic Church seminaries, rectories, and personnel file storage spaces? How much more evidence of crime do the Feds need?

2008-09-25T23:39:00.000-07:00

***
With arrests for pedophile clergy on Tony Alamo Ministries last week and the FLDS in April, why have there been no raids on Roman Catholic Churches, rectories, personnel file storage spaces, chanceries, and archdiocese offices? In video at http://cityofangels4.blogspot.com we ask Joelle Casteix why SNAP continues to demonstrate in front of the cathedral in LA instead of at the nearby Federal Building, where they could reach US attorneys and FBI agents with demands. Watch this video on YouTube as well at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYfKUwA4FRU

Mounds of evidence against the Catholic church has come out of civil cases settled across the country the past decade. Where are the search Warrants?

Why doesn't SNAP ask for an organized crime investigation into the pedophile network in the Catholic Church, instead of more press events in front of cathedrals and churches?

Do they think Cardinal Roger Mahony or any of these bishops will change after all these years?

Onward. . .

Where is accused pedophile Msgr. Loomis? On staff at upscale LA parish, while his files are in a big empty banker box. Watch video now at CAN-4

2008-09-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

*****
"Before (Loomis) became a priest, he taught at Pater Noster High school where he was known as Brother Beckett (and) routinely molested children," reads the original complaint from Case #BC307934 in Clergy Cases 2007. Today Msgr. Richard Loomis is listed as pastor of Saints Felicitas and Perpetua Church in San Marino, CA.

Watch video at http://cityofangels4.blogspot.com/ of Joelle Casteix with other survivors in front of Our Lady of the Angels Thursday afternoon with a big empty file box, and a lot of questions.

Video can also be watched on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcjM83sPhcA

They agreed in July 2007, that files on perpetrator priests would be released, it was in the settlement when more than 500 plaintiffs settled lawsuits with the LA Archdiocese. Now not only are the files in limbo, but some accused priests from the 500 settled cases still serve in LA parishes.

Activists were in front of the cathedral downtown Thursday saying stop continuing to fight us over the files and stop putting the perpetrators' victims.

See Richard Loomis listed as pastor at church website: http://saintsfelicitasandperpetua.org/

Onward. . .

Daily Mass in Our Lady of Angels LA Cathedral noon today...

2008-09-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

***

Noon Mass Thursday with a SNAP Press Event to start outside at 1:00 PM, neither drew a large crowd. . .

Fransciscans try to get easy dismissal of Ongoing Public Nuisance case by slipping it in with Clergy Cases 2003 then saying it is too late. . .

2008-09-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

*****
By Kay Ebeling

Now Church Attorneys want to move the Ongoing Public Nuisance suit against the Franciscans in Santa Barbara down to LA Superior Court, performing more legal tomfoolery when they think no one is looking. Paul Gaspari, representing the Friars, came out of nowhere last week with a "Request to Add” the Ongoing Public Nuisance case in Santa Barbara, filed December 2007, onto the the “Coordinated Cases” in LA, filed during the unique window of opportunity in California in 2003.

That window was open one time only. I watched the original judge Haley Fromholz dismiss one claim after another last year for being too late, even cases that were filed in the early morning just hours past the deadline at midnight.

At first it looks like lazy lawyering. Then I happened to hear Naomi Klein author of Shock Doctrine on Air America Radio this morning, talking about our current American leadership:

“Don't call them incompetent because they know exactly what they are doing,” Naomi Klein said on the Stephanie Miller Show this morning.

I truly believe there is one very sleazy consulting firm calling the shots for both the Bush Administration and the National Conference of Bishops, as the Catholic Church continues to hide thousands of sex crimes in American archdioceses the last 50 years.

NOTE: Entire Opposition brief at: http://cityofangels11.blogspot.com/ -Note to Church Attorneys. To have your briefs copy and pasted for City of Angels readers, please email them to me as a Word doc at: cityofangelslady@yahoo.com

"The subject lawsuit seeks a court order ending the secrecy. The Franciscans’ corporate practice is a continuing Public Nuisance," Hale writes in the opposition brief.

Gaspari probably thinks Judge Elias will dismiss the new Santa Barbara case, as it certainly was filed a good while after the December 31, 2003, Coordinated Cases deadline.

Gaspari likely makes this request hoping Elias will then have no choice but to dismiss the case.

“Secrecy is the name of the Franciscans’ deadly game,” writes Tim Hale in his opposition.

“The subject Request to Add On is consistent with the Franciscans’ policy of secrecy. With twenty-four (24) Franciscan perpetrators and fifty-nine (59) victims since 1964, Santa Barbara is the epicenter in the Province of the harm caused by the Franciscans.”

The number of victims in Santa Barbara is 60 now. Since the brief filed in August, another victim has been added to the list.

Emilie Elias received the Clergy Cases when Fromholz retired in December 2007, the coordinated cases settled in July of that year.

The Franciscan lawyers want to tie this case to LA because Santa Barbara was still part of the LA Archdiocese in 1964, when some of the sexual assaults in the Ongoing Public Nuisance lawsuit took place.

It appears to be a moot point, obvious waste of court time, almost negligent lawyering - Gaspari’s Request to Add-On is four pages long and just tacks on Hale’s 46-page motion as its one and only exhibit. You start to think, it’s obvious, it’s a slam dunk.

Then think of that quote from Naomi Klein this morning:

“Don't call them incompetent because they know exactly what they are doing.”

Stay Tuned. Below are outstanding quotes from opposition filed by NYE, PEABODY, STIRLING & HALE attorneys in Santa Barbara, copy and pasted in full at http://cityofangels11.blogspot.com

From Opposition (by Tim Hale):

"The subject Request to Add On is consistent with the Franciscans’ policy of secrecy. With twenty-four (24) Franciscan perpetrators and fifty-nine (59) victims since 1964, Santa Barbara is the epicenter in the Province of the harm caused by the Franciscans. As they have done so often with their perpetrators, it comes as no surprise that the Franciscans now seek to transfer this case as far away from Santa Barbara as possible, to a comparably disinterested community in Los Angeles where the lawsuit will most likely be ignored. Justice requires this case be heard in Santa Barbara, the community most severely injured by the Franciscans’ conduct.

"Instead of notifying law enforcement and empowering the public to protect their children, the Franciscans’ have sheltered these predators and thereby thrown to the wolves children in the communities throughout the Western United States where the Franciscans conduct their ministry.

"Franciscan corporate practices have created countless victims of childhood sexual abuse, and continue to put an even greater number of today’s children at risk to be sexually assaulted by predators whose identities and propensities are known only to the Franciscans.

"No community has suffered greater harm to its children, as a result of Franciscan criminal conduct, than Santa Barbara. Since 1964 the Franciscans have allowed no less than twenty-four (24) Franciscan perpetrators to live in Santa Barbara without any warning to the community.

Onward. . .

City of Angels Lady is homebound sick for a while (PTSD strikes hard even 50 years later). As a result we have not been able to go Document Diving, all stories have to be written over the computer and phone for now.

Onward against all odds. . .

2008-09-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Above: Entry to a new world, in the eyes of a Franciscan seminarian in Santa Barbara.