*****
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BY Kay Ebeling
Since reading about Anthony Rodrigue, who admits he raped 5 or 6 boys a year in the 22 years he was a priest, I keep getting this image in my head. The area of California where the Catholic Church transferred Rodrigue from parish to parish was small inland barren southern desert towns, like Calexico and El Centro, and even Ontario was still rustic in the 1970s.
I keep seeing boys on bikes, summer vacation, riding around bored in the heat, but here's an activity to fill their empty days. At the Catholic Church there is a horny sucker of a sexy guy, and to hear pedophile priest Tony Rodrigue describe it, wherever he went, young boys would just throw themselves at him. A nine year old demanding oral sex, a 14 year old who was always wanting to screw him in the buttocks.
How did he get transferred instead of convicted? “Next thing you know they lying for you," Rodrigue says, in the transcript of a May 1977 lie detector test, where he goes from admitting to the crimes to shocked denial, so many times the Examiner says: “I'll guarantee you one thing, if somebody's face was between my legs, there is no way in hell I'd forget it."
Below are excerpts from that transcript. I pipe in now and then with comments (ALL CAPS) As you read, remember this test ended up being invalid. Rodrigue admitted to taking a small nip of whisky with breakfast that morning, and after each bathroom break his answers got more and more wobbly. Still, the answers reveal insight into the brain of a pedophile priest.
As recently as the May 1997 lie detector test, Rodrigue seemed to have no sense of the damage he caused. He wonders why he even should:
THE EXAMINER: Then what happened with that incident? Were the police called in?
MR. RODRIGUE: No. But I think the police were involved, but nothing really happened to me because that -- next thing I know, "They lying for you. They lying for you." They were lying for me, I think. I didn't know anything about (inaudible). And I went to -- to another parish. And then I went for treatment back in Boston for four months.
The Examiner asks “So how many does that add up to? I don't know what year you became a priest.
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, you're talking about twenty- -- 22 years. So times five.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. So of those have you ever sat down and talked to any of those boys?
MR. RODRIGUE: No.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Have you ever wanted to sit down and talk to them?
MR. RODRIGUE: I don't know. I don't know what you mean by that question.
THE EXAMINER: Did you ever want to sit down and tell them that you didn't mean to hurt them, that it was just this demon inside you, this need for sexual release, sexual contact, human contact that caused it to happen?
MR. RODRIGUE: No, I don't think I ever wanted.
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EXCERPTS FROM THE TRANSCRIPT CONTINUES:
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MR. RODRIGUE: It should be 1972, I guess.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. What happened with that incident?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, that was interesting because, uh, it really had nothing to do with child molestation except some sort of a vague accusation.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: And of course I -- the facts were that all I had done was lost my temper in religion class and yelled at somebody and some mother got angry at me and -- or grandmother was angry at me, and --
EXAMINER: What was the gist of what she was saying? You were touching somebody? Or somebody was touching you? Or --
MR. RODRIGUE: -- It was so vague. And yet I had my problems in a sense,.
THE EXAMINER: Did the woman claim you had been touching some of the children in your catechism class or -- or your --
MR. RODRIGUE: Outside class, I guess.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. At the rectory?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
************
MR. RODRIGUE: I went to say Mass over there at the Heber church, they said, "Oh, did you hear what happened?" I guess they'd -- they arrested the altar boy leader and guess he was doing all sorts of nasty things, see.
THE EXAMINER: Uh-huh.
MR. RODRIGUE: And then I says, "Oh, my God. They're going to blame me for all this, this stuff."
THE EXAMINER: And did they?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, yeah.
THE EXAMINER: They said you were doing it too?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Then what happened next? Or what happened with that incident? Were the police called in?
MR. RODRIGUE: No. But I think the police were involved, but nothing really happened to me because that -- next thing I know, "They lying for you. They lying for you." They were lying for me, I think. I didn't know anything about (inaudible). And I went to -- to another parish. And then I went for treatment back in Boston for four months.
THE EXAMINER: What kind of treatment?
MR. RODRIGUE: Psychological treatment.
THE EXAMINER: For?
MR. RODRIGUE: Psychological testing and all kinds of things to find out what was going on.
ME: PEDOPHILE PRIEST TONY RODRIGUE TOO HAS RECOVERED MEMORIES:
MR. RODRIGUE: -- outside of Boston (inaudible). Well, I went through it. Discovered a problem which I couldn't describe was hanging, which was the biggest thing in my life because there was this memory that I had that came out of this test. And when I was ten years old, 10 or 11 years old, I --
THE EXAMINER: You got molested?
MR. RODRIGUE: No. No. I had been masturbating a little bit, and my mother caught me-
THE EXAMINER: That's normal.
MR. RODRIGUE: I know. But my mother caught me, and I went through tremendous embarrassment.
THE EXAMINER: Oh, I see.
MR. RODRIGUE: And then I was embarrassed by my brothers in school. And that was locked out of my memory for all those years that I couldn't remember it, see.
ME: OH POOR PEDOPHILE PRIEST SO TORMENTED BY HIS MOTHER
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Did something happen in Ontario?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, yeah, that's where the case came up -- came back (inaudible) --
**************
ME: HE WAS PLAGUED BY A 16 YEAR OLD PROSTITUE
THE EXAMINER: Okay. What happened with this person that solicited you for sex? How old was that person?
MR. RODRIGUE: About 16.
THE EXAMINER: Okay, one of your parishioners solicited you.
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Was there actual sexual intercourse, just oral copulation? What -- what occurred?
MR. RODRIGUE: It was oral sex on my part.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. the police never got involved in that.
MR. RODRIGUE: Not in that one. Then there was this other 16-year-old.
THE EXAMINER: In Ontario?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: He solicited you too?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, vaguely. And you know --
THE EXAMINER: They're a walking hormone at that age.
MR. RODRIGUE: But anyway, that's the one that wrote a letter.
THE EXAMINER: To you?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: Then some to the courts.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
*******
ME: A 16 YEAR OLD SEXUAL AGGRESSOR AND BLACKMAILER:
MR. RODRIGUE: -- Leave a hundred dollars there. And I crumpled it up. That's sick. So that's the one I needed the police.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Because you guys had had sex, but then he tried to blackmail you. Shame on him.
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: You gave him oral sex.
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: And then he tried to blackmail you.
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
****************
ME: HERE’S A LITTLE BIT ABOUT TREATMENT AT THE CHERRY VALLEY PARACLETE FACILITY?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, when I got back --
THE EXAMINER: Uh-huh.
MR. RODRIGUE: -- to Ontario there I was still distraught. So I then -- I went -- got -- got put on under a psychiatrist --
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: -- treatment center. And the police hadn't got involved yet, see.
ME: A LITTLE DENIAL, ANYONE?
MR. RODRIGUE: Someone sold him some drugs so the police could arrest him and so they could harass him to confess to something that never took place.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, on Sunday morning John Doe was crawling all over me, you know. And, "Bite my neck. Bite my neck," you know.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Who's John doe now? You have to explain --
MR. RODRIGUE: He's the 11-year-old there.
THE EXAMINER: How many times did this kind of activity occur where he was crawling all over you? But two and two makes four. I mean, his hormones were going and got yours going? How many times would you guess?
MR. RODRIGUE: That I can't be sure, but not too many times.
THE EXAMINER: Fifty?
MR. RODRIGUE: No, not that many.
THE EXAMINER: He says 150; how close is that to the truth?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, closer to ten percent.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. How -- what number are you comfortable with? 20? 25? 30?
MR. RODRIGUE: Not that many, no.
THE EXAMINER: 15? 20?
MR. RODRIGUE: 10 or 15 (inaudible).
THE EXAMINER: Of those ten or 15 times, how many times would you guess he accidentally on purpose rubbed against your privates or your penis area?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, well, now, he was -- he was doing that --
THE EXAMINER: All the time.
MR. RODRIGUE: -- all the time. I mean, he would be grabbing at me.
THE EXAMINER: Sure.
********
ME: HE TOSSES IN A LITTLE REFERENCE TO HITTING A KID:
THE EXAMINER: It's hard to say no.
MR. RODRIGUE: I would -- no. I was telling him no.
THE EXAMINER: You don't want to hurt him.
MR. RODRIGUE: No, but I would even --
THE EXAMINER: You don't want to hurt his feelings.
MR. RODRIGUE: -- hit him sometimes, but --
THE EXAMINER: I'm sorry?
MR. RODRIGUE: I even hit him sometimes.
***********
ME: YOU COULD CALL THIS THE DENIAL DIALOGUES
THE EXAMINER: But I mean, but he let the bathrobe go so you could see him.
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, not really that much.
THE EXAMINER: Just a couple times?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah, and, uh --
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: -- that was not exciting to me or anything like that.
THE EXAMINER: How much of John doe's statements are true and how many are not true? Let's get down to that. How many times did he actually, in your opinion, you know he screwed you? More than five? More than 10?
*****************
ME: "SCREW" IS THE WORD RODRIGUE USES THROUGHOUT IN REFERENCE TO WHATEVER HE WAS DOING WITH THE BOYS.
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MR. RODRIGUE: I don't think he screwed me.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: Now -- now, he -- he may have tried.
THE EXAMINER: He says 150; how many times do you remember?
MR. RODRIGUE: It could be about five at most.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. He never got behind you.
MR. RODRIGUE: No.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. But he tried.
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, he might have tried, but I was unaware of it.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Did he ever rub against you when you were standing up where he might conceive that he was screwing you?
MR. RODRIGUE: Uh, yes, that could have happened sometimes there. I think that that would have been out in the open, that is, outside the apartment.
ME: THEY ONLY HAD SEX OUT IN THE OPEN?
MR. RODRIGUE: I -- I do not recall him ever doing it to me. And I know I didn't do it to him.
THE EXAMINER: How do you know that?
MR. RODRIGUE: Because there are times that I wanted to.
THE EXAMINER: Sure you did.
MR. RODRIGUE: But I never even attempted to do it.
THE EXAMINER: Did he place your hand on his --
MR. RODRIGUE: No.
THE EXAMINER: How did it get there?
MR. RODRIGUE: Me grabbing at him because he was fooling around.
**********
ME: IF YOU DIDN'T PUT YOUR HAND THERE, HOW DID IT GET THERE?
THE EXAMINER: Did all this activity take place when he was at your place, most of it?
MR. RODRIGUE: Took place outside.
THE EXAMINER: And in your place.
MR. RODRIGUE: And a little bit in my place.
******
ME: HERE IS THE QUOTE FROM THE EXAMINER REFERENCED IN THE OPENINGspan>
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THE EXAMINER: Did John Doe's mouth ever been in contact with your penis, even for a split second where you pushed him away? Did he do it before he realized what he was doing?
MR. RODRIGUE: I do not know, but I do not think so.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. How would you not know if -- now, what I'm going to say I don't mean to offend you.
MR. RODRIGUE: Okay.
THE EXAMINER: But I'll guarantee you one thing. If somebody's mouth -- if somebody's face was between my legs, there is no way in hell I'd forget it.
*********
ME: APPARENTLY RODRIGUE BEGAN TO BE ATTRACTED TO YOUNG BOYS WHEN HE WAS A YOUNG BOY.
THE EXAMINER: The burden you've been carrying around we talked about.
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, I would say that would be when I was 10, 11, or 12 (inaudible).
THE EXAMINER: You first tried feeling --
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: -- the sexual urges activity towards other boys.
MR. RODRIGUE: Boys, yes.
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UPCOMING TRIP: TO FIND THE GROWN UPS WHO WERE THE CHOIR BOYS OF CALEXICO, SEE HOW THEY ARE DOING TODAY
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THE EXAMINER: Where were the boys coming from that you were kind of having contact with then?
MR. RODRIGUE: I would say that was from Calexico.
THE EXAMINER: Oh, okay, the boys down in Calexico?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Did they just come by the rectory --
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: -- sometimes?
MR. RODRIGUE: Uh-huh.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. You guys engaged in sexual activity --
MR. RODRIGUE: Yes.
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ME: AGAIN THE BOYS ALWAYS THROWING THEMSELVES AT THE GROWNUP WANTING SEX. . .
THE EXAMINER: Okay. How many of those boys did you get involved with that were -- where they were wanting to be next to you, wanting to be close to you?
MR. RODRIGUE: Uh, I don't know, three or four.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. How old were they about?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, they were 12 to 14 (inaudible).
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Did they want to screw you?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, there were -- there were a couple that did.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Okay, were they successful?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah. But it was something that I never did.
THE EXAMINER: Didn't you?
MR. RODRIGUE: No.
THE EXAMINER: I mean they just did you.
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
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ME: THE PEDOPHILE PRIEST IS TOO MORAL TO GIVE THE BOY MONEY FOR DRUGS
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THE EXAMINER: He wanted money for drugs?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah. And I refused. I says, "Sorry."
THE EXAMINER: Yeah. Yeah.
MR. RODRIGUE: "I can't destroy your life."
Me Again: Did not want to spoil his life?!?!?!
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MR. RODRIGUE: And so I gave him a ride over to somebody's house.
THE EXAMINER: Uh-huh.
MR. RODRIGUE: And which was, oh, I'd say about a mile away, I don't know.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: But I think it had something to do with drugs. See, I didn't know this guy at all.
THE EXAMINER: Uh-huh.
MR. RODRIGUE: Complete stranger (inaudible).
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: But then a policeman came up and asked me, he says --
THE EXAMINER: What'd he say?
MR. RODRIGUE: Um, it was, uh, "Are you giving this guy counseling or something?" I says, "Well, yeah."
THE EXAMINER: How did he know you were a priest?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, he knew I was a priest --
ME:THEY MUST HAVE BEEN SITTING IN THE CAR FOR QUITE A WHILE FOR THE COP TO ASK THAT.
********
ME: RODRIGUE BABBLES ON, I THINK HE MAY BE TAKING NIPS OF WHISKY DURING BATHROOM BREAKS AS IT STARTS TO NOT MAKE SENSE:
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MR. RODRIGUE: --Begging for a little bit of attention or something like that, you know.
THE EXAMINER: He wanted to have sex, too, with you.
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, he did offer. He says, "Oh, why don't you take my picture here?"
THE EXAMINER: Did he?
MR. RODRIGUE: Naked of course. Actually, that was interesting because even in those days -- I'd say 1978 I stopped taking pictures basically.
THE EXAMINER: Before then you did?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: You destroyed the pictures you did take?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, yeah.
******
ME: EEK ?? HE WAS TAKING PICTURES TOO?
**********
THE EXAMINER: Okay. When was the last time you look
pictures of you and any of these, what, 8-, 9-, 10,- 11-, 12-, 13-, 14-year-olds that you engaged in (inaudible)?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, I'd say that about in '69.
THE EXAMINER: '69 you quit? Or '79?
MR. RODRIGUE: '69.
THE EXAMINER: How long had you known him before he first started coming on to you? Long time or almost right away?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, it seemed about five minutes.
THE EXAMINER: Really? He started coming on right away?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, yeah.
THE EXAMINER: When was the first time he mentioned he wanted to have sex with you?
MR. RODRIGUE: Probably the second time.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: Nothing -- I mean, he was that way practically with anybody.
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ME; NOW IT’S AN OVER SEXED 14 YEAR OLD: BUT HE DOES THAT WITH ‘PRACTICALLY ANYBODY’
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THE EXAMINER: How did he say it, just that way? "Please have sex with me?"
MR. RODRIGUE: "Come on. I'm gay. Let's have sex." Just like that.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: Just real quick and up --
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: I mean, it's shocking. I mean, I didn't -- I mean I -- all of a sudden --
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Sure. Sure.
MR. RODRIGUE: You know, I mean, it's important news.
************
ME: SO RODRIGUE IS SHOCKED THAT THE BOY IS GAY, NOT SHOCKED THAT A PEDOPHILE IS ABOUT TO SCREW HIM
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EXAMINER: How many times do you remember him coming on to you like that?
MR. RODRIGUE: From the back? I honestly don't remember any times.
THE EXAMINER: Then why did you tell me it was only two times? See what I'm saying?
**************
THE EXAMINER: So you've had these sexual feelings towards boys between 8 and, what, 12, 14?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Since you've been -- what?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, I'd say the first -- well, actually probably even before I was ten years old.
THE EXAMINER: I understand that. When -- how old were you when you first admitted it to yourself?
MR. RODRIGUE: 40.
THE EXAMINER: Really? What do you think caused you to finally admit it to yourself?
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, when I went through that psychological test there back in (inaudible) outside of Boston area. I really -- when the eyes were opened up.
THE EXAMINER: How old were you then? Or what year was that?
MR. RODRIGUE: Roughly I was 40.
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FOLLOWING IS THE 5-6 KIDS A YEAR QUOTE:
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THE EXAMINER: Okay. How many -- hard question -- how many -- from the time you became a priest until the time that you stopped actively being a priest, how many boys would you say you had contact with during all that time that you had trouble dealing with? Best guess.
MR. RODRIGUE: Best guess? I would say around five or six per year.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: To be honest with you.
THE EXAMINER: Okay, so how many does that add up to? I don't know what year you became a priest.
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, you're talking about twenty- -- 22 years. So times five.
ME: THERE’S MORE. RIGHT AFTER HE SAYS: ‘SO TIMES FIVE”:
THE EXAMINER: Okay. So of those have you ever sat down and talked to any of those boys?
MR. RODRIGUE: No.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Have you ever wanted to sit down and talk to them?
MR. RODRIGUE: I don't know. I don't know what you mean by that question.
************
ME: HE SEEMS CLUELESS THAT THE BOYS NOW ADULTS MIGHT EVEN HAVE PROBLEMS FROM IT. HE JUST SAYS SOMETHING LIKE WHY WOULD “I” WANT TO TALK TO THEM?
********************
MR. RODRIGUE: (Inaudible) most of it in denial.
THE EXAMINER: Denial.
MR. RODRIGUE: On my part.
THE EXAMINER: Sure. Sure. I understand that. Most of them your altar boys and stuff?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Did any of the parents ever approach you and think something was going on?
MR. RODRIGUE: No. Maybe in '79.
THE EXAMINER: How many times did you complete what he had started by masturbating? Embarrassing as it may be.
MR. RODRIGUE: It's interesting because I don't think I ever did.
THE EXAMINER: Time out.
MR. RODRIGUE: Hold it. Now hold it. I never did complete a masturbation on my part. I mean, there have been -- there were a couple times I wanted to in private, I wanted to, but I couldn't.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: That's the only way I can answer that question.
THE EXAMINER: Did he ever masturbate you to the point where you couldn't help it anymore?
MR. RODRIGUE: No.
THE EXAMINER: Never happened.
MR. RIDRIGUE: No.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: He actually never completed any masturbate- -- he tried a couple times, yes.
THE EXAMINER: Sure. Sure.
MR. RODRIGUE: But he never completed any masturbation.
THE EXAMINER: Okay.
MR. RODRIGUE: Now --
THE EXAMINER: Do you understand how abnormal that is?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yes.
THE EXAMINER: For people to engage in sexual arousal, get to that point, and then walk away and --
MR. RODRIGUE: Well, see, I'll --
THE EXAMINER: It doesn't make sense.
MR. RODRIGUE: -- I'll tell you it doesn't make sense to me either.
***************
IT’S ALMOST A COMEDY SCRIPT
*******************
THE EXAMINER: Did you ever tell him (the psychiatrist) how strongly attracted to boys between 8 and 14 that you were, 8 and 12, you said?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, yeah.
THE EXAMINER: You did tell him?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, yeah. Because that's the big basic thing. First of all, we had to break down inhibitions to -- to speak freely, you know. And next -- that was the big thing.
THE EXAMINER: Did you ever tell him how many boys lives you touched?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Hm? You did?
MR. RODRIGUE: Oh, yeah.
THE EXAMINER: While you were a priest?
MR. RODRIGUE: Yeah.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. What didn't you tell him?
MR. RODRIGUE: I didn't tell him?
THE EXAMINER: Uh-huh.
MR. RODRIGUE: I didn't tell him a denial of my -- of -- of the -- of the -- having this eight-year-old boy -- or nine-year-old boy there. I never denied that to him at all.
THE EXAMINER: Why are you denying it to me?
MR. RODRIGUE: Because it's time I felt the truth should come out. That's all.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Where were you arrested for that nine-year-old?
MR. RODRIGUE: Uh, which one are we talking about? The one back in '79?
**************
ME: NOW WHICH NINE YEAR OLD ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
****************
THE EXAMINER: You see--
MR. RODRIGUE: No. See,. Because that I had oral sex with a nine-year-old is true. This person, no, it is not true. See, that's all I'm saying.
THE EXAMINER: Explain to me how -- what nine-year-old boy did you have oral sex with?
MR. RODRIGUE: Somebody else.
THE EXAMINER: That was in your parish? Your altar boy?
MR. RODRIGUE: No. He wasn't an altar boy.
THE EXAMINER: Okay. Who was he to you?
MR. RODRIGUE: Just someone that I met. . .
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end of excerpts from may 1997 lie detector test of pedophile priest anthony edward rodrigue
==================
Just another priest admitting that the Catholic Church let him carry out his obsessions, damaging lives of probably hundreds of Southern California boys now men.
Hey they need priests, don’t they?
Onward
Monday, July 7, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Tony Rodrigue admits to 5 victims a year in 20 years, 2 prison terms, rehab with the Paracletes, yet in 2003 the SB diocese did not know his name **
****
**********
By Kay Ebeling
What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to light a match under the San Bernardino diocese, and could not even get the last name of a serial perpetrator, a pedophile priest who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
When we put up The Paraclete Documents last week, we reported there may have been another Paraclete center in the San Bernardino area, as well. An email came minutes later saying: “It was in Cherry Valley.” Then she sent pedophile priest Tony Rodrigue’s assignment history, which includes a stay in 1983 at an “Outside Institution” at 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405.
A phone call to the emailer, Margaret Schettler, uprooted another reason we need Senate or Congressional hearings on pedophile priests in the Catholic Church: Obstruction of Justice. It took Margaret Schettler a year to get the last name of a priest the church knew was a predator as far back as 1979.
Systematically the church refused to give out names of known pedophile priests.
In the case of Anthony Rodgrigue, the diocese outreach director had to have known the church practically fed altar boys to this particular problem priest for years, including his stays at recovery centers in New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Cherry Valley CA. Rodrigue preyed in the area east and south of LA that is now called the inland empire,
“I knew if I knew about this guy in the seventies, it must have been pretty bad,” Schettler said, “but I couldn't remember his last name."
For one whole year the outreach director at the diocese of San Bernardino told Margaret Schettler he had no idea what priest she was talking about.
****
Rodrigue is the priest in the news report from 1979 scanned in at right (click to enlarge and read). Up to the 1970s areas like Coachella Valley and Calexico where the diocese transferred around Rodrigue, were way out in the desert, little towns, typical breeding grounds and festering territory for the church to send its pedophile priests.
“It took me a year to get his last name, I spent so much time doing research and then found out that the diocese had known all along,” said Schettler, who is a priest sex crime victim advocate, in LA. “I think they always knew but they weren’t telling me,” Schettler said. Until she did enough research to file a 7-page report. Then the diocese told her Yes, they knew the name of the priest.
And “he had been arrested in fact,” she finally learned.
“When I got the name, I went online and found the newspaper article from the late 90s where he describes four or five kids a year.”
Actually it was five or six children that Rodrigue admitted to having sex with a year:
EXAMINER: Until the time that you stopped actively being a priest, how many boys would you say you had contact with during all that time that you had trouble dealing with? Best guess.
MR. RODRIGUE: Best guess? I would say around five or six per year.
In context, they are discussing boys Rodrigue “screwed.”
That's the word he uses for it in a Lie Detector test from May 1997.
City of Angels has the transcript of the lie detector test and will run a post with more direct quotes next blog entry.
Again. What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to get the last name of the priest who had raped altar boys all over the inland emplire, and the San Bernardino diocese would not even give her his last name. Tony Rodrigue was a serial pedophile since at least 1969, who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
NOTE: Margaret emailed me this correction:
) "tried the entire 2003 to get his name"
actually I tried from May 2002-Feb. 2003 to get his name, first contacting the Diocese of S. bernardino in May of 2002. I got his name from one of the priests I worked with in Coachella, but he told me he thought Rodrigue didn't come to the parish until after I left.
I spent 2003 gathering information about Rodrigue- getting little information from the diocese, except for finally in March of 2003 they confimed Rodrigue's presence at the parish through Baptism and Marriage records. Msgr. Lopez travelled to Coachella "to see the records with my own eyes", but failed to report the information to the current pastor. ( He could have gotten the info by a simple phone call to the parish secretary or pastor). My goal in 2003 was to get the church to actively reach out to find Rodrigue's victims by informing the parishes where he worked, and finally by going to the press when it became clear the church was not going to do anything.
So she worked the entire year of 2002, then the diocese tap danced for another 10 months before taking action.
Back to July 3 post:
The SB diocese told Schettler they did not know of a Father Tony in Coachella who had problems with children.
The Catholic Church knew since the 1970s that Tony Rodrigue had a problem with sexual attraction to children.
HOW DID Margaret Schettler know about Tony Rodrigue in the 1970s?
Margaret: When I went to work at the parish, there were two priests that were co-pastoring the parish. One told me immediately after introducing me to Rodrigue.
He told me right away the guy was there to wait to go to a treatment center because he was molesting kids. When I’d be in the rectory ther would be kids coming to the door, always asking for Father Tony.
It started to happen soon and he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out to meet them.
He had a little truck with a camper and he was taking the kids out hanging out with them, away from the parish.
There were a couple times the priest came through and said Father Tony is taking kids out in his truck again.
A couple times.
When Rodrigue left, I said, to the other priest who co-parished there, Oh he’s gone to his treatment center. The other priest said what are you talking about like he was already denying it.
*******
In late 2003, after a lot of prodding the diocese finally started to reach out to victims, sort of, as reported here:
Congregation learns former priest in jail
COACHELLA (CA)
The Desert Sun
By Lois Gormley
December 29th, 2003
COACHELLA -- Representatives from the Diocese of San Bernardino visited Our Lady of Soledad this weekend to advise parishioners that a former priest who once spent time at the church is now serving a 10-year sentence for child molestation.
ME: Still trying to minimize the story or the issue, the San Bernardino diocese responded:
“Rodrigue’s conviction stems from the molestation of a child in the 1990s, well after he had left the church” is how Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church Diocese in San Bernardino, was quoted in local press.
The first time Margaret Schettler called the diocese outreach director, “The first question out of his mouth was if I was going to file a lawsuit against the diocese of San Bernardino. I just had one goal, to find the victims."
She says she’s haunted by the idea that all those boys interacted with Rodrigue, in just the short time she worked at the church in Soledad.
“Monsignor Lopez presented himself as not knowing,” Schettler said of the outreach director. “He was just trying to throw me off. During a 10 month period, I was checking internet, reading articles and following the story and learning the pattern.
Today Margaret is Religious Education Director, which puts her in charge of Virtus, at Our Lady of Grace on White Oak and Ventura in Encino.
“We've had listening sessions, we had the survivors, quilt, my pastor has been very involved,” she said.
When asked what she thinks the church needs to do Schettler said:
“They need to move themselves out of the center. It’s not about survivors coming back to the church, if anybody needs to come back on their knees with humility it’s the church.
One of the things with the Rodrigue case I asked Msgr. Lopez shouldn't you be going to the parishes where he served for 29 years.
He was an active priest 20 years.
He admits he raped up to five young boys, usually altar boys a year.
Monsignor Lopez’s response was according to Schettler was, we've already done enough.
Shettler did what she could, leafleting with SNAP, interacting with the sheriff and DA, she even wrote a 7-page report and sent it to the San Bernardino diocese, still not sure of the name of the priest who was molesting young boys in Coachella in the 1970s.
Finally the San Bernardino diocese identified the predator priest: Anthony Rodrigue, and in December 2003, nearly a year after Margaret first called the priest at the diocese in charge of victim outreach, started contacting parishes where he’d served.
They did nothing to find victims until December 2003.
I doubt they're doing much more.
I tried to contact the leader of Inland Empire SNAP, who I believe was also one of Rodrigue’s victims. After we had a short conversation, where he said he’d speak to me later, he now does not return my calls or emails.
That is what happens almost every time I contact a SNAP leader from around the country. They stop calling back after the first call.
Weird.
Margaret says Anthony Rodrigue is like a Birmingham in numbers of his victims.
“The numbers of lawsuits related to Rodrigue are not reflective of the numbers of his victims.... I really wonder why this particular case did not spark more interest. It would be so instructive to explain the workings behind the scenes in the chancery offices spanning multiple bishops and 2 dioceses.”
WE NEED AN INVESTIGATION.
City of Angels needs a car, or at least a budget to rent a car, and get out to the Inland Empire and find people.
Quote from news 2005 articles:
By Michael Fisher
The Press-Enterprise [California]
August 11, 2005
Former Inland priest Edward Anthony Rodrigue said he met with San Diego's bishop in 1976 to discuss a letter from 10 parents who accused the parish cleric of sexually abusing altar boys, according to papers filed in federal court this week.
At least 19 men have sued the San Diego or San Bernardino dioceses, alleging that as boys, they were molested by Rodrigue in the 1960s and 1970s at churches in Calexico, Barstow, El Centro, Encinitas, Heber and Ontario.
Rodrigue is serving a 10-year sentence in state prison after he pleaded no contest in 1998 to molesting an 11-year-old Highland boy
ME: THIS IS THE JOHN DOE FROM THE LIE DETECTOR TRANSCRIPT
Which will be quoted in an upcoming post.
WHERE IS RODRIGUE TODAY?
“His brother Tom Rodrigue was travelled down here to meet Tony when he got out of prison and he was careful to keep Tony away from kids,” said an attorney connected to the case.
The ex-priest Rodrigue “was put into a halfway house program and his brother Tom is paying for the global positioning system to keep him monitored,” the attorney said.
Margaret told me, “When I’d be in the rectory there’d be kids coming to the door asking for Father Tony."
MARGARET: It happened soon after I started work there. And he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out and meeting them.”
I went to Father Tony and I said, you invited him and you tell him you can’t see children.
I was too young to understand even the ramifications
Here is assignment history of Anthony Rodrigue as Schettler has gathered it
1963 - La Jolla - Mary Star of the Sea
1964 “ “
1965 - Lakeside - Our Lady of Perpetual Help
1966 - “ “
1967 - Encinitas - St. Johns
1968 - Calexico - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1969 “ “
1970 “ “
1971 “ “
1972 - directory not available
1973 - Name not listed
1974 - Name not listed
1975 - Name not listed
1976 - El Centro - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1977 - Name not listed
1978 - Ontario - St. George
1979 - Ontario - St. George
1980 - Name not listed
1981 - Name not listed
1982 - Loma Linda - St. Joseph the Worker
1983 - “Outside Institution” 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405
1884 “ “ “
1985 “ “ “
1986 - directory not available
1987 - “Retired” 32350 Acacia #2, San Bernardino, CA 92405
1988 - “ “ “
1989 - “ “ “
1990 - not listed
1991 - not listed
************88
NEXT: Words right out of the mouth of Tony Rodrigue, quotes from his lie detector transcript test coming in about a day maybe less.
Readers, I can’t tell you how bizarre it is to write these stories and then go to work on shows like Greatest American Dog and Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Wrestling competition.
It’s just part of my weird life.
TIP: Greatest American Dog is going to knock your socks off, really good television, I have to admit. . .
Onward. .. going to Chicago next week!
PS Readership is way up into the mid-hundreds here at City of Angels Blog. If you click on an ad I earn from 2 cents to as much as $3.68, so please visit our advertisers -- ke
**********
By Kay Ebeling
What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to light a match under the San Bernardino diocese, and could not even get the last name of a serial perpetrator, a pedophile priest who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
When we put up The Paraclete Documents last week, we reported there may have been another Paraclete center in the San Bernardino area, as well. An email came minutes later saying: “It was in Cherry Valley.” Then she sent pedophile priest Tony Rodrigue’s assignment history, which includes a stay in 1983 at an “Outside Institution” at 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405.
A phone call to the emailer, Margaret Schettler, uprooted another reason we need Senate or Congressional hearings on pedophile priests in the Catholic Church: Obstruction of Justice. It took Margaret Schettler a year to get the last name of a priest the church knew was a predator as far back as 1979.
Systematically the church refused to give out names of known pedophile priests.
In the case of Anthony Rodgrigue, the diocese outreach director had to have known the church practically fed altar boys to this particular problem priest for years, including his stays at recovery centers in New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Cherry Valley CA. Rodrigue preyed in the area east and south of LA that is now called the inland empire,
“I knew if I knew about this guy in the seventies, it must have been pretty bad,” Schettler said, “but I couldn't remember his last name."
For one whole year the outreach director at the diocese of San Bernardino told Margaret Schettler he had no idea what priest she was talking about.
****
Rodrigue is the priest in the news report from 1979 scanned in at right (click to enlarge and read). Up to the 1970s areas like Coachella Valley and Calexico where the diocese transferred around Rodrigue, were way out in the desert, little towns, typical breeding grounds and festering territory for the church to send its pedophile priests. “It took me a year to get his last name, I spent so much time doing research and then found out that the diocese had known all along,” said Schettler, who is a priest sex crime victim advocate, in LA. “I think they always knew but they weren’t telling me,” Schettler said. Until she did enough research to file a 7-page report. Then the diocese told her Yes, they knew the name of the priest.
And “he had been arrested in fact,” she finally learned.
“When I got the name, I went online and found the newspaper article from the late 90s where he describes four or five kids a year.”
Actually it was five or six children that Rodrigue admitted to having sex with a year:
EXAMINER: Until the time that you stopped actively being a priest, how many boys would you say you had contact with during all that time that you had trouble dealing with? Best guess.
MR. RODRIGUE: Best guess? I would say around five or six per year.
In context, they are discussing boys Rodrigue “screwed.”
That's the word he uses for it in a Lie Detector test from May 1997.
City of Angels has the transcript of the lie detector test and will run a post with more direct quotes next blog entry.
Again. What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to get the last name of the priest who had raped altar boys all over the inland emplire, and the San Bernardino diocese would not even give her his last name. Tony Rodrigue was a serial pedophile since at least 1969, who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
NOTE: Margaret emailed me this correction:
) "tried the entire 2003 to get his name"
actually I tried from May 2002-Feb. 2003 to get his name, first contacting the Diocese of S. bernardino in May of 2002. I got his name from one of the priests I worked with in Coachella, but he told me he thought Rodrigue didn't come to the parish until after I left.
I spent 2003 gathering information about Rodrigue- getting little information from the diocese, except for finally in March of 2003 they confimed Rodrigue's presence at the parish through Baptism and Marriage records. Msgr. Lopez travelled to Coachella "to see the records with my own eyes", but failed to report the information to the current pastor. ( He could have gotten the info by a simple phone call to the parish secretary or pastor). My goal in 2003 was to get the church to actively reach out to find Rodrigue's victims by informing the parishes where he worked, and finally by going to the press when it became clear the church was not going to do anything.
So she worked the entire year of 2002, then the diocese tap danced for another 10 months before taking action.
Back to July 3 post:
The SB diocese told Schettler they did not know of a Father Tony in Coachella who had problems with children.
The Catholic Church knew since the 1970s that Tony Rodrigue had a problem with sexual attraction to children.
HOW DID Margaret Schettler know about Tony Rodrigue in the 1970s?
Margaret: When I went to work at the parish, there were two priests that were co-pastoring the parish. One told me immediately after introducing me to Rodrigue.
He told me right away the guy was there to wait to go to a treatment center because he was molesting kids. When I’d be in the rectory ther would be kids coming to the door, always asking for Father Tony.
It started to happen soon and he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out to meet them.
He had a little truck with a camper and he was taking the kids out hanging out with them, away from the parish.
There were a couple times the priest came through and said Father Tony is taking kids out in his truck again.
A couple times.
When Rodrigue left, I said, to the other priest who co-parished there, Oh he’s gone to his treatment center. The other priest said what are you talking about like he was already denying it.
*******
In late 2003, after a lot of prodding the diocese finally started to reach out to victims, sort of, as reported here:
Congregation learns former priest in jail
COACHELLA (CA)
The Desert Sun
By Lois Gormley
December 29th, 2003
COACHELLA -- Representatives from the Diocese of San Bernardino visited Our Lady of Soledad this weekend to advise parishioners that a former priest who once spent time at the church is now serving a 10-year sentence for child molestation.
ME: Still trying to minimize the story or the issue, the San Bernardino diocese responded:
“Rodrigue’s conviction stems from the molestation of a child in the 1990s, well after he had left the church” is how Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church Diocese in San Bernardino, was quoted in local press.
The first time Margaret Schettler called the diocese outreach director, “The first question out of his mouth was if I was going to file a lawsuit against the diocese of San Bernardino. I just had one goal, to find the victims."
She says she’s haunted by the idea that all those boys interacted with Rodrigue, in just the short time she worked at the church in Soledad.
“Monsignor Lopez presented himself as not knowing,” Schettler said of the outreach director. “He was just trying to throw me off. During a 10 month period, I was checking internet, reading articles and following the story and learning the pattern.
Today Margaret is Religious Education Director, which puts her in charge of Virtus, at Our Lady of Grace on White Oak and Ventura in Encino.
“We've had listening sessions, we had the survivors, quilt, my pastor has been very involved,” she said.
When asked what she thinks the church needs to do Schettler said:
“They need to move themselves out of the center. It’s not about survivors coming back to the church, if anybody needs to come back on their knees with humility it’s the church.
One of the things with the Rodrigue case I asked Msgr. Lopez shouldn't you be going to the parishes where he served for 29 years.
He was an active priest 20 years.
He admits he raped up to five young boys, usually altar boys a year.
Monsignor Lopez’s response was according to Schettler was, we've already done enough.
Shettler did what she could, leafleting with SNAP, interacting with the sheriff and DA, she even wrote a 7-page report and sent it to the San Bernardino diocese, still not sure of the name of the priest who was molesting young boys in Coachella in the 1970s.
Finally the San Bernardino diocese identified the predator priest: Anthony Rodrigue, and in December 2003, nearly a year after Margaret first called the priest at the diocese in charge of victim outreach, started contacting parishes where he’d served.
They did nothing to find victims until December 2003.
I doubt they're doing much more.
I tried to contact the leader of Inland Empire SNAP, who I believe was also one of Rodrigue’s victims. After we had a short conversation, where he said he’d speak to me later, he now does not return my calls or emails.
That is what happens almost every time I contact a SNAP leader from around the country. They stop calling back after the first call.
Weird.
Margaret says Anthony Rodrigue is like a Birmingham in numbers of his victims.
“The numbers of lawsuits related to Rodrigue are not reflective of the numbers of his victims.... I really wonder why this particular case did not spark more interest. It would be so instructive to explain the workings behind the scenes in the chancery offices spanning multiple bishops and 2 dioceses.”
WE NEED AN INVESTIGATION.
City of Angels needs a car, or at least a budget to rent a car, and get out to the Inland Empire and find people.
Quote from news 2005 articles:
By Michael Fisher
The Press-Enterprise [California]
August 11, 2005
Former Inland priest Edward Anthony Rodrigue said he met with San Diego's bishop in 1976 to discuss a letter from 10 parents who accused the parish cleric of sexually abusing altar boys, according to papers filed in federal court this week.
At least 19 men have sued the San Diego or San Bernardino dioceses, alleging that as boys, they were molested by Rodrigue in the 1960s and 1970s at churches in Calexico, Barstow, El Centro, Encinitas, Heber and Ontario.
Rodrigue is serving a 10-year sentence in state prison after he pleaded no contest in 1998 to molesting an 11-year-old Highland boy
ME: THIS IS THE JOHN DOE FROM THE LIE DETECTOR TRANSCRIPT
Which will be quoted in an upcoming post.
WHERE IS RODRIGUE TODAY?
“His brother Tom Rodrigue was travelled down here to meet Tony when he got out of prison and he was careful to keep Tony away from kids,” said an attorney connected to the case.
The ex-priest Rodrigue “was put into a halfway house program and his brother Tom is paying for the global positioning system to keep him monitored,” the attorney said.
Margaret told me, “When I’d be in the rectory there’d be kids coming to the door asking for Father Tony."
MARGARET: It happened soon after I started work there. And he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out and meeting them.”
I went to Father Tony and I said, you invited him and you tell him you can’t see children.
I was too young to understand even the ramifications
Here is assignment history of Anthony Rodrigue as Schettler has gathered it
1963 - La Jolla - Mary Star of the Sea
1964 “ “
1965 - Lakeside - Our Lady of Perpetual Help
1966 - “ “
1967 - Encinitas - St. Johns
1968 - Calexico - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1969 “ “
1970 “ “
1971 “ “
1972 - directory not available
1973 - Name not listed
1974 - Name not listed
1975 - Name not listed
1976 - El Centro - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1977 - Name not listed
1978 - Ontario - St. George
1979 - Ontario - St. George
1980 - Name not listed
1981 - Name not listed
1982 - Loma Linda - St. Joseph the Worker
1983 - “Outside Institution” 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405
1884 “ “ “
1985 “ “ “
1986 - directory not available
1987 - “Retired” 32350 Acacia #2, San Bernardino, CA 92405
1988 - “ “ “
1989 - “ “ “
1990 - not listed
1991 - not listed
************88
NEXT: Words right out of the mouth of Tony Rodrigue, quotes from his lie detector transcript test coming in about a day maybe less.
Readers, I can’t tell you how bizarre it is to write these stories and then go to work on shows like Greatest American Dog and Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Wrestling competition.
It’s just part of my weird life.
TIP: Greatest American Dog is going to knock your socks off, really good television, I have to admit. . .
Onward. .. going to Chicago next week!
PS Readership is way up into the mid-hundreds here at City of Angels Blog. If you click on an ad I earn from 2 cents to as much as $3.68, so please visit our advertisers -- ke
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tony Rodrigue admits to 5 victims a year in 20 years, 2 prison terms, rehab with the Paracletes in SB, yet in 2003 the diocese did not know his name
****
**********
By Kay Ebeling
What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to light a match under the San Bernardino diocese, and could not even get the last name of a serial perpetrator, a pedophile priest who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
When we put up The Paraclete Documents last week, we reported there may have been another Paraclete center in the San Bernardino area, as well. An email came minutes later saying: “It was in Cherry Valley.” Then she sent pedophile priest Tony Rodrigue’s assignment history, which includes a stay in 1983 at an “Outside Institution” at 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405.
A phone call to the emailer, Margaret Schettler, uprooted another reason we need Senate or Congressional hearings on pedophile priests in the Catholic Church: Obstruction of Justice. It took Margaret Schettler a year to get the last name of a priest the church knew was a predator as far back as 1979.
Systematically the church refused to give out names of known pedophile priests.
In the case of Anthony Rodgrigue, the diocese outreach director had to have known the church practically fed altar boys to this particular problem priest for years, including his stays at recovery centers in New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Cherry Valley CA. Rodrigue preyed in the area east and south of LA that is now called the inland empire,
“I knew if I knew about this guy in the seventies, it must have been pretty bad,” Schettler said, “but I couldn't remember his last name."
For one whole year the outreach director at the diocese of San Bernardino told Margaret Schettler he had no idea what priest she was talking about.
****
Rodrigue is the priest in the news report from 1979 scanned in at right (click to enlarge and read). Up to the 1970s areas like Coachella Valley and Calexico where the diocese transferred around Rodrigue, were way out in the desert, little towns, typical breeding grounds and festering territory for the church to send its pedophile priests.
“It took me a year to get his last name, I spent so much time doing research and then found out that the diocese had known all along,” said Schettler, who is a priest sex crime victim advocate, in LA. “I think they always knew but they weren’t telling me,” Schettler said. Until she did enough research to file a 7-page report. Then the diocese told her Yes, they knew the name of the priest.
And “he had been arrested in fact,” she finally learned.
“When I got the name, I went online and found the newspaper article from the late 90s where he describes four or five kids a year.”
Actually it was five or six children that Rodrigue admitted to having sex with a year:
EXAMINER: Until the time that you stopped actively being a priest, how many boys would you say you had contact with during all that time that you had trouble dealing with? Best guess.
MR. RODRIGUE: Best guess? I would say around five or six per year.
In context, they are discussing boys Rodrigue “screwed.”
That's the word he uses for it in a Lie Detector test from May 1997.
City of Angels has the transcript of the lie detector test and will run a post with more direct quotes next blog entry.
Again. What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to get the last name of the priest who had raped altar boys all over the inland emplire, and the San Bernardino diocese would not even give her his last name. Tony Rodrigue was a serial pedophile since at least 1969, who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
NOTE: Margaret emailed me this correction:
) "tried the entire 2003 to get his name"
actually I tried from May 2002-Feb. 2003 to get his name, first contacting the Diocese of S. bernardino in May of 2002. I got his name from one of the priests I worked with in Coachella, but he told me he thought Rodrigue didn't come to the parish until after I left.
I spent 2003 gathering information about Rodrigue- getting little information from the diocese, except for finally in March of 2003 they confimed Rodrigue's presence at the parish through Baptism and Marriage records. Msgr. Lopez travelled to Coachella "to see the records with my own eyes", but failed to report the information to the current pastor. ( He could have gotten the info by a simple phone call to the parish secretary or pastor). My goal in 2003 was to get the church to actively reach out to find Rodrigue's victims by informing the parishes where he worked, and finally by going to the press when it became clear the church was not going to do anything.
So she worked the entire year of 2002, then the diocese tap danced for another 10 months before taking action.
Back to July 3 post:
The SB diocese told Schettler they did not know of a Father Tony in Coachella who had problems with children.
The Catholic Church knew since the 1970s that Tony Rodrigue had a problem with sexual attraction to children.
HOW DID Margaret Schettler know about Tony Rodrigue in the 1970s?
Margaret: When I went to work at the parish, there were two priests that were co-pastoring the parish. One told me immediately after introducing me to Rodrigue.
He told me right away the guy was there to wait to go to a treatment center because he was molesting kids. When I’d be in the rectory ther would be kids coming to the door, always asking for Father Tony.
It started to happen soon and he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out to meet them.
He had a little truck with a camper and he was taking the kids out hanging out with them, away from the parish.
There were a couple times the priest came through and said Father Tony is taking kids out in his truck again.
A couple times.
When Rodrigue left, I said, to the other priest who co-parished there, Oh he’s gone to his treatment center. The other priest said what are you talking about like he was already denying it.
*******
In late 2003, after a lot of prodding the diocese finally started to reach out to victims, sort of, as reported here:
Congregation learns former priest in jail
COACHELLA (CA)
The Desert Sun
By Lois Gormley
December 29th, 2003
COACHELLA -- Representatives from the Diocese of San Bernardino visited Our Lady of Soledad this weekend to advise parishioners that a former priest who once spent time at the church is now serving a 10-year sentence for child molestation.
ME: Still trying to minimize the story or the issue, the San Bernardino diocese responded:
“Rodrigue’s conviction stems from the molestation of a child in the 1990s, well after he had left the church” is how Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church Diocese in San Bernardino, was quoted in local press.
The first time Margaret Schettler called the diocese outreach director, “The first question out of his mouth was if I was going to file a lawsuit against the diocese of San Bernardino. I just had one goal, to find the victims."
She says she’s haunted by the idea that all those boys interacted with Rodrigue, in just the short time she worked at the church in Soledad.
“Monsignor Lopez presented himself as not knowing,” Schettler said of the outreach director. “He was just trying to throw me off. During a 10 month period, I was checking internet, reading articles and following the story and learning the pattern.
Today Margaret is Religious Education Director, which puts her in charge of Virtus, at Our Lady of Grace on White Oak and Ventura in Encino.
“We've had listening sessions, we had the survivors, quilt, my pastor has been very involved,” she said.
When asked what she thinks the church needs to do Schettler said:
“They need to move themselves out of the center. It’s not about survivors coming back to the church, if anybody needs to come back on their knees with humility it’s the church.
One of the things with the Rodrigue case I asked Msgr. Lopez shouldn't you be going to the parishes where he served for 29 years.
He was an active priest 20 years.
He admits he raped up to five young boys, usually altar boys a year.
Monsignor Lopez’s response was according to Schettler was, we've already done enough.
Shettler did what she could, leafleting with SNAP, interacting with the sheriff and DA, she even wrote a 7-page report and sent it to the San Bernardino diocese, still not sure of the name of the priest who was molesting young boys in Coachella in the 1970s.
Finally the San Bernardino diocese identified the predator priest: Anthony Rodrigue, and in December 2003, nearly a year after Margaret first called the priest at the diocese in charge of victim outreach, started contacting parishes where he’d served.
They did nothing to find victims until December 2003.
I doubt they're doing much more.
I tried to contact the leader of Inland Empire SNAP, who I believe was also one of Rodrigue’s victims. After we had a short conversation, where he said he’d speak to me later, he now does not return my calls or emails.
That is what happens almost every time I contact a SNAP leader from around the country. They stop calling back after the first call.
Weird.
Margaret says Anthony Rodrigue is like a Birmingham in numbers of his victims.
“The numbers of lawsuits related to Rodrigue are not reflective of the numbers of his victims.... I really wonder why this particular case did not spark more interest. It would be so instructive to explain the workings behind the scenes in the chancery offices spanning multiple bishops and 2 dioceses.”
WE NEED AN INVESTIGATION.
City of Angels needs a car, or at least a budget to rent a car, and get out to the Inland Empire and find people.
Quote from news 2005 articles:
By Michael Fisher
The Press-Enterprise [California]
August 11, 2005
Former Inland priest Edward Anthony Rodrigue said he met with San Diego's bishop in 1976 to discuss a letter from 10 parents who accused the parish cleric of sexually abusing altar boys, according to papers filed in federal court this week.
At least 19 men have sued the San Diego or San Bernardino dioceses, alleging that as boys, they were molested by Rodrigue in the 1960s and 1970s at churches in Calexico, Barstow, El Centro, Encinitas, Heber and Ontario.
Rodrigue is serving a 10-year sentence in state prison after he pleaded no contest in 1998 to molesting an 11-year-old Highland boy
ME: THIS IS THE JOHN DOE FROM THE LIE DETECTOR TRANSCRIPT
Which will be quoted in an upcoming post.
WHERE IS RODRIGUE TODAY?
“His brother Tom Rodrigue was travelled down here to meet Tony when he got out of prison and he was careful to keep Tony away from kids,” said an attorney connected to the case.
The ex-priest Rodrigue “was put into a halfway house program and his brother Tom is paying for the global positioning system to keep him monitored,” the attorney said.
Margaret told me, “When I’d be in the rectory there’d be kids coming to the door asking for Father Tony."
MARGARET: It happened soon after I started work there. And he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out and meeting them.”
I went to Father Tony and I said, you invited him and you tell him you can’t see children.
I was too young to understand even the ramifications
Here is assignment history of Anthony Rodrigue as Schettler has gathered it
1963 - La Jolla - Mary Star of the Sea
1964 “ “
1965 - Lakeside - Our Lady of Perpetual Help
1966 - “ “
1967 - Encinitas - St. Johns
1968 - Calexico - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1969 “ “
1970 “ “
1971 “ “
1972 - directory not available
1973 - Name not listed
1974 - Name not listed
1975 - Name not listed
1976 - El Centro - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1977 - Name not listed
1978 - Ontario - St. George
1979 - Ontario - St. George
1980 - Name not listed
1981 - Name not listed
1982 - Loma Linda - St. Joseph the Worker
1983 - “Outside Institution” 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405
1884 “ “ “
1985 “ “ “
1986 - directory not available
1987 - “Retired” 32350 Acacia #2, San Bernardino, CA 92405
1988 - “ “ “
1989 - “ “ “
1990 - not listed
1991 - not listed
************88
NEXT: Words right out of the mouth of Tony Rodrigue, quotes from his lie detector transcript test coming in about a day maybe less.
Readers, I can’t tell you how bizarre it is to write these stories and then go to work on shows like Greatest American Dog and Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Wrestling competition.
It’s just part of my weird life.
TIP: Greatest American Dog is going to knock your socks off, really good television, I have to admit. . .
Onward. .. going to Chicago next week!
PS Readership is way up into the mid-hundreds here at City of Angels Blog. If you click on an ad I earn from 2 cents to as much as $3.68, so please visit our advertisers -- ke
**********
By Kay Ebeling
What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to light a match under the San Bernardino diocese, and could not even get the last name of a serial perpetrator, a pedophile priest who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
When we put up The Paraclete Documents last week, we reported there may have been another Paraclete center in the San Bernardino area, as well. An email came minutes later saying: “It was in Cherry Valley.” Then she sent pedophile priest Tony Rodrigue’s assignment history, which includes a stay in 1983 at an “Outside Institution” at 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405.
A phone call to the emailer, Margaret Schettler, uprooted another reason we need Senate or Congressional hearings on pedophile priests in the Catholic Church: Obstruction of Justice. It took Margaret Schettler a year to get the last name of a priest the church knew was a predator as far back as 1979.
Systematically the church refused to give out names of known pedophile priests.
In the case of Anthony Rodgrigue, the diocese outreach director had to have known the church practically fed altar boys to this particular problem priest for years, including his stays at recovery centers in New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Cherry Valley CA. Rodrigue preyed in the area east and south of LA that is now called the inland empire,
“I knew if I knew about this guy in the seventies, it must have been pretty bad,” Schettler said, “but I couldn't remember his last name."
For one whole year the outreach director at the diocese of San Bernardino told Margaret Schettler he had no idea what priest she was talking about.
****
Rodrigue is the priest in the news report from 1979 scanned in at right (click to enlarge and read). Up to the 1970s areas like Coachella Valley and Calexico where the diocese transferred around Rodrigue, were way out in the desert, little towns, typical breeding grounds and festering territory for the church to send its pedophile priests. “It took me a year to get his last name, I spent so much time doing research and then found out that the diocese had known all along,” said Schettler, who is a priest sex crime victim advocate, in LA. “I think they always knew but they weren’t telling me,” Schettler said. Until she did enough research to file a 7-page report. Then the diocese told her Yes, they knew the name of the priest.
And “he had been arrested in fact,” she finally learned.
“When I got the name, I went online and found the newspaper article from the late 90s where he describes four or five kids a year.”
Actually it was five or six children that Rodrigue admitted to having sex with a year:
EXAMINER: Until the time that you stopped actively being a priest, how many boys would you say you had contact with during all that time that you had trouble dealing with? Best guess.
MR. RODRIGUE: Best guess? I would say around five or six per year.
In context, they are discussing boys Rodrigue “screwed.”
That's the word he uses for it in a Lie Detector test from May 1997.
City of Angels has the transcript of the lie detector test and will run a post with more direct quotes next blog entry.
Again. What organization in America is allowed to systematically obstruct justice? Margaret Schettler tried for the entire year of 2003 to get the last name of the priest who had raped altar boys all over the inland emplire, and the San Bernardino diocese would not even give her his last name. Tony Rodrigue was a serial pedophile since at least 1969, who’d been convicted twice as a child molester.
NOTE: Margaret emailed me this correction:
) "tried the entire 2003 to get his name"
actually I tried from May 2002-Feb. 2003 to get his name, first contacting the Diocese of S. bernardino in May of 2002. I got his name from one of the priests I worked with in Coachella, but he told me he thought Rodrigue didn't come to the parish until after I left.
I spent 2003 gathering information about Rodrigue- getting little information from the diocese, except for finally in March of 2003 they confimed Rodrigue's presence at the parish through Baptism and Marriage records. Msgr. Lopez travelled to Coachella "to see the records with my own eyes", but failed to report the information to the current pastor. ( He could have gotten the info by a simple phone call to the parish secretary or pastor). My goal in 2003 was to get the church to actively reach out to find Rodrigue's victims by informing the parishes where he worked, and finally by going to the press when it became clear the church was not going to do anything.
So she worked the entire year of 2002, then the diocese tap danced for another 10 months before taking action.
Back to July 3 post:
The SB diocese told Schettler they did not know of a Father Tony in Coachella who had problems with children.
The Catholic Church knew since the 1970s that Tony Rodrigue had a problem with sexual attraction to children.
HOW DID Margaret Schettler know about Tony Rodrigue in the 1970s?
Margaret: When I went to work at the parish, there were two priests that were co-pastoring the parish. One told me immediately after introducing me to Rodrigue.
He told me right away the guy was there to wait to go to a treatment center because he was molesting kids. When I’d be in the rectory ther would be kids coming to the door, always asking for Father Tony.
It started to happen soon and he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out to meet them.
He had a little truck with a camper and he was taking the kids out hanging out with them, away from the parish.
There were a couple times the priest came through and said Father Tony is taking kids out in his truck again.
A couple times.
When Rodrigue left, I said, to the other priest who co-parished there, Oh he’s gone to his treatment center. The other priest said what are you talking about like he was already denying it.
*******
In late 2003, after a lot of prodding the diocese finally started to reach out to victims, sort of, as reported here:
Congregation learns former priest in jail
COACHELLA (CA)
The Desert Sun
By Lois Gormley
December 29th, 2003
COACHELLA -- Representatives from the Diocese of San Bernardino visited Our Lady of Soledad this weekend to advise parishioners that a former priest who once spent time at the church is now serving a 10-year sentence for child molestation.
ME: Still trying to minimize the story or the issue, the San Bernardino diocese responded:
“Rodrigue’s conviction stems from the molestation of a child in the 1990s, well after he had left the church” is how Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church Diocese in San Bernardino, was quoted in local press.
The first time Margaret Schettler called the diocese outreach director, “The first question out of his mouth was if I was going to file a lawsuit against the diocese of San Bernardino. I just had one goal, to find the victims."
She says she’s haunted by the idea that all those boys interacted with Rodrigue, in just the short time she worked at the church in Soledad.
“Monsignor Lopez presented himself as not knowing,” Schettler said of the outreach director. “He was just trying to throw me off. During a 10 month period, I was checking internet, reading articles and following the story and learning the pattern.
Today Margaret is Religious Education Director, which puts her in charge of Virtus, at Our Lady of Grace on White Oak and Ventura in Encino.
“We've had listening sessions, we had the survivors, quilt, my pastor has been very involved,” she said.
When asked what she thinks the church needs to do Schettler said:
“They need to move themselves out of the center. It’s not about survivors coming back to the church, if anybody needs to come back on their knees with humility it’s the church.
One of the things with the Rodrigue case I asked Msgr. Lopez shouldn't you be going to the parishes where he served for 29 years.
He was an active priest 20 years.
He admits he raped up to five young boys, usually altar boys a year.
Monsignor Lopez’s response was according to Schettler was, we've already done enough.
Shettler did what she could, leafleting with SNAP, interacting with the sheriff and DA, she even wrote a 7-page report and sent it to the San Bernardino diocese, still not sure of the name of the priest who was molesting young boys in Coachella in the 1970s.
Finally the San Bernardino diocese identified the predator priest: Anthony Rodrigue, and in December 2003, nearly a year after Margaret first called the priest at the diocese in charge of victim outreach, started contacting parishes where he’d served.
They did nothing to find victims until December 2003.
I doubt they're doing much more.
I tried to contact the leader of Inland Empire SNAP, who I believe was also one of Rodrigue’s victims. After we had a short conversation, where he said he’d speak to me later, he now does not return my calls or emails.
That is what happens almost every time I contact a SNAP leader from around the country. They stop calling back after the first call.
Weird.
Margaret says Anthony Rodrigue is like a Birmingham in numbers of his victims.
“The numbers of lawsuits related to Rodrigue are not reflective of the numbers of his victims.... I really wonder why this particular case did not spark more interest. It would be so instructive to explain the workings behind the scenes in the chancery offices spanning multiple bishops and 2 dioceses.”
WE NEED AN INVESTIGATION.
City of Angels needs a car, or at least a budget to rent a car, and get out to the Inland Empire and find people.
Quote from news 2005 articles:
By Michael Fisher
The Press-Enterprise [California]
August 11, 2005
Former Inland priest Edward Anthony Rodrigue said he met with San Diego's bishop in 1976 to discuss a letter from 10 parents who accused the parish cleric of sexually abusing altar boys, according to papers filed in federal court this week.
At least 19 men have sued the San Diego or San Bernardino dioceses, alleging that as boys, they were molested by Rodrigue in the 1960s and 1970s at churches in Calexico, Barstow, El Centro, Encinitas, Heber and Ontario.
Rodrigue is serving a 10-year sentence in state prison after he pleaded no contest in 1998 to molesting an 11-year-old Highland boy
ME: THIS IS THE JOHN DOE FROM THE LIE DETECTOR TRANSCRIPT
Which will be quoted in an upcoming post.
WHERE IS RODRIGUE TODAY?
“His brother Tom Rodrigue was travelled down here to meet Tony when he got out of prison and he was careful to keep Tony away from kids,” said an attorney connected to the case.
The ex-priest Rodrigue “was put into a halfway house program and his brother Tom is paying for the global positioning system to keep him monitored,” the attorney said.
Margaret told me, “When I’d be in the rectory there’d be kids coming to the door asking for Father Tony."
MARGARET: It happened soon after I started work there. And he was standing in the background of where I was answering the door, I mean I just knew that this guy wasn’t supposed to see kids and here he was coming to the door and coming out and meeting them.”
I went to Father Tony and I said, you invited him and you tell him you can’t see children.
I was too young to understand even the ramifications
Here is assignment history of Anthony Rodrigue as Schettler has gathered it
1963 - La Jolla - Mary Star of the Sea
1964 “ “
1965 - Lakeside - Our Lady of Perpetual Help
1966 - “ “
1967 - Encinitas - St. Johns
1968 - Calexico - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1969 “ “
1970 “ “
1971 “ “
1972 - directory not available
1973 - Name not listed
1974 - Name not listed
1975 - Name not listed
1976 - El Centro - Our Lady of Guadalupe
1977 - Name not listed
1978 - Ontario - St. George
1979 - Ontario - St. George
1980 - Name not listed
1981 - Name not listed
1982 - Loma Linda - St. Joseph the Worker
1983 - “Outside Institution” 39100 Orchard, Cherry Valley, CA 92405
1884 “ “ “
1985 “ “ “
1986 - directory not available
1987 - “Retired” 32350 Acacia #2, San Bernardino, CA 92405
1988 - “ “ “
1989 - “ “ “
1990 - not listed
1991 - not listed
************88
NEXT: Words right out of the mouth of Tony Rodrigue, quotes from his lie detector transcript test coming in about a day maybe less.
Readers, I can’t tell you how bizarre it is to write these stories and then go to work on shows like Greatest American Dog and Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Wrestling competition.
It’s just part of my weird life.
TIP: Greatest American Dog is going to knock your socks off, really good television, I have to admit. . .
Onward. .. going to Chicago next week!
PS Readership is way up into the mid-hundreds here at City of Angels Blog. If you click on an ad I earn from 2 cents to as much as $3.68, so please visit our advertisers -- ke
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
OPEN LETTER names all 108 bishops and cardinals guilty of aiding and abetting
This came to my email today, again published with permission of the author, Dan Burke of Huntley Illinois. (Editor's Note: Expect more about Marci Hamilton's book as we approach the SNAP conference, as she will be one of the main speakers.)
OPEN LETTER TO: Bishop Roger Schweitz, Anchorage, Alaska, June 23, 2008 - Re: Repairing Priest Relations.
I read the June 13th AP piece by Rachel Zoll, “Bishops Target Priest’s Morale” quoting you, Merz, the Chairman of the Review Board, Aymond, the Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children and as usual came away unimpressed and in amazement that the Bishops continue to ignore the root cause of the festering disaffection within the Church, failing to see that lack of accountability is the underlying basis for the malaise now extant within the Catholic community, in turn affecting Priest morale…ie: the flock sees the clergy and its leadership as corrupt……and why not!
Corrupt at several levels:
• Failing to institute a vetting system when recruiting
• Failing to reign in financial mismanagement and to explain financial details in Stewardship Appeals
• And worst of all - failing to take seriously, wholesale broad based intentional misconduct, on a level that would qualify in the real world as “Abetting Criminal behavior” and “Obstruction of Justice”
As an example of financial mismanagement or the use or misuse of ‘stockholder’ funds, the Cathedral of Our Lady in Los Angeles was completed in 2002 at a cost of over $200 Million, originally budgeted for $180 Million, when a $20 Million dollar Cathedral would have sufficed.
The Cathedral’s plaza is filled with palm trees, fountains and a waterfall and beneath its main floor, an undercroft of 1,270 crypts and 5,000 niches prepared for future burials, a campanile [free standing bell tower] topped with a 30-foot cross housing a carillon of 18 bells, a 58,000 sq. ft. conference center.
Constructed with the largest use of alabaster in the world, all 27,000 sq. ft. of the delicate stone having been quarried in Spain. Windows are a mosaic of thousands of tiles of nearly 20 different sizes set horizontally in rows that range from 3 to 24 inches wide and 13 to 34 inches tall, all set against Belgian tapestries depicting saints lining the 300 ft. Nave.
The edifice includes towering 30 ft. entrance doors of solid bronze coming in at $3M, a $2M wooden ambo [lectern], a $1M tabernacle, a $1M cathedral bishop's chair*, a $250K presider's chair, a $250K deacon's chair, and visiting bishops' chairs costing $150K each. Cardinal Mahony himself designed the altar, made of burgundy Rosso Laguna Turkish marble coming in at $5 million.
* Can you believe it?...$1Million for a chair!
I ask you, is it the mission of the Church to use money that could have paid for victim compensation or to assist the poor, or is it to allow an arrogant jerk Cardinal to build a beyond opulent edifice to satisfy his ego?
Recently, the Los Angeles Diocese took a Public Relations hit when it asked four elderly nuns in their late 60s and early 70s living in semi-retirement to move from their Diocesan owned home so that it could be sold by the Diocese, the proceeds to be used for payment of Priest Sex Abuse settlements.
Sins of the Fathers being visited upon the Sisters?
When Enron failed, WorldCom tanked, Adelphia was looted and Tyco excesses were foisted upon the stockholders, the financial scandals prompted an unusually not ‘tuned in’ Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
ME: REPEAT: THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT
The Act established the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and mandated senior executives to take individual responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of corporate financial reports, enumerated specific limits on the behaviors of corporate officers, described specific forfeitures of benefits and civil penalties for non-compliance.
Given what has happened in the Church these past 35 years, with out of control mismanagement,
(1) a ‘failed vetting system’ or total lack thereof that permitted upwards of 5,000* + abusing and pedophile priests to be ordained,
(2) abusing priests being transferred about resulting in the abusers re-offending in many instances,
(3) the decision of one man like Cardinal Mahony to squander $200 million on an edifice dubbed ‘Cathedral of Our Lady’, why shouldn’t the church and its priests be in a morale stupor? * A USCCB statistic, not mine.
• In 1995 Sen. Bob Packwood [Oregon] resigned following mounting evidence of sexual harassment of his office staffers.
• Boeing CEO Phil Condit, resigned in 2003, as a result of the defense contracting scandal that ultimately saw two Boeing executives, ex Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun and chief financial officer Mike Sears sent prison.
• Again in 2005 Boeing fired its CEO Harry Stonecipher for having an affair with a staffer.
• In March 2007, less than a week after visiting the Walter Reed medical Center following allegations of deplorable conditions, newly installed Defense Secretary Robert Gates summoned Army Secretary Francis Harvey to Washington and fired him on the spot. Harvey’s statement to the press?.....I was head of the Army…what can I say…the buck stops with me…I have to take responsibility. This is the real world Schweitz.
• Just five months ago Merrill Lynch fired its CEO Stan Lynch for poor performance, and mounting losses,
• A week later Citibank fired its CEO Chuck Prince for poor performance, mounting losses.
• Just this past week Defense Secretary Gates fired Air Force Secretary Michael Wynn and Air Force Chief of Stall General Michael Moseley because lower level individuals under their command flew ‘armed’ nuclear weapons from Minot North Dakota to Louisiana, allowed the accidental shipment of Nuclear ‘triggers’ to Taiwan and found that an operational officer was not able to be reached while on duty because he was playing video games on his computer. In explaining his actions, Gates stated that oversight standards for the U.S. nuclear arsenal had deteriorated on their watch. Gates found the mistakes to a problem developed over time within the culture of the Air Force requiring stern action to send a message.
When you have 5,000 + priests,
and some Bishops by the way,
out there abusing
and another 108 Bishops and Cardinals covering up and transferring abusers
who continued to abuse in many instances, HOW does one NOT come to the conclusion that both the abuse and the broad based massive cover-up had become part of the culture of the clergy, resulting in leadership failing to (1) defrock abusers and failing to (2) ‘sack the Bishops and Cardinals’ who covered up and transferred?
Here they are from the USCCB’ audit: I see you are on the List
The names of the transferring or covering up Bishops and Cardinals are:
Roll Call Please!
Bishop Gregory Aymond
Austin, TX
Bishop Robert Baker
Charleston, Sc
Bishop Robert Banks
Green Bay Wi
Bishop Gerald Barnes
San Bernardino, Ca
Bishop Eusebius Beltran
Oklahoma City, Ok
Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua
Piladelphia, PA
Bishop Raymond Boland
St. Josph, Mo
Bishop Anhony Bosco
Greensburg, Pa
Bishop Robert Brom
San Diego, Ca
Bishop Tod Brown
Orange,Ca
Bishop Alexander Brunett
Seattle,Wa
Bishop Edmond Carmody
Corpus Christi, Tx
Bishop Matthew Clark
Rochester, NY
Bishop Patrick Cooney
Gaylord,Mi
Bishop Alvaro Corrada del Rio
Tyler,Tx
Bishop Daniel Cronin
Hartland, Conn
Bishop Edward Cullen
Allentown, Pa
Bishop John Cummins
Oakland, Ca
Bishop James Murray
Kalamazoo Mi
Bishop William Curlin
Charlotte Nc
Bishop Eldin Curtiss
Omaha, Ne
Bishop Thomas Daily
Brooklyn Ny
Bishop Joseph Delaney
Ft. Worth Tx
Bishop Francis DiLorenzo
Honolulu, Ha
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio
Camden Nj
Bishop Daniel Dinardo
SiouxCity,Ia
Bishop Thomas Doran
Rockford,Il
Bishop Norbert Dorsey
Orlando FL
Bishop Michael Driscoll
Boise ID
Bishop Thoma Dupre
Springfield, Ma
Cardinal Edweard Egan
New York NY
Bishop John Favalora
MiamiFl
Bishop David Fellhauer
Victoria,Tx
Bishop Joseph Fiorenza
Galveston Tx
Bishop Ralphael Flis
Superior WI
Bishop Patrick Flores
San Antonio Tx
Bishop Harry Flynn
St Paul Minneapolis Mn
Bishop David Foley
Birmingham Al
Bishop John Gaydos
Jefferson City Mo
Cardinal Francis George
Chicago,Il
Bishop Joseph Gerry
Portland Me
Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger
Evansville,In
Bishop Joseph Gossman
Raleigh,Nc
Bishop Charles Grahmann
Dallas TX
Bishop James Griffin
Colombus Oh
Bishop Jerome Hanus
Dubuque Ia
Bishop Daniel Hart
Norwich Conn
Bishop William Higi
Layfayette, In
Bishop James Hoffman
Toledo Oh
Bishop Howard Hubbard
Albany NY
Bishop Alfred Hughes
New Orleans, La
Bishop Joseph Imesch
Joliet IL
Bishop Samuel Jacobs
Alexandria La
Bishop Michael Jarrell
Houma-Thibodaux La
Bishop William Keeler
Baltimore, Md
Bishop Thomas Kelly
Louisville, Ky
Cardinal Bernard Law
Boston Ma
Bishop John Leibrecht
Cape Girardeau Mo
Bishop William Levada
San Francisco Ca
Bishop William Lori
Bridgeport Conn
Bishop George Lucas
Springfield Il
Bishop Robert Lynch
St Petersburg Fl
Cardinal Roger Mahony
Los Angeles, Ca
Bishop Adam Maida
Detroit Mi
Bishop Henry Mansell
Buffalo NY
Bishop Theodore McCarrick
Wash DC
Bishop John McCormack
Manchester Nh
Bishop Patrick McGrath
San Jose Ca
Bishop John Mc Raith
Owensboro Ky
Bishop Carl Mongeling
Lansing Mi
Bishop Anthony Milone
Great Falls Mont.
Bishop Manuel Moreno
Tucson Az
Bishop James Moynihan
Syracuse NY
Bishop Robert Mulvee
Providence Ri
Bishop George Murry
St Thomas US Virgin Is
Bishop James Murtaugh
Palm Beach Fl
Bishop John Myers
Newrak Nj
Bishop John Nevins
Venice Fl
Bishop Thomas O’Brien
Phoenix Az
Bishop Raymond Pena
Brownsville Tx
Bishop Michael Pfeifer
San Angelo Tx
Bishop Daniel Pilarczyk
Cincinnati Oh
Bishop Anthony Pilla
Cleveland Oh
Bishop Ricardo Ramirez
Las Cruces, Nm
Bishop Daniel Reilly
Worcester Ma
Bishop Justin Rigoli
St Louis Mo
Bishop Thomas Rodi
Biloxi Miss.
Bishop Frank Rodimer
Paterson Nj
Bishop Placido Rodriguez
Lubbock Tx
Bishop Robert Rose
Grand Rapids Mi
Bishop Sylvester Ryan
Monterey Ca
Bishop Roger Schwietz
Anchorage Al
Bishop Michael Sheehan
Santa Fe Nm
Bishop Richard Sklba
Milwaukee Wi
Bishop John Smith
Trenton Nj
Bishop John Steinbock
Fresno Ca
Bishop Phillip Straling
Reno Nv
Bishop Walter Sullivan
Richmond Va
Bishop Arthur Tafoya
Pueblo Co
Bishop James Tamayo
Laredo Tx
Bishop James Timlin
Scranton Pa
Bishop Donald Trautman
Erie Pa
Bishop Kenneth Untener
Saginaw Mi
Bishop Willaim Weigand
Sacramento Ca
Bishop Donald Wuerl
Pittsburgh Pa
Bishop John Yanta
Amarillo Tx
Bishop Paul Zipfel
Bismarck Nd
Incredible isn’t it?
108 Cardinals and Bishops transferring and or covering up abuse for 5,148 abusers resulting in 11,750 pedophile victims – both USCCB statistics - and NO ONE in the CHURCH did anything about it!.....including the nitwit Pope, John Paul.
Do you really believe that Christ would have countenanced the diatribe that has thus far emanated from the Bishop’s conference? I think he would be turning over the tables and throwing the rascals out……to paraphrase Matthew 21:13. Sound familiar?......rascals who allowed this to go on and who now duck responsibility.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. This scandal, the cover up, the lack of accountability in the leadership from the top down...no firings, no demotions, no dismissals....well it simply takes your breath away because in any other company, corporation, organization in other words the real world...they would be gone with this record!
Frank Keating, retired Governor of Oklahoma and former Chairman of the National Review Board, resigned from the Review Board over frustration arising from the refusal of the Bishops to cooperate, citing their preference to deny, hide, obfuscate, suppress names of offenders, resist subpoenas, noting that the Bishops listen too much to their lawyers and not enough to their hearts.
Former White House Chief of Staff and U.S. Rep. Leon Panetta, a California Democrat who served on the Review Board and was one of those who met with Cardinal Francis George commented on the continuing abuse allegations arising out of the Chicago Diocese stating at a news conference, "it confirmed for me what is at the heart of this pedophile priest problem, the Catholic hierarchy's failure to understand the seriousness of the crisis”.
George’s response? According to three sources contacted by Sun Times reporters, that when the members of the Review Board met with George, he issued a warning, “you will be the downfall of the church!” The group was dumbstruck. “The bishops and priests have failed to deal with this scandal” Panetta told George. “The healing process could not begin, Panetta said, unless the church acknowledged the problem”.
Indeed, the Rev. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at Notre Dame, got it right on when he recently said that “survey after survey showed that as much as people were appalled by the behavior of predatory priests, they were more appalled by the behavior of the Bishops in covering it up!” Repeat after me…more appalled by the coverup!
Nowhere is the adage that an organization cannot be counted on to police itself more evident than in the church.
It’s about accountability and transparency….both of which are woefully lacking in the mission of this church….which did nothing to sack its CEOs ie: the transferring Cardinals and Bishops even though the Church knew of the emerging scandal as far back as 1985 after the submittal of the report by Canon Lawyer Thomas Doyle.
Recently Rockford Illinois Diocese Bishop Doran, when confronted with the allegations surrounding Harlan Clapsaddle, had him temporarily removed from ministry, sent for treatment and unbelievably put in back in ministry at a Nursing Home, without disclosing to the Nursing Home his past, [ sound familiar ] which was not revealed to the Nursing Home, until two days before Clapsaddle resigned for good. Some management!....and Doran wants Stewardship money from the stockholders?…no explanations?…no questions asked?...and if he doesn’t get, he’ll extract it out of operating funds!
Your efforts to restore Priest morale comes on the heels of the single greatest scandal to beset any institution against a backdrop where not ONE SINGLE transferring Bishop or Cardinal has lost his job, the ultimate in disdain, and is an example of mismanagement at its zenith that would not be tolerated in the public arena, and cries out for accountability at every level not just financial, but in personal responsibility as well by those who transferred rather than managed, who covered up instead of leading by example.
In 1993, a former seminarian reported sexual abuse and exploitation at age 18 by Fr. Michael Yakaitis who was then ( you are going to choke on this ) a “spiritual director” and Dean of Students at St. Mary of the Lake seminary in Mundelein, Illinois.
The student seminarian reported it to seven church officials. COUNT ‘EM 7, including:
• Fr. John Canary former Vicar for Priests and current Rector - St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein;
• Fr. Larry McBrady former Vicar for Priests in the administration of Frances Cardinal George;
• Fr. Gerald Kicanas former Rector - St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein and current Bishop of the Tucson Diocese;
• Fr. Cletus Kiley former Rector - Niles College Seminary and current assistant to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops;
• Cardinal Joseph Cardinal Bernardin; Hope he is working it off in Purgatory!
• Fr. James Presta Rector - St. Joseph College Seminary, Loyola University of Chicago; and
• Fr. Michael Foley former Rector - Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary High School.
None of the above deny it, with Fr. John Canary admitting on February 7th 2005 in an on-air interview with television reporter Jay Levine of WBBM channel 2 Chicago, the earlier reporting of the abuse by the seminarian.
Nothing happened!
I guess the ‘blue code of silence’ not only exists in the police department.
Worse...want to know what Yakaitis did? Introduced the seminarian to pornography and alcohol when the seminarian sought counseling from “this spiritual director” over confusion about his own sexuality - preference included - then initiated the abuse and later to avoid any repercussions “threatened to expose” the seminarian’s sexual preference if he revealed what took place. Yakaitis should have been defrocked! -
but wasn’t that a Church?
In 2000, the former nun principal of Holy Family school in Chicago reported to the Archdiocese that Rev. Daniel McCormack - the recently convicted offender - may have had inappropriate contact with a child in 2000. We may now change “may have” to definitely did!
In 2001 Cardinal Francis George appointed the same Fr. Michael Yakaitis from the above 1993 episode, to be student Chaplin at the University of Chicago’s Calvert House, a Catholic facility for Catholic youth attending the U. of C., without checking Yakaitis’ background which was in the file of the Diocese clearly evidencing prior credible sex abuse allegations, to which abuse, Fr. Yakaitis has since admitted in 2005. Cardinal George and his staff did not even check Yakaitis’ file when sex abuse scandal was on everyone’s tongue! But one wonders why the mope was even still around as a priest instead of being defrocked? The Catholic Church complicit in the Obstruction of Justice…in “aiding and abetting”.
In 2003 Francis George had the Rev. Kenneth Martin living in the Cardinal’s residence next door to an elementary school while “working” for the archdiocese knowing that Martin had previously been convicted after pleading guilty to abusing a boy for 3 years while a high school teacher in Maryland.
In 2006 with the McCormack case, we have an abusing priest who with a Masters of Divinity from the same Mundelein Seminary out abusing boys as late as 2002 when sex abuse was on everyone’s tongue proving* that his urges were far more powerful than his common sense, exposing himself to criminal prosecution when this behavior was such a hot button issue.
*The reason to keep these guys out of ministry and away from children and preferably behind bars….they cannot and do not control themselves.
Then on January 28th 2006 his ‘eminence ?’ Francis George publicly commended the principal of Holy Family school for coming forward in 2000 and reporting Fr. McCormack and expressing regret that the archdiocese failed to respond sooner!
These failures to report the abusers, is not a mistake…..it’s a pattern! Indeed the principal before writing her letter had called the Chancery Office to report the suspected abuse and was told not to press it if the parents were not pushing it! Some Church!
The arrogance!…the gall!....with just this past week, goofy Bishop Gregory Aymond, Chair of the U.S. Bishop’s Committee for Protection of Children and Young People, telling CBS News that because Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell was prohibited from wearing ‘clerical attire’ and no longer permitted to serve in ministry; that these two restrictions were a ‘significant consequence and penalty’ for the abuse allegations leveled against him which he did not deny and which were found to have overwhelming credibility. Christ would give him a ‘millstone’ and Aymond, probation!
ransferring Bishops who covered up need to be sacked and Bishops and Cardinals like goofy Francis George who have repeatedly ‘blown it on their watch’ need to resign like Francis Harvey of the Army did, not be elected to Presidency of the USCCB…with the future successor President and nitwit Bishop Gerald Kicanas saying, he knew [pre-ordination] about the three reports of “sexual improprieties” against then-seminarian Daniel McCormack, yet still supported McCormack’s Ordination, saying, “It would have been grossly unfair not to have ordained him.”
Kicanas needs a 5:30 AM blindfold appointment before the ‘ready!...aim!...fire!’squad.
Merz’s predecessor, Robert Bennett former head of the USCCB’s Review Board was quoted acknowledging that many Bishops abandoned their responsibility [ that’s a laugh – how about virtually all ] so why should Catholics now have confidence that Bishops will not do so in the future?
Further evidencing the seriousness of the morale issue, Merz is quoted in Zoll’s piece as saying he learned of one priest who was exercising in a public gym when a passer-by said, “Are you waiting for a boy to lie down next to you?” Even Mahony himself reports that while posting a letter at a mailbox last year, he was apparently spotted and recognized by a local congregant who suddenly and unexpectedly socked him the face knocking him to the ground. I only wish I had been there to implore Mahony to apostolically ‘turn the other cheek’ so I could have delivered a ‘haymaker’ of my own!
Is it any wonder that the disdain and cynicism that exists is a DIRECT product of the magnitude of the scandal and the way the leaders collectively ‘covered up’, abetted and ‘obstructed’?
Still think the Emperor wears no clothes?
Do you still share in the collective ignorance of others like you, denying the obvious fact that this Church and its leadership has blown it? Can’t see the elephant in the room? The obvious truth that this Church has committed through its Pope, Cardinals and Bishops crimes of aiding and abetting, and crimes of obstruction of justice.
If Christ would not abandon the suffering of the cross, neither would he abandon his suffering. No, he forged on…..unfortunately, at our expense and the expense of the Church as a whole!
....................
This Church needs to account to its stockholders and not just financially as I alluded to at the outset….because mismanagement is apparent at every level.
How can anyone sympathize with a Church mired in internal corruption and mismanagement?
This Church is consigned to marginalization in an increasingly skeptical world by a better educated populace of God fearing people who have come to realize that salvation’s destiny is in their hands, not in the traditional drivel marketed by Pope clones walking down the aisle in their goofy mitre hats and carrying crosiers whilst blessing the faithful in their pews…..sprinkling them with the use of a scepter dripping with holy water…..without ever taking responsibility for what has occurred….in other words, business as usual, “bow your heads and….”
Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it. But, in the end, there it is.
Want to know what Christ is doing about now? He’s sitting with his head buried in his hands atop his lap, slowly shaking his head from side to side, weeping and softly muttering, “I can’t believe they are doing this in my name”!
Sincerely,
Dan Burke
Huntley, Illinois
P.S. Rachel Zoll:
I know you covered the Cardinal Law cover up. How the hell can you accord the actions of Benedict as taking , “…the extraordinary step” when he merely met privately with victims during his April U.S. visit…?”
Benedict didn’t do a damn thing and if truth be told, was the chief villain and Architect in the Church denial. It was Benedict who was the confidant and aide to that doddering old goofball John Paul those past 15 years prior to his death. When The Doyle report, commissioned by the Vatican in the 1st place, and was submitted in 1985, it was guys like Benedict that made the decision not to go forward but to cover up.
OPEN LETTER TO: Bishop Roger Schweitz, Anchorage, Alaska, June 23, 2008 - Re: Repairing Priest Relations.
I read the June 13th AP piece by Rachel Zoll, “Bishops Target Priest’s Morale” quoting you, Merz, the Chairman of the Review Board, Aymond, the Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children and as usual came away unimpressed and in amazement that the Bishops continue to ignore the root cause of the festering disaffection within the Church, failing to see that lack of accountability is the underlying basis for the malaise now extant within the Catholic community, in turn affecting Priest morale…ie: the flock sees the clergy and its leadership as corrupt……and why not!
Corrupt at several levels:
• Failing to institute a vetting system when recruiting
• Failing to reign in financial mismanagement and to explain financial details in Stewardship Appeals
• And worst of all - failing to take seriously, wholesale broad based intentional misconduct, on a level that would qualify in the real world as “Abetting Criminal behavior” and “Obstruction of Justice”
As an example of financial mismanagement or the use or misuse of ‘stockholder’ funds, the Cathedral of Our Lady in Los Angeles was completed in 2002 at a cost of over $200 Million, originally budgeted for $180 Million, when a $20 Million dollar Cathedral would have sufficed.
The Cathedral’s plaza is filled with palm trees, fountains and a waterfall and beneath its main floor, an undercroft of 1,270 crypts and 5,000 niches prepared for future burials, a campanile [free standing bell tower] topped with a 30-foot cross housing a carillon of 18 bells, a 58,000 sq. ft. conference center.
Constructed with the largest use of alabaster in the world, all 27,000 sq. ft. of the delicate stone having been quarried in Spain. Windows are a mosaic of thousands of tiles of nearly 20 different sizes set horizontally in rows that range from 3 to 24 inches wide and 13 to 34 inches tall, all set against Belgian tapestries depicting saints lining the 300 ft. Nave.
The edifice includes towering 30 ft. entrance doors of solid bronze coming in at $3M, a $2M wooden ambo [lectern], a $1M tabernacle, a $1M cathedral bishop's chair*, a $250K presider's chair, a $250K deacon's chair, and visiting bishops' chairs costing $150K each. Cardinal Mahony himself designed the altar, made of burgundy Rosso Laguna Turkish marble coming in at $5 million.
* Can you believe it?...$1Million for a chair!
I ask you, is it the mission of the Church to use money that could have paid for victim compensation or to assist the poor, or is it to allow an arrogant jerk Cardinal to build a beyond opulent edifice to satisfy his ego?
Recently, the Los Angeles Diocese took a Public Relations hit when it asked four elderly nuns in their late 60s and early 70s living in semi-retirement to move from their Diocesan owned home so that it could be sold by the Diocese, the proceeds to be used for payment of Priest Sex Abuse settlements.
Sins of the Fathers being visited upon the Sisters?
When Enron failed, WorldCom tanked, Adelphia was looted and Tyco excesses were foisted upon the stockholders, the financial scandals prompted an unusually not ‘tuned in’ Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
ME: REPEAT: THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT
The Act established the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and mandated senior executives to take individual responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of corporate financial reports, enumerated specific limits on the behaviors of corporate officers, described specific forfeitures of benefits and civil penalties for non-compliance.
Given what has happened in the Church these past 35 years, with out of control mismanagement,
(1) a ‘failed vetting system’ or total lack thereof that permitted upwards of 5,000* + abusing and pedophile priests to be ordained,
(2) abusing priests being transferred about resulting in the abusers re-offending in many instances,
(3) the decision of one man like Cardinal Mahony to squander $200 million on an edifice dubbed ‘Cathedral of Our Lady’, why shouldn’t the church and its priests be in a morale stupor? * A USCCB statistic, not mine.
• In 1995 Sen. Bob Packwood [Oregon] resigned following mounting evidence of sexual harassment of his office staffers.
• Boeing CEO Phil Condit, resigned in 2003, as a result of the defense contracting scandal that ultimately saw two Boeing executives, ex Air Force procurement official Darleen Druyun and chief financial officer Mike Sears sent prison.
• Again in 2005 Boeing fired its CEO Harry Stonecipher for having an affair with a staffer.
• In March 2007, less than a week after visiting the Walter Reed medical Center following allegations of deplorable conditions, newly installed Defense Secretary Robert Gates summoned Army Secretary Francis Harvey to Washington and fired him on the spot. Harvey’s statement to the press?.....I was head of the Army…what can I say…the buck stops with me…I have to take responsibility. This is the real world Schweitz.
• Just five months ago Merrill Lynch fired its CEO Stan Lynch for poor performance, and mounting losses,
• A week later Citibank fired its CEO Chuck Prince for poor performance, mounting losses.
• Just this past week Defense Secretary Gates fired Air Force Secretary Michael Wynn and Air Force Chief of Stall General Michael Moseley because lower level individuals under their command flew ‘armed’ nuclear weapons from Minot North Dakota to Louisiana, allowed the accidental shipment of Nuclear ‘triggers’ to Taiwan and found that an operational officer was not able to be reached while on duty because he was playing video games on his computer. In explaining his actions, Gates stated that oversight standards for the U.S. nuclear arsenal had deteriorated on their watch. Gates found the mistakes to a problem developed over time within the culture of the Air Force requiring stern action to send a message.
When you have 5,000 + priests,
and some Bishops by the way,
out there abusing
and another 108 Bishops and Cardinals covering up and transferring abusers
who continued to abuse in many instances, HOW does one NOT come to the conclusion that both the abuse and the broad based massive cover-up had become part of the culture of the clergy, resulting in leadership failing to (1) defrock abusers and failing to (2) ‘sack the Bishops and Cardinals’ who covered up and transferred?
Here they are from the USCCB’ audit: I see you are on the List
The names of the transferring or covering up Bishops and Cardinals are:
Roll Call Please!
Bishop Gregory Aymond
Austin, TX
Bishop Robert Baker
Charleston, Sc
Bishop Robert Banks
Green Bay Wi
Bishop Gerald Barnes
San Bernardino, Ca
Bishop Eusebius Beltran
Oklahoma City, Ok
Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua
Piladelphia, PA
Bishop Raymond Boland
St. Josph, Mo
Bishop Anhony Bosco
Greensburg, Pa
Bishop Robert Brom
San Diego, Ca
Bishop Tod Brown
Orange,Ca
Bishop Alexander Brunett
Seattle,Wa
Bishop Edmond Carmody
Corpus Christi, Tx
Bishop Matthew Clark
Rochester, NY
Bishop Patrick Cooney
Gaylord,Mi
Bishop Alvaro Corrada del Rio
Tyler,Tx
Bishop Daniel Cronin
Hartland, Conn
Bishop Edward Cullen
Allentown, Pa
Bishop John Cummins
Oakland, Ca
Bishop James Murray
Kalamazoo Mi
Bishop William Curlin
Charlotte Nc
Bishop Eldin Curtiss
Omaha, Ne
Bishop Thomas Daily
Brooklyn Ny
Bishop Joseph Delaney
Ft. Worth Tx
Bishop Francis DiLorenzo
Honolulu, Ha
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio
Camden Nj
Bishop Daniel Dinardo
SiouxCity,Ia
Bishop Thomas Doran
Rockford,Il
Bishop Norbert Dorsey
Orlando FL
Bishop Michael Driscoll
Boise ID
Bishop Thoma Dupre
Springfield, Ma
Cardinal Edweard Egan
New York NY
Bishop John Favalora
MiamiFl
Bishop David Fellhauer
Victoria,Tx
Bishop Joseph Fiorenza
Galveston Tx
Bishop Ralphael Flis
Superior WI
Bishop Patrick Flores
San Antonio Tx
Bishop Harry Flynn
St Paul Minneapolis Mn
Bishop David Foley
Birmingham Al
Bishop John Gaydos
Jefferson City Mo
Cardinal Francis George
Chicago,Il
Bishop Joseph Gerry
Portland Me
Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger
Evansville,In
Bishop Joseph Gossman
Raleigh,Nc
Bishop Charles Grahmann
Dallas TX
Bishop James Griffin
Colombus Oh
Bishop Jerome Hanus
Dubuque Ia
Bishop Daniel Hart
Norwich Conn
Bishop William Higi
Layfayette, In
Bishop James Hoffman
Toledo Oh
Bishop Howard Hubbard
Albany NY
Bishop Alfred Hughes
New Orleans, La
Bishop Joseph Imesch
Joliet IL
Bishop Samuel Jacobs
Alexandria La
Bishop Michael Jarrell
Houma-Thibodaux La
Bishop William Keeler
Baltimore, Md
Bishop Thomas Kelly
Louisville, Ky
Cardinal Bernard Law
Boston Ma
Bishop John Leibrecht
Cape Girardeau Mo
Bishop William Levada
San Francisco Ca
Bishop William Lori
Bridgeport Conn
Bishop George Lucas
Springfield Il
Bishop Robert Lynch
St Petersburg Fl
Cardinal Roger Mahony
Los Angeles, Ca
Bishop Adam Maida
Detroit Mi
Bishop Henry Mansell
Buffalo NY
Bishop Theodore McCarrick
Wash DC
Bishop John McCormack
Manchester Nh
Bishop Patrick McGrath
San Jose Ca
Bishop John Mc Raith
Owensboro Ky
Bishop Carl Mongeling
Lansing Mi
Bishop Anthony Milone
Great Falls Mont.
Bishop Manuel Moreno
Tucson Az
Bishop James Moynihan
Syracuse NY
Bishop Robert Mulvee
Providence Ri
Bishop George Murry
St Thomas US Virgin Is
Bishop James Murtaugh
Palm Beach Fl
Bishop John Myers
Newrak Nj
Bishop John Nevins
Venice Fl
Bishop Thomas O’Brien
Phoenix Az
Bishop Raymond Pena
Brownsville Tx
Bishop Michael Pfeifer
San Angelo Tx
Bishop Daniel Pilarczyk
Cincinnati Oh
Bishop Anthony Pilla
Cleveland Oh
Bishop Ricardo Ramirez
Las Cruces, Nm
Bishop Daniel Reilly
Worcester Ma
Bishop Justin Rigoli
St Louis Mo
Bishop Thomas Rodi
Biloxi Miss.
Bishop Frank Rodimer
Paterson Nj
Bishop Placido Rodriguez
Lubbock Tx
Bishop Robert Rose
Grand Rapids Mi
Bishop Sylvester Ryan
Monterey Ca
Bishop Roger Schwietz
Anchorage Al
Bishop Michael Sheehan
Santa Fe Nm
Bishop Richard Sklba
Milwaukee Wi
Bishop John Smith
Trenton Nj
Bishop John Steinbock
Fresno Ca
Bishop Phillip Straling
Reno Nv
Bishop Walter Sullivan
Richmond Va
Bishop Arthur Tafoya
Pueblo Co
Bishop James Tamayo
Laredo Tx
Bishop James Timlin
Scranton Pa
Bishop Donald Trautman
Erie Pa
Bishop Kenneth Untener
Saginaw Mi
Bishop Willaim Weigand
Sacramento Ca
Bishop Donald Wuerl
Pittsburgh Pa
Bishop John Yanta
Amarillo Tx
Bishop Paul Zipfel
Bismarck Nd
Incredible isn’t it?
108 Cardinals and Bishops transferring and or covering up abuse for 5,148 abusers resulting in 11,750 pedophile victims – both USCCB statistics - and NO ONE in the CHURCH did anything about it!.....including the nitwit Pope, John Paul.
Do you really believe that Christ would have countenanced the diatribe that has thus far emanated from the Bishop’s conference? I think he would be turning over the tables and throwing the rascals out……to paraphrase Matthew 21:13. Sound familiar?......rascals who allowed this to go on and who now duck responsibility.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. This scandal, the cover up, the lack of accountability in the leadership from the top down...no firings, no demotions, no dismissals....well it simply takes your breath away because in any other company, corporation, organization in other words the real world...they would be gone with this record!
Frank Keating, retired Governor of Oklahoma and former Chairman of the National Review Board, resigned from the Review Board over frustration arising from the refusal of the Bishops to cooperate, citing their preference to deny, hide, obfuscate, suppress names of offenders, resist subpoenas, noting that the Bishops listen too much to their lawyers and not enough to their hearts.
Former White House Chief of Staff and U.S. Rep. Leon Panetta, a California Democrat who served on the Review Board and was one of those who met with Cardinal Francis George commented on the continuing abuse allegations arising out of the Chicago Diocese stating at a news conference, "it confirmed for me what is at the heart of this pedophile priest problem, the Catholic hierarchy's failure to understand the seriousness of the crisis”.
George’s response? According to three sources contacted by Sun Times reporters, that when the members of the Review Board met with George, he issued a warning, “you will be the downfall of the church!” The group was dumbstruck. “The bishops and priests have failed to deal with this scandal” Panetta told George. “The healing process could not begin, Panetta said, unless the church acknowledged the problem”.
Indeed, the Rev. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at Notre Dame, got it right on when he recently said that “survey after survey showed that as much as people were appalled by the behavior of predatory priests, they were more appalled by the behavior of the Bishops in covering it up!” Repeat after me…more appalled by the coverup!
Nowhere is the adage that an organization cannot be counted on to police itself more evident than in the church.
It’s about accountability and transparency….both of which are woefully lacking in the mission of this church….which did nothing to sack its CEOs ie: the transferring Cardinals and Bishops even though the Church knew of the emerging scandal as far back as 1985 after the submittal of the report by Canon Lawyer Thomas Doyle.
Recently Rockford Illinois Diocese Bishop Doran, when confronted with the allegations surrounding Harlan Clapsaddle, had him temporarily removed from ministry, sent for treatment and unbelievably put in back in ministry at a Nursing Home, without disclosing to the Nursing Home his past, [ sound familiar ] which was not revealed to the Nursing Home, until two days before Clapsaddle resigned for good. Some management!....and Doran wants Stewardship money from the stockholders?…no explanations?…no questions asked?...and if he doesn’t get, he’ll extract it out of operating funds!
Your efforts to restore Priest morale comes on the heels of the single greatest scandal to beset any institution against a backdrop where not ONE SINGLE transferring Bishop or Cardinal has lost his job, the ultimate in disdain, and is an example of mismanagement at its zenith that would not be tolerated in the public arena, and cries out for accountability at every level not just financial, but in personal responsibility as well by those who transferred rather than managed, who covered up instead of leading by example.
In 1993, a former seminarian reported sexual abuse and exploitation at age 18 by Fr. Michael Yakaitis who was then ( you are going to choke on this ) a “spiritual director” and Dean of Students at St. Mary of the Lake seminary in Mundelein, Illinois.
The student seminarian reported it to seven church officials. COUNT ‘EM 7, including:
• Fr. John Canary former Vicar for Priests and current Rector - St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein;
• Fr. Larry McBrady former Vicar for Priests in the administration of Frances Cardinal George;
• Fr. Gerald Kicanas former Rector - St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein and current Bishop of the Tucson Diocese;
• Fr. Cletus Kiley former Rector - Niles College Seminary and current assistant to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops;
• Cardinal Joseph Cardinal Bernardin; Hope he is working it off in Purgatory!
• Fr. James Presta Rector - St. Joseph College Seminary, Loyola University of Chicago; and
• Fr. Michael Foley former Rector - Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary High School.
None of the above deny it, with Fr. John Canary admitting on February 7th 2005 in an on-air interview with television reporter Jay Levine of WBBM channel 2 Chicago, the earlier reporting of the abuse by the seminarian.
Nothing happened!
I guess the ‘blue code of silence’ not only exists in the police department.
Worse...want to know what Yakaitis did? Introduced the seminarian to pornography and alcohol when the seminarian sought counseling from “this spiritual director” over confusion about his own sexuality - preference included - then initiated the abuse and later to avoid any repercussions “threatened to expose” the seminarian’s sexual preference if he revealed what took place. Yakaitis should have been defrocked! -
but wasn’t that a Church?
In 2000, the former nun principal of Holy Family school in Chicago reported to the Archdiocese that Rev. Daniel McCormack - the recently convicted offender - may have had inappropriate contact with a child in 2000. We may now change “may have” to definitely did!
In 2001 Cardinal Francis George appointed the same Fr. Michael Yakaitis from the above 1993 episode, to be student Chaplin at the University of Chicago’s Calvert House, a Catholic facility for Catholic youth attending the U. of C., without checking Yakaitis’ background which was in the file of the Diocese clearly evidencing prior credible sex abuse allegations, to which abuse, Fr. Yakaitis has since admitted in 2005. Cardinal George and his staff did not even check Yakaitis’ file when sex abuse scandal was on everyone’s tongue! But one wonders why the mope was even still around as a priest instead of being defrocked? The Catholic Church complicit in the Obstruction of Justice…in “aiding and abetting”.
In 2003 Francis George had the Rev. Kenneth Martin living in the Cardinal’s residence next door to an elementary school while “working” for the archdiocese knowing that Martin had previously been convicted after pleading guilty to abusing a boy for 3 years while a high school teacher in Maryland.
In 2006 with the McCormack case, we have an abusing priest who with a Masters of Divinity from the same Mundelein Seminary out abusing boys as late as 2002 when sex abuse was on everyone’s tongue proving* that his urges were far more powerful than his common sense, exposing himself to criminal prosecution when this behavior was such a hot button issue.
*The reason to keep these guys out of ministry and away from children and preferably behind bars….they cannot and do not control themselves.
Then on January 28th 2006 his ‘eminence ?’ Francis George publicly commended the principal of Holy Family school for coming forward in 2000 and reporting Fr. McCormack and expressing regret that the archdiocese failed to respond sooner!
These failures to report the abusers, is not a mistake…..it’s a pattern! Indeed the principal before writing her letter had called the Chancery Office to report the suspected abuse and was told not to press it if the parents were not pushing it! Some Church!
The arrogance!…the gall!....with just this past week, goofy Bishop Gregory Aymond, Chair of the U.S. Bishop’s Committee for Protection of Children and Young People, telling CBS News that because Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell was prohibited from wearing ‘clerical attire’ and no longer permitted to serve in ministry; that these two restrictions were a ‘significant consequence and penalty’ for the abuse allegations leveled against him which he did not deny and which were found to have overwhelming credibility. Christ would give him a ‘millstone’ and Aymond, probation!
ransferring Bishops who covered up need to be sacked and Bishops and Cardinals like goofy Francis George who have repeatedly ‘blown it on their watch’ need to resign like Francis Harvey of the Army did, not be elected to Presidency of the USCCB…with the future successor President and nitwit Bishop Gerald Kicanas saying, he knew [pre-ordination] about the three reports of “sexual improprieties” against then-seminarian Daniel McCormack, yet still supported McCormack’s Ordination, saying, “It would have been grossly unfair not to have ordained him.”
Kicanas needs a 5:30 AM blindfold appointment before the ‘ready!...aim!...fire!’squad.
Merz’s predecessor, Robert Bennett former head of the USCCB’s Review Board was quoted acknowledging that many Bishops abandoned their responsibility [ that’s a laugh – how about virtually all ] so why should Catholics now have confidence that Bishops will not do so in the future?
Further evidencing the seriousness of the morale issue, Merz is quoted in Zoll’s piece as saying he learned of one priest who was exercising in a public gym when a passer-by said, “Are you waiting for a boy to lie down next to you?” Even Mahony himself reports that while posting a letter at a mailbox last year, he was apparently spotted and recognized by a local congregant who suddenly and unexpectedly socked him the face knocking him to the ground. I only wish I had been there to implore Mahony to apostolically ‘turn the other cheek’ so I could have delivered a ‘haymaker’ of my own!
Is it any wonder that the disdain and cynicism that exists is a DIRECT product of the magnitude of the scandal and the way the leaders collectively ‘covered up’, abetted and ‘obstructed’?
Still think the Emperor wears no clothes?
Do you still share in the collective ignorance of others like you, denying the obvious fact that this Church and its leadership has blown it? Can’t see the elephant in the room? The obvious truth that this Church has committed through its Pope, Cardinals and Bishops crimes of aiding and abetting, and crimes of obstruction of justice.
If Christ would not abandon the suffering of the cross, neither would he abandon his suffering. No, he forged on…..unfortunately, at our expense and the expense of the Church as a whole!
....................
This Church needs to account to its stockholders and not just financially as I alluded to at the outset….because mismanagement is apparent at every level.
How can anyone sympathize with a Church mired in internal corruption and mismanagement?
This Church is consigned to marginalization in an increasingly skeptical world by a better educated populace of God fearing people who have come to realize that salvation’s destiny is in their hands, not in the traditional drivel marketed by Pope clones walking down the aisle in their goofy mitre hats and carrying crosiers whilst blessing the faithful in their pews…..sprinkling them with the use of a scepter dripping with holy water…..without ever taking responsibility for what has occurred….in other words, business as usual, “bow your heads and….”
Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it. But, in the end, there it is.
Want to know what Christ is doing about now? He’s sitting with his head buried in his hands atop his lap, slowly shaking his head from side to side, weeping and softly muttering, “I can’t believe they are doing this in my name”!
Sincerely,
Dan Burke
Huntley, Illinois
P.S. Rachel Zoll:
I know you covered the Cardinal Law cover up. How the hell can you accord the actions of Benedict as taking , “…the extraordinary step” when he merely met privately with victims during his April U.S. visit…?”
Benedict didn’t do a damn thing and if truth be told, was the chief villain and Architect in the Church denial. It was Benedict who was the confidant and aide to that doddering old goofball John Paul those past 15 years prior to his death. When The Doyle report, commissioned by the Vatican in the 1st place, and was submitted in 1985, it was guys like Benedict that made the decision not to go forward but to cover up.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
ANNOUNCING: City of Angels 13 now runs stories from City of Angels 4 without videos, for those with slower search engines
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If your search engine does not work at City of Angels 4 due to the video downloads now you can read the stories here at City of Angels 13. The most recent three stories are below.
See ya,
Kay
If your search engine does not work at City of Angels 4 due to the video downloads now you can read the stories here at City of Angels 13. The most recent three stories are below.
See ya,
Kay
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Kay