*****
By Kay Ebeling
Federal Agents should storm archdioceses across the country with search warrants so they can find and SEIZE pedophile priest documents. Now in Portland, Oregon, as well as LA, we find bishops still fighting the plaintiffs and siding with criminal priests, fighting just as mean as they fought the civil cases to begin with, against the release of files that was ordered as part of civil settlements. Bishops will tell news cameras the church has changed, and then in court church attorneys continue their Mad Hatter Tea Party. The Catholic Church has bottomless briefcases full of cash, enough to keep paying lawyers to file meaningless motions and prevent civil release of predator priest files for decades and decades and decades.
WHERE is law enforcement? It is time to stop being afraid of this organized crime operation known as the Catholic Church. WE ALL KNOW they are pedophiles.
What else are they hiding? Otherwise they would be forthcoming with the files.
(This Just came in as I was posting: Dec. 5 at 10:30 will be a hearing before Judge Lichtman on the publication of the documents from the 2006 Santa Barbara settlement. "Yes, we're still fighting that fight," Says Tim Hale, "a sign of things to come in the LA and San Diego settlements undoubtedly as well.")
How Much Evidence do Attorneys General from the USA at the top on down to every city attorney in the country need before they see-
The Next Step From Here is Prosecution. These guys are thugs in robes, little more.
Kay Ebeling
Evangelical Christian Survivor of Catholic Pedophile Priest Rape
I just put a comment at Kelly Clark's website saying that, more or less
*********
Just A Typical Morning In My Life
Post a raging comment on a blog
Recover new memories of rapes I lived through at age five and six
Go to work
*********
Here is how it started. Reading the blog of Oregon attorney Kelly Clark, in the middle of a paragraph this phrase: “Plaintiffs in these cases are crime victims, are covered with the shame of child abuse, and do not need or deserve to be identified publicly.” (The entire post is at: http://kellyclarkattorney.com/opinion/117/ )
My mind slips to - wonder why I always want my name and story out there almost like a compulsion. In fact my sister who was also raped by Father Horne around the time of First Communion went through life with a very similar compulsion to mine, to write our life stories, focusing on all the weird sex, even when we didn't know why we were compelled to write.
So many pedophile priest crime victims I’ve met DON’T want their stories out, DON’T want their adult friends to know. I'm thinking why am I always so compulsed.
And then I remember, even say out loud - “oh yeah the cameras.”
And there I was in the middle of the memory as I sat at my computer. Hot lights, I even feel the chubby almost baby skin under my chin and arms, look to the left, silhouettes of males standing above and out of the light. I'm in the light and it’s hot.
No wonder my sister and I were so compulsed to go on film or TV or now me on a blog, go public, expose every detail of our contorted lives.
We were initiated into this club on camera.
For years all I’ve remembered of this incident was the big round thing. The big metal round thing pointed at me. It’s suspended in the air pointed at me holding incredibly still. And everyone in the room is being painstakingly quiet, working hard at being quiet, but occasionally a gasp of breath -
Lots of smoke in the room. Then I see a familiar face, now the cigarette goes to his mouth -
Projectile tears.
Those tears are a sign it’s a real recovered memory, for me anyway. The tears shoot out, huge thick oily salty globs of teardrop, along with a kind of choked sob, without any preliminary crying or even thought in advance, just all of a sudden, squish, out of both eyes.
No wonder my sister and I went through life writing draft after draft after draft, started and restarting our life stories. We were both stuck for life trying to figure out what really happened, and trying to tell it to the world.
I have file cabinets full of first second drafts and then first drafts all over again. That's not counting all the notebooks and stacks of typed manuscript I’ve lost.
My sister took her only copy of her life story on a flight to New York once to try to sell it, don’t know why she only had the one copy. It was in the days before computers but after Xerox machines. Still she only had one copy, carried it on an airplane, got drunk with some guys in first class, and lost it. Lost her manuscript. Left it on the plane.
In her version, she had graphic details of her time as a topless dancer in the early 1970s in Northern California. She’d go from tavern to tavern, dance, select two or three men from the crowd, and have them follow her home as she drove this blue beat up convertible sports car she drove then on the two lane country road to where she lived in inland Sonoma County. These new strange men would be in a line of VW vans or Mercedes or whatever behind her panting after her all the way to this metal barn she rented in the middle of nowhere -- to party into the night. . .
It was my sister’s former girlfriend who told me about the lost manuscript. Helen had been one of few people to read it, and as she described it to me her face took on a look of horror. Shocked at the sexual escapades, Helen said, “She was bragging about it all,” said Helen and I twitched.
My sister and I both have had trouble maintaining friendships. . .
*******
Most child rape victims do not want their names and stories in the news
*******
Unlike most pedophile priest rape victims, my sister and I keep wanting to tell our story to the world, in detail. I just assumed everyone else did too.
But more and more the few victims who I have gotten to know don’t want their names used, will tell me details of what happened to them only if I promise to keep it off the record, and then as we talk and get to know each other and they realize how much everything in my life spills out onto this blog, they tend to stop returning my calls and emails after awhile.
Barbara Blaine was in the news recently saying, “We're not here to help victims, they have to learn to help themselves,” and my first reaction was, man, that's cold. But she’s right.
For one thing there are hundreds and thousands of survivors.
Probably hundreds of thousands of people in the US today were molested in some way by a priest, either by an incident of inappropriate touching all the way to serial sodomy rape before serving Mass as an altar boy.
Young men in seminary getting their life dream slaughtered by the reality that so many priests are sodomite rapists that it’s almost woven into the tapestry of church structure.
Since there are close to five thousand predator priests in the Bishop Accountability database now, considering each one of them had as many as ten victims, probably more, you do the math.
There are too many of us to make any generalizations about where the priests were sent or what kind of kids they went after.
*********
They were everywhere and they went after everyone
*********
They were everywhere throughout the Catholic Church in America and they went after whatever kids they could get their hands on. It’s time to start looking at this epidemic for what it was -- an EPIDEMIC -- thousands of priests identified so far with hundreds and thousands of crime victims.
The entire structure of the church all the way back to putting men in seminary away from other people to become priests is corrupt and led to the pedophile epidemic of the late twentieth century in the United States.
Assuming it’s not continuing into the twenty-first century.
Onward. . .
Friday, September 12, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Curious recusal of Justice Panelli may slow down, but will not stop plaintiffs in LA from pursuing pedophile priest confidential files per 7-07 orders
*
*****
By Kay Ebeling
Early next month LA Superior Court will kick restart the process of releasing priests’ files to plaintiffs from civil cases settled last year against Cardinal Roger Mahony and the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese. In an October 8th hearing plaintiffs ask Judge Emilie Elias to appoint a new referee to replace Edward A. Panelli, who suddenly recused himself last June. “Come October 8th we're going to have a name. Either we'll agree to a referee, or the judge will appoint one,” said Tony DeMarco.
Panelli’s recusal “very much took us by surprise,” DeMarco said. The plaintiff attorney from Kiesel Boucher Larson informed the court of Panelli’s recusal in a July hearing. “Defense counsel represented that they got a commitment from Panelli,” DeMarco said.
Did the Defendants pull the rug out from under you? I asked.
“(Panelli’s Recusal) calls into question whether or not archdiocese attorneys got the commitment from him at all,” DeMarco said, saying Panelli’s name was used continually during the negotiation process, for more than a year during pre and post settlement discussions between plaintiff and defense attorneys. DeMarco stopped short of accusing defense attorneys of anything untoward.
“I think it’s one of those things we will be judging down the road,” DeMarco said. “If the defendants try to utilize the recusal to create more delay, then I would have a strong belief in that.”
We'd Be Where We Are With San Diego Now. . .
DeMarco added: “When Panelli sent in the recusal it set us back awhile, because for one thing, I was doing hearings on production of documents in San Diego as well as LA. We just got the order in San Diego.
“We’d be in that position now in LA absent this recusal,” DeMarco said.
Production of documents and Panelli’s name are in print throughout the settlement agreement, for example in Paragraph 19:
“This is a general consensual reference for the purpose of permitting Justice Panelli to make final and binding determinations with respect to whether any documents that have been subpoenaed by any party to this settlement Agreement or otherwise, or were contained within the Personnel File relating to any accused offender to any of the lawsuits listed in Exhibit B shall be produced to the particular plaintiff in a particular settled action for public disclosure.”
Another reference to production of documents from Paragraph 19:
“The parties agree that the term ‘personnel file’ includes the personnel file, the confidential file, and any other documents, if any documents maintained by the Settling Defendants with respect to any accused offender in the particular Settled Action.”
And from the transcript of the settlement hearing in front of Judge Haley Fromholz July 17, 2007
Me, I think we are seeing another tap dance by attorneys for the LA Archdiocese:
Me: I think they think
That because they've paid out a large settlement to so many plaintiffs,
That this little issue of release of documents
Will --
Just
Go
Away
"Release of priest files is just a problem that will disappear," daydreams the Cardinal as he sips his cherry wine.
Just like they made the pedophile problem go away by transferring predator priests from one parish to another parish.
*****
The Fight For Release of Files Will Not End Any Time Soon
NOT if Kiesel Boucher Larson have anything to say about it:
“The firm has made a commitment to see that these documents are made public and that the agreement is honored,” DeMarco said. “It’s in the settlement agreement. They have to turn the files over.”
DeMarco added:
“I can understand if some folks wonder why are we continuing on with this. These lawsuits against the archdiocese are not just something we did. This is a passion and a cause for us, for the firm, for Ray Boucher. I have been getting nothing but complete support of this firm to continue on with this as long as it takes.
“The document production is critical,” DeMarco continued. “There’s more kids being abused out there
(In fact in a post earlier today at City of Angels we write about another perpetrator priest arrested in January 2008 in Anaheim.)
“We've developed so much expertise over the years working on this case, and this is difficult emotional trying work to do,” DeMarco said. “There was a huge climax to this in Southern California over 700 cases settled in 2006-2007."
Think about it. More than 700 cases settled in Southern California over a two-year period.
DeMarco asserted repeatedly: the Kiesel Boucher Larson law firm has "made a commitment to see that these documents are made public and the agreement is honored and we will continue to fight until they turn over the files."
Let me repeat that.
We Will Continue To Fight Until They Turn Over The Files.
"It’s in the settlement agreement. They have to turn the files over," DeMarco said.
The procedure as agreed to with Judge Emilie Elias in July 2008:
Both sides submit three names and then Judge Emilie Elias chooses from those names or otherwise appoints a new referee, as parties agreed last July.
Elias can appoint the new referee at the October 8th hearing.
Panelli’s recusal letter was blunt, stating:
“The referee has considered the application of Canon 6 to the subject of this reference and based thereon has decided to recuse himself in this manner.
“At the present time the undersigned is serving as the Chair of the Diocesan Review Board for the Diocese of San Jose. The role of this board is to investigate charges of clergy abuse and to report its findings to the Bishop of the Diocese.
“While none of these cases at issue in this litigation are connected in any way to San Jose, the referee believes there could be the appearance of impropriety should he serve as Referee.
“The matters of issue have gained a great deal of public attention and in keeping with the Canons that a judge should avoid the appearance of impropriety, I have decided to recuse myself from this assignment. Signed June 11, 2008, Justice Edward A. Panelli (Retired)."
END OF PANELLI'S RECUSAL LETTER
ME: TALK ABOUT the appearance of impropriety.
There was none until Panelli recused himself.
Now, we are all suspicious of him. And did you notice he never refers to himself except in the third person: "the refereee." Guy must have a starfish backbone. . . a wet starfish backbone
I asked DeMarco, wouldn't the referee's being on a review board make him really qualified to review priest personnel files?
“Frankly, Kay, I have found if you have someone looking at the wrongdoings of priests, Catholics are usually more outraged than someone without as much exposure.”
Panelli’s being on the San Jose Review board “would make him more qualified.” DeMarco said. “Those boards are theoretically independent.”
So this story will be continued after the hearing October 8th and more after that I'm sure.
From LA Superior Court Website under Case Summaries:
Future Hearings
10/08/2008 at 10:00 am in department 308 at 600 South Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005 Hearing-Oral Argument
Onward. . .
*****
By Kay Ebeling
Early next month LA Superior Court will kick restart the process of releasing priests’ files to plaintiffs from civil cases settled last year against Cardinal Roger Mahony and the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese. In an October 8th hearing plaintiffs ask Judge Emilie Elias to appoint a new referee to replace Edward A. Panelli, who suddenly recused himself last June. “Come October 8th we're going to have a name. Either we'll agree to a referee, or the judge will appoint one,” said Tony DeMarco.
Panelli’s recusal “very much took us by surprise,” DeMarco said. The plaintiff attorney from Kiesel Boucher Larson informed the court of Panelli’s recusal in a July hearing. “Defense counsel represented that they got a commitment from Panelli,” DeMarco said.
Did the Defendants pull the rug out from under you? I asked.
“(Panelli’s Recusal) calls into question whether or not archdiocese attorneys got the commitment from him at all,” DeMarco said, saying Panelli’s name was used continually during the negotiation process, for more than a year during pre and post settlement discussions between plaintiff and defense attorneys. DeMarco stopped short of accusing defense attorneys of anything untoward.
“I think it’s one of those things we will be judging down the road,” DeMarco said. “If the defendants try to utilize the recusal to create more delay, then I would have a strong belief in that.”
We'd Be Where We Are With San Diego Now. . .
DeMarco added: “When Panelli sent in the recusal it set us back awhile, because for one thing, I was doing hearings on production of documents in San Diego as well as LA. We just got the order in San Diego.
“We’d be in that position now in LA absent this recusal,” DeMarco said.
Production of documents and Panelli’s name are in print throughout the settlement agreement, for example in Paragraph 19:
“This is a general consensual reference for the purpose of permitting Justice Panelli to make final and binding determinations with respect to whether any documents that have been subpoenaed by any party to this settlement Agreement or otherwise, or were contained within the Personnel File relating to any accused offender to any of the lawsuits listed in Exhibit B shall be produced to the particular plaintiff in a particular settled action for public disclosure.”
Another reference to production of documents from Paragraph 19:
“The parties agree that the term ‘personnel file’ includes the personnel file, the confidential file, and any other documents, if any documents maintained by the Settling Defendants with respect to any accused offender in the particular Settled Action.”
And from the transcript of the settlement hearing in front of Judge Haley Fromholz July 17, 2007
Me, I think we are seeing another tap dance by attorneys for the LA Archdiocese:
Me: I think they think
That because they've paid out a large settlement to so many plaintiffs,
That this little issue of release of documents
Will --
Just
Go
Away
"Release of priest files is just a problem that will disappear," daydreams the Cardinal as he sips his cherry wine.
Just like they made the pedophile problem go away by transferring predator priests from one parish to another parish.
*****
The Fight For Release of Files Will Not End Any Time Soon
NOT if Kiesel Boucher Larson have anything to say about it:
“The firm has made a commitment to see that these documents are made public and that the agreement is honored,” DeMarco said. “It’s in the settlement agreement. They have to turn the files over.”
DeMarco added:
“I can understand if some folks wonder why are we continuing on with this. These lawsuits against the archdiocese are not just something we did. This is a passion and a cause for us, for the firm, for Ray Boucher. I have been getting nothing but complete support of this firm to continue on with this as long as it takes.
“The document production is critical,” DeMarco continued. “There’s more kids being abused out there
(In fact in a post earlier today at City of Angels we write about another perpetrator priest arrested in January 2008 in Anaheim.)
“We've developed so much expertise over the years working on this case, and this is difficult emotional trying work to do,” DeMarco said. “There was a huge climax to this in Southern California over 700 cases settled in 2006-2007."
Think about it. More than 700 cases settled in Southern California over a two-year period.
DeMarco asserted repeatedly: the Kiesel Boucher Larson law firm has "made a commitment to see that these documents are made public and the agreement is honored and we will continue to fight until they turn over the files."
Let me repeat that.
We Will Continue To Fight Until They Turn Over The Files.
"It’s in the settlement agreement. They have to turn the files over," DeMarco said.
The procedure as agreed to with Judge Emilie Elias in July 2008:
Both sides submit three names and then Judge Emilie Elias chooses from those names or otherwise appoints a new referee, as parties agreed last July.
Elias can appoint the new referee at the October 8th hearing.
Panelli’s recusal letter was blunt, stating:
“The referee has considered the application of Canon 6 to the subject of this reference and based thereon has decided to recuse himself in this manner.
“At the present time the undersigned is serving as the Chair of the Diocesan Review Board for the Diocese of San Jose. The role of this board is to investigate charges of clergy abuse and to report its findings to the Bishop of the Diocese.
“While none of these cases at issue in this litigation are connected in any way to San Jose, the referee believes there could be the appearance of impropriety should he serve as Referee.
“The matters of issue have gained a great deal of public attention and in keeping with the Canons that a judge should avoid the appearance of impropriety, I have decided to recuse myself from this assignment. Signed June 11, 2008, Justice Edward A. Panelli (Retired)."
END OF PANELLI'S RECUSAL LETTER
ME: TALK ABOUT the appearance of impropriety.
There was none until Panelli recused himself.
Now, we are all suspicious of him. And did you notice he never refers to himself except in the third person: "the refereee." Guy must have a starfish backbone. . . a wet starfish backbone
I asked DeMarco, wouldn't the referee's being on a review board make him really qualified to review priest personnel files?
“Frankly, Kay, I have found if you have someone looking at the wrongdoings of priests, Catholics are usually more outraged than someone without as much exposure.”
Panelli’s being on the San Jose Review board “would make him more qualified.” DeMarco said. “Those boards are theoretically independent.”
So this story will be continued after the hearing October 8th and more after that I'm sure.
From LA Superior Court Website under Case Summaries:
Future Hearings
10/08/2008 at 10:00 am in department 308 at 600 South Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005 Hearing-Oral Argument
Onward. . .
Pedophiles still slip into priesthood: in Anaheim, Rev. Ramirez sentenced quietly to 180 days in jail last month. Plus letters to the editor
*****
By Kay Ebeling
I had to keep checking the date, certain the news story I was reading was from at least the 1990s. Nope, the dates are August 19 and 20, 2008, Orange County Register, this time it’s an Augustinian from Mexico, The Rev. Luis Eduardo Ramirez, Youth Director at Our Lady of the Pillar parish in Santa Ana until January 2008 when he was arrested for taking a teenage boy to a motel and pouring him tequila while reaching under the boy’s pants. The kid ran out the door, told his parents, and yes, one thing different is that The Rev. Luis Eduardo Ramirez was arrested. Quietly. Under the radar.
In June, Ramirez pled out most of the charges, again quietly. “He was bailed out by his order, and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and burglary – a charge allowed when a building is used in the commission of a crime,” writes Rachanee Srisavasdi in the OC Register August 19th. “The case has not been publicized, other than a diocese announcement in the church bulletin.” (Photo of Ramirez above left is originally from the OC Register.)
Rev. Ramirez does not have to register as a sex offender. He must refrain from consuming alcohol except as part of religious ceremonies. . . . ah yes, those religious ceremonies with children and tequila....
180 Days in Jail: The more serious but still misdemeanor charges were dismissed: child annoyance, delinquency, and furnishing alcohol to a minor. So September 24 Ramirez begins serving his “180 days in jail” sentence in Santa Ana. He will then be on probation for three years.
John Manly, said the church and Anaheim city attorneys should have publicized this case, telling the OC Register:
"Putting an announcement in a parish bulletin is violating the diocese's promise to be transparent, open and honest."
Manly also said the Anaheim attorneys could have publicized the case but they did not.
A prior at Ramirez' order headquarters in New Jersey assured the Associated Press that Ramirez “Would not have any contact with the public or with children after he serves his sentence.”
Me: I'll bet.
Ramirez grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, went to seminaries in Oxnard and Suffren, N.Y. He had recently been ordained when he arrived at the Santa Ana parish in 2003.
Here are links to two OC Register stories Aug 19 and Aug 20;
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/crime/article_2130311.php
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/ramirez-priest-boy-2131743-judge-put
*****
This headline ran August 15 in the New York Daily News
Father Flim Flam finds new flock
The story goes on to say:
Father Flim Flam has gone from making confessions to taking them.
“Msgr. John Woolsey, who copped to stealing from a Manhattan parish, has found a new job as associate pastor of a Westchester church.
ME: It’s great to see the church getting the lack of respect it duly deserves
RE: THE DAILY NEWS STORY:
This is all old news to us, sure, it’s great to see mainstream media writing headlines like these. Story linked here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/08/14/2008-08-14_father_flim_flam_finds_new_flock.html
********
Letters to the Editor:
From Udo Strutynski
Los Angeles
Monsignor Malvolio cannot grant Flotsly absolution
Dear Kay,
I think you misunderstood what George meant when he said "within the seal." (See September 5 post.)
The phrase refers to the seal of confession, which normally forbids any priest, under pain of excommunication, to reveal anything he heard from a penitent in confession to anybody else.
"Anybody else" includes the president and the pope, and maybe even Jesus if he came back as a human being. In other words, what a penitent confesses to a priest remains confidential, i.e., "sealed." Now, Crimen solicitationis carves out an exception to this absolute "seal" by requiring a solicitation made by a priest during confession to be reported to the Office for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. This Office, in turn, would be bound by the seal and could not reveal it to anyone else.
How this would work is as follows: Maisie confesses lustful desires for Jack to Father Flotsky. Flotsky takes advantage of Maisie's horniness by offering himself as her sexual partner. At this point, Flotsky has committed a "crime solicitationis", a crime of solicitation during confession.
Now, when Flotsky goes to confess this "crime" to his spiritual mentor, Monsignor Malvolio, Malvolio cannot grant Flotsly absolution and forget about it. He must refuse absoltion and immediately report this "crime" to the Office in the Vatican.
The Office is then responsible for keeping the secret of this confession, while they investigate what happened tbetween Flotsky and Maisie. All the while, both Flotsky and Maisie are forbidden to talk about this to anyone except duly appointed representatives of the Office.
If either of them talks, he or she will be automatically excommunicated.
I hope this helps.
Udo
Yup, Udo, laughter always helps, and it’s about all we've got, really. . .
********
Letter 2:
From
Kay Goodnow
Lenexa, Kansas
How to Fluck the Flock
Thank you, City of Angels Lady, for time and effort spent analyzing the "George effect." (Sept. 5 post)
This entire situation runs parallel to the settlement now in process in the diocese of Kansas City / St. Joseph, Missouri.
It helps to remember that the "institutional" church has no direct connection to the "god" these idiots have so carefully crafted over a long period of time. It also helps to remember that all human beings are fallible. To that extent, at least, we are all equal.
We victims are a "business deal." Money is the only thing that the Church of the Almighty Dollar understands."
So here's the formula: A cult uses brainwashing and ritual memories to control sheep, a/k/a "flucking the flock." The cult believes they can do whatever they want to do... and so it is.
Kay Goodnow
Lenexa, KS
*****
Letter No. 3
Do We Really Need Priest Off?
By Kay Ebeling
I had to keep checking the date, certain the news story I was reading was from at least the 1990s. Nope, the dates are August 19 and 20, 2008, Orange County Register, this time it’s an Augustinian from Mexico, The Rev. Luis Eduardo Ramirez, Youth Director at Our Lady of the Pillar parish in Santa Ana until January 2008 when he was arrested for taking a teenage boy to a motel and pouring him tequila while reaching under the boy’s pants. The kid ran out the door, told his parents, and yes, one thing different is that The Rev. Luis Eduardo Ramirez was arrested. Quietly. Under the radar.
In June, Ramirez pled out most of the charges, again quietly. “He was bailed out by his order, and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and burglary – a charge allowed when a building is used in the commission of a crime,” writes Rachanee Srisavasdi in the OC Register August 19th. “The case has not been publicized, other than a diocese announcement in the church bulletin.” (Photo of Ramirez above left is originally from the OC Register.)
Rev. Ramirez does not have to register as a sex offender. He must refrain from consuming alcohol except as part of religious ceremonies. . . . ah yes, those religious ceremonies with children and tequila....
180 Days in Jail: The more serious but still misdemeanor charges were dismissed: child annoyance, delinquency, and furnishing alcohol to a minor. So September 24 Ramirez begins serving his “180 days in jail” sentence in Santa Ana. He will then be on probation for three years.
John Manly, said the church and Anaheim city attorneys should have publicized this case, telling the OC Register:
"Putting an announcement in a parish bulletin is violating the diocese's promise to be transparent, open and honest."
Manly also said the Anaheim attorneys could have publicized the case but they did not.
A prior at Ramirez' order headquarters in New Jersey assured the Associated Press that Ramirez “Would not have any contact with the public or with children after he serves his sentence.”
Me: I'll bet.
Ramirez grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, went to seminaries in Oxnard and Suffren, N.Y. He had recently been ordained when he arrived at the Santa Ana parish in 2003.
Here are links to two OC Register stories Aug 19 and Aug 20;
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/crime/article_2130311.php
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/ramirez-priest-boy-2131743-judge-put
*****
This headline ran August 15 in the New York Daily News
Father Flim Flam finds new flock
The story goes on to say:
Father Flim Flam has gone from making confessions to taking them.
“Msgr. John Woolsey, who copped to stealing from a Manhattan parish, has found a new job as associate pastor of a Westchester church.
ME: It’s great to see the church getting the lack of respect it duly deserves
RE: THE DAILY NEWS STORY:
This is all old news to us, sure, it’s great to see mainstream media writing headlines like these. Story linked here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/08/14/2008-08-14_father_flim_flam_finds_new_flock.html
********
Letters to the Editor:
From Udo Strutynski
Los Angeles
Monsignor Malvolio cannot grant Flotsly absolution
Dear Kay,
I think you misunderstood what George meant when he said "within the seal." (See September 5 post.)
The phrase refers to the seal of confession, which normally forbids any priest, under pain of excommunication, to reveal anything he heard from a penitent in confession to anybody else.
"Anybody else" includes the president and the pope, and maybe even Jesus if he came back as a human being. In other words, what a penitent confesses to a priest remains confidential, i.e., "sealed." Now, Crimen solicitationis carves out an exception to this absolute "seal" by requiring a solicitation made by a priest during confession to be reported to the Office for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. This Office, in turn, would be bound by the seal and could not reveal it to anyone else.
How this would work is as follows: Maisie confesses lustful desires for Jack to Father Flotsky. Flotsky takes advantage of Maisie's horniness by offering himself as her sexual partner. At this point, Flotsky has committed a "crime solicitationis", a crime of solicitation during confession.
Now, when Flotsky goes to confess this "crime" to his spiritual mentor, Monsignor Malvolio, Malvolio cannot grant Flotsly absolution and forget about it. He must refuse absoltion and immediately report this "crime" to the Office in the Vatican.
The Office is then responsible for keeping the secret of this confession, while they investigate what happened tbetween Flotsky and Maisie. All the while, both Flotsky and Maisie are forbidden to talk about this to anyone except duly appointed representatives of the Office.
If either of them talks, he or she will be automatically excommunicated.
I hope this helps.
Udo
Yup, Udo, laughter always helps, and it’s about all we've got, really. . .
********
Letter 2:
From
Kay Goodnow
Lenexa, Kansas
How to Fluck the Flock
Thank you, City of Angels Lady, for time and effort spent analyzing the "George effect." (Sept. 5 post)
This entire situation runs parallel to the settlement now in process in the diocese of Kansas City / St. Joseph, Missouri.
It helps to remember that the "institutional" church has no direct connection to the "god" these idiots have so carefully crafted over a long period of time. It also helps to remember that all human beings are fallible. To that extent, at least, we are all equal.
We victims are a "business deal." Money is the only thing that the Church of the Almighty Dollar understands."
So here's the formula: A cult uses brainwashing and ritual memories to control sheep, a/k/a "flucking the flock." The cult believes they can do whatever they want to do... and so it is.
Kay Goodnow
Lenexa, KS
*****
Letter No. 3
Do We Really Need Priest Off?
Dear City of Angels Lady:
I applaud at your advertisement of the You Tube "Priest Off".
In the light of all that has happened with some of Clergy in the Catholic Church, you are mocking and making fun of it.
It is bad enough that the victims have been hurt and scarred by these Clergy. I ask that you try and use your better judgement [sic] in letting "Trash Vidoes" on your website. I myself have a close friend that was molested and don't see what good this does for him or others that are trying heal and move on with there lives.
Sincerely,
Luis Delgado
*****
Like I said, humor is just about all we've got, sorry you can't see that, Mr. Delgado
More Stories coming soon.
Onward. . .
Friday, September 5, 2008
Pedophiles turned loose with no monitoring, one takes 2 boys out drinking while monitored. Blame someone else, Cardinal George says in deposition
*****
By Kay Ebeling
The Catholic Church laicizes pedophile priests, then effectively turns them loose on society without putting them on a law enforcement database, admits the Archbishop of Chicago. While pedophile priest Dan McCormack was under monitoring, he took two boys to an arcade-bar, another predator priest took a vacation with his monitor, with whom he also shares ownership of a resort condo. And are those age spots or freckles on Father Bennett’s scrotum? This and more you can read in the January 2008 deposition of the Archbishop of Chicago, posted at the archdiocese website, under "Misconduct."
Reading the Cardinal's answers, you see priests living in a culture where sex is a series of pathologies to be studied in seminars, all while trying to be celibate, and the only persons in their personal lives are other men and boys trying to be celibate. You almost start to feel sorry for the guy, so cut off from the world he couldn't see a pedophile epidemic in his own environs - wait a minute.
Priests may be cut off from normal lives, but rape of a child is never okay no matter how you look at it. It seems Catholic hierarchy live by their own set of laws, somewhere way above our petty little human laws. So an Oblate of Mary Immaculate can take an oath on a Bible, then look you in the eyes and tell you a pack of lies.
In the Cardinal’s deposition, excerpted and scruitinized at length below, George answers in a series of passive construction phrases. Guilty parties use passive construction phrases when they are forced to answer questions. It is a way to state guilt, without actually admitting it was you. In Cardinal George’s answers you continuously read phrases like:
“That had been done.”
“It had been handled”
Look closely. There’s no subject, no identification of who actually did it, just “it had been done, it was done."
Very slippery
While Cardinal George was a high head honcho with the Oblates in Rome, three Oblates in America acted out as pedophiles. Even when he returned to the US in the early eighties, George did nothing to inform parishioners about those three priests.
The Civil authorities took care of it. It had been handled.
As a Bishop in Yakima Washington, George knew about the 1985 report by Tom Doyle to American bishops:
CARDINAL: “It was referred to, it was tangential to the discussion as I recall.”
Re: The 1962 Crimen solicitaciones document:
CARDINAL: “I was a seminarian in 1962 and in moral theology class, that was a document that was given us when we discussed the sacrament of penance.”
“(Solicitation) is a sin and a crime that is reserved to the Holy See. The protocol would demand that the Holy see review the case, saving the seal of the sacrament which is a very sacred confidentiality privilege in our sacramental system.
This “confidentiality” that is a “privilege” of their “sacraments” is often a way to cover up crimes.
Of course the best way for law enforcement to get to that information is:
We need a Whistle Blower.
Try this:
****************
Dear Catholic Priests of America,
Do you want to go down in Christian history? Do you feel you get no respect as a priest because of all the pedophiles?
Try being a whistle blower.
Are you a Catholic priest not getting the respect you deserve?
Consider blowing the whistle. Sure it will be difficult, and you may have to give up that great guaranteed income for life,
BUT
The way your church hides criminal activity by calling it part of a sacrament, it’s time to call law enforcement. There is no one in a better position to bring a close to this crisis, than you, Father (insert name).
Or contact a journalist to release the true story
Remember Good Priests Blow the Whistle, not little boys
My email address is cityofangelslady@yahoo.com
I’ll keep your identity a secret.
Blow the whistle through City of Angels Network.
*****************
Back to deposition of the Cardinal:
“. . . a very sacred confidentiality privilege in our sacramental system.”
(In his testimony the Cardinal Confirmed:)
There is a place where evidence is kept secret and that when Crimen Solicitaciones came out in 1962:
“What was new was that they had to tell someone to be sure the crime never was repeated again, even though it was within the seal.”
(ME: “Within the seal” - That is a euphemism for evidence of sex crimes on children by priests be put in a hiding place.)
CARD: For the first time, it required him to make the report (to the Pope)
AND: And it required that the report be secret at all times?
(LONG paragraph of Church Attorney’s objections, then:)
CARD: It’s required to disclose (the sex crime) for the first time…to those who have responsibility for the sacrament of the Church, namely to the Holy see.
AND: And only them, correct?
CARD: That's correct. .
(RE: Monitoring of accused priests that went on during the time Bennett and McCormack were serial raping children in the archdiocese.)
ANDERSON: Do you agree with the finding of Childers that there was a gross deficiency in the monitoring of priests by the Archdiocese.
CARDINAL: It was inadequate if you're talking about supervising convicted criminals. . .
ANDERSON: What do you mean?
CARD: People who - whom the state has found guilty, that's his standard. And a priest’s supposed police power. That's where the discrepancy is found.
PAGE 47
RIDICULOUS CLAIMS
ANDERSON: You know enough about this topic (pedophilia) now to know that once a cleric or an adult offends a child one time, that they’re at risk for reoffending?
WITNESS: I think in the studies that I read after 2002 I came to that conclusion for the first time. I realized the recidivism rate was unacceptable to take a chance.
ME: HE DIDN'T KNOW THIS UNTIL 2002?
If that answer is true it shows priests need to be released from their cloisters NOW before more sex crimes are committed. How could anyone have their head so deep in the ground to not know about pedophilia until 2002????
No. He’s not that naïve.
He Must Be Lying.
P. 69
CARDINAL: The Defenbaugh report showed how information that was available was not shared
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT:
“Information that was available was not shared.”
Then
“judgments were made based on information available.”)
(I think the following is the part the Cardinal wanted the Public to read when he released his deposition.)
CARD: . . . and, therefore, the judgments were made on the information available. It was not adequate and a boy was abused and this is - this is something that I have to live with because it’s a terrible crime and it was on my watch.
But
I acted on the information that was given to me.
(It takes Jeff Anderson a whole page of transcript to recover and then)
ANDERSON: If I'm hearing you correctly, you're testifying that the recidivism rate and the risk an offender who’s offended once poses to reoffend-- the rate and risk of recidivism really came to you for the first time post-2002? Is that what you're saying?
CARDINAL: I think that's true, Yes, I think that's true.
ANDERSON: Is it your position that those 33 priests who have been credibly accused and removed from ministry after 1997 have all stopped abusing?
CHURCH ATTORNEY (Mr. Klenk): Objection
More discussion then:
CARDINAL: We have no supervision of laicized priests. Some are in nursing homes, but I guess yes, (they are not supervised after being laicized.)
(ME: So Chicago has been laicizing priests with credible accusations against them and just turning them loose on the society. Cardinal George just admitted it.)
More from the Cardinal George’s January 2008 deposition:
Q: And you assumed that because the police released (Daniel McCormack) from custody that he was thus not guilty?
A: Well they also didn't charge him and I did assume that, sir.
Q: Father Rassas the Vicar General was promoted to Auxiliary Bishop following this failure?
A: That is a Roman appointment, not mine.
Q: You're the one that ultimately appointed McCormack, right?
CARD: That's correct. I didn't see this (exhibit).
ANDERSON: And it’s not because it wasn’t available to you, but it’s because you didn't look or ask. Correct?
CARDINAL: The information wasn’t given to me.
(ME: Passive Construction alert: “The information wasn’t given to me.”)
Q: Rassas didn't tell you?
A: No he did not tell me that.
Q: So McCormack was made dean by you?
A: Yes, I appoint deans.
Q: Who told you that McCormack was innocent?
CARDINAL: The police let him go, sir. He was innocent as far as they were concerned. . . his release to me meant the police couldn't charge him and they had reason to believe he was not a danger to children.
ANDERSON: You've never really believed in the zero tolerance policy, have you?
CARDINAL: I beg your pardon sir, but that's entire inaccurate.
ANDERSON: McCormack wasn’t even released so much as allowed to go home, but police told McCormack to come back next day, it says in a memo in the file of Ed Grace. August 30, 2005.
(Anderon picks up an exhibit, a memo from Father Grace that was in McCormack’s file, and reads it to Cardinal George. )
ANDERSON: “It states I was called at Queen of All Saints rectory by Reverend McCormack. He informed me that he was being questioned by police at the local police station, concerning an allegation made against him by the mother of a ten year old boy.
“He put the detective on the phone to explain the circumstances to me,” correct?
CARDINAL: Yes.
ANDERSON: It goes on to say in the last sentence of the next paragraph, Father McCormack succeeded in lowering the boy’s pants and fondling -- fondled his genitalia. That's what it stated, doesn't it?
CARDINAL: Yes.
ANDERSON: It goes on to state in the next sentence, Detective found the boy’s story credible.
ANDERSON: “The next sentence says I then spoke with Dan again and advised him not to discuss the matter further with police.
ANDERSON, CONT’D: So as I read this and as I just read it to you, Father Grace, your Vicar for Priests, is telling Dan McCormack, Don’t talk to the police, don’t tell them that you've abused other kids. don’t tell them anything.
ANDERSON: Is that something that you approve of?
CARDINAL: No. that's not part of his--
ANDERSON: It looks to me, Cardinal, like Father Grace is trying to keep McCormack’s arrest secret and avoid scandal. Does it look that way to you?
CARDINAL GEORGE: It’s a public arrest sir. It’s not a secret.
ANDERSON: But right now the only ones that know are Father Grace, father Dan, and the police, right?
FRANCES GEORGE: At this point, yes.
ANDERSON: So the parishioners and the community of faith don’t know?
(Anderson points out that George must have known that McCormack got an attorney because the archdiocese paid for it, right?)
CARDINAL: We pay for a lawyer until there is a conviction or an arrest.
====
Here I go on a tangent:
The way the church responded, paying for the lawyers, keeping the charges quiet: You don’t think pedophiles all over America didn't see that?
And some of them decided to become Catholic priests when they saw that the hierarchy protects the pedophiles in their midst and covers the crimes?
This is MORE PROOF that the Catholic Church is responsible for the epidemic of child sex crimes in America today BECAUSE it empowered pedophiles, the coddling and protecting its criminal priest. Me: it’s time for the church to be forthcoming about the true extent of the crimes.
DEPOSITION CONTINUED:
CARDINAL: I didn't see this memo until after the second arrest.
(Like that's an alibi? Like if you're not paying attention and you're in charge, you're not guilty? )
(Anderson then points out the Vicar for Priests Father Grace asked Father McCormack to tell him everything he said to the police.)
ANDERSON: Now I read this to be Grace asking McCormack to tell him what he had told the police. Now let me put it to you this way. Why is “he said NOTHING ELSE” to the police and the “NOTHING ELSE” is in caps.
CARDINAL: I don't know why it’s in all caps. Maybe Father Grace’s training as a defense attorney was instrumental in his reacting this way
(There were multiple detectives who interviewed McCormack and they interviewed the child, and everyone believed the allegations. )
ANDERSON: Is that the way you read this, Cardinal?
FRANCES GEORGE: I read this a couple of weeks ago. I deeply regret that the police did not keep Dan in custody.
ANDERSON: Did you read this a couple of weeks ago for the first time in prepping for this deposition?
FRANCES GEORGE: It was one of the documents given to me, yes.
ANDERSON: That was the first time you've seen this in, in preparation for this today?
GEORGE: As far as I can recall. . . . . .
(George says his staff, all of them, working together hard, were unable to find evidence against McCormack.)
GEORGE: I kept asking whether or not we could pursue this case and do the investigation. Each time I was told they're still trying to get the allegation together, in the form to be tried by the Review Board.
(Anderson then trips up the Cardinal asking how accused priest Rickard L. Bennett could have stayed in ministry with all the allegations, INCLUDING ones gives to the Review Board
Frances George claimed he knew nothing about the McCormack charges, even after the Review Board was reviewing them?
It turns out Father Bennett was coaching a basketball team right up until:
ANDERSON: Until yesterday. He was coaching while under these so -called restrictions and monitoring?
GEORGE: Yes that's right.
ANDERSON: The last sentence of this says it was reported to Fr. Fitzgerald that Father McCormack took the boys to Dave and Busters. That's a bar, isn’t it? Okay, well it’s an arcade, restaurant, and bar. Then McCormack returned the boys home at the end of the day.
GEORGE: That's what it says.
ANDERSON: So just to get this right. He’s under restriction while he’s alleged to have been doing this. This is while he’s under monitoring?
GEORGE: That's correct.
(J’ACCUSE! page 145)
ANDERSON: Cardinal, it sounds to me like you're more concerned about the rights of the accused priests than you are the rights and the safety of the children out there. What do you say to that?
CARDINAL: I say you’re mistaken, sir. It is the protection of the children that is always primary but within a process that presupposes some fairness. . . . . .
(Blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah)
PAGE 149 BACK FROM BREAK, BEGINNING OF VIDEO 4
Cardinal: How would the police let someone go that they thought was a threat?
ANDERSON: Because Father Grace urged them to let him go. That's why they let him go. Father Grace said please let him come back tomorrow.
(ME: AND ARRANGED FOR HIS DEFENSE ATTORNEYS)
CHURCH ATTORNEY KLENK: Objection. We don’t need to have an argument here with the witness.
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT:
CARDINAL: “I don't recall ever having got that information given to me”)
(Summary: In truth the documents he claims he never saw was sent from Leah McCluskey to Bishop Paprocki, and Fathers Akczorowski, Bonaccorsi, Legges, and O’Malley and Cardinal George is on the distribution list)
(Summary: Father Dubi was monitoring Bennett. They took a trip to Mexico together while Dubi was monitoring Bennett. In fact Dubi and Bennett own property together. The Card thought Dubi was the perfect monitor for Bennett because they were such good friends.)
ME: Okay, read the next one and tell me if it doesn't sound like the Cardinal is making up stories here:
(The Cardinal Interrupts as he suddenly thinks up answer to previous question)
CARDINAL: You raised a very good question, have I ever gone back to the Review Board once they had decided there is no reasonable cause. . . I did that at least once that I can recall, when the accuser came forward and explained. It was Review Board, the one we have now that had made that finding, that there was no reasonable cause, but that she (the victim) wanted to reopen her case. I asked the Board to open the case again.
ANDERSON: Who was that? What priest?
CARDINAL: It was against Father Bennett -- No it was not. Again, these cases some years back, it was another priest?
A: Who was it?
CARDINAL: I can’t recall his last name. His first name is John.
(ME: okay wait a minute. With months of preparation for this deposition with his posh suite attorneys, the Cardinal only now while under oath suddenly remember an incident critical to the case. It’s a lie, bare faced and given probably looking straight into Anderson’s eyes. That's what these guys do. Lying under oath is not as bad as besmirching the reputation of the church. Because Church hierarchy think they are above the laws of man)
MORE DEPOSITION OF CARDINAL GEORGE
(Here’s a throwaway line that gave me the total creeps - it’s about pedophile priest Richard L. Bennett being put back into a parish after lots of allegations)
ANDERSON: Are you aware that at that time Bennett was the only priests in that parish?
CARDINAL: I believe he was - He may have had a resident living with him but I'm not sure
(ME: A resident living with him????)
p. 176;
CARD: I'm sorry, I'm a little confused. Which allegations are we talking about here.
(ME: There are so many accusations against pedophile priests he can’t keep them straight.)
(For details on Father Richard Bennett’s spots on his scrotum go to around page 197 to 199 or so, I'm not running them here, but it’s all in detail there, the attorneys debate: are they age spots or freckles. That's the level of respect to which the Catholic Church has taken the courts.)
Page 218
ANDERSON: Cardinal, you just said we just need one report to take action, didn't you?
CARDINAL: Yes
AND: Well, think back to those two women that were the original victims -- doesn't it seem at this point in time that you had a duty. . .?
CARD: I think we should revisit that, yes.
(ME: That's how you respond when your own negligence caused several more kids to be raped? You should “revisit” it?)
P. 219
I don't recall. . .
ANDERSON: But this is alarming information, isn’t it?
CARD: Oh it, it, it --
KLENK: Objection to the form of question.
CARD: Well it, it, it, it creates an atmosphere of sexual misconduct surrounding a name.
(ME: HUH?)
AND: Do you know anything more about this than what is reflected in the letter?
CARD: I --
KLENK: Objection
CARD: I don't and the document doesn't know anything about it either. . .
AND: Well when you saw it, what were you going to do about it?
CARD: It was given, I'm sure, to Leah McCluskey
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT: "It was given")
AND: Then what does the Archdiocese do about the allegations?
CARD: If someone unknown previously comes forward with a date for the alleged abuse which is still unknown and that someone is willing to say that he or she was a minor when the abuse took place, we have a case --
(ME: AGAIN HUH?????)
ANDERSON: Look at 94. There are 11 allegations against Bennett now.
ANDERSON (reading): “PRA Provided Ms. B with Dr. Michael Bland’s name and contact information” That's victim 12?
*******************8
ANDERSON: There are as many as a dozen allegations against Richard L. Bennett
(Anderson only got the documents about them the week before deposition.)
p. 228
ANDERSON: I am absolutely shocked to get this information just this week that there are as many as a dozen allegations against Bennett? It came to me as a complete surprise and I'm tracking everything you are doing on this investigation.
Q: How can you claim that people know all the allegations against Bennett?
CARDINAL: Well, Mr. Anderson, you learn, don’t you, sir, of allegations when accusers come to you and ask to be defended. That's what the archdiocese addresses did in each of these cases with the help of a lawyer. Or the Assistance Ministry outreaches to them. Bennett is out of ministry permanently.
ANDERSON: But people out there believe there was only one allegation. I was led to believe the archdiocese thought there was only one allegation until this week, Cardinal.
CARDINAL: Well the people who are writing in know there are more allegations, and then that all goes into the newspapers, sir.
ANDERSON: How many do you believe he abused?
CARD: I share the Review Board’s convictions. The ones that the Review Board has found reasonable cause to suspect, I'm sure of those.
THE AGREEMENT TO RELEASE THIS DEPOSITION:
ANDERSON: Cardinal, isn’t it time for you to make the information you just shared here on the record known to the public?
CARD: I think the information is public, sir. His name is on the list in the newspapers.
ANDERSON: His removal, according to Dwyer was based on one allegation. The public doesn't know that there are at least a dozen allegations against Bennett.
ON PAGE 232 THE CARDINAL SAYS:
“CARDINAL: I agree we should go back and check again in the two cases where the Review board prior found there was no reasonable cause to suspect.”
(ME: BETTER NO, GO BACK AND RE-CHECK ALL TWELVE ALLEGATIONS.)
ANDERSON: I‘m asking you for a further public dissemination of this information presented here today for the first time. Will you consider that?
CARD: Of course I’ll consider anything we can do to make sure more victims come forward and know that they are not alone.
AND: How many allegations did you know of on July 14, 2008, when you wrote this letter?
CARDINAL: What I had in mind was Jane Doe One, that was what his letter was about. I am trying to respond to that.
(DOESN'T MENTION THE OTHER ELEVEN OR SO ALLEGATIONS IN HIS LETTER)
ANDERSON: But here you write he’ll be returned to ministry unless there are other charges.
Excuse me? Unless there are other charges? Aren’t you implying here that there are no other charges against Bennett?
CARD: No. I can’t tell people about other victims. I can’t divulge that kind of information.
(ME: They always try to make themselves look like they take all their actions with prayer and guidance from some power up above, when all they're doing is obstructing justice.)
ANDERSON: You could tell him in the letter that there are multiple allegations against Father Bennett, couldn't you?
CARDINAL: I did tell him that (there were multiple allegations) by saying “unless there are other charges to be investigated.”
ANDERSON: Uh, no. That tells him there are no other allegations.
CARDINAL: No, but that's enough to tell him that just because he’s concerned about one case doesn't mean it’s the only case. That's what I meant to say.
(ME: Double flip flop backwards total balderash logic. The above answer from the Cardinal makes absolutely no sense at all, it just fills up paper in the Answer section of the deposition transcript.)
******
Page 239
(TALK ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE THEMSELVES LOOK GOOD, READ THIS:)
(The Cardinal is explaining why he doesn't tell victims there are other victims and other allegations against the same priest):
ANDERSON: You go on to say (in July 2006 letter) “Of course I hope Father Bennett is innocent, who would not.”
CARDINAL: I hope all the charges are not true, because true charges mean that somebody has been abused. That's a terrible, terrible development in someone’s life.
(ME: Oh thanks, Card, for all your compassion for the victims.)
CARDINAL: You always hope that the allegation isn’t quite what the accuser says it is.
ANDERSON; Why didn't you tell this writer that there were multiple allegations? Why didn't you do that?
(The Cardinal calls the victims. “The accusers.”
ANDERSON: You call them accusers like this is unsubstantiated, don’t you?
CARDINAL: It’s the word he used in his letter to me.
(I'm AT PAGE 242 when I realize this cultural connection:
"I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" --Renault. Casablanca, 1942)
*******
ANOTHER CARDINAL EXCUSE:
(p. 246 the Cardinal knew pedophile priest Norbert J. Maday was a perpetrator in 2000 and did not laicize the priest until late 2007.
ANDERSON: Do you know how many allegations of sex abuse have been recorded against Maday?
CARD: I don't know the number.
ANDERSON: My staff has counted between 35 and 45. Does that come as a shock or news to you?
CARD: I didn't know it was that high but I knew there were a good number. . .
CARDINAL: I consider Maday a danger to children and I made that case to the State to keep him in custody to protect children.
ANDERSON: Cardinal, the attorney for the State of Wisconsin who is trying to commit Maday reported to me that you and your office refuse to provide information they need to civilly commit him.
KLENK: Objection
ANDERSON: Those who are trying to commit Maday say that you are refusing to cooperate.
KLENK; Objection.
CARDINAL: It’s news to me. I wrote a letter, maybe two.
ANDERSON: They were trying to get files and allegations regarding Maday so they could commit him as a predator sexual offender after his release. They told me your office would not give them the files, they had to get them from me. Do you know anything about that?
CARDINAL: No, I don't. I wrote two letters, I believe.
(Maday is the priest convict who was able to do a mass for his family members, discussion on this is around P. 248)
ANOTHER EXCUSE FROM THE CARDINAL:
ANDERSON: So the benefit to Maday of doing the Oshkosh program would likely be early release.
CARD: This was 1997 before we knew more. We wanted him to recognize the evil that he had done, the abuse of children which he could not do. His only chance was to appeal for an early release. Early release meant keep him in treatment.
ANDERSON: Okay.
CARDINAL: Early release is the carrot that is dangled in front of him to keep the hope of early release there. . .
p. 253 bottom
ANDERSON: Maday is being paid by the Archdiocese while he’s in prison, is that right?
CARDINAL: He gets a small stipend, as long as he is a priest. . .
(And as for the letter suggesting Maday be released to the Chicago Archdiocese for monitoring)
CARDINAL: We wouldn't write a letter like this today.
(ME: The rest of the world knew about pedophilia by 1999 so if Cardinals and Bishops were this out of touch, it’s the church’s liability entirely-- all the way at the top.)
******
THE CARDINAL SOUNDS A LITTLE WORN DOWN BY P. 260
ANDERSON: You were suggesting that Maday contact the archdiocese of Green Bay because there had been public criticism of the Archdiocese of Chicago for attempting to influence his incarceration?
CARDINAL: Uh-huh.
AND: Is that right?
CARD: That was -- was told me. I wasn’t aware of that.
P. 261
ANDERSON: (READS) It’s important for Bishop Mycielo (Green Bay) to intercede with the governor in his own name and not merely convey the message of the Chicago Archdiocese. We feel this is important because the media (will) take on the Story that Chicago was attempting to influence the way things are done in Wisconsin.
ANDERSON: Did you ever let anybody know you were working for the early release of Maday?
CARDINAL: It never came up.
ANDERSON: And the last paragraph, from 2003 (reads) an allegation that he had fondled genitals and gave minors alcohol and pot and that he was in bed with somebody at a hotel? The Review Board voted unanimously that there was reasonable cause to suspect misconduct occurred.
Q: Did you follow their recommendation?
CARDINAL: The list of those who would be laicized was being assembled. . . in 2003 we were beginning to get the cases together.
AND: So it took four years until late 2007.
CARD: Well for a man in prison and therefore no danger to anyone - It took too long probably but he’s laicized now
(ME: oh well not my problem anymore.)
ANDERSON: Well if you’d been successful in his early release, he would have been a danger to these kids?
CARD: Yes.
KLENK: Objection.
********
MORE CARDINAL EXCUSES:
P. 272-274
ANDERSON: There was nothing keeping you from removing McCormack, was there?
CARDINAL: Except you can remove from ministry an offending priest, not an accused priest.
AND: You have to remove a priest from ministry who poses a risk to children, don’t you?
CARD: Within -- within the rules that govern my conduct.
(ME: Again claiming to live by an elusive esoteric set of laws that apply only to the bishops on up and don’t have anything to do with the rest of us, even if by living by their esoteric laws, horrible crimes are committed in their communities - by them. )
ANDERSON: Is there a code of secrecy among the clerics?
CARD: No.
AND: Then why, Cardinal, did you not until recently make known the names of offenders in the Chicago Archdiocese?
CARD: When they were removed from ministry they were made known.
ANDERSON: I'm saying before 2002? Between 1997 and 2002 can you name one instance where the parishioners were told why the priest was removed?
CARD: Well I don't know right now that I can recall any such removals.
(In case you got lost, the above answer reveals this logic:
We announce the names when we remove them,
but since we did not remove that one,
we did not announce his name.)
ANDERSON: Isn’t it true that up until the January 31, 2006 lawsuit we filed, the names weren’t made public? ANDERSON: Is it your testimony that the names of offender priests were posted on the Archdiocese website?
(ME: CHECK out this slick slippery use of the tongue. For shame, Cardinal:)
CARDINAL: Well, all the names of all priests in the Archdiocese were on the website, and anyone could write and ask for a complete file of the priest’s history and then they would know if there was an allegation.
(ME: Did you catch that? If you took time to read the files of every priest in the Archdiocese you could see which ones have allegations in their files. That is how the Archdiocese made the perpetrator names public.)
AND: What prevented you, as Cardinal Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, from making those names public until 2006?
CARD: They were public, sir.
AND: I'm talking about a list by the Archdiocese.
CARDINAL: The process wasn’t perfect, reasonable cause to suspect is a very, very low threshold and, therefore, it wasn’t perhaps fair --
(ME: FAIR!??@!@ These priests gave up their right to fair a few felonies back)
p. 290
AND: What does the archdiocese of Chicago do to care for victims of priest sex abuse?
CARD: When an allegation is made, even before we know there’s reasonable cause to suspect, the VAM is encouraged to reach out and offer spiritual help, counseling.
(ME: You think I can give Catholic professionals any credibility or trust when it comes to spiritual counseling? What an affront, an selfish offering that does not consider the victim or what they really need.)
CARD: (Cont’d): Part of that help of course is monetary settlements-
(ME: Not unless you go through legal hoops and spend years fighting church attorneys)
CARD: My conversations with them I think have been helpful.
*******
Another Side trip
The Victims Deserve the Same Consideration as the Perpetrators:
Okay, for decades the pedophile priests got long term inpatient treatment with almost luxurious surroundings. Not to mention the church provides them with defense attorneys, and advocates for them with parole officers.
Where is the recovery center slash spa for the crime victims?
******
The Cardinal seems to get it for about one minute
CARDINAL: (re helping victims) It always stays with them, even when they seem to be in control of their life. If you touch a certain button, it’s as if it happened yesterday for many of them.
(So, Where is the treatment center for victims?)
ANDERSON: Why did you ask Defenbaugh and Associates to look at the archdiocese and make a report?
CARD: So we could know what went wrong with the McCormack case.
AND: Does this report recommend any changes?
CARD: Judgments have been made to look at our policies and make changes in the way we treat cases.
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT:
“Judgments have been made to look at our policies.”
Who? Where? What When?)
*****
(RE A LETTER ABOUT MCCORMACK)
ANDERSON: Was this letter sent to you?
CARDINAL: No it was not. Not it was not. This is very painful.
AND: Was this letter sent to the office of the Archdiocese of Chicago?
CARD: No it was not.
AND: Had you received this letter what would you have done?
CARD: Had I known that DCFS was investigating that would have been reason to remove father McCormack from ministry. Had I received this, that would have been the samae as the Review Baoard and he would have been out, And that's why I find it very painful to know that we were not surprised of that information.
(Over soap opera music) If I had only seen this.
Isn’t he in charge of the archdiocese?
Not seeing letters is no excuse.)
ANDERSON: Why is that? Why do you find it painful.
CARD: Because children were abused after this date when DCFS knew --
(ME: What? All of a sudden you care about children? A little too little too late, if you ask this Chicago survivor. No matter how many tears of pain are cried by how high a hierarch in this meaningless hierarchy. )
It continues:
ANDERSON: But you knew they had arrested McCormack, didn't you? You knew that didn't you?
CARD: No I did not.
AND: You didn't know they had arrested him?
CARD: No.
AND: What do you call what they did with McCormack?
CARD: They released him. That was - they had terminated their investigation I thought.
(They claim to run by their own set of rules. Yet they say if a district attorney releases a suspect , the suspect is totally innocent. They only go along with our laws when it is convenient.
This isn’t Catch 22 it’s Catch 44
We're bishops, we answer to a higher power. But if the cops arrest our pedophile priest and then send him home, he must not be guilty, as when it is convenient we bow to the civil law authority. )
******
(Do not take a sip of coffee before reading this line or you’ll spit it out bursting out laughingJ
ANDERSON: The Defenbaugh report was done at your request under intense public pressure:
CARDINAL: We wanted to know what went wrong. A system that had worked that had been effective in protecting children, suddenly didn't work.
ANDERSON: Why don’t you make this stuff public?
CARDINAL: What stuff?
AND: The exhibits we reviewed here today. Why haven’t these files been made known to the public?
CARD: The question is to take incidents that involve minor children and publish them as stories?
AND: Are you done with the answer?
CARD: The victims themselves would not want to see their stories paraded in public, I think.
AND: The information we've shared with you today is not accessible to victims, as to what the archdiocese knew and when they knew it.
CARDINAL: We publicized the allegations as they came forward. We went to parishes where victims had lived.
(ME: Yeah right, kids now adults who were sodomized by priests behind the altar are really going to be attending church at the same parish ten or twenty years later.
THINK!!!)
******
(The deposition drawing to a close)
CARDINAL: Everyone concerned and I as well thought that Maday was a danger.
ANDERSON: So why did it take you four months to write the letter?
(The cardinal again blames his legal department and his vicar.)
ANDERSON: That's all I have. Thanks, Cardinal.
end of deposition
*************
POST NOTE:
The deposition begins: -
ANDERSON: This was delivered to us as we were preparing last night at 6:30 PM, Exhibit D, which the Archdiocese discloses to us for the first time, there are over 200 pages of documents, what they call supplementary production of materials, ranging from Becker to Bennett to Craig to Hagan and right down the list to page three. Again, it would be impossible to have reviewed on such short notice.
******
Weirdest thing, when the medial relations woman from Chicago archdiocese called me back to correct me and show that the deposition was not taken down, it just is no longer announced and linked on the front page. You go down the column under the Cardinal's picture, and at the bottom, click on "Misconduct."
As soon as the phone rang with her calling, things began to fly around my room. I answered, there was an awful interference noise when I picked up the phone, and as we said hello my laptop fell off its shelf to the desk, luckily didn't break.
Weirdest thing.
CUT THIS 'GRAPH, NOW PUTTING IT BACK IN: In a priest's culture sex is a series of pathologies to be studied in psychology seminars, all while trying to be celibate, and the only persons you interact with are other men and boys trying to be celibate. After reading the deposition of Francis Cardinal George that used to be posted on the Chicago Archdiocese website, it became clear to me that a sure cause of the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church is the way priests are cut off from the reality that they are human beings with human sexuality, like it or not. In order to maintain their celibacy while plagued with a sex drive, the priests end up grabbing vulnerable children, developing a private secret sex life by intimidating their sex targets, gullible children. Over and over again the way to solve this problem seems to be to let priests live a normal life, get married and have children, like every other human being on the planet. As long as priests continue to be cloistered away, they will never have normal sex lives. Any sexual activity they participate in has to be secret. So the doors are open for perversions.
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
The Catholic Church laicizes pedophile priests, then effectively turns them loose on society without putting them on a law enforcement database, admits the Archbishop of Chicago. While pedophile priest Dan McCormack was under monitoring, he took two boys to an arcade-bar, another predator priest took a vacation with his monitor, with whom he also shares ownership of a resort condo. And are those age spots or freckles on Father Bennett’s scrotum? This and more you can read in the January 2008 deposition of the Archbishop of Chicago, posted at the archdiocese website, under "Misconduct."
Reading the Cardinal's answers, you see priests living in a culture where sex is a series of pathologies to be studied in seminars, all while trying to be celibate, and the only persons in their personal lives are other men and boys trying to be celibate. You almost start to feel sorry for the guy, so cut off from the world he couldn't see a pedophile epidemic in his own environs - wait a minute.
Priests may be cut off from normal lives, but rape of a child is never okay no matter how you look at it. It seems Catholic hierarchy live by their own set of laws, somewhere way above our petty little human laws. So an Oblate of Mary Immaculate can take an oath on a Bible, then look you in the eyes and tell you a pack of lies.
In the Cardinal’s deposition, excerpted and scruitinized at length below, George answers in a series of passive construction phrases. Guilty parties use passive construction phrases when they are forced to answer questions. It is a way to state guilt, without actually admitting it was you. In Cardinal George’s answers you continuously read phrases like:
“That had been done.”
“It had been handled”
Look closely. There’s no subject, no identification of who actually did it, just “it had been done, it was done."
Very slippery
While Cardinal George was a high head honcho with the Oblates in Rome, three Oblates in America acted out as pedophiles. Even when he returned to the US in the early eighties, George did nothing to inform parishioners about those three priests.
The Civil authorities took care of it. It had been handled.
As a Bishop in Yakima Washington, George knew about the 1985 report by Tom Doyle to American bishops:
CARDINAL: “It was referred to, it was tangential to the discussion as I recall.”
Re: The 1962 Crimen solicitaciones document:
CARDINAL: “I was a seminarian in 1962 and in moral theology class, that was a document that was given us when we discussed the sacrament of penance.”
“(Solicitation) is a sin and a crime that is reserved to the Holy See. The protocol would demand that the Holy see review the case, saving the seal of the sacrament which is a very sacred confidentiality privilege in our sacramental system.
This “confidentiality” that is a “privilege” of their “sacraments” is often a way to cover up crimes.
Of course the best way for law enforcement to get to that information is:
We need a Whistle Blower.
Try this:
****************
Dear Catholic Priests of America,
Do you want to go down in Christian history? Do you feel you get no respect as a priest because of all the pedophiles?
Try being a whistle blower.
Are you a Catholic priest not getting the respect you deserve?
Consider blowing the whistle. Sure it will be difficult, and you may have to give up that great guaranteed income for life,
BUT
The way your church hides criminal activity by calling it part of a sacrament, it’s time to call law enforcement. There is no one in a better position to bring a close to this crisis, than you, Father (insert name).
Or contact a journalist to release the true story
Remember Good Priests Blow the Whistle, not little boys
My email address is cityofangelslady@yahoo.com
I’ll keep your identity a secret.
Blow the whistle through City of Angels Network.
*****************
Back to deposition of the Cardinal:
“. . . a very sacred confidentiality privilege in our sacramental system.”
(In his testimony the Cardinal Confirmed:)
There is a place where evidence is kept secret and that when Crimen Solicitaciones came out in 1962:
“What was new was that they had to tell someone to be sure the crime never was repeated again, even though it was within the seal.”
(ME: “Within the seal” - That is a euphemism for evidence of sex crimes on children by priests be put in a hiding place.)
CARD: For the first time, it required him to make the report (to the Pope)
AND: And it required that the report be secret at all times?
(LONG paragraph of Church Attorney’s objections, then:)
CARD: It’s required to disclose (the sex crime) for the first time…to those who have responsibility for the sacrament of the Church, namely to the Holy see.
AND: And only them, correct?
CARD: That's correct. .
(RE: Monitoring of accused priests that went on during the time Bennett and McCormack were serial raping children in the archdiocese.)
ANDERSON: Do you agree with the finding of Childers that there was a gross deficiency in the monitoring of priests by the Archdiocese.
CARDINAL: It was inadequate if you're talking about supervising convicted criminals. . .
ANDERSON: What do you mean?
CARD: People who - whom the state has found guilty, that's his standard. And a priest’s supposed police power. That's where the discrepancy is found.
PAGE 47
RIDICULOUS CLAIMS
ANDERSON: You know enough about this topic (pedophilia) now to know that once a cleric or an adult offends a child one time, that they’re at risk for reoffending?
WITNESS: I think in the studies that I read after 2002 I came to that conclusion for the first time. I realized the recidivism rate was unacceptable to take a chance.
ME: HE DIDN'T KNOW THIS UNTIL 2002?
If that answer is true it shows priests need to be released from their cloisters NOW before more sex crimes are committed. How could anyone have their head so deep in the ground to not know about pedophilia until 2002????
No. He’s not that naïve.
He Must Be Lying.
P. 69
CARDINAL: The Defenbaugh report showed how information that was available was not shared
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT:
“Information that was available was not shared.”
Then
“judgments were made based on information available.”)
(I think the following is the part the Cardinal wanted the Public to read when he released his deposition.)
CARD: . . . and, therefore, the judgments were made on the information available. It was not adequate and a boy was abused and this is - this is something that I have to live with because it’s a terrible crime and it was on my watch.
But
I acted on the information that was given to me.
(It takes Jeff Anderson a whole page of transcript to recover and then)
ANDERSON: If I'm hearing you correctly, you're testifying that the recidivism rate and the risk an offender who’s offended once poses to reoffend-- the rate and risk of recidivism really came to you for the first time post-2002? Is that what you're saying?
CARDINAL: I think that's true, Yes, I think that's true.
ANDERSON: Is it your position that those 33 priests who have been credibly accused and removed from ministry after 1997 have all stopped abusing?
CHURCH ATTORNEY (Mr. Klenk): Objection
More discussion then:
CARDINAL: We have no supervision of laicized priests. Some are in nursing homes, but I guess yes, (they are not supervised after being laicized.)
(ME: So Chicago has been laicizing priests with credible accusations against them and just turning them loose on the society. Cardinal George just admitted it.)
More from the Cardinal George’s January 2008 deposition:
Q: And you assumed that because the police released (Daniel McCormack) from custody that he was thus not guilty?
A: Well they also didn't charge him and I did assume that, sir.
Q: Father Rassas the Vicar General was promoted to Auxiliary Bishop following this failure?
A: That is a Roman appointment, not mine.
Q: You're the one that ultimately appointed McCormack, right?
CARD: That's correct. I didn't see this (exhibit).
ANDERSON: And it’s not because it wasn’t available to you, but it’s because you didn't look or ask. Correct?
CARDINAL: The information wasn’t given to me.
(ME: Passive Construction alert: “The information wasn’t given to me.”)
Q: Rassas didn't tell you?
A: No he did not tell me that.
Q: So McCormack was made dean by you?
A: Yes, I appoint deans.
Q: Who told you that McCormack was innocent?
CARDINAL: The police let him go, sir. He was innocent as far as they were concerned. . . his release to me meant the police couldn't charge him and they had reason to believe he was not a danger to children.
ANDERSON: You've never really believed in the zero tolerance policy, have you?
CARDINAL: I beg your pardon sir, but that's entire inaccurate.
ANDERSON: McCormack wasn’t even released so much as allowed to go home, but police told McCormack to come back next day, it says in a memo in the file of Ed Grace. August 30, 2005.
(Anderon picks up an exhibit, a memo from Father Grace that was in McCormack’s file, and reads it to Cardinal George. )
ANDERSON: “It states I was called at Queen of All Saints rectory by Reverend McCormack. He informed me that he was being questioned by police at the local police station, concerning an allegation made against him by the mother of a ten year old boy.
“He put the detective on the phone to explain the circumstances to me,” correct?
CARDINAL: Yes.
ANDERSON: It goes on to say in the last sentence of the next paragraph, Father McCormack succeeded in lowering the boy’s pants and fondling -- fondled his genitalia. That's what it stated, doesn't it?
CARDINAL: Yes.
ANDERSON: It goes on to state in the next sentence, Detective found the boy’s story credible.
ANDERSON: “The next sentence says I then spoke with Dan again and advised him not to discuss the matter further with police.
ANDERSON, CONT’D: So as I read this and as I just read it to you, Father Grace, your Vicar for Priests, is telling Dan McCormack, Don’t talk to the police, don’t tell them that you've abused other kids. don’t tell them anything.
ANDERSON: Is that something that you approve of?
CARDINAL: No. that's not part of his--
ANDERSON: It looks to me, Cardinal, like Father Grace is trying to keep McCormack’s arrest secret and avoid scandal. Does it look that way to you?
CARDINAL GEORGE: It’s a public arrest sir. It’s not a secret.
ANDERSON: But right now the only ones that know are Father Grace, father Dan, and the police, right?
FRANCES GEORGE: At this point, yes.
ANDERSON: So the parishioners and the community of faith don’t know?
(Anderson points out that George must have known that McCormack got an attorney because the archdiocese paid for it, right?)
CARDINAL: We pay for a lawyer until there is a conviction or an arrest.
====
Here I go on a tangent:
The way the church responded, paying for the lawyers, keeping the charges quiet: You don’t think pedophiles all over America didn't see that?
And some of them decided to become Catholic priests when they saw that the hierarchy protects the pedophiles in their midst and covers the crimes?
This is MORE PROOF that the Catholic Church is responsible for the epidemic of child sex crimes in America today BECAUSE it empowered pedophiles, the coddling and protecting its criminal priest. Me: it’s time for the church to be forthcoming about the true extent of the crimes.
DEPOSITION CONTINUED:
CARDINAL: I didn't see this memo until after the second arrest.
(Like that's an alibi? Like if you're not paying attention and you're in charge, you're not guilty? )
(Anderson then points out the Vicar for Priests Father Grace asked Father McCormack to tell him everything he said to the police.)
ANDERSON: Now I read this to be Grace asking McCormack to tell him what he had told the police. Now let me put it to you this way. Why is “he said NOTHING ELSE” to the police and the “NOTHING ELSE” is in caps.
CARDINAL: I don't know why it’s in all caps. Maybe Father Grace’s training as a defense attorney was instrumental in his reacting this way
(There were multiple detectives who interviewed McCormack and they interviewed the child, and everyone believed the allegations. )
ANDERSON: Is that the way you read this, Cardinal?
FRANCES GEORGE: I read this a couple of weeks ago. I deeply regret that the police did not keep Dan in custody.
ANDERSON: Did you read this a couple of weeks ago for the first time in prepping for this deposition?
FRANCES GEORGE: It was one of the documents given to me, yes.
ANDERSON: That was the first time you've seen this in, in preparation for this today?
GEORGE: As far as I can recall. . . . . .
(George says his staff, all of them, working together hard, were unable to find evidence against McCormack.)
GEORGE: I kept asking whether or not we could pursue this case and do the investigation. Each time I was told they're still trying to get the allegation together, in the form to be tried by the Review Board.
(Anderson then trips up the Cardinal asking how accused priest Rickard L. Bennett could have stayed in ministry with all the allegations, INCLUDING ones gives to the Review Board
Frances George claimed he knew nothing about the McCormack charges, even after the Review Board was reviewing them?
It turns out Father Bennett was coaching a basketball team right up until:
ANDERSON: Until yesterday. He was coaching while under these so -called restrictions and monitoring?
GEORGE: Yes that's right.
ANDERSON: The last sentence of this says it was reported to Fr. Fitzgerald that Father McCormack took the boys to Dave and Busters. That's a bar, isn’t it? Okay, well it’s an arcade, restaurant, and bar. Then McCormack returned the boys home at the end of the day.
GEORGE: That's what it says.
ANDERSON: So just to get this right. He’s under restriction while he’s alleged to have been doing this. This is while he’s under monitoring?
GEORGE: That's correct.
(J’ACCUSE! page 145)
ANDERSON: Cardinal, it sounds to me like you're more concerned about the rights of the accused priests than you are the rights and the safety of the children out there. What do you say to that?
CARDINAL: I say you’re mistaken, sir. It is the protection of the children that is always primary but within a process that presupposes some fairness. . . . . .
(Blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah)
PAGE 149 BACK FROM BREAK, BEGINNING OF VIDEO 4
Cardinal: How would the police let someone go that they thought was a threat?
ANDERSON: Because Father Grace urged them to let him go. That's why they let him go. Father Grace said please let him come back tomorrow.
(ME: AND ARRANGED FOR HIS DEFENSE ATTORNEYS)
CHURCH ATTORNEY KLENK: Objection. We don’t need to have an argument here with the witness.
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT:
CARDINAL: “I don't recall ever having got that information given to me”)
(Summary: In truth the documents he claims he never saw was sent from Leah McCluskey to Bishop Paprocki, and Fathers Akczorowski, Bonaccorsi, Legges, and O’Malley and Cardinal George is on the distribution list)
(Summary: Father Dubi was monitoring Bennett. They took a trip to Mexico together while Dubi was monitoring Bennett. In fact Dubi and Bennett own property together. The Card thought Dubi was the perfect monitor for Bennett because they were such good friends.)
ME: Okay, read the next one and tell me if it doesn't sound like the Cardinal is making up stories here:
(The Cardinal Interrupts as he suddenly thinks up answer to previous question)
CARDINAL: You raised a very good question, have I ever gone back to the Review Board once they had decided there is no reasonable cause. . . I did that at least once that I can recall, when the accuser came forward and explained. It was Review Board, the one we have now that had made that finding, that there was no reasonable cause, but that she (the victim) wanted to reopen her case. I asked the Board to open the case again.
ANDERSON: Who was that? What priest?
CARDINAL: It was against Father Bennett -- No it was not. Again, these cases some years back, it was another priest?
A: Who was it?
CARDINAL: I can’t recall his last name. His first name is John.
(ME: okay wait a minute. With months of preparation for this deposition with his posh suite attorneys, the Cardinal only now while under oath suddenly remember an incident critical to the case. It’s a lie, bare faced and given probably looking straight into Anderson’s eyes. That's what these guys do. Lying under oath is not as bad as besmirching the reputation of the church. Because Church hierarchy think they are above the laws of man)
MORE DEPOSITION OF CARDINAL GEORGE
(Here’s a throwaway line that gave me the total creeps - it’s about pedophile priest Richard L. Bennett being put back into a parish after lots of allegations)
ANDERSON: Are you aware that at that time Bennett was the only priests in that parish?
CARDINAL: I believe he was - He may have had a resident living with him but I'm not sure
(ME: A resident living with him????)
p. 176;
CARD: I'm sorry, I'm a little confused. Which allegations are we talking about here.
(ME: There are so many accusations against pedophile priests he can’t keep them straight.)
(For details on Father Richard Bennett’s spots on his scrotum go to around page 197 to 199 or so, I'm not running them here, but it’s all in detail there, the attorneys debate: are they age spots or freckles. That's the level of respect to which the Catholic Church has taken the courts.)
Page 218
ANDERSON: Cardinal, you just said we just need one report to take action, didn't you?
CARDINAL: Yes
AND: Well, think back to those two women that were the original victims -- doesn't it seem at this point in time that you had a duty. . .?
CARD: I think we should revisit that, yes.
(ME: That's how you respond when your own negligence caused several more kids to be raped? You should “revisit” it?)
P. 219
I don't recall. . .
ANDERSON: But this is alarming information, isn’t it?
CARD: Oh it, it, it --
KLENK: Objection to the form of question.
CARD: Well it, it, it, it creates an atmosphere of sexual misconduct surrounding a name.
(ME: HUH?)
AND: Do you know anything more about this than what is reflected in the letter?
CARD: I --
KLENK: Objection
CARD: I don't and the document doesn't know anything about it either. . .
AND: Well when you saw it, what were you going to do about it?
CARD: It was given, I'm sure, to Leah McCluskey
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT: "It was given")
AND: Then what does the Archdiocese do about the allegations?
CARD: If someone unknown previously comes forward with a date for the alleged abuse which is still unknown and that someone is willing to say that he or she was a minor when the abuse took place, we have a case --
(ME: AGAIN HUH?????)
ANDERSON: Look at 94. There are 11 allegations against Bennett now.
ANDERSON (reading): “PRA Provided Ms. B with Dr. Michael Bland’s name and contact information” That's victim 12?
*******************8
ANDERSON: There are as many as a dozen allegations against Richard L. Bennett
(Anderson only got the documents about them the week before deposition.)
p. 228
ANDERSON: I am absolutely shocked to get this information just this week that there are as many as a dozen allegations against Bennett? It came to me as a complete surprise and I'm tracking everything you are doing on this investigation.
Q: How can you claim that people know all the allegations against Bennett?
CARDINAL: Well, Mr. Anderson, you learn, don’t you, sir, of allegations when accusers come to you and ask to be defended. That's what the archdiocese addresses did in each of these cases with the help of a lawyer. Or the Assistance Ministry outreaches to them. Bennett is out of ministry permanently.
ANDERSON: But people out there believe there was only one allegation. I was led to believe the archdiocese thought there was only one allegation until this week, Cardinal.
CARDINAL: Well the people who are writing in know there are more allegations, and then that all goes into the newspapers, sir.
ANDERSON: How many do you believe he abused?
CARD: I share the Review Board’s convictions. The ones that the Review Board has found reasonable cause to suspect, I'm sure of those.
THE AGREEMENT TO RELEASE THIS DEPOSITION:
ANDERSON: Cardinal, isn’t it time for you to make the information you just shared here on the record known to the public?
CARD: I think the information is public, sir. His name is on the list in the newspapers.
ANDERSON: His removal, according to Dwyer was based on one allegation. The public doesn't know that there are at least a dozen allegations against Bennett.
ON PAGE 232 THE CARDINAL SAYS:
“CARDINAL: I agree we should go back and check again in the two cases where the Review board prior found there was no reasonable cause to suspect.”
(ME: BETTER NO, GO BACK AND RE-CHECK ALL TWELVE ALLEGATIONS.)
ANDERSON: I‘m asking you for a further public dissemination of this information presented here today for the first time. Will you consider that?
CARD: Of course I’ll consider anything we can do to make sure more victims come forward and know that they are not alone.
AND: How many allegations did you know of on July 14, 2008, when you wrote this letter?
CARDINAL: What I had in mind was Jane Doe One, that was what his letter was about. I am trying to respond to that.
(DOESN'T MENTION THE OTHER ELEVEN OR SO ALLEGATIONS IN HIS LETTER)
ANDERSON: But here you write he’ll be returned to ministry unless there are other charges.
Excuse me? Unless there are other charges? Aren’t you implying here that there are no other charges against Bennett?
CARD: No. I can’t tell people about other victims. I can’t divulge that kind of information.
(ME: They always try to make themselves look like they take all their actions with prayer and guidance from some power up above, when all they're doing is obstructing justice.)
ANDERSON: You could tell him in the letter that there are multiple allegations against Father Bennett, couldn't you?
CARDINAL: I did tell him that (there were multiple allegations) by saying “unless there are other charges to be investigated.”
ANDERSON: Uh, no. That tells him there are no other allegations.
CARDINAL: No, but that's enough to tell him that just because he’s concerned about one case doesn't mean it’s the only case. That's what I meant to say.
(ME: Double flip flop backwards total balderash logic. The above answer from the Cardinal makes absolutely no sense at all, it just fills up paper in the Answer section of the deposition transcript.)
******
Page 239
(TALK ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE THEMSELVES LOOK GOOD, READ THIS:)
(The Cardinal is explaining why he doesn't tell victims there are other victims and other allegations against the same priest):
ANDERSON: You go on to say (in July 2006 letter) “Of course I hope Father Bennett is innocent, who would not.”
CARDINAL: I hope all the charges are not true, because true charges mean that somebody has been abused. That's a terrible, terrible development in someone’s life.
(ME: Oh thanks, Card, for all your compassion for the victims.)
CARDINAL: You always hope that the allegation isn’t quite what the accuser says it is.
ANDERSON; Why didn't you tell this writer that there were multiple allegations? Why didn't you do that?
(The Cardinal calls the victims. “The accusers.”
ANDERSON: You call them accusers like this is unsubstantiated, don’t you?
CARDINAL: It’s the word he used in his letter to me.
(I'm AT PAGE 242 when I realize this cultural connection:
"I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" --Renault. Casablanca, 1942)
*******
ANOTHER CARDINAL EXCUSE:
(p. 246 the Cardinal knew pedophile priest Norbert J. Maday was a perpetrator in 2000 and did not laicize the priest until late 2007.
ANDERSON: Do you know how many allegations of sex abuse have been recorded against Maday?
CARD: I don't know the number.
ANDERSON: My staff has counted between 35 and 45. Does that come as a shock or news to you?
CARD: I didn't know it was that high but I knew there were a good number. . .
CARDINAL: I consider Maday a danger to children and I made that case to the State to keep him in custody to protect children.
ANDERSON: Cardinal, the attorney for the State of Wisconsin who is trying to commit Maday reported to me that you and your office refuse to provide information they need to civilly commit him.
KLENK: Objection
ANDERSON: Those who are trying to commit Maday say that you are refusing to cooperate.
KLENK; Objection.
CARDINAL: It’s news to me. I wrote a letter, maybe two.
ANDERSON: They were trying to get files and allegations regarding Maday so they could commit him as a predator sexual offender after his release. They told me your office would not give them the files, they had to get them from me. Do you know anything about that?
CARDINAL: No, I don't. I wrote two letters, I believe.
(Maday is the priest convict who was able to do a mass for his family members, discussion on this is around P. 248)
ANOTHER EXCUSE FROM THE CARDINAL:
ANDERSON: So the benefit to Maday of doing the Oshkosh program would likely be early release.
CARD: This was 1997 before we knew more. We wanted him to recognize the evil that he had done, the abuse of children which he could not do. His only chance was to appeal for an early release. Early release meant keep him in treatment.
ANDERSON: Okay.
CARDINAL: Early release is the carrot that is dangled in front of him to keep the hope of early release there. . .
p. 253 bottom
ANDERSON: Maday is being paid by the Archdiocese while he’s in prison, is that right?
CARDINAL: He gets a small stipend, as long as he is a priest. . .
(And as for the letter suggesting Maday be released to the Chicago Archdiocese for monitoring)
CARDINAL: We wouldn't write a letter like this today.
(ME: The rest of the world knew about pedophilia by 1999 so if Cardinals and Bishops were this out of touch, it’s the church’s liability entirely-- all the way at the top.)
******
THE CARDINAL SOUNDS A LITTLE WORN DOWN BY P. 260
ANDERSON: You were suggesting that Maday contact the archdiocese of Green Bay because there had been public criticism of the Archdiocese of Chicago for attempting to influence his incarceration?
CARDINAL: Uh-huh.
AND: Is that right?
CARD: That was -- was told me. I wasn’t aware of that.
P. 261
ANDERSON: (READS) It’s important for Bishop Mycielo (Green Bay) to intercede with the governor in his own name and not merely convey the message of the Chicago Archdiocese. We feel this is important because the media (will) take on the Story that Chicago was attempting to influence the way things are done in Wisconsin.
ANDERSON: Did you ever let anybody know you were working for the early release of Maday?
CARDINAL: It never came up.
ANDERSON: And the last paragraph, from 2003 (reads) an allegation that he had fondled genitals and gave minors alcohol and pot and that he was in bed with somebody at a hotel? The Review Board voted unanimously that there was reasonable cause to suspect misconduct occurred.
Q: Did you follow their recommendation?
CARDINAL: The list of those who would be laicized was being assembled. . . in 2003 we were beginning to get the cases together.
AND: So it took four years until late 2007.
CARD: Well for a man in prison and therefore no danger to anyone - It took too long probably but he’s laicized now
(ME: oh well not my problem anymore.)
ANDERSON: Well if you’d been successful in his early release, he would have been a danger to these kids?
CARD: Yes.
KLENK: Objection.
********
MORE CARDINAL EXCUSES:
P. 272-274
ANDERSON: There was nothing keeping you from removing McCormack, was there?
CARDINAL: Except you can remove from ministry an offending priest, not an accused priest.
AND: You have to remove a priest from ministry who poses a risk to children, don’t you?
CARD: Within -- within the rules that govern my conduct.
(ME: Again claiming to live by an elusive esoteric set of laws that apply only to the bishops on up and don’t have anything to do with the rest of us, even if by living by their esoteric laws, horrible crimes are committed in their communities - by them. )
ANDERSON: Is there a code of secrecy among the clerics?
CARD: No.
AND: Then why, Cardinal, did you not until recently make known the names of offenders in the Chicago Archdiocese?
CARD: When they were removed from ministry they were made known.
ANDERSON: I'm saying before 2002? Between 1997 and 2002 can you name one instance where the parishioners were told why the priest was removed?
CARD: Well I don't know right now that I can recall any such removals.
(In case you got lost, the above answer reveals this logic:
We announce the names when we remove them,
but since we did not remove that one,
we did not announce his name.)
ANDERSON: Isn’t it true that up until the January 31, 2006 lawsuit we filed, the names weren’t made public? ANDERSON: Is it your testimony that the names of offender priests were posted on the Archdiocese website?
(ME: CHECK out this slick slippery use of the tongue. For shame, Cardinal:)
CARDINAL: Well, all the names of all priests in the Archdiocese were on the website, and anyone could write and ask for a complete file of the priest’s history and then they would know if there was an allegation.
(ME: Did you catch that? If you took time to read the files of every priest in the Archdiocese you could see which ones have allegations in their files. That is how the Archdiocese made the perpetrator names public.)
AND: What prevented you, as Cardinal Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, from making those names public until 2006?
CARD: They were public, sir.
AND: I'm talking about a list by the Archdiocese.
CARDINAL: The process wasn’t perfect, reasonable cause to suspect is a very, very low threshold and, therefore, it wasn’t perhaps fair --
(ME: FAIR!??@!@ These priests gave up their right to fair a few felonies back)
p. 290
AND: What does the archdiocese of Chicago do to care for victims of priest sex abuse?
CARD: When an allegation is made, even before we know there’s reasonable cause to suspect, the VAM is encouraged to reach out and offer spiritual help, counseling.
(ME: You think I can give Catholic professionals any credibility or trust when it comes to spiritual counseling? What an affront, an selfish offering that does not consider the victim or what they really need.)
CARD: (Cont’d): Part of that help of course is monetary settlements-
(ME: Not unless you go through legal hoops and spend years fighting church attorneys)
CARD: My conversations with them I think have been helpful.
*******
Another Side trip
The Victims Deserve the Same Consideration as the Perpetrators:
Okay, for decades the pedophile priests got long term inpatient treatment with almost luxurious surroundings. Not to mention the church provides them with defense attorneys, and advocates for them with parole officers.
Where is the recovery center slash spa for the crime victims?
******
The Cardinal seems to get it for about one minute
CARDINAL: (re helping victims) It always stays with them, even when they seem to be in control of their life. If you touch a certain button, it’s as if it happened yesterday for many of them.
(So, Where is the treatment center for victims?)
ANDERSON: Why did you ask Defenbaugh and Associates to look at the archdiocese and make a report?
CARD: So we could know what went wrong with the McCormack case.
AND: Does this report recommend any changes?
CARD: Judgments have been made to look at our policies and make changes in the way we treat cases.
(PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION ALERT:
“Judgments have been made to look at our policies.”
Who? Where? What When?)
*****
(RE A LETTER ABOUT MCCORMACK)
ANDERSON: Was this letter sent to you?
CARDINAL: No it was not. Not it was not. This is very painful.
AND: Was this letter sent to the office of the Archdiocese of Chicago?
CARD: No it was not.
AND: Had you received this letter what would you have done?
CARD: Had I known that DCFS was investigating that would have been reason to remove father McCormack from ministry. Had I received this, that would have been the samae as the Review Baoard and he would have been out, And that's why I find it very painful to know that we were not surprised of that information.
(Over soap opera music) If I had only seen this.
Isn’t he in charge of the archdiocese?
Not seeing letters is no excuse.)
ANDERSON: Why is that? Why do you find it painful.
CARD: Because children were abused after this date when DCFS knew --
(ME: What? All of a sudden you care about children? A little too little too late, if you ask this Chicago survivor. No matter how many tears of pain are cried by how high a hierarch in this meaningless hierarchy. )
It continues:
ANDERSON: But you knew they had arrested McCormack, didn't you? You knew that didn't you?
CARD: No I did not.
AND: You didn't know they had arrested him?
CARD: No.
AND: What do you call what they did with McCormack?
CARD: They released him. That was - they had terminated their investigation I thought.
(They claim to run by their own set of rules. Yet they say if a district attorney releases a suspect , the suspect is totally innocent. They only go along with our laws when it is convenient.
This isn’t Catch 22 it’s Catch 44
We're bishops, we answer to a higher power. But if the cops arrest our pedophile priest and then send him home, he must not be guilty, as when it is convenient we bow to the civil law authority. )
******
(Do not take a sip of coffee before reading this line or you’ll spit it out bursting out laughingJ
ANDERSON: The Defenbaugh report was done at your request under intense public pressure:
CARDINAL: We wanted to know what went wrong. A system that had worked that had been effective in protecting children, suddenly didn't work.
ANDERSON: Why don’t you make this stuff public?
CARDINAL: What stuff?
AND: The exhibits we reviewed here today. Why haven’t these files been made known to the public?
CARD: The question is to take incidents that involve minor children and publish them as stories?
AND: Are you done with the answer?
CARD: The victims themselves would not want to see their stories paraded in public, I think.
AND: The information we've shared with you today is not accessible to victims, as to what the archdiocese knew and when they knew it.
CARDINAL: We publicized the allegations as they came forward. We went to parishes where victims had lived.
(ME: Yeah right, kids now adults who were sodomized by priests behind the altar are really going to be attending church at the same parish ten or twenty years later.
THINK!!!)
******
(The deposition drawing to a close)
CARDINAL: Everyone concerned and I as well thought that Maday was a danger.
ANDERSON: So why did it take you four months to write the letter?
(The cardinal again blames his legal department and his vicar.)
ANDERSON: That's all I have. Thanks, Cardinal.
end of deposition
*************
POST NOTE:
The deposition begins: -
ANDERSON: This was delivered to us as we were preparing last night at 6:30 PM, Exhibit D, which the Archdiocese discloses to us for the first time, there are over 200 pages of documents, what they call supplementary production of materials, ranging from Becker to Bennett to Craig to Hagan and right down the list to page three. Again, it would be impossible to have reviewed on such short notice.
******
Weirdest thing, when the medial relations woman from Chicago archdiocese called me back to correct me and show that the deposition was not taken down, it just is no longer announced and linked on the front page. You go down the column under the Cardinal's picture, and at the bottom, click on "Misconduct."
As soon as the phone rang with her calling, things began to fly around my room. I answered, there was an awful interference noise when I picked up the phone, and as we said hello my laptop fell off its shelf to the desk, luckily didn't break.
Weirdest thing.
CUT THIS 'GRAPH, NOW PUTTING IT BACK IN: In a priest's culture sex is a series of pathologies to be studied in psychology seminars, all while trying to be celibate, and the only persons you interact with are other men and boys trying to be celibate. After reading the deposition of Francis Cardinal George that used to be posted on the Chicago Archdiocese website, it became clear to me that a sure cause of the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church is the way priests are cut off from the reality that they are human beings with human sexuality, like it or not. In order to maintain their celibacy while plagued with a sex drive, the priests end up grabbing vulnerable children, developing a private secret sex life by intimidating their sex targets, gullible children. Over and over again the way to solve this problem seems to be to let priests live a normal life, get married and have children, like every other human being on the planet. As long as priests continue to be cloistered away, they will never have normal sex lives. Any sexual activity they participate in has to be secret. So the doors are open for perversions.
Onward. . .
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
September begins with 2 guerrilla tactics for the coming year. Plus, it was not a hiatus, it was self imposed lockdown
*****
By Kay Ebeling
Tues. August 12, I cut off the blog for a few weeks, or else I would have self destructed, lashing out and trashing every person and every organization I’ve encountered in the last year. Apparently going back to the scene of the crime by visiting your perpetrator church, as we did here last July, can affect you. After hitting Reply To All on several emails and alienating about 25 people, I could see I had to let the rage pass before I said anything more in public.
So I sat tight as mainstream journalists missed the story over and over again, for example, when attorneys in both California and Illinois found ways to get around statutes of limitations for child sex crimes. (We will run both those stories here at City of Angels Network this month.) From this dark internal place I opened an email from Rick Springer, a link to NBC5 in Chicago with Francis Cardinal George talking to reporters about the Chicago settlements saying:
“In 2006 I invited anyone who had been abused by a priest to come forward. I promised we would continue to settle cases no matter when they occurred or how far back they occurred and even if the perpetrator priest is deceased.” --
I sputtered - Who the- what the-????? and within seconds was screaming into the voicemail of Matt Hunnicutt, head of Victim Assistance in Chicago:
“How come in all the times I called the Chicago Archdiocese asking for help in the past year, no one mentioned these settlements in progress, no one said the cardinal wants to settle cases no matter how far back they occurred. All Victims Assistance ever gave me was a phone number for a therapist in LA. A 310 phone number! How am I supposed to pay for a therapist in the 310 area code. Who decides who gets a settlement and who doesn't, and what are the rest of us supposed to do, just live with all this damage? Huh? Huh? Snarrrll.” Funny thing is he called me back. More on my ongoing conversation with the Chicago Archdiocese in an upcoming post here at City of Angels Network.
The blog is back with two guerrilla tactics to plan the next year. Maybe we can talk them over in person at Hope in the Heartland in Wichita, Kansas, October 10-11. This is the third year Janet Patterson has put this conference together with the focus on survivors interacting with each other, and on food. Friday night is Open Mike Night, with pizza. Saturday starts with a buffet breakfast and features a long lunch --
A time and a place for us to eat and to actually confer, all included with your $25 dollars. For more information about Hope in the Heartland, Oct 10 and 11 in Wichita write to: snapkansas@hotmail.com
City of Angels Guerrilla Tactic One:
A Document Dump -
On one coordinated day, in early 2009 when the new US Congress is seated and settled, City of Angels readers print out as many documents as possible. Then in a coordinated effort, we'll all arrive at our local congressional offices, the one a few miles from your home -- and all of us DUMP THE DOCUMENTS on their desks, a big overwhelming unmanageable pile of documents -- and say:
“We demand congressional hearings into conspiracy and other federal crimes committed by the Catholic Church that caused thousands of children to be ceremonially raped in United States Catholic churches in the last 75 years .
“We demand a federal level investigation.”
Hopefully the press will be there with us as we dump documents on their desks.
Guerrilla Tactic Two:
Petitions of the People
They only do it in some Catholic churches at some masses but at that point before Communion where people in the pews call out for prayer for one thing in particular, you call out loud,
“For the Crime victims living with PTSD from being raped by pedophile priests.”
The parishioners in the pews are then supposed to repeat, “Lord hear our prayer.”
We tried it in Bartlett, Illinois, last July at St. Peter Damian Church’s weekday morning Mass, and my calling out caused the entire chapel to come to a standstill, silence for several long seconds, lots of suddenly tense backs in front of me. It would be more effective to keep going back to mass and doing it over and over again.
This to me is a truly underground grass roots type guerrilla tactic. Take a friend or two if you are scared and go to a church that does petitions of the people during Mass, and when you hear them start going “Lord hear our prayer” you call out
“For the church to finally confess its felonies”
or
“For Congressional hearings into crimes committed by bishops”
or something along those lines.
In each case, the goal is a criminal investigation -- on a Federal level -- because the pedophile priest epidemic spread through every diocese, almost every parish.
VOTF video featured above
Above the headline for this post at City of Angels 4 is a video someone from VOTF put up last week at YouTube.
At the end of the VOTF video are phone numbers for
Illinois Attorney General
(312-814-3000)
and
Cook County State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine,
(312-603-7985).
In case you were not able to write them down.
To watch the VOTF video at YouTube just type in the title: Calling all Catholics.
In the video, VOTF says the deposition of Cardinal George reveals lawbreaking at the highest levels of the church.
We need a federal investigation.
City of Angels has a few more phone calls to make before posting our take on the deposition of Cardinal George, so our target for that post, with excerpts from the deposition and our commentary, will be in the next most likely Friday.
It’s a good thing I saved the cardinal's deposition when I downloaded it a few weeks back, because it’s not on the archdiocese website anymore. The cardinal and Jeff Anderson announced with much ballyhoo that they were putting the Cardinal’s deposition on the Chicago Archdiocese website,
Demonstrating how open and transparent the hierarchy is going to be from now on.
And now already the cardinal’s deposition has been taken down from the archdiocese website.
Just when people are getting back from vacation who never saw it.
Here is the link to the Cardinal’s announcement at NBC5 speaking to the press August 12th.
http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=284744
********
Yes I finally learned how to put links in my blog posts!
********
NEWS:
Joey Piscitelli finally gets settlement he was awarded in June 2006
(The following is an excerpt from Joey Piscitelli's essay published August 26, 2008, at Voice From The Desert)
As I protested in many events at Catholic Churches in San Francisco in the last 6 years, the most memorable statement I have ever heard came from a Salesian Priest at St. Peter and Paul’s in San Francisco. I was handing out flyers about the World Record amount of child abusers at Salesians in the Bay Area, and a Salesian Priest came out of the Church, and grabbed a flyer from my hand, and tore it up and threw it at me and said loudly, “You will lose your case in Appeals Court because God is on our side!”
And what God would that be?
(In Appeals Court) as the Salesian attorney repeatedly denounced me as a liar, the appellate judges listened patiently. When she had finally finished, the judges addressed the real issues.
Yesterday, the judges posted their decision. I won the Appeal brought by the Salesians, and the jury trial decision was upheld.
Although the Salesians have never apologized to me, and never will, I can’t help but wonder…how do they feel about their Creator?
*********
From Los Angeles, Vicki Martin Letter to Editor published in Belleville News-Democrat
Don’t know if anybody else caught it, but Vicki Martin got this letter published in the Belleville News-Democrat after the recent $5 million jury award to a former altar boy there in late August:
To the Editor:
Truth sets us free
I was a childhood victim of clergy sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest, so I know what my Illinois brothers and sisters in suffering are going through.
As in Belleville, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Diocese of San Diego in California used every legal action imaginable to stop the victim's civil cases against the church from going forward. Why? The bishops of the Catholic Church didn't want the stories of the sexual butchery of children by priests, brothers, deacons and nuns to go public. The attorneys for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles even tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the victim's right to sue. The Supreme Court would not even hear their arguments.
The stories of clergy sexual victimization have slowed in recent years because, for the first time in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, her children are being protected. But the hierarchy of the church cannot take credit for this change of policy. No, these changes came by way of the determination of the survivors of these perverted crimes, the integrity of our democratic legal system and the courage of the press.
I hope that these civil court actions in Illinois, and particularly Belleville, will continue to go forward to the benefit of the victims. Then and only then will the Catholic Church learn that there are consequences for such perverse and ungodly crimes.
Victoria Martin
San Pedro, Calif
************
I can’t even find the place to click to send letters to the Belleville News-Democrat or I would have written about this:.
A Belleville News-Democrat AUG 29 editorial said:
“This trial makes the Catholic Church and its priests look bad. But most priests are good -- men who have never abused a child and who are also appalled with the hierarchy's failure to protect children. Those priests need the public's support now more than ever.”
I tried to send the following letter to the editor and could not find the link anywhere at the News-Democrat site, so again, kudos to Vicki Martin.
Re: Priests needing the public’s support:
No they don’t. .
It’s impossible for priests to have gone through seminary and not seen the epidemic of pedophile priests going on right in front of them. There’s no way a modern priest does not know about pedophiles in their numbers. Guys talk, even during devotional mandatory silence periods, humans communicate.
Where were the whistle blowers?
Where are the whistle blowers?
No I don't feel any special compassion for men who continue to don a dress and stand in front of a parish of people and perpetuate the lie that is the Catholic Church.
No I don't feel any special compassion for men who watch standby and do nothing while children are being sodomized and otherwise raped.
No no no-no-no no-no-no no-no-no no-no-no no-no-no
Guess the anger is still sizzling,
bristling,
More to come,
as we cook it up here at City of Angels Network.
By Kay Ebeling
Tues. August 12, I cut off the blog for a few weeks, or else I would have self destructed, lashing out and trashing every person and every organization I’ve encountered in the last year. Apparently going back to the scene of the crime by visiting your perpetrator church, as we did here last July, can affect you. After hitting Reply To All on several emails and alienating about 25 people, I could see I had to let the rage pass before I said anything more in public.
So I sat tight as mainstream journalists missed the story over and over again, for example, when attorneys in both California and Illinois found ways to get around statutes of limitations for child sex crimes. (We will run both those stories here at City of Angels Network this month.) From this dark internal place I opened an email from Rick Springer, a link to NBC5 in Chicago with Francis Cardinal George talking to reporters about the Chicago settlements saying:
“In 2006 I invited anyone who had been abused by a priest to come forward. I promised we would continue to settle cases no matter when they occurred or how far back they occurred and even if the perpetrator priest is deceased.” --
I sputtered - Who the- what the-????? and within seconds was screaming into the voicemail of Matt Hunnicutt, head of Victim Assistance in Chicago:
“How come in all the times I called the Chicago Archdiocese asking for help in the past year, no one mentioned these settlements in progress, no one said the cardinal wants to settle cases no matter how far back they occurred. All Victims Assistance ever gave me was a phone number for a therapist in LA. A 310 phone number! How am I supposed to pay for a therapist in the 310 area code. Who decides who gets a settlement and who doesn't, and what are the rest of us supposed to do, just live with all this damage? Huh? Huh? Snarrrll.” Funny thing is he called me back. More on my ongoing conversation with the Chicago Archdiocese in an upcoming post here at City of Angels Network.
The blog is back with two guerrilla tactics to plan the next year. Maybe we can talk them over in person at Hope in the Heartland in Wichita, Kansas, October 10-11. This is the third year Janet Patterson has put this conference together with the focus on survivors interacting with each other, and on food. Friday night is Open Mike Night, with pizza. Saturday starts with a buffet breakfast and features a long lunch --
A time and a place for us to eat and to actually confer, all included with your $25 dollars. For more information about Hope in the Heartland, Oct 10 and 11 in Wichita write to: snapkansas@hotmail.com
City of Angels Guerrilla Tactic One:
A Document Dump -
On one coordinated day, in early 2009 when the new US Congress is seated and settled, City of Angels readers print out as many documents as possible. Then in a coordinated effort, we'll all arrive at our local congressional offices, the one a few miles from your home -- and all of us DUMP THE DOCUMENTS on their desks, a big overwhelming unmanageable pile of documents -- and say:
“We demand congressional hearings into conspiracy and other federal crimes committed by the Catholic Church that caused thousands of children to be ceremonially raped in United States Catholic churches in the last 75 years .
“We demand a federal level investigation.”
Hopefully the press will be there with us as we dump documents on their desks.
Guerrilla Tactic Two:
Petitions of the People
They only do it in some Catholic churches at some masses but at that point before Communion where people in the pews call out for prayer for one thing in particular, you call out loud,
“For the Crime victims living with PTSD from being raped by pedophile priests.”
The parishioners in the pews are then supposed to repeat, “Lord hear our prayer.”
We tried it in Bartlett, Illinois, last July at St. Peter Damian Church’s weekday morning Mass, and my calling out caused the entire chapel to come to a standstill, silence for several long seconds, lots of suddenly tense backs in front of me. It would be more effective to keep going back to mass and doing it over and over again.
This to me is a truly underground grass roots type guerrilla tactic. Take a friend or two if you are scared and go to a church that does petitions of the people during Mass, and when you hear them start going “Lord hear our prayer” you call out
“For the church to finally confess its felonies”
or
“For Congressional hearings into crimes committed by bishops”
or something along those lines.
In each case, the goal is a criminal investigation -- on a Federal level -- because the pedophile priest epidemic spread through every diocese, almost every parish.
VOTF video featured above
Above the headline for this post at City of Angels 4 is a video someone from VOTF put up last week at YouTube.
At the end of the VOTF video are phone numbers for
Illinois Attorney General
(312-814-3000)
and
Cook County State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine,
(312-603-7985).
In case you were not able to write them down.
To watch the VOTF video at YouTube just type in the title: Calling all Catholics.
In the video, VOTF says the deposition of Cardinal George reveals lawbreaking at the highest levels of the church.
We need a federal investigation.
City of Angels has a few more phone calls to make before posting our take on the deposition of Cardinal George, so our target for that post, with excerpts from the deposition and our commentary, will be in the next most likely Friday.
It’s a good thing I saved the cardinal's deposition when I downloaded it a few weeks back, because it’s not on the archdiocese website anymore. The cardinal and Jeff Anderson announced with much ballyhoo that they were putting the Cardinal’s deposition on the Chicago Archdiocese website,
Demonstrating how open and transparent the hierarchy is going to be from now on.
And now already the cardinal’s deposition has been taken down from the archdiocese website.
Just when people are getting back from vacation who never saw it.
Here is the link to the Cardinal’s announcement at NBC5 speaking to the press August 12th.
http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=284744
********
Yes I finally learned how to put links in my blog posts!
********
NEWS:
Joey Piscitelli finally gets settlement he was awarded in June 2006
(The following is an excerpt from Joey Piscitelli's essay published August 26, 2008, at Voice From The Desert)
As I protested in many events at Catholic Churches in San Francisco in the last 6 years, the most memorable statement I have ever heard came from a Salesian Priest at St. Peter and Paul’s in San Francisco. I was handing out flyers about the World Record amount of child abusers at Salesians in the Bay Area, and a Salesian Priest came out of the Church, and grabbed a flyer from my hand, and tore it up and threw it at me and said loudly, “You will lose your case in Appeals Court because God is on our side!”
And what God would that be?
(In Appeals Court) as the Salesian attorney repeatedly denounced me as a liar, the appellate judges listened patiently. When she had finally finished, the judges addressed the real issues.
Yesterday, the judges posted their decision. I won the Appeal brought by the Salesians, and the jury trial decision was upheld.
Although the Salesians have never apologized to me, and never will, I can’t help but wonder…how do they feel about their Creator?
*********
From Los Angeles, Vicki Martin Letter to Editor published in Belleville News-Democrat
Don’t know if anybody else caught it, but Vicki Martin got this letter published in the Belleville News-Democrat after the recent $5 million jury award to a former altar boy there in late August:
To the Editor:
Truth sets us free
I was a childhood victim of clergy sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest, so I know what my Illinois brothers and sisters in suffering are going through.
As in Belleville, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Diocese of San Diego in California used every legal action imaginable to stop the victim's civil cases against the church from going forward. Why? The bishops of the Catholic Church didn't want the stories of the sexual butchery of children by priests, brothers, deacons and nuns to go public. The attorneys for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles even tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the victim's right to sue. The Supreme Court would not even hear their arguments.
The stories of clergy sexual victimization have slowed in recent years because, for the first time in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, her children are being protected. But the hierarchy of the church cannot take credit for this change of policy. No, these changes came by way of the determination of the survivors of these perverted crimes, the integrity of our democratic legal system and the courage of the press.
I hope that these civil court actions in Illinois, and particularly Belleville, will continue to go forward to the benefit of the victims. Then and only then will the Catholic Church learn that there are consequences for such perverse and ungodly crimes.
Victoria Martin
San Pedro, Calif
************
I can’t even find the place to click to send letters to the Belleville News-Democrat or I would have written about this:.
A Belleville News-Democrat AUG 29 editorial said:
“This trial makes the Catholic Church and its priests look bad. But most priests are good -- men who have never abused a child and who are also appalled with the hierarchy's failure to protect children. Those priests need the public's support now more than ever.”
I tried to send the following letter to the editor and could not find the link anywhere at the News-Democrat site, so again, kudos to Vicki Martin.
Re: Priests needing the public’s support:
No they don’t. .
It’s impossible for priests to have gone through seminary and not seen the epidemic of pedophile priests going on right in front of them. There’s no way a modern priest does not know about pedophiles in their numbers. Guys talk, even during devotional mandatory silence periods, humans communicate.
Where were the whistle blowers?
Where are the whistle blowers?
No I don't feel any special compassion for men who continue to don a dress and stand in front of a parish of people and perpetuate the lie that is the Catholic Church.
No I don't feel any special compassion for men who watch standby and do nothing while children are being sodomized and otherwise raped.
No no no-no-no no-no-no no-no-no no-no-no no-no-no
Guess the anger is still sizzling,
bristling,
More to come,
as we cook it up here at City of Angels Network.
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Kay