Running out of targets? SNAP's David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris
Is the anti-Catholic group SNAP running out of Catholic clerics to target and resorting to attacking innocent men? It sure seems like it. Even though an abuse accusation against Wheeling, West Virginia, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield was thoroughly debunked and discredited months ago, SNAP is trying to drum up some more publicity for itself by trying to put a spotlight on the bogus case.
A proven false accusation
Last April, during the high-profile Philadelphia clergy abuse trial, a witness claimed on the stand that 40 years ago in the 1970s that an admittedly abusive priest motioned to a car carrying Bransfield and some boys and told him that Bransfield was abusing "the one in the front seat."
However, two grown men who were actually in the car years ago with Bransfield at the time, including the alleged "victim in the front seat," came forward back in July to flatly refute the decades-old hearsay claim. [Read more about this in our 7/30/12 story, including statements from the men asserting that the allegations were completely false.]
Itching for a story that is not there
Again, despite the fact that the accusation was debunked months ago, even by the alleged "victim," SNAP continues to attack the bishop over it. (SNAP claims that a police investigation is "ongoing," but the police announced its investigation of Bransfield before the two men came forward to flatly refute the shoddy claim.)
Last week, SNAP issued a media statement which consisted of a wacky letter to Bishop Bransfield that asked that the cleric "hold a public Q&A session to address and take questions" about the allegation.
Fortunately, however, even the Church-obsessed media didn't take the bait on SNAP's stunt, and the diocese has fired back at SNAP. Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston spokesman Bryan Minor promptly sent a reply email to SNAP stating that "the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston disagree(s) with SNAP's assessment of how our Bishop handled the allegations" and "I know that you believe more live media and Q and A should have been offered, and we will not reach common ground on that matter, unfortunately." Bravo, Mr. Minor.
An innocent Philadelphia priest finally returns to ministry
Meanwhile, on Monday (10/15/12), the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced it was returning Rev. Joseph L. DiGregorio to ministry, and SNAP immediately issued one of its unhinged and nasty media statements.
Fr. DiGregorio enjoyed over four decades of completely unblemished ministry until 2005, when a woman came forward to claim that he and another priest (since deceased) abused her nearly four decades earlier, in "1967 or 1968."
Even though the Philadelphia review board had already thoroughly investigated the claim and recommended the priest's return to ministry, the archdiocese removed the cleric a second time in 2011 – not because there was any new information about his case, but solely because of public pressure from the high-profile grand jury report.
Upon being ripped from ministry this second time, DiGregorio took to the media and vehemently asserted his innocence. On February 18, 2011, the priest appeared on The Dom Giordano Show, WPHT 1210AM, in Philadelphia. DiGregorio forcefully announced to the radio audience:
"I have not in my whole life ever, ever, ever acted in an inappropriate way – not only with a child, but with anybody. Period.
"Every statement [the accuser] made concerning me is an absolute lie, completely and totally a lie. I never once touched her. I never once groped her or did anything inappropriate. I was never in her company alone. The only times I saw her was when she came to the rectory to see [another priest].
"In my almost 45 years of me being a priest my character and integrity have never been questioned. Almost 20 of those 45 years were spent as an army chaplain in the United States Army. I was deployed in Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm for almost a year, and again in Operation Iraqi Freedom for 10 months.
"I love my country, I love my Church. I am not intimidated by false accusations against my character. I am, however, angry – very angry – and I intend to fight these accusations with every legal means at my disposal."
Fr. DiGregorio also cited a number of wild inconsistencies in the accuser's bogus tale.
DiGregorio's case provides a textbook example of the Church being especially cautious in returning accused priests to ministry – cautious to the point where many would say it borders on unfairness to falsely accused priests. In viewing the facts of DiGregorio's case, any clear-thinking person would conclude that the accusation against the man was completely bogus. Obviously there is no such clear thinking at SNAP.
[Note: We invite you to read more. Fr. DiGregorio was the subject of a chapter in the book by TheMediaReport.com's Dave Pierre, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories. [Click to read the chapter about Fr. DiGregio for free (pdf file).]]
Smacking of desperation
SNAP's latest false and mean-spirited attacks reek of a shrinking group that is rapidly declining in influence and is desperate for attention.
SNAP's own survival rests on the group's ability to keep the issue of clergy abuse alive in the media. If it fails to do so, SNAP might as well pack itself up. It sure looks like panic time at SNAP.
These episodes also illustrate that SNAP does not give a rip about fairness and honesty. In the eyes of SNAP, any accused priest – no matter how flimsy the accusation – is a guilty priest. Another objective in SNAP's attacks on the Catholic Church becomes more clear: Get and keep as many men out of the priesthood as possible.
Unreal.
Can SNAP be sued for this nonsense?
If and I say if SNAP is making false accusations. Bingo! the oldest and the largest victims group is caught acusing a Bishop falsely Another victory for the reactive Church brought to you by SNAP. Can you buy such behavior? Always in the wrong place at the right time to make victims look bad. What are the odds ladies and gentlemen? Anybody? But just remember SNAP is an undemocratic organization lead by who? Who does all the planning for SNAP? No body knows. I ask because I thought you might know. They'll probably have another awards show and someone from VOTF will come out and say how swell SNAP is. They always do; a circuit of fixed back slapping.
If we were to apply the ideas I discussed in my Rigoberta Menchu comment of a couple of days ago towards the end of the immediately previous article, I think we will see how they work out in the Catholic Abuse Matter and especially how they form a vital element in the general SNAP strategy.
If SNAP has taken advantage of what I will call the Menchu Approach (which is actually an approach that stems from general European revolutionary theory and practice and was introduced here in the past 40 years by Identity Politics and all its assorted special-interests) then we wind up with the following vision: The Catholic Church is and always has been absolutely guilty of the most horrendous culture of rape and sex crimes by its clergy and that culture is and always has been enabled (and even nurtured) by its hierarchy all the way up to the Vatican – and since we (meaning SNAP and like-minded organizations) presume that this is a demonstrable and undeniable historical fact, then it is not of primary importance whether the specifics of any particular charge or incident or allegation against any particular individual priest(s) or bishop(s) is actually and factually true because the only objective of primary importance is that we take any opportunity to keep the ‘historical fact’ of all that abuse before the public eye and ensure that our spin is the one that prevails in public opinion.
Thus, for SNAP, in the situation described in this article, the only actual objective and goal of the strategy is to milk it for whatever publicity (as long as it is controlled so as to conform to the SNAP spin) that SNAP can get out of it.
So SNAP demands a public Q&A, which is a devilishly sly gambit. Because if the Diocese agrees, then SNAP can pack the meeting with a telegenic assortment of ‘victims’ and friends and relatives of ‘victims’ (whose victim-hood, of course, is beyond question and cannot be questioned) spiced up with a few savvy actors who can toss out whatever vivid and sound-bitey questions or stories masquerading as questions – and so the Diocese would actually be used as a mule: its own stature would give the weight to the event, while the SNAP elements would then use the event for their own purposes.
If on the other hand the Diocese refuses the Q&A, then SNAP can claim that since the Diocese doesn’t want to ‘discuss it openly and honestly’ then they must surely be covering up and must most surely be guilty. We will probably see that play being run on SNAP-friendly sites such as NCR and others.
Neat. In the old days this strategy was a Win-Win for SNAP.
But since the incident itself here is such a stretch – and even the putative victims in this case have gone on record as denying it – then SNAP runs the risk of outrunning the useful fogbank of the public’s willingness to believe that has kept its actual objectives cloaked from view for all these years and decades.
At this point, I think the SNAP playbook would have to call for the Fearful Victim play: the victims who have refused to admit that they were and are victims must be spun as fearful or misguided victims who live in such fear of the power of the Church and the terrors of their victimization that they cannot yet bring themselves to courageously admit and expose what was done to them by the clerical perps.
Because, of course, when you get right down to it, in the Menchu Approach it isn’t primarily about any particular priests or bishops and what they actually did (or did not do) but rather it’s primarily about the ‘historical fact and truth’ that the Church always enables and perpetrates sex-abuse and cover-ups.
I would add also that the Menchu Approach – as it applied to Rigoberta Menchu’s book a quarter century ago – was deployed only in the public-opinion and academic forums , in the media and in academic circles and books and articles. But if you try to deploy it in the legal and judicial or juridical forum – either in civil or criminal law – then you complicate matters for yourself because there is still some working requirement in the judicial-legal forum for actual evidence of the actual specific charges made against specific individuals.
That, I would say, is why the recent Philadelphia trial – and others like it – have been so weirdly screwy. The prosecutors are trying to run the Menchu Approach in the judicial-legal forum while making every effort to hide that fact, and make the cases appear to be legitimate and justified but still ‘normal’ legal cases, where prosecution brings cases that have well-crafted Charges and the solid evidence to back them up and simply has to present those elements to the jury. When in actuality, such cases as the Philadelphia trial were actually nothing of the sort, but instead were sly efforts to run the Menchu play and trying to add to it the majesty and dignity of the Law and of formal criminal convictions.
And I think that the media are finally beginning to feel that they’ve backed this type of thing long enough and are looking to quietly disengage.
But without the media, SNAP really is helpless because the wide public presence of SNAP and similar organizations is purely a creation of media’s willing and enabling attention. Without that media attention, Oz is deprived of the curtain and the special-effects and revealed for what it really has been all along.
SNAP is trying to make the victims look bad? Jim, you are going to have to give up on that contention. I've seen nasty press releases from SNAP and they are the ugliest, most vicious things you've read in your life. And they CLEARLY don't give a rip whether accused Catholic clerics are guilty or innocent. Once in a while they make noise about another church or group to make it look good.
Dear Julie, a counter intelligence group,by definition goes against logic. It says one thing and appears to be one thing but it misdirects or commits errors that put the people it says it cares for and says it represents in a bad or usable light that works for not against it's "enemy" opposition.
You guys are still in this self created cul de sac that is more concerned with "falsely" accused priests than real victims. Percentile wise compare the numbers of falsely accused priests to real victims. Real victims who you devoted Catholics have failed to reach out to. Completely. What we're too dirty for you?
How does SNAP make victims look good Julie? It hides it's records pretending it's under attack while for 23 years it's demanded the Church open it's records. Doesn't that make victims, ( since as everyone knows SNAP is the "best" [ read only] important victims leader, we victims have,) look hypocritical and or just stupid? And that SNAP has paid for several trips through the court system, at god knows what expense, defending bizzare and moronic contentions . i.e. SNAP is protecting victims by not opening their records. Knowing full well that victims names would be didacted, removed from the equation. A completly unneccessary expensive fight. And all done so convieniently in Missouri. And you think my analysis is unbelievable. Your buying SNAP as representing victims' interests is what's truely unbelievable. We victims don't. Yet you do hmmmm what does that infer? That you are a part of the circle of validation conciously or not for SNAP? That your believing SNAP is really representing those it's pretending to represent; only adds to SNAP's "credability" to be what it says it is. When in fact it is just the opposite. Name one other victims' movement where the victims are never seen, organizing themselves;, Instead letting an unknown, un- voted for leadership tell them what their issues are? Extraordinary!
Pub, you are right in part about the "fearful victim" ploy. By calling victims who come forward as "courageous" over and over and over and over and over again; that's telling victims that there is something to be frightened of. What's to be frightened of? I don't get it. No victim is required to demonstrate or be on camera. Why mention courage about coming forward? If not to scare people. It's pathetic. Why are we constantly being described as fearful by SNAP. Few victims I know are fearful. We are mostly simply ignored and forgotten.
Ignored by SNAP. Ignored by the media, unless it's through SNAP; and ignored by good loving Catholics like yourselves. Did Martin Luther King mention courage on ad infinitum re civil rights? Or did Black people and their supporters just act?
P.S. Pub in SNAP's case the Ozian man behind SNAP's curtain is the Church or at least a rabidly conservative part of the Cuhrch, itself.
Pub, Once again you have nailed it perfectly. That explains why SNAP's mantra is the same no matter what the situation is. And if they can get many, many agencies like international courts go after the church, even if the church is not guilty, the church appears guilty anyway. If they bundle lawsuits, the church has to settle even if any number of claims are bogus or unproveable. And they've made great use of biased and lazy reporters like Laurie Goodstein in making all priests into bogeymen, guilty or innocent, by publicizing the most horrendous offenders, no matter how long ago it was. If they can use legislators to target the church, then they can further drain church coffers. They have attacked from many angles, and actual guilt or innocence no longer matters. And those of us who are trying to sort out truth versus lies in all of this invariably get called pedophile enablers, etc.
A couple of points.
First, how precisely is anybody to “compare” the number of actual and genuine victims to the number of accused priests in the first place? The number of accused priests is a matter of public record; there is, however, no way – and certainly not by relying on the internet – to determine the number of actual and genuine victims; the best one can do is to tote up the numbers of persons making allegations. There is the option of simply crediting whatever stories are put on the internet, but as I have often said, that option is hardly credible for achieving an accurate number and an accurate picture of the actual situation.
There is nothing of “self-created cul de sac” in looking – especially given the above point – at accused priests. And there are such profound constitutional and jurisprudential and legal issues raised by the changes in civil and criminal law that have to be made to accommodate victim stories that I can’t see how any Citizen can n-o-t be concerned for what has been happening. And one of those changes has been to omit the identity of the person making the allegation, which skews what should be a fair and open process in legal cases, civil and criminal, especially when those cases receive some amount of media attention and publicity.
I don’t know why Missouri was “convenient”, and for whom it would be convenient.
The conceptual point that SNAP does not represent victims’ interests is well-taken. However it should also be clear that the SNAP strategy – joined to enterprising tort attorneys – certainly serves allegants’ interests.
The point about victims’ (or allegants’) courage and fearfulness is also well-taken.
As is the point – to a certain extent – about MLK and civil-rights demonstrators simply going forth and taking action. But once again, it is precisely here that the disconnect engages: in the civil-rights era, there was no doubt and indubitable evidence that the Southern Jim Crow regime was perpetrating and had perpetrated unconstitutional acts and even crimes against the black population of the Southern states. (Things got much more iffy when the movement moved north and the question of what constituted the ‘racism’ there came into play. While the federal government had clear constitutional warrant to break up the formal regime of Jim Crow laws in the Southern states, there was not such a clear warrant when it came to ‘racism’ (however variously defined) in the northern states.)
But here is the problem with the victim movement adopting the MLK, 1st-generation civil rights template for its own campaigns: there is not the wide and clear public evidence of the alleged crimes against individuals, nor is there wide and clear evidence that the Church (in this scenario) behaved like the Southern states towards the blacks in the era of Jim Crow. The clear and wide-known evidence is not there. Some may choose to believe that the evidence is there, but as has been seen over and over again, when actual evidentiary examination is deployed, the ‘clear evidence’ dissolves into something far less, and at best it becomes simply a particular interpretation adopted by this or that group.
There is nothing that compels any rational observer or assessor to accept the victim-oriented claim and interpretation because of the weight of overwhelming and clear and indubitable evidence (whereas in MLK’s day the actual laws on the Southern statute books and the newsreel footage of Southern police beating demonstrators was utterly undeniable).
And so too, the interpretation that SNAP – which is no friend of victims – is a front for either the Church or “conservative” elements in the Church. What evidence is there of this? How do you define “conservative” in this situation and why would “conservatives” in the Church want to create or aid and abet the SNAP-led victim ‘Crisis’? Wouldn’t’ conservatives want to strengthen the Church’s position, or at least ensure that it is not as weakened as it has been – in the short-run, anyway – by such a stupendous creation as the Clerical Abuse Crisis?
If one wants to suggest that the problem here is that the Church created SNAP to make victims (or – more properly – allegants) look bad, and that SNAP has accomplished that, then it is also equally possible that that the whole Crisis looks bad because of the victim-movement’s own inherent problems of credibility and – nowadays – the exposure of the many tactics deployed to further the cause. I can’t see how this second possible interpretation is less credible than the assertion that the Church (or “conservatives” … why not “liberals”?) put this whole Crisis together to somehow gain some advantage.
And, as I have said, ‘liberals’ in the Church would seem far more credible candidates for being behind the SNAP gambit than ‘conservatives’.
And in any case, how presume that the Church hierarchy has any more control over the ‘conservatives’ than it does over the ‘liberals’?
Thus then: it isn’t specific enough to say “the Church”. In this matter, are we talking about the hierarchy, or some groups within the Catholic community such as ‘conservatives’ or ‘liberals’?
All these questions need to be addressed and answered coherently in order to achieve a clear picture of what is going on and what has been going on.
Fr DiGregorio offerred to take a lie detector test, and didn't pass. That is suspicious.
Let's hope that God is just, and if these priests are guilty, then everyone who stood by them is punished for eternity, and treated worse than these victims for eternity. If they aren't, let's hope the accusers are punished for eternity.
For what it’s worth … In the same radio interview cited in the book chapter, DiGregorio addressed the issue of his polygraph:
“[The Philly Inquirer] failed to mention that I requested the polygraph test to establish my innocence. The test was administered in a Holiday Inn in Allentown, PA by archdiocesan-appointed investigator. Needless to say how upset I was when the results of that test indicated that I was not telling the truth. A review of the transcripts of the test was made by two polygraph experts with more than 30 years combined experience in administering and reading polygraphs. Their conclusion in reading the results of that test were at best that the test was ‘inconclusive’ and at worst, it was wrong.”
(transcript and tape on file)
From the original essay all the way down through the various comments, all I would like to know is this:
Can we trust the Catholic Church leadership and administration in a given diocese or archdiocese anywhere in the US to properly, thoroughly, objectively and competently investigate and report the findings of an allegation of sexual abuse by a member of their clergy or by any other diocesan employee?
Do we believe that the individual parishioner has the right to the specific allegations as well as the outcome of the investigation and the concomitant administrative action that resulted from the investigation and report?
Regardless or in spite of SNAP's goals, missions, objectives, etc., aren't these two questions above the only items that really matter to our children, our families and our individual Catholic parish and school?
Michael Skiendzielewski
Michael absolutly. But what about the already injured?
Michael, why should the Church leadership have to?!?! It is the moral and ethical equivalent of myself having to " properly, thoroughly, objectively and competently investigate and report the findings of an allegation of sexual abuse by " my great grandfather, who died when I was 4. In the overwhelming majority of these allegations made by ghosts represented by professional victim's advocates, the so called "advocates" are demanding that current leaders account for things that may or may not have been done by their predecessors from 2-3 generations ago! And the "advocates" are not even willing to provide anything that even remotely resembles substantiation or proof of the allegations, they simply want us to take their word for it! And if one does ask the hard questions, forget about anything that resembles a thoughtful answer; as the one who is asking the question is automatically branded a "defender of pedophiles".
Case in point: look at the sheer man hours in the Philly case that was devoted to shrill emotion as opposed to the man hours devoted to the facts relevant to the case: the disparity is VAST, and lopsidedly in favor of shrill emotion.
This is Goebbels style deceptive propaganda in it's most sophisticated form, moved along with Alinsky style tactics. It is aslo proof that spite and agenda is more important to SNAP than the truth.
Oh, yes. I believe we can. Years ago, NOBODY was reporting these people to the cops. And we had some venal, cowardly and careerist bishops. And some bad professional advice. Today, there are many, many safeguards and policies in place in the Catholic Church. Not in all church denominations though. Look around on the internet.
Pub if there are or were law suits the number of .accusors and accused are public record.
I presume it's a conservative rather than a liberal Catholic plot because who is closer to the hierarchy at this point? Who since JP2 has run the Church? It aint the Maryknolls. Also Missouri is a hot bed for reactionary monied conservative Catholics and the Dominicans are at the head of the reactionarys list. I think this has all been funded by German beer money; with the Clydesdales pulling the wagon.
I think the Church has more control over conservatives because they tend to line up to obey " authority". The kind of authority Cartman the bully in South Park so desires to attain.
Pub the only people in America and the world who think this crisis isn't one or is faked somehow, is you and others here.
Again you mention unproven accusations and again I say use your common sense: Please give me the odds of false claimants having access to and knowledge of perpetrators. and the perpetrators' "behavior" patterns and nuances? In order to "fake" a claim much more is required than an accusation. But you tend to ignore that fact.
P.S. and as far as "juries" not making decisions of these claims? They do . Juries of insurors and juries of Church lawyers and the hierarchs themselves know full well the truth of the majority of these claims that's why they aquiesque to them. These are not helpless priests being run over and the hierarchs know that. They've lnown it since the seminary. Ask Bishop Braun of San Diego a 60+ year old who participated in an orgy at his seminary in his youth. He said so in a deposition he made. And he made it all the way to Bishop. You can't beat a good orgy in the seminary in your resumme.
A couple of very cogent points, I think, appear in the most recent comments.
The question of whether the Church leadership can be trusted to sufficiently investigate and report the findings of an allegation is an apt one.
I would preface my thoughts here by observing that at least in terms of prosecutorial preparation for criminal trials (such as the Philly case) the question has long been on my mind: can prosecutors be trusted to investigate, properly Charge, and present relevant and substantial evidence? The track record there is not encouraging at all.
I concur that it is never a wise principle for large organizations to investigate themselves. We have seen all manner of organizations, both commercial and governmental (on all levels, in matters foreign and domestic) fail to conduct sufficient self-policing.
The reforms of the past decade in the Church have moved her to the forefront of large organizations in this country, in the matter of investigating abuse allegations. There is ‘outside’ participation built into the system now. As I believe we saw with the Bishop Finn case, it is still possible that a particular Ordinary might not want to open a ‘can of worms’ – especially in the case of an allegation from the long-ago – but compared to the closed system of a prior era the situation has been much improved.
I think it would help significantly if Ordinaries took a view less organizational and more moral and spiritual, but given the various engorgements and mutations of the clerical-abuse phenomenon – which is itself a sub-variant of the national sex-offense or sex-abuse phenomenon – I can understand where no major administrator would lightly undertake to subject the entire organization – the Diocese in this case – to the stunning scrum that results when these matters are made public. That is not a trump argument, and I don’t intend it to be, but the problem here is what it is. (Nor have I seen the government or large financial institutions or other types of institutions doing any better with the problem. So there is a matter of perspective involved here as well.)
Concerning the suggestion that the Church or Diocese not only a) perform with a reasonable level of competence and trustworthiness in examining allegations but also b) keep its parishioners informed: I think my biggest concern is how to implement such a program. What actual shape would such a program assume ‘on the ground’ or in actuality?
The factors that must be addressed are not insignificant: A) At what point after an allegation is made would the parishioners (which automatically introduces the factor of wide publicization since you can’t expect ‘confidentiality’ here) be informed? If they are informed at the outset, then serious problems of justice arise: given the general public atmosphere, how is the subject priest to continue ministry? If they are informed when and if an allegation is deemed ‘credible’ by the now-erected Review Board, the priest will already have been removed from ministry pending the final outcome – and by that point the police would usually be involved by operation of the new guidelines.
Which also raises the question as to why any allegant would choose not to first approach the police rather than the Diocese: for any legitimate allegation, the inevitability of police involvement is now established, so why not eliminate the middle-man (as it were) and go straight to the police in the first place? This, after all these years and decades of the sex-abuse phenomenon, remains an under-examined question. Several possible explanations (although my list here is not exhaustive) are that i) there is the barrier of Statutes of Limitation (especially in less-than-rape allegations), ii) the allegation is somehow insufficiently grounded to pass the police assessment, or iii) the objective is not simply to report the alleged crime but stems rather from some other agenda (especially if the allegant has engaged the services of a civil-tort attorney).
B) There remains the ‘moral hazard’ of Abuse of Process by which an allegant seeks not simply to report an alleged crime but to achieve some other purposes. And this ‘moral hazard’ has been hugely enabled by the now-established ‘victim-friendly reform’ whereby any allegant is endowed legally with the right of anonymity: by statutorily removing the potential consequences that would accrue to any allegant who was demonstrated to have made a false allegation, the entire process is skewed in the direction of the allegant, such that an allegant with ulterior motives knows that s/he will suffer no consequences if his-her ‘gamble’ doesn’t ‘pay off’. Meanwhile – especially given the (media and government-enabled) state of public opinion – the accused is left to both i) be exposed to stunning and negative publicity while also ii) be unable to fully defend himself since the identity of the allegant remains legally shrouded. The foundational justicial principle of being able to publicly confront one’s accuser enters here.
And C): there remains the hardly-distant possibility that organized groups will immediately descend upon the Diocese and the accused as soon as any information is publicized and turn the whole thing to their own purposes, thus further skewing what is already a legally-deranged process.
And D), which flows from (B): Are the Diocese and the accused to be required not to publicize the name of the allegant? As best I can determine, the Diocese and the accused are legally prevented from doing so. So the parishioners are left without a rather relevant bit of information upon which to make their own assessment and draw their own conclusions.
How to craft a publication policy that effectively deals with the above issues and problems is going to be hugely difficult – and may well be an operative factor in the fact that to date no such policy has been put in place.
But now another comment actually puts another card clearly on the table: Of what use is all the reform to past “victims”? It is, I think, an excellent analytical move to separate these realities: i) the institution of reforms and the processing of allegations from ii) the situation of past-victims.
But the problems here also arise instantly: 1) How to determine who is a genuine victim? 2) How then to determine what damage was done? 3) How then to craft a restorative or remedial program to be offered to a legitimate victim (as opposed to an allegant)? And generally,4) How to provide what ‘satisfaction’ a legitimate victim seeks?
In order to achieve (1) each allegant’s case must be examined to determine if s/he is indeed a genuine victim of an actual abuse, which brings us back to the evidentiary difficulties, especially if the allegation deals with the long-ago and even more so if the accused is deceased.
In order to achieve (2) one must move beyond the rhetorically excessive and scientifically-indemonstrable popular presumption espoused by numerous victim-friendly care-givers and advocates that any level of abuse, no matter how insignificant as an act, creates vast and profound interior damage to any victim. And how separate diagnostically various later life-problems an allegant may have, in order to determine which of those life-problems are demonstrably attributable to the abuse and not to other factors?
In order to achieve (3) – which requires having achieved (1) and (2) – how craft a remedial program? The simplistic solution of the 2002 sue-the-Church phase was mostly cash payouts. However there have been cases where cash payouts were provided and the allegant (I presume that a simple cash settlement through a civil lawsuit does not of itself demonstrate the truth of the allegations) continues to seek … ‘something else’.
Which brings us to (4): What is that ‘something else’? How can the Church or any organization meet that demand? I think here of persons before the era of MADD who were injured by a drunk driver: once the driver’s insurance was made to pay, and perhaps the driver him/herself made to serve a prison sentence, then what more can be done? While the challenge to get on with one’s life remains, what more can be done organizationally?
These are just thoughts that occur to me – and there are no doubt more specifically-competent professionals who can address them further.
As a Catholic, I would certainly like to see the Church address these issues by inculcating a far more robust and genuinely-embraced sense of moral and spiritual responsibility at the seminary level. And a far more robust assessment discipline whereby candidates who seem incapable of achieving such a degree of personal and professional spiritual and pastoral responsibility be required to either reform or depart.
And to repeat a thought from a few comments back: This country and its culture and its people are now heading into an era of profound life-challenge, as the fabled (and to some extent illusory) American ‘abundance’ fails. As that cheerible layer of material surfeit wears away, people are going to be facing the profound and challenging mysteries of life and living in a way that has not been widely seen here within any living memory. Life and human history will reveal themselves to be the great and powerful ocean they have always been, full of dark as well as bright mysteries.
This level of mystery – and Mystery – is precisely the realm in which the Church and her message have been the most competent and vitally needed. I am not at all proposing merely a cyclic return to the whatever short-comings took root in the Church of earlier centuries, but rather a re-formulation of the Church’s core message to meet – once again – the vital and perhaps desperate need for the Presence of God and an urgent respect for the Image in which all of us are made. Priests and seminarians need not and cannot conceive of themselves as merely sacramental-administrators going through a rote routine for their career (nor am I suggesting that this is largely the current state of affairs).
Rather, the Church in her laity and her priesthood is now entering a strenuously challenging age where the myriad distractions of a materially too-abundant life are going to be burned away, and the ancient agon of human beings confronting the challenges of life, desperately aware of how limited their (and their government’s) resources are to fully meet the challenges, and painfully alive to the aching need for that Presence – however Mysterious – it has always been the Church’s mission (however imperfectly carried out) to actualize.
In order to find the assertions about “juries” credible one would have to assume that in the majority of civil lawsuit cases the settlements were not reached out of court but were awarded by the juries. That would require some verification and not merely assertion.
I have no idea of what “juries of insurers” and “juries of Church lawyers and the hierarchs themselves” means, since the phrases describe no legal institution I know of. If it is being insinuated by assertion that the Church settled simply because the hierarchs and insurers knew they were guilty, then that’s a mighty big assertion and presumption to make without evidence of any kind.
As far as “orgies” at seminaries, I’d need to see the text of Bishop Braun’s comments, at the very least. Perhaps, since the commenter no doubt has the link to the deposition handy, it might be provided.
Google Bishop Braun. It's all there. Are you honestly telling me the hierarchs wouldn't have put up a bigger stink if they believed anywhere near a majority of claims were faked? Please! If you noticed It's only lately under New York's new Cardinal that the" we're not being pushed around anymore" song began being sung. Though I think Billy Donahue would sound out from the Catholic League and see what would or wouldn't "play".
I Googled ‘Bishop Braun orgy’ and nothing came back. I checked Bishop-Accountability’s site and there is no listing for a Bishop Braun in their database of accused clergy under ‘B’, although that database does include Bishops. I then entered ‘Bishop Braun’ on the site’s search engine and came back with 80 links that cover any use of ‘Braun’ and any use of ‘Bishop’ but nothing about a Bishop Braun – although I imagine that the admission under oath by a Bishop of seminary sex orgies would enjoy a certain status on the B-A site. There was on that site a Deposition of a Bishop Tod Brown of Orange County, CA, who appears to have a Monsignor Braun on his staff. I read the 170pp Deposition (available from Bishop-Accountability through a link) and there was no mention of seminary orgies or of any orgies whatsoever.
At that point I went to the site of the San Diego diocese and discovered that the Bishop is one Robert H. Brom. A Google for ‘Robert H. Brom deposition’ did not return the document itself, but only links to Bishop-Accountability, which speaks about the deposition but does not provide a link to it.
As best I can make out from the B-A site, in 2006 Bishop Brom testified in a deposition on another matter that he had once a decade or more earlier been accused by an allegant who claimed that Brom – then Bishop of Duluth – had “coerced him [the allegant] into a sex orgy” at a seminary party for a cardinal. In other words, Brom did not confess that he had taken part in sex orgies but rather he mentioned in deposition (he apparently hadn’t been asked about it) that he once had been accused of coercing someone into participating in a “sex orgy” (however that is defined).
The outcome of the allegation was that the allegant accepted the minimum insurance sum of $100,000. And that struck me as odd. Granted that “sex orgy” is almost too fantastical to be believed in its standard sense (something along the lines of the Caesars and Imperial Rome), yet there must have been numerous persons there if it were an orgy, most probably still very much alive, and such an allegation would have – if credible and genuine – been able to garner more than enough corroboration to command a far larger sum in settlement.
So let me give credit where credit is due. It’s all (well, except for the text of the deposition itself) there on Bishop-Accountability. It’s just not what JR said it was. And it was under a different name.
As I have said several times before in comments on this site, there are several possibilities for why Dioceses and/or Insurers would choose to settle lawsuits – especially the post-2002 ‘bundled’ kind – rather than try to defend against each allegation. It remains to be demonstrated just why any rational person should without further information or evidence believe that there can only be the one explanation that the Bishops/Insurers chose not to defend because they knew they were guilty.
Thus it is not a matter of what I “honestly” expect but rather of what I rationally expect.
Dude, The amount of names I've had to remember since I entered "wonderland" (The so called victims' movement) has been extraordinary. That said, I have seen 2 documentaries where the orgy was mentioned . One was about a nun who busted a "priest" who was molesting young hispanic immigrants in northern Calif. San Jose, if I remember right. She ran a food bank or cafeteria for the parish. And this "priest" maybe he was or wasn't a priest (I'm not kidding) was an admitted "boyfriend" of Bishop BROM. She wrote letter after letter to Rome and was removed from her good work by the Church. The other film escapes me now. The first film is call ed something like Sister Shiela explains everything. That's as close as I can get.Forgive me please,not remembering .
Pub are you joking? The Holy Roman Catholic Church would pay out money? MONEY? to anyone making a claim? When has the Church ever been pleased to pay out money for anything?( Unless it's a self agrandizing Cathedral, like we had built here in L.A. to the tune of 200 million plus dollars by Mahoney. Refered to as the Taj Mahoney by the Catholic Workers group here.)
Surely you went to a different Catholic Church than I did if you've forgotten the constant never ending whine by the clergy for more money. It's the liet motif of Catholicism. Give! And you're telling me that the very people whose careers in the Church are based in large part on how much they bring in (Mariecell the rampant rapist leaps to mind.) are readilly willing to let go of billions for lies? Pull the other one.
Excuses, excuses – always with excuses. And clearly the two documentaries were inaccurate – and simply reading even the B-A site’s write-up should have indicated that immediately.
And if you seem to have a problem “remembering” then at the very least shouldn’t that indicate to you that you should make far fewer assertions and take more time to actually think-through your positions?
Nor does it work to try to insist on no basis whatsoever that alternative explanations are impossible simply on the basis of your own take on things. I have explained at length more than once that “the Church” didn’t pay out the settlements; the Insurers did. And that the amount of money and time and effort involved in trying to defend against the bundled lawsuits was more than sufficient to suggest to any sane administrator or Insurer that it was cheaper to pay than to defend each allegation.
You’re welcome to try all these distractions like snark and excuses about your performance, but is it rational to expect that you will be considered generally reliable and credible in your assertions after enough instances of that type of performance?
But I’d say that this is also a clear example of the general SNAP problem nowadays: as more and more of their classic assertions and dodges become clear, they are losing credibility. Whether they just try to keep saying the same stuff only louder, or whether they will start to see the real shape of the issues, is an interesting question.
My own thought is that they can’t really address the actual matters accurately and honestly, because to do so would undermine their entire gameplan – which has been built on scams from Day One.
P.P.S. I recieved a huge settlement and I deserved every penny, And I am committed to every victim of your medievil and I do mean evil system, be compensated for the destruction your one true Church has wrought. Jesus would weep. Your faith Pub, using your own analogy, is a slave "ship" constantly trolling back and forth in the "middle passage".of human history trading dross for gold and producing generationaly slaves to an afterlife and diety that aren't even there.
"My own thought is that they can’t really address the actual matters accurately and honestly, because to do so would undermine their entire gameplan – which has been built on scams from Day One." Bingo.
Julie, was my case a scam?
Well, rather than address any points I raised, JR simply – and characteristically – changes the subject and gets down to carrying on as usual.
But I think there’s a bit of useful material that might arise out of it: since JR has appointed himself this site’s official victim, perhaps he might share with us the answer to the Question I raised in comments above: Just what – beyond hefty settlements and possibly the incarceration of proven offenders and the structural reforms now in place – is the Church agenda that JR envisions for the future?
No need for long paragraphs or sentences: a simple Point 1 – Point 2 and so on type of comment would do. Then perhaps we can get beyond the broken-record repetition phase of the discussion and get on with some serious consideration of proposals.
No distractions or changing the subject, now. Just the Points for the program JR envisions will do very nicely. I think it would be very useful and constructive.
The people at SNAP are scum.
Burt, I have to agree with you. They are slimier and more untruthful than the people they attack. It's like Jack Chick with steroids and lawyers.
Burt thanks for your charming discription.
Ah at last a question from Pub, rather than a conspiratorial analysis that proves ziip.
Here's my answer. I envision nothing for your Church.
Last night Dolan was on t.v. with Obama and they joked and laughed. Proving once again that if your the wealthiest Church in America. Some one will always kiss your hiney. Even a president. The Church's wealth, and therefore influence, will last for centuries while the membership evaporates. The clergy will marry and or women will become priests (proving again any gender can be delusional.) But I believe in humanity and would suggest to the readers here they visit Bilgrimage a truely loving form of Catholicism is practiced there. Their imitation of Christ is closer to Jesus than any of the insultors here.
Pub,I have a question. Why are you so disrespectful? Of me and anyone else who you feel doesn't measure up to standards only you see as standards. Respecting people as such costs you nothing. What's the story?
. And since we've already read that your search for "truth" surpasses all understanding save your own. (Because you can prove nothing regarding your conspiracy and I have proof [ the Dominican founding papers of SNAP] regarding the conspiracy, my "broken record" repeats ) How about you just simply answer my question. Why do you disrespect me? Even if I'm wrong or stupid or evasive, in your opinion. Why the disrespect? Who are you to disrespect anybody? You who remain hidden.
Jim, the wealthiest church in America is the Mormon church.
LOL, Julie. the Catholic Church is far wealthier than the Mormons. The entire West was once owned by Mexico. The land grants given to the Church by Spain were never recinded.; and are for the large part still owned by the Church.
No kidding. Look it up, Jim. The Mormon church is the largest landowner in the U.S.
Is there another victim posting here? I don't know about being the "offiicial" victim but I am the only victim posting here as such.
You know Pub your snarky yourself. And if you hate "snark" so coming from me. Why descend to a level, your holiness, so obviously abhors?
Well, I knew it – and I’ll explain why as I go along here: I knew the next comment from JR was not going to be an actual point-plan of what his vision is. I’m only surprised that JR came back so quickly; rather than wait until – what … he hoped I and maybe some other readers had forgotten about the Question I put to him?
As to the comment time-stamped 20Oct at 10:49 AM:
Once again, nobody knows who anybody else really is so there is no way of knowing how many of the readership are ‘victims’. For all anybody knows I may be a settlement-baby myself, now trying to make amends. Who knows? Thus the assertion and claim that JR is the only victim posting here is nothing but a phantasm for internet purposes and I don’t waste my time or anybody else’s with phantasms.
But who should care? Ideas are ideas, no matter where or from whom they come and that has been my point all along. I make and re-make that point in order to distinguish constructive commenting from the now-too-typical internet type of comments that contain nothing but assertions that have no reasoning behind them and claims that are fundamentally (on the internet) impossible to verify.
The rest of his comment simply goes to demonstrate precisely what I have been saying for quite a while. Which also provides an excellent example of the usual SNAP gambit: distract – in whatever way possible – from having to actually come to grips with the issues under consideration. Avoid the actual issues and any substantive discussion of them. Keep the emotional pot boiling and do that precisely to avoid any actual serious look at the matter at hand.
And I would say that it is exactly that sly strategy that has kept this abuse-matter alive on the internet for so long: insist that there is a Problem, but as long as you can prevent people from questioning any aspects of it and keep them simply all-worked-up, then The Ball Can Keep Rolling almost forever (SNAP has already gotten more than 20 years out of it).
And here’s a possibility that I do not assert but simply put out there as a possibility: given that JR’s commenting strategy is so similar to SNAP’s, then is it possible that JR is really a SNAP agent put out on the web by SNAP to help keep things distracted from any substantive discussion of the actual issues? And by i) having him claim and insist that he is a ‘victim’ and then ii) that he is a ‘victim’ who doesn’t like SNAP and iii) keep putting out the idea that the Church has somehow made SNAP its secret-agent for ‘controlling’ the Abuse Crisis, then he becomes an apparently anti-SNAP ‘voice’ that is really helping to achieve the core SNAP objective of ensuring that nobody gets a chance to look carefully at the actual issues.
And that possibility would be demonstrated here by the fact that despite a clear and simple Question which needs only the most basically-structured response about JR’s vision of how this whole Matter might ultimately be worked-through, yet all we get is another dance-away and more distracting and irrelevant (to the Question) stuff.
And if my Question was – in JR’s opinion – itself irrelevant, then perhaps he might explain just why a Question about how the ultimate solution to this whole Abuse Matter is – in his opinion – irrelevant (while, additionally, his own comments as produced here are by some measurement ‘relevant’).
Because by the most curious coincidence what appears to be his commenting approach is also SNAP’s strategy: keep this thing focused on appearances and emotions and claims that cannot be verified on the internet, and thereby just keep going around and around and around, swirling and circling but going nowhere.
Meanwhile I am still waiting for an answer to the Question as to what JR considers to be a Plan that would help bring about a conclusion to the substantive elements of the Abuse Matter. How hard can it be to simply type that up in a comment, point by point? Unless his plan all along has been to keep repeating and circling ad infinitum.
I don’t have trouble ‘remembering’ stuff and I’m still waiting. Time to play varsity ball.
Settlement baby???? Are you are a piece of evil work? Is that workin' for you? I've been posting here as a victim. Look around see anybody else talking? Genius? Yea lap of luxury that's me. You are wrong. You have mistaken wit for simple cruelty and that's very sad.
Some of the readership must think victims deserve compensation? Do you think we are compensated to just punish the Catholic Church's bank accounts? is everything punisment and money centric in your world.?
How many people who were harmed have been compensated in a real way? 10%? If that. Yea your side hasn't taken the tactic yet" we've compensated enough. the rest are all fakes" But really that's what your saying. Charming Christianity winds up lying to protect money. Good job fellas. Job well done. You've really carried on that old Jesus Spirit.
You believe you can eat your diety and I'm a " phantasm"? You believe in an after life and i'm a "phantasm"? LOL!
Well, JR’s ‘answer’ and ‘plan’ wasn’t up when I put my last comment up, but here it is: He “envisions nothing” for the Church.
OK, then, let’s take that as JR’s ultimate vision and position. What then?
He has no constructive plan for dealing with the Abuse Matter, which cannot be too surprising since he has no interest in the Church. (And yet he keeps commenting. )
But where, then, is all of this going? And we come yet again to what I had mentioned: his operational objective (whether he realizes it or not, and self-awareness is not a given here) is to just keep going around and around, waving the ‘bloody shirt’ of purported victimization and considering that a useful day’s work. (We recall that “the Bloody Shirt” was a post-Civil War political tactic whereby the Republicans (who supported, conducted, and won the Civil War) continually fended off Democratic initiatives (the Democrats had not at all been so supportive of Lincoln and the War and were inclined to simply arrange a permanent separation of North and South on the basis of the Confederacy’s sovereignty) by ‘waving the Bloody Shirt’ – meaning that whenever confronted by something they didn’t like the Republicans of that era would simply claim that their Party had fought and won the Civil War and therefore appealed to that historical bit in order to avoid coming to terms with Democratic proposals).
Clearly JR’s strategy is the same as SNAP’s: just Keep The Ball Rolling by endlessly repeating claims (and on the basis of a now-admitted anti-Catholic bias as well as any ‘victim’ bits) and stories on the internet and calling it a good day’s work. Whether SNAP and JR are trying to keep the same ball rolling, or whether JR occupies himself with his own version, is secondary and in this context neither here nor there. SNAP and JR can do what they wish, but it’s clear now just what that ‘wish’ is, and we are now clearly informed.
And thus, JR demonstrates himself to be just another bleed-over onto this site from the larger mutant sub-world of merely-emotional and queasily manipulative and deceptive internet commentary, with no interest in constructively addressing and resolving the Matter at hand whatsoever. Well, now it’s clear.
Meanwhile, as if to put a stick in the bicycle spokes of the anti-Catholic stance in matters of abuse, the Boy Scouts are now the latest focus of Abuse attention. But the accused or alleged abusers were not celibate but in many cases married and with children and the organization was not led by a supposedly uniquely-abusive Catholic hierarchy but a large secular leadership of by – to all appearances – a conventional and successful group of citizens.
And we are still left, as well, with the example of MADD: once that group achieved some national prominence and stature, we did not see a sustained campaign by MADD to Keep The Ball Rolling by demanding investigations of the myriad police, prosecutors, and judges who over the course of long decades had handled drunk-drivers with kid gloves; and eagerly rummaging through almost 80 years of automotive history to find anything that might look flammable to toss on the fire.
But this is precisely what we have seen with SNAP – abetted or at least mirrored by a thick and dense wave of internet commenters who are interested only in their own emotions and not in facts or accuracy or trying to come to grips with constructive solutions but rather simply fueled by whatever interpretative phantasms or misquotes or red-herrings or other dodgy bits they can come up with. But like the Dilbert cartoon strip a couple of weeks ago, they seek merely the fun (and psychological if not economic profit) of having an opinion, and don’t want that infantile spell broken by actually doing the hard work of accurately grounding an opinion.
As regards my not having “proof” of any conspiracy between SNAP and JR, I clearly labeled it as a “possibility” and nothing more and said so. The most cogent point – which JR characteristically either misses or ignores – being the queasy but close similarity between his own strategy and tactics and those of SNAP. As to his claim to have “proof” of SNAP’s being somehow a Church (or Dominican) creature, I’ll give that assertion and the accompanying assertion of “proof” with the same confidence as his assertions about “Bishop Braun” and the confession-under-oath of “seminary sex orgies”.
As to my “disrespect”: respect must be earned (and I’m not breaking any new ground here) and as I’ve said before, I don’t have much use for pick-up ball-tossers coming onto a serious varsity field with rubber bats and demanding to be taken for competent players just because they and their bat mimic the actual varsity players. Does that sound elitist? When was the last time anybody asked a kid hammering a tree-house together in his backyard to get under the hood of their family car and fix the engine for the same wages they’d have paid a trained mechanic?
And that dynamic, too, has fuelled so much of the internet presence of this ‘Crisis’. As we are increasingly coming to see revealed.
Why would I care about what happens to the not so good ship "Dominerance" let alone create a plan for it? ???
You want me to explain or give ideas to solve your problems? I"m cool but not that cool. Wait! I have an idea how about telling the truth for a starter? Boy Scouts owned up how about you folks doing that. You know no excessive penalties for simply telling the truth like Bishop Tutu did in South Africa. How about that?If God is God he is not good if he is not good he is not God. Wouldn't a good God who demands so much from people according to some notes he "left" 2000 years ago. Doing good would be the good thing to do and if you don't know the truth how can you know what a good thing to do, is
It's a group effort pal.
Laughing here….My strategy is telling the truth as best i know it. It's worked well for me before. SNAP and my strategy the same. I told you I'm telling the truth and so is SNAP about one thing: that there are large numbers of truely harmed people that you are resposible to compensate. That's what the Church does not want to do? And you whine like Scrooge Mc Duck over your piles of gold. We don't want to pay. whine! you whine and wince, why? Just tell the truth; release your records and man up, Capt. Coureageous and crew.
What and did you of the mightyrighty not have big issues with the "Pink Palace" boys? Wasn't the word orgy used in reference to that seminary. Let alone in Austria. they had some nice times at a seminary there at one point some of the Vienna's boys Choir were connected. Julie Andrews wouldn't faint she's a grown up lady but Maria von Trapp would.
You sound so manly when you talk about sports.
P.S. It's obvious I'm not playing ball.
Possibly you are of an age where it's difficult to concentrate. Documentation: the application for nontax status appears at Victims of Silence@Bulletinboards . com.. Look at it your self. it exists.
Gosh when ever I think of American guys building tree houses I think of William Burroughs. He was my first interview on radio. A gay program,. IMRU on KPFK Pacifica Radio in L.A. seriously. Also with John Giorno star of Warhol's 8 hour film of Giorno sleeping.called "Sleep". Just thought I'd drop a name. Who do you hang with Pub?
Jim,
"Pub" was clearly raised by and probably "hangs with" individuals out of your league!!!
Who ever said the Church and it's hierarchy were unique when it comes to child abuse and it's coverup????
"a thick and dense wave" Is everybody else in the world an anathama to you?
You have an imaginary god who lives in an imaginary heaven who sends the creatures he created to an imaginary heaven or hell depending on the amount of love they have for him and I'm the one in an "infantile spell"? Try "grounding" an imaginary opinion on those imaginary "grounds".
Jim, I think you are trying to muddy the waters and place distractions in the comments section here so that inquiring readers will have a difficult time finding any meaningful information from the comments. Your comments are so plentiful and off the wall.
Darlin your waters were muddy long before I posted here. I believe in humanity's essential ability to be good and just. You don't? Who put us at odds with each other? If I distract you from an irrational political policy that serves no one but perpetrators and enablers, then my efforts are worthwhile. if you cling to these false analyses, you lose and so do the rest of us, all.
This is not battle between believers and non believers between scam artists and moral pinacles. this is a fight set to obfuscate the rule of the majority to the benefit of a minority. That doesn't give a rats hiney about God or Jesus or you or me.
A neat gambit (although I’d say that after the immediately-previous spate of eye-opening rants it’s going to take a lot more than more than that): claim the ‘high ground’ and then try to get everybody to pretend that a) we haven’t all read what we most recently read and that b) the presumptions about the high ground are accurate and c) JR is really just one of the gang and we’re all in this together.
First, what “irrational political policy” has been under discussion here?
Second, “distracting” (which JR apparently here admits) is a good thing if it gets people not-to-think about (putatively) “irrational” policies. I would say that “distracting” is never a good route to follow, especially when that distraction is done as many primitive and queasy ways as JR (and SNAP) does it. Better to claim something is “irrational”, then demonstrate clearly and cogently why that is so, and let people make up their own minds. Anything less is nothing more than manipulation.
If JR is “at odds” on this site I would say it’s not because of his “political” views but because of his manipulative and (whether he realizes it or not) sly distractions and unsupported and/or outright inaccurate assertions, and – most recently – his genuinely quease-making molten ability to conduct a rant. (Let’s leave epithets, obscenity, and sexual innuendoes out of it for now.)
Surely “false analysis” is the beam in JR’s own eye here. And it has been sustained and repeated. And if – in the alternative – one grants JR’s inevitable post-misstatement claim that he does the best he can, then all I can suggest is to repeat yet again that on the basis of all the claims and assertions and lesser dreck I’ve read from him on this site he needs to get a lot of work done in the analysis department.
And then suddenly we find ourselves in abstract political-theory Land with ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ and all. Why? To avoid the far more relevant reality that he not only has little accurate historical knowledge of the Church but that he is indeed profoundly hostile to it and thus – for the purposes of assessing his assertions and claims – one really does have to take into account how skewed they are in their motivations even before one gets to checking the facts of their content.
And what “a fight to obfuscate the rule of the majority” means is anybody’s guess. As best I can make out this flows directly some self-conception of JR’s that he is some mix of Zorro and The Green Lantern (and any other cartoon superhero), and that since he is thus ‘fighting evil’ on everybody’s behalf then he should be given the courtesy of not having his efforts examined too closely (while being – of course – taken completely seriously as the marvelous evil-fighter that he imagines himself to be).
But this is merely an individual and individualized instance of the general SNAP-type scam: we are engaged in such a vital and marvelously heroic task that you shouldn’t bother with whether any individual bits of what we say are accurate – but instead you should believe and admire us for our Objectives and Goals, and not for the quality of our analysis and the veracity of our claims, assertions, and stories.
Jim, you are obviously very bitter and more enamoured with spite than you are with resolution and healing. The Lamb of God can help you with that if you simply let Him. Your friendship with the intellectia that you boast about; no way and no how can they offer you the help and healing that Jesus can. I challenge you to spend an hour in silent Eucharistic adoration and give Him the opportunity to speak directly to your heart.
Ken W so staring at a piece of bread in "adoration" and in silence will restore me to what, Wonder bread?
I know Eucharistic worship is a new push by Benedict ( well not new but resurrected. No offense) But what does that do for victims of abuse by clergy? Particullarly us non believers. Just do the right thing by us that's all that's necessary. Be the good Samaratin that's all you need do.
Jim, I'm starting to feel sorry for you. I hope you can find some peace. You keep coming at us like a wild turkey and missing the mark. God bless you, and I will pray for you, even if you don't believe. Can't hurt, right?
Gobble! Gobble! Julie, I find peace everyday. I find telling the truth and acting on it is quite a joyous thing actually. So I guess my 12 years of Catholic schooling is paying off. Acting as Jesus would ,to the best of my limited ability, is great. No miracles yet :i.e. waking you all up. But still, you don't have to be a deist to behave well. I pray for you too Julie, if a prayer is a caring wish. :^)
As far as my Catholic education goes. I grew up in south central L.A. (Figueroa and Imperial) Ascension School was a half a block away.
The wonderful Sisters of St. Joseph of Corondolet were my grade school teachers. Some of them came from wealthy families and were well educated and again were wonderful. Sister Bernadine, Sister Pancratious, Sister Joan of Arc, Sister Daniel all great teachers and where ever these women are I am forever grateful. I offer up my athiest prayers in thanks for their great kindness.(There was one child beater in the group Sister Victorine. What ever was torturing her, I hope has been ended.)
High school was a diffrent story save for 2 lay teachers. The Marianists were no Sisters of St. Joseph. There is where I was hurt.
You and Pub, the old sweetie, and others here find me bitter. Maybe you are right. And also it maybe your reaction to someone who questions your belief that your Church is being persecuted for it's dispicable actions. One thing is a definite: I can control nothing about your opinions of me. And really your opinion of me is none of my business.
Jim asks: "What does it do for victims of abuse by clergy?" My answer: don't know, as I have yet to meet or see one. At large, all I see is ghosts hiding behind professional "victim's advocates" that demand that we simply take their word for it without first testing the veracity of the allegations. Even worse, if I dare to ask even the simplest of questions regarding the veracity of any given allegation, rather than then get anything that even remotely resembles a thoughtful response, I am branded a "pedophile protector". That is a legitimate form of deceptive propaganda in it's most vile and disgusting form. What has become obvious is that this type of mob menatality (of which you ARE a part of; your rhetoric makes that obvious) has absolutely no interest in healing and resolution. What is even worse is that they have no interest in the truth! To do the right thing and be a good Samaritan is to first establish the truth. If you are in my vicinity, I will feed, clothe and shelter you if need be.
Ironic thing is that I DO know and know of quite a few victims of abuse outside of Catholic circles. Better yet, I have seen the healing and resolution that does take place when such a victim does yield soley to God's will. How those victims present themselves versus the way that people claiming abuse by a priest presents themselves; I see a very stark and obvious contrast between the two.
I do not know you, and I have no reason to believe you or disbelieve you. The fact that you have received settlement money is not proof to me that you were abused, it is only proof to me that someone was willing to settle your claim. Settlement money is not the measure of guilt. If it were, the victims at Greenwood Baptist Church would be wallowing in $$$ right now, but they did not get one red cent.
I do know this: your rhetoric indicates spite, not healing. You have spoken here of night terrors and screams in the middle of the night. These are not caused by yourself having experienced abuse. These are caused by demonic oppression or even flat out possession, and Jesus, through the hands of a good priest followed by therapy from a God fearing therapist, is the ONLY ONE that can relieve you of those. I am speaking from personal experience.
You, Jim, are in my prayers.
Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, misere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, misere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
And a "Cogito Ergo Sum" to you for all of that. As far as demon possession or oppression, who can say?(We are legion) Who said that? Is something else here??? Happy Halloween!
P.S. I'm sorry you had to go through what you went through. honestly. I wish you well.
If you've noticed a difference between Catholic victims and other abuse victims, that's no accident that's the Church created SNAP. it was created to pis off Catholics not help or have you meet victims. That is why I'm really writing here. I can't help myself with my anti religious bent. I shouldn't talk about what I believe vs. what you believe religion wise but I do that's my fault. Your inability to meet or see victims other than the SNAP approved ones is no accident but absolutely deliberate. A planned scam to keep you feeling under attack by victims. We are not your enemy and you are not our enemy. But the Church needed to create a false polemic: victims vs. the Faith and the Faith vs.victims. Completely unnecessary.
Jim, you sound really rattled. I will join the others in praying for you.
Ken W , What" question of the simpilest allegations" did you ask and who did you ask?
To Clohessy himself, and a host of other SNAP-ites:
How do you test the veracity of any given allegation?
Did you ask the accused for his side of the story?
Did you urge the accuser to report the matter to the police?
What is SNAP's policy when an allegation is proven false?
There's more, but that's all that I can remember now. Not a single one of them has EVER been answered. All of them have been responded with "You are a Romanist defender of pedophiles". Funny thing is, I wasn't even a Catholic then. I was an inquirer, my questions were serious but sincere, and their responses were offensive.
Ken W. In the early "90's I went to the Marianist order in Calif. asking for compensation. I was asked to meet with them their lawyers and their lawyers shrink. I told what happened to me. When i'd finished their paid for shrink reached accross to me and said: " I believe every thing you said." Later the head of the order in California flew down and met me in an airport meeting room he'd hired and apologized to me for what happened to me in high school and offered me 12,000 dollars for compensation and therapy. I felt insulted and turned it down. It was a fake apology anyway.
Good questions Ken on the whole.SNAP does tell victims to report to the Police the abuse. we all did here. I don't believe it's SNAP's job to question the veracity of anyone's claims. they are no "official" organ of the courts or state or insurors or Church. They are the Church in fact but I digress. Of course if SNAP finds it falsely accused someone they should admit their horrific error but they won't. A) because it fuels you and yours to emnity and B) because it makes them look bad. Asking the accused for his or her side isn't really their job, in my opinion.
My friend, SNAP is offensive to every one and every questionor including victims, if we asked the wrong questions or had the wrong "appreciation" of SNAP's policies. (At one point SNAP wanted victims, VICTIMS to dress as Franciscans and picket the Cathedral. We all refused. The idea of victims dressing as perps; what could be more repulsive to us? The other SNAP policy that sucked was no democracy. No elections for leaders. [that should have tipped us off as to who SNAP really was earlier but it didn't damn it!] The two appointed leaders who were victims in L.A. both were investment bankers. Good people both but what a marvelous coincidence, both investment bankers hmmmmmmmm. Not many revolutionaries in investment banking. Especially if settlements occur. Leaders appointed by SNAP in a movement. Please you just think about that.)
P.S. On the Franciscan perp dress-up, we felt it was offensive to the people in the pews who we want to connect with not alienate. Another offensive SNAP demo: The day I silently and respectfully( yes respectfully) handcuffed myself to the Cathedra, SNAP was taping body outlines of victims who had commited suicide and their names outside on the sidewalk. Never asking those suice victims families if it was o.k. to use their names. Big old ik factor and a perfect way to alienate Catholics. And you wonder why we know SNAP is a front for the reactionary elements of the Church.
I hope somebody winds up suing SNAP. They think they can always go over the line of decency and truth because of who their target is.
Perpetrators aren't loved in this world Julie. Criminals feel superior to them and attack and kill them in jail. Remember the pathetic, idioticily childish Fr. Geogagen, murdered. Horrible! I some times wonder if he wasn't set up to be killed to "end" the scandal. No one will ever know. But really anyone listening to that man speak would know he was an idiot child. How he ever became a priest?
I don't think the killing of Geoghan would have ended the scandal. I have read many accounts of devout and orthodox men who tried to get into seminary back then and were turned away, while men who clearly had sexual and identity problems were accepted, because the entrance requirements and screening were loosened up to allow liberals in, who were presumably going to change the church. Some of these seminaries wanted to change the church into a bastion of liberalism. These liberal seminaries threw our children to the wolves. And I think the laity grew worldly and lost confidence in a celibate priesthood. My mom used to muse, well, what are you going to get except weirdos when you expect them to be celibate. THAT is a complete lack of understanding of the priesthood. And, everybody was thinking that therapy would change these guys. Few people considered that real evil exists in the world.
Well from your post "liberals"( what ever that means) seem to you to be in league with the Devil. So lets just burn them like in the good old days. We can tell who to burn by moles or marks on their bodies. (Satan is so obvious. He marks his people) Wonderful! It's a lovely day for an Auto da Fe. Just kidding. Were you scared by a progressive as a child? When the Church made it's first pronouncement in the TENTH CENTURY about priests and children, were the liberals the problem then?
Nobody is suggesting burning liberals, Jim. And I have always had a liberal bent. But I am getting more conservative as I get older and am a lilttle dismayed the liberals keep dragging up things the church did or is accused of doing centuries ago while ignoring modern problems. I don't want a progressive Catholic church. I want the true church founded by Jesus, unchanged and yet still full of grace and joy after 2,000 years. Bless you Jim! Nobody wants to insult you. I wish every happiness upon you.
Good luck and I wish you well Julie.