Hearing on LA documents postponed to January 20

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

Join them.

Take a day off - A week off.

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

huh?

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

*
By Kay Ebeling

In this morning's Abuse Tracker I read this:

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

I can give Bishop Blase some suggestions.

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

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

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

For

LONG TERM RECOVERY

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll run it for you.

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

Obey their own pope

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

PERSONAL NOTE:

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

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

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

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

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

Onward. . .

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

By Kay Ebeling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Boston advocates handed out a flier which said this:

Protecting God’s Children?

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

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

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

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

Please write,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Personal:

Hollywood Mass Choir Update

I had to quit

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

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

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

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

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

HERE ARE PICS

FROM SNAP's LOBBY DAY

And demonstrations outside the Bishops meeting in Baltimore last month:

(Click pics to enlarge)

Above: Lobby Day in DC last September

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




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



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

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

Onward. . .

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

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

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

*

By Kay Ebeling

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

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

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

Sounds like Michael Corleone in The Godfather to me.

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

December 18, the guest is Tom Doyle.

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

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

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

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

ME: So they are committing felonies, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Caller (Cont'd):

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

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

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

“Because these guys are out there."

The Caller to KCTU Educating to End Abuse continued:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warren commented about Denial:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why should it?

Onward. . .

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

You can in that way pay for Readership.

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Cardboard?

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

More to come later today

kay