SNAP Conference speaker Judy Braun: Catholic Church allows child abuse (as long as it's secret)
On the opening night of SNAP's recent annual conference, National Director David Clohessy attempted to convince his audience that SNAP "does not hate churches," suggesting that the group does not have any particular animus against the Catholic Church.
Clohessy's denial rings hollow, however, in light of an alarming presentation later delivered at the conference by Judy Braun, a writer raised in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. (Braun has also written under the pseudonym, Eishes Chayil ("woman of valor"), and her name has more often appeared as "Judy Brown.")
Braun's talk was oddly titled, "Monotheism and Child Sacrifice." According to Braun:
"For centuries the Catholics and Jews have been sworn enemies. Only now after two millennia of distrust and contempt, the world's ancient religions have finally come together as leaders of these religions, both popes and rabbis, are united in rare agreement that child sexual abuse is allowed, as long as it is done in secret and its victims are buried deep under the fear of God."
Thus, according to Braun, child abuse is actually permitted in the Catholic Church and in Judaism – as long as it is kept secret.
[Click to see the actual page from SNAP's conference program guide describing Braun's talk.]
According to Braun, child abuse is really the practice of child sacrifice, and "Child sacrifice is still common in Western society today." Its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition, apparently, stem from the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac.
Abuse is "allowed," says Braun, because of "smaller and larger truths" believed by both Catholic and Jewish clerics. (We're not sure we understand it, either.)
Yet as warped as Braun's presentation was, her talk was met with enthusiastic applause by the SNAP audience.
Braun's wild broadside against the Catholic Church, Judaism, and men – which was met with resounding approval from conference attendees – certainly make it hard for SNAP to argue that it has no vitriol against the Catholic Church and that its mission is merely to provide support for victims.
Wow. Just wow.
WOW – did you miss the point of the talk or what. I guess people hear what they want to hear.
Explain, David. Explain, please.
David I don't think these people understand metaphor.
FYI – I am a practicing, conservative Catholic.
For many reasons, some good some bad, the Church is under attack these days.
But one of the things in our favor is the rather fragrant fact that many of the accusations against us, such as this one, are spectacularly stupid.
I'm old enough to remember the song, "This Train", where the lines go, "This train is bound for Glory, this train …This train don't carry no liars, this train…." Since the main building blocks of SNAP's platform is based on lies…well, I'm sure we can guess, if not judge, where that leads.
And, more to the point, the ten C's form the basis of both Judaism and Christianity and along with the two great Commandments taught by Jesus, would prohibit any abuse of anyone. Also, Braun's total ignorance of the meaning of Abraham's obedience to God, and the forshadowing of God's sacrifice of his Son to redeem the world, is truly mind-boggling. I tend to think she's deep in the racist beliefs of neo-nazi's, and is a reason for them to hate anyone who teaches otherwise.
The really sad part is that people believe that jargon.
So now the Jews are Nazis?????
Who were the first to sign a treaty with Hitler?
The Vatican.
Who sieg hieled themselves to the death of European Jewry?
The German Catholic Church and the Polish Catholic Church etc. etc.
Who secured passports out of Europe at the end of WW11
The future Pope Paul VI
Jim -
As far as your Hitler / Vatican fallacies:
May I recommend The Myth of Hitler's Pope by Rabbi David Dalin
and "How Pius XII Protected Jews" by Jimmy Akin.
And incase I forgot to say it. The simple fact of the continuing transfer of abusive priest to fresh fields of children again and again and again by the hierarchs, merely proves Mz Braun's analysis. Like it or not conciously sacrificed we victims were.
Mr Pierre,
Are you kidding me.? the Jewish ghetto in Rome is right at the Pope's front door. Did he even wave goodbye as the Nazis "cleared" the Ghetto. Not even. Yet when Rome was bombed he was out waving his arms like Christ on the cross.
Millions died and the creep never opened his yap. Until after when it was safe. What would Jesus do? What the King of Denmark did. Oh I forgot since he was a jew Jesus would have been on a truck with the rest.
Jim -
I am sorry, but you are simply wrong about Pope Pius and the Jews in Rome. But don’t take my word for it:
1. Michael Tagliacozzo, “the foremost survivor on the October 1943 Nazi roundup of Rome’s Jews” and “a survivor of the raid himself,” said Pius’ actions helped rescue 80 percent of Rome’s Jews. Said Tagliacozzo, “Pope Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on October 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us.” (Rabbi David G. Dalin, p. 83)
2. In the June 21, 2009, edition of the Boston Globe, Mordechay Lewy, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, is quoted, “It is wrong to look for any affinity between [Pius] and the Nazis. It is also wrong to say that he didn’t save Jews. Everybody who knows the history of those who were saved among Roman Jewry knows that they hid in the church.”
Thank you for your work, Dave, in exposing this corrupt bunch. My mind is boggled.
Dave Pierre,
What is a formost survivor in real talk?
Let's see 6 million dead Jews and you can honestly say that the formost leader of Christianity couldn't say boo to Hitler , out loud and in public? Not a word. What do you think Jesus would say to that?
Also I as an x-Catholic am ashamed of what Catholicism did to the Jews. All those Catholic Austrians and southern German and Hungarians ad-infinitum,
Bishops sieg heil'ed and celebrated der Fhurer's birthday in Churches through out Catholic Europe; and to pretend that didn't happen is delusion on a criminal scale.
Just another ignorant rant from and ignorant person. SNAP has no credibility and I applaud them putting up speakers like this that prove they are nothing but a religious hate group.
I think metaphoricaly that what Mz Braun writes is completely true. We were child sacrifices. We may be still alive but sacrificed we were. And the myth that one could be cured of paedophilia was always known by the average citizen to be false. Only the hierarchy knows why they continue to offer up innocent members of their church to truely damaged people. The fact that they have been caught and (more importantly to them and you) have to pay, seems to be your sole concern . Never NEVER have I heard you speak well of the tens of thousands of victims. Instead your more concerned (without any evidence) about falsely accused priests over truely raped victims.
Who put you up to this bizzare position. God only knows.
However, since victims know that SNAP is a Church created sweetheart union anyone it asccuses falsley is done on purpose to make victims look bad.
If you have any interest in truth, there it is.
The "smaller and larger truths" Ms. Braun refers to seem to be these:
A the priest since he's "consecrated" is more valuable than the child.
B. The child is not usually physically dead therefore no " apparent " harm, no foul.
C. The scandal of telling the truth about the abuse would somehow harm the Church. (My Protestant cousin's church had an abuser. when they found out they called the police and got rid of him and asked had anyone else been hurt.) If Protestants can do it, clean and simply. Why can't Catholics?
Jim Robertson, visit stopbaptistpredators.org.
Julie my cousin's church is probably an exception. But if they did the right thing any body can.
You know how this "scandal" could have been solved? If the Church had come forward openly and honestly TO THE VICTIMS, and offered us treatment and compensation.from the get go
If they had completly told the whole truth. The Church could have risen from it's ruins. A truer Church and I think the whole world would have benefited. But no that didn't happen.
Instead we hear about "the Church is under attack "when it is barely being called to account for it's behavior. It's civil crimes.
And they could have gotten off cheaper; lawyers cost. And believe me victims know when someone approaches us in sincerity.
If there are false claims that just the cost of doing buisness. As a compensated victim believe me we go through many layers of shrinks and tests to see if we are telling the truth. More than any Bishop is.
So if there is a little fraud. Too F'ing bad.
Below I'm accused of saying " the Church is in ruins."
What i was implying was that the sexual abuse scandal had ruined the Church's image to some not all people and not about all things.
You act like victims created this scandal out of whole cloth and that is just a bare faced lie. You also act like telling the stories of victims accusations is the "left wing media" going after the Bride of Christ. Don't you ever lighten up?
Jim, spewing lies in comboxes about the Pope's role in saving Jews during World War II, and Catholic connections to Hitler don't wash any more. There is simply too much evidence to the contrary readily found on the internet. Those closest to Hitler recorded his disdain for Christianity in their diaries. He wasn't motivated by anything other than racism, hatred, and a desire for power. He publicly vowed to destroy the Catholic Church. 3 million Catholics died in the Holocaust, including thousands of priests and nuns. I know you are hoping people will read your comments and readily believe, but only weak-minded and bigoted folks will bite. Your accusations are simply too easily refuted with a quick search.
So the reactionary re-write is on. So what's next the holocost didn't happen?
There is no heaven or hell or god or devil.
There is just what we do and have done. And the Catholic Church was in Hitler's back pocket through out his reign of horror. Name one time the Pope spoke out publicly to save Jews. You can't because the scumbag didn't
If he publicly avowed to destroy the Catholic Church, why did he accept Birthday congratulations from the Church? Yearly.
If he was so anti-Catholic publicly, why didn't the Church criticize him publicly? I'll tell you why. They were hoping he'd wipe out "godless Communism" for them. And they weren't too fond of Jews anyway.
Evidence on the internet? LOL By who? You or someother fantasist?
If 3 million Catholics died in the Holocost a huge chunk of them must have fallen from concentration camp watchtowers.
This woman is a crackpot.
It is anti-semitism which is nourished by the old slur of child slaying Jews. This woman is shizophrenic and self-hating. They say two Jews three opinions but this woman is not expressing opinion she has serious mental problems.
Wow what love! What kindness. Teresa your imaginary friend< God doesn't care about you; just like he doesn't care about us victims or Hitler or Hitler's victims either.
Any all powerful, all knowing; all good; all loving God who kills a quarter million people on a sunny afternoon with a tsunami. Is none of the afore mentioned things.
He (assuming he's a he has rather large genitalia and for what purpose? Male supremacy?) is no god for me.
More and more
@jim robertson: I suggest you see a doctor, you are seeking for hate objects because you are full of rage and thought of retaliation. Seriously, hating doesn't help you to get over your trauma, and your moaning is only making people less concerned about your plight but more annoyed by your habit of hitting out at people. If you are a victim of sex abuse you have my sympathy but it doesn't mean that you are not obliged to respect the others, religon, culture anymore.
LOL Teresa,
We haveYour magical thinking about the Naz and his Pop and Big Bird and I'm the one who needs to change to suit you? Been there; and aint going back. Hate the stupid o.k. guilty. But you know what think of your concept of God as superstition like black cats being bad luck. That's what religion is for all of us. You bought that you need this exact faith said by certain people in certain ways as a paramount truth. A truth that explains the Universe to you.But it's just not true. You can't prove any of it true. That's all. That's why you call it, faith.
But to put that "belief" up as equal to truth when you can prove nothing; it just don't cut it for me.
If I've hurt your feelings by telling the truth. I'm sorry . Really.
Crazies at the SNAP conference?
I don't believe it.
The ‘Robertson’ (hereinafter: ‘JR’) series of comments is a goldmine.
I discussed ‘metaphor’ in my prior comment. Whether and how much Braun used it is best determined by reviewing the transcript of her remarks as delivered to the SNAP conference-goers.
As so often with these types, they have far less actual knowledge and analytical competence than they assume. ‘JR’ clearly does not know the formal difference between a Treaty and a Concordat; he appears to have no knowledge of the actual stipulations of the Concordat between the Vatican and the Reich; he appears to have no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the Concordat (Hitler’s threats to Catholic education), nor the objectives and motivations of the Church in concluding the Concordat; and he further appears to somehow causally connect the Concordat with the Jewish deaths in the Holocaust. (Don’t laugh: I came across a comment from a similar type of mentality on another site where the commenter considered Pius XII directly responsible as the originator of World War 2 and the deaths of the Jews in the Holocaust.)
And somehow this historical excursus jiggles his brainparts, and – in case he forgot to mention it – also ties in with the Church constantly shifting-around abusive priests “again and again”. Although that formulation neatly and slyly does not distinguish between several priests each being given a single second-chance and all accused priests being constantly shifted around for their convenience and the allure of “fresh fields”.
Which, he insists, merely proves Ms. Braun’s “analysis”. Which it may very well, in his mind.
‘JR’ – who self-identifies online as a victim and an ex-Catholic – then repeats the “sacrifice” trope , claiming (metaphorically, it has to be presumed) that such children were “sacrificed”. And yet, if so and for decades or even centuries (in Braun’s ‘analysis’), then what of all the parents, public officials, and others who had to be in on such a world-historical scam. Imagine it: a world-historical operation of victimization, going on for centuries, and nobody but nobody knew about it except the Vatican, twirling its collective moustache and leering Bwa-ha-haaaaa!
No wonder these people are continually enraged: their cartoon image of the world and of events is constantly being rendered ludicrous by the application of a bit of serious thought, at which point their only option is to imagine that much of the world must be ‘against them’. (Although the Vatican and the Church are more manageable and lucrative as stand-ins for the World and Life generally, and far more sue-able, especially nowadays.
It would be interesting to imagine what would have happened to ‘JR’ if he said Boo to Hitler in that monster’s heyday. Or what would have happened to millions of European Catholics if he had been Pope and swung into his Boo bit with all those millions being held hostage by Hitler.
He is an ‘ex-Catholic’ but is ashamed of the Church. Nice way to have your cake and eat it too: courageous enough to be an ex-Catholic and still able to condemn the Church. As if anybody could have said Boo to Hitler and gotten away with it.
Does he know what happened to you – as an individual or as a group – if you didn’t show the proper respect publicly on Hitler’s birthday? Is he blaming all Europeans for not saying Boo during the Occupation of their countries? Is he implying he would have been a member of the Resistance? How easy it is – now that the monster is dead and the SA and the SS and all the rest of that demonic panoply is only a dark wisp of oily smoke way back.
Cheap shots indeed. But apparently a major element of his presentation.
And once again the having of the metaphorical cake and the eating of it too: “We may still be alive but sacrificed were we”. Not sacrificed as in killed in gas chambers, but metaphorically speaking … sort of ‘soul-killed’, perhaps. It’s a repellent game to start trying to cash in on the Holocaust for your own purposes, while also taking cheap shots at everybody who had to make it through the day in the time of the Reich. This is adolescent stuff from the high-school cafeteria, masquerading as a position of great moral stature.
And while to the best extent of current psychological knowledge it is not possible to ‘cure’ a genuine pedophile, yet very very few of the Catholic abuse cases qualify for that formal diagnosis. Or is he only speaking metaphorically here? But if so, then of what use are his assertions? And you can’t use ‘metaphor’ in scientific and legal assessment. Or does that matter to him?
And the Church hardly “continues to offer up” such “sacrifices” even unto this very day, by any extant measure. Or does he have evidence and proof to the contrary that – again – nobody but nobody else knows about?
Where he gets the “tens of thousands of victims” for his assertion is anybody’s guess. It is clearly not from actual reported cases, but perhaps it’s extrapolation, that dodgy gambit to increase numbers without having any numbers to work with. Or maybe again he’s just using metaphor.
We are concerned – and “without any evidence” – for the falsely accused priests. Anybody in a democracy subject to and dependent upon the vital Rule of Law who is not concerned for false accusations and the improper deployment of the Sovereign coercive police authority of the government is – I will most strongly submit – helping this country down precisely that dark road Germany began to travel in 1933.
And this is a “bizarre position to take”?
He is, with a nice touch of complexity, unhappy with SNAP – because they don’t go far enough.
He offers his own exegesis of Ms. Braun’s position, and nobody can really respond to that because we don’t have the transcript of her actual presentation. So I’ll leave that bit open for further consideration after SNAP makes the transcript available to the world whose opinion it so eagerly seeks to manipulate.
He neatly mentions a “Protestant cousin” whose church (congregation?), he claims, simply did the right thing and called the police, forthwith. And when was that? Because it is axiomatic among victim-groups that until they began efforts, nobody but nobody took sex-abuse seriously. So how does ‘JR” square that circle?
And if this congregation’s actions took place recently, well … that’s not such a unique thing at all. If it took place in the 1950s or 1960s, well that would be interesting – especially if their local sheriff acted on it. But who knows, since it’s only a story asserted in a rant on the internet?
In that regard I doubt the Church is much more delinquent than any other ecclesial polity and probably less so than some government and public entities. As we are beginning to see nowadays.
And as for the Church being “in ruins”, I think I’ll just wait a bit longer and see how that bit of fortune-telling turns out. It’s been said before, and long long before ‘JR” started tenure on the planet.
Whether ‘JR’ speaks for all victims or only for himself I have no way of knowing. But I think that the quality of the comments he has made here are hardly unique to him; I have certainly seen some of the same stuff put up by other screen-names on other sites, although I don’t know what sort of stuff goes up on victim-specific listservs.
“False claims” are “just the cost of doing business” Ja! So were the deaths of the European Jews and millions of others, to a certain mindset and agenda. “Business” – among our fallen species – can get out of hand very very quickly. I imagine that that unhappy reality holds true for enterprising victims and their business as well.
We are no doubt expected to respect – or at least be suitably impressed by – the “F’ing” bit, a mark of the privilege to be accorded the genuinely battle-scarred hero. I don’t.
The Braun presentation quoted in this article seems to me a classic example of the type of mentality and mental process that drives the Catholic abuse crisis and – it is now becoming clear – the incipient follow-on ‘religious’ abuse crises.
Why – assuming that the Catholic and Jewish religions have been “sworn enemies” for all these centuries – have “the world’s ancient religions” (all of them or just the “monotheistic” ones, and if so then why not Islam as well?) “come together” just at this point in time?
And in what way have these religions demonstrated that they have “come together”? Or does Braun sloppily mean to say that these religions have “come together” because of the (incipient) ‘religious abuse crisis’?
With the Catholic piñata becoming deflated, is this the opening gambit in a strategy for expanding the SNAP-py plan to conduct hostile operations against all religions? Or at least to include the Jewish religion, for the time being? If so, then I think it indicates desperation: in order to Keep The Ball Rolling (KTBR), the game will have to be expanded – and against the American Jewish community. Now that is desperation indeed. And does SNAP presume that the American Jewish community will sit still and wait for the whole scam/Game to be worked up against it?
And on what possible grounds does Braun claim a common “agreement” among the leadership of the Church and the Jewish religion (which, actually, has no such centralized ecclesial polity as the Church does) that “child sexual abuse is allowed”?
I don’t have the full text of her comments (what are the chances, do you think, of our ever seeing that transcript?) but is she suggesting that the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac somehow constituted “child sexual abuse”? Or else on what other basis does she base a claim of Jewish “child sacrifice”?
It seems to me a clear indicator of the mental process of analysis involved in this sort of thing: the common thread between the phrase “child sacrifice” and “child sexual abuse” is merely the word ‘child’. Therefore somehow you can try to fabricate a conceptual and historical connection, starting from what is merely a linguistic connection. (And yet there is no basis for “child sacrifice” in the historical practice of the Jewish religion. And in the Abraham-Isaac story, Isaac was spared and the point of the story was to make Abraham aware of the profound depth of faith in God’s mysterious providence that would be required of his people.)
And as best I can make out, the only connection between “child sacrifice” and “child sexual abuse” in the Catholic tradition is neither conceptual nor historical but only linguistic and metaphorical (in the eyes of Braun): that “child sacrifice” is a valid functional equivalent of “child sex abuse”.
So in the kaleidoscopic mirror-world of such cartoon thinking, the ancient claim that the Jewish faith ‘sacrificed’ children now bounces back in Braun’s cartoon to encompass the Catholic religion, and all to the apparent eager satisfaction of the whole menagerie of SNAP-types (anti-religion, anti-God, anti-Catholic, anti-men, anti-hierarchy, anti-priest, anti-fill-in-the-blank) that greedily and needily latch onto this dreck for whatever purposes they may have.
And I still want to see how Braun provides evidence of this “common agreement” – or is it just a ‘metaphor’? But if you are delivering a talk that is going to provide the basis for belief among the membership and perhaps policy in the organization, then you should be doing a lot more than tossing out handy (though un-grounded) metaphors.
And, oddly, if sexual-abuse equals ‘sacrifice’, then why isn’t it also true of adults? (Answer: adults don’t provide the baby-harp-seal visuals that ‘children’ do so it’s not useful from a PR point of view.) And if you follow this thought along, then you wind up shortly at the insistence that all the world’s monotheistic religions basically “sacrifice” everybody they come into contact with. And if that is where Braun and SNAP are going with this, then let them say so clearly and forthrightly.
After all, if you are going to create a metaphor-based cartoon world, then anything can stand for anything (or everything) else and you wind up on the carnival midway in a house-of-endless-mirrors … for real. (Welcome, then, to fright night.)
As I said, I very much would like to have a look at the genuine transcript of Braun’s remarks. Let’s call it ‘transparency’. Bets on when we’ll see an actual transcript?
Well succinct you are not.
With your fake intellectual palaver you may impress the easily fooled. I'm not buying it.
How many Catholics would have listened to the Pope over Hitler in Germany? If the Italian Facists and Hitler had arrested and even executed the Pope for telling the truth about Jewish persecution, wouldn't that have illuminated the situation? Wouldn't Jesus have done that? Or were German Catholics more valuable than Jews and their children?
In your first post above you refer to me as "one of these types" Great Jesus talk. "These types."
Gee, Jews used to be a "type" Blacks were definately a type Gays; Women and even Catholics were a "type" I digress Italians; Irish "types" all.
How can you focus to see if your already looking down your nose at people or turning your nose up at them?
Wasn't The Naz supposed to be the antedote to that kind of thinking?
Aside from the nuts I understand a prosecutor from the team who prosecuted Msgr. William Lynn was one of the speakers at the SNAP conference. That gives me the willies from the very corruptness and unholy alliance there.
Publean, What kindness, what love your religiousity offers your fellow man. To qoute Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice : "What condesention".
As far as my cousins "congregation" goes it was in the late 70's.
And just in case you don't know this (along with a few other things): I and most activist victims know that SNAP is the Church. SNAP is in fact created by the same right wingers that love Ms Donahue and her Catholic League and also adore "the Church is the real victim here" nonsense spoon fed to the supersticious at this site.
In plain speak: SNAP is counter-intelligence created to mis-direct and antagonize the faithful; as well as to control victims, our families and the public.
Also as far as Abrahm's attempted murder of his son to placate his deity.
Suppose "God" hadn't stopped the attempted murder? And what kind of God pull's tricks like that? And what do you think Issac thought about the other participants in God's practical joke?
Bob Dylan wrote "God said to Abraham kill me a son…..Abe said where you want the killing done?"
Your God later sent his kid to be sacrificed. And when he was, your religion was born. So this kill the kids mentallity seems to be at the core of your love in.
Ms Braun save yourself from these "lovers" of the Lord.
In regard to the 'JR' comments following my extended comment, I can only re-affirm that 'JR's performance is a gold-mine. If we put ourselves in the mind of the type of person who reads those magazines you find at the check-out counter … and I think we will have a much clearer perception of this type of mindset. Although most of those folks don't pretend to any great conceptual competence, whereas 'JR' (and so very many like him) precisely do think they know and nobody else does.
Another interesting point: there is, of course, a distinction between "succinct" and useless adolescent one-liners. One can take many words to explain a concept adequately, but still be very succinct. Somebody else can deliver a content-free one-liner in-your-face assertion and be neither succinct nor informative nor informed. The interesting clinical bit is to watch how some mindsets with very little actual information almost seamlessly assume the (self-serving) belief that "short equals succinct" and "long equals not succinct", thus justifying their inevitably content-free short zingies. The games people play (on themselves as well as others …)
I'm sorry. I was just reading a magazine while I was in line waiting to check out.
Did Publiar type something again? I was buying some zits creme. it must be my adolecent thoughts leaping out of my 65 year old skin.
Let me drop a few names. Last month I spent a nice evening with a Pritzker prize winner and his wife (Tom Main) Friends of friends.
Last week I hung out with the Mayor of Santa Monica. my friend is running his campaign for Calif. State Assembly.
And i have spent time, whole evenings and afternoons, talking with 2 Pulitzer Prize winners for playwriting. Chuck Gordone, "No Place to be Somebody" also Robert Patrick "Kennedy's Children"
I have hung out with everyone from Mark Hamil , a college friend, to CanonBall Adderly and Eric Monte who wrote Cooley High and created Good Times and What's Happening, Eric is another wonderful college friend, To Lillian Gish; Jack Lemmon: Maureen Stapleton, Edie Adams and Walter Matteau and Carol Burnett and Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Depp and John Malcovich. Ruben Blades and I were best friends in Panama when I was in the Army. I was on the set of the movie M.A.S.H. with Radar..
And none of that means a damn thing, what matters is truth. And truthfully your all being set up by a Church controlled SNAP to see us victims as hostile towards Catholicism.
SNAP makes you think victims are attacking your Faith.
How does that benefit victims?
We want good people on our side not against us.
The Church needs to appear to be the victim under attack.
Amazing when you hear about the real horror of our lives. The Church needed to take the victims role away from the real victims and place itself in the positon it takes the most: Persecuted.
I’ve met Pauly Shore.
LOL Mr Pierre.
Publion, I don't know who you are but you are certainly perceptive, highly intelligent and well-spoken. May I ask, are you some type of professional? Just curious.
You know Julie everytime I scroll by the above post. I think your talking about me. Narccisistic, I know.
See John Cornwell's HITLERS POPE for further understanding of Cardinal Pacelli's time in Berlin before he became Pope Pius XII.
It is, of course, shocking for those of us raised Catholic to learn that in Germany, with a largely Lutheran population, the founders of the Third Reich were Roman Catholic.
Facts are stubborn things, yet they must be reckoned with.
I’m sorry, Fitsafiddle, but Cornwell’s book has been so thoroughly debunked that even Cornwell himself has reportedly backed off the book’s most inflammatory claims:
1. From a 1999 review of Cornwell’s book in Newsweek:
2. In 2004, Cornwell essentially recanted his most inflammatory charges against Pius XII:
3. A complete refutation of Cornwell’s book can be found in the book by Rabbi David Dalin, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope.
Thank you.
Fita, don't waste your time. They have to believe their Church is always more perfect than not. in their faulty logic Christ could never be connected to a corrupt Church no matter what the facts are.
And the Church was trying to help Galileo.
So the Church hired some poor Rebbi to write a book whitewashing the Church's connection to the Nazis. Machiavell wasi a nice Catholic boy.
It's all yada yada.
In response to 'Julie', I have had the benefit of a wide education and my share of varied experiences in life. And I try to apply my gifts as best I can see to do it. I am a professional, yes.
And in regard to other comments, since the gold-mine seems marvelously inexhaustible, I cannot refrain from noting a (final?) tactic of the true-believing mindset: when the ungrounded and/or inaccurate assertions and the one-liners and the ad-hominems and the snarky irrelevances don't work – although I think they do work around the Kool-Aid cooler – then you can just harrumph and take your ball and go home, in the sure and certain knowledge that you know the score and nobody else does.
My darling friend, What is it I'm trying to "work" here that I haven't owned up to from the get go?
When did I say I knew "the score" as you put it?
I told you what I know to be true. The rest was debate, badinage, show biz.
Look you can't have it both ways either. You can't have a faith, a belief and at the same time live in the certainty of approching salvation.
But my atheism has nothing to do with your faith.
I argue my side for the exercise. And that's on me and only on me. I can live with your disapproval.
However I do know you don't have to be an atheist to be a good person.
The core of my work here is to dissuade you from the belief you have that victims are attacking your Church because of SNAP's behavior in victims' name.
They don't represent anyone but the 2 Barbras and David. And Tom Doyle. That's it.
I say that because never have victims been called upon to approve or disapprove of statements made in our name.
Please forgive me if I tripped out. I thought I was attacking your logic and I guess I went over a line.
So I dedicate this to good people everywhere what ever their faith. Hoping that some of those people here may listen; and using their common sense , come to the conclusionl I'm not lying to them.
Publion, I'd sure like to see you pop in at the KC Star's oped page which has comments, "Midwest Voices". Also, the "Bishop Finn Must Go" facebook page is open to anyone to comment, I'll give credit where it's due, they will allow dissenting opinions to be spoken there. Which is in stark contrast to SNAP's site, where they vaporize dissenting opinions in a few milliseconds.
Ken W,
SNAP did the samething to victims at their message board in fact they dismantled the board site because victims kept asking SNAP questions. It wasn't me I just got a computer in January. So many VICTIMS have had the same experience with SNAPS lack of respect and inclusion.
And so if what I just wrote is true (and it is) how do you explain that?
Why would victims be excluded along with critics? Who's left?
Jim, Actually, we have a more balanced view than you have. We don't believe we Catholics are perfect. We are sinners. The Church Jesus established is perfect, but I am a lowly and frequent sinner who needs to hold onto it and my Lord. There have been horrible vile sinners among the clergy. We don't have illusions that the clergy and hierarcy are perfect. Far from it. We do have a concern that SNAP appeared to be a good thing at first, as we applaud support and monetary compensation for victims. SNAP has been unmasked and we are horrified that it is a well organized, professional victims groups that is aiming to bring down the church by legal means, whether accused priests are guilty or not. We have seen enough false propaganda put out in the Media that we would have to be blind not to see there is something terribly corrupt going on. Clohessy's lies about why he doesn't want to release his emails are transparent as his "concerns" about victim identity have already been addressed by the court, and identities are to be blacked out and kept confidential. jim robertson, are your actual initials DM? I have seen another guy with accusations like yours on a different blog. Maybe you are the same guy.
Julie how can SNAP bring down anything let alone the oldest and largest Christian faith? 2000 years and the Church never had to give a dime back to anyone till we came along. Why would you even think that?
All those Empires, all those continents conquered; all that booty shared first and formost with the Church.
P.S. Pub darling, you dismiss my historical facts to praise your historical facts. according to you I present "inaccurate facts" And I always thought an oxymoron was an 8 sided idiot. Are they facts if they are facts then they can by definition not be "inaccurate" You big silly.
The “darling friend” bit is rather too much of a muchness, if you don't mind my saying.
In a spirit of cooperation, let me answer the points as they have been made by ‘JR’.
Your dismissal of historical facts when they are presented, your deployment (and by mere assertion) of inaccurate facts, your failure to respond with reasoned thought and analysis to differences between your assertions and any countervailing analysis, and your either/or mindset that totalizes positions – and precisely in such a way that your own position is presumptively accurate and anything contrary to that is indubitably not … all strongly support that conclusion. Also your conflation of i) what you “know to be true” and ii) what is true as far as any rational analysis can discover the truth; you have demonstrated no awareness whatsoever in your comments that there is any space in your mind and/or in actuality between (i) and (ii). And also your stated conclusion that any further discussion of what you “know to be true” is merely “debate, badinage, show biz” – a conclusion which bespeaks both a dismissive mindset toward anything beyond your own conceptions and also a hefty (if possibly unrecognized) disrespect for the efforts of others to gain a larger comprehension of the matter under discussion.
(I believe that is a sufficiently succinct appraisal.)
I have no idea of the relevance or even the sense of the either/or about having a faith and simultaneously living “in the certainty of approaching salvation”.
Your atheism has never been – as far as I can see – relevant to the matters under discussion here.
You do not “argue” your side; you simply toss out assertions. And when factual difficulties with your assertions are pointed out, you merely dismiss them and re-assert the problematic assertions or else change the subject. This is not “argumentum” in the formal sense, but merely assertion (so reminiscent of an adolescent-type of mindset, beyond which one should hopefully further develop as time goes on).
You will not have much success achieving ‘dissuasion’ by merely repeating assertions. Dissuasion is a form of persuasion, and persuasion requires reasoned thought applied to a topic and the shared in a rational way with others. Read, for example, any of Lincoln’s debates with Douglas in the matter of slavery.
SNAP has – with a great deal of help – made itself the spokes-source for alleged and genuine victims of Catholic clerical abuse. Many of your assertions mirror the SNAP talking-points and thus the relevance of SNAP to the discussion here.
But there is more to it than that, in my view. As I have said in comments on this site, there are substantial and not-positive consequences that flow from the Victimist position as it has evolved in this country. It is one thing to have a concern for victimization, and something else altogether to erect that concern into a cultural ideology and a corpus of changes to the foundations of law and jurisprudence. While genuine therapy for persons claiming to be victims is always desirable and gives them a ‘voice’, yet the derangement of first principles of law and jurisprudence in order to remove ‘obstructions’ to whatever a victim would consider to be formal and official ‘justice’ for him/herself is something far more fraught with lethal consequences for any polity governed by the Rule of Law.
SNAP may indeed, as you say, not be speaking-for its members’ experiences. It seems to me that SNAP’s entire reason-for-existing is as a piece in a much larger Game, and it is the quiet and collusive support of many larger unseen Players that has kept the Oz-like SNAP in business for so long.
The best way to change others’ minds is not to “attack” their logic – especially through the insufficient method of merely making assertions and dismissing others’ thoughts. Rather – again, reading Lincoln here should be very useful – one deploys logical analysis to demonstrate the flaws – such as there may be – in others’ logic.
This is not a matter of “going over the line”. This is a matter of trying to play baseball with a football. The entire assertion-approach is unsuited to the task at hand. That task requires rational and open analysis.
It is very possible that you are not lying to anybody and that you sincerely believe what you say. But that isn’t really the core of the thing. Your mindset – though you may not even realize it – is strongly liable to simplistic thinking un-modulated by the intellectual concerns for complexity or the simple humility of realizing that reasoned analysis is vitally necessary precisely because human knowledge is such a tenuous process (recall Churchill’s fine phrase: “History, with its flickering lamp …”) and human emotions can often override human thinking.
Again, I strongly recommend reading some of Lincoln’s debates with Douglas. You can practically feel the man trying to make his way carefully along a dark and rocky path with a flickering lamp, making sure that each step follows accurately and reasonably from the step he has just taken. Rational analysis is not a modern and well-lit freeway along which you can zoom at eighty miles an hour at night; it is much more akin to a night-dark rock-strewn forest path with no light at all, perhaps along the edge of an abyss, and you have to make your way carefully so that you don’t take a wrong step and lose the path or even go over the edge.
I always keep one of Lincoln’s jokes in mind: A man is out on the road on a dark stormy night; there are numerous teeth-jarring claps of thunder and, much less frequently, a usefully illuminating burst of lightning; after a while the man raises his eyes to heaven and prays “O Lord, if it’s all the same to You, a little more light and a little less noise”.
This is hell-and-gone from so much of what passes for the contemporary American way of moving forward, but its wisdom seem to me unshakeable. And I think we see now all around us the un-wise consequences of the alternative contemporary approach, which seeks emotional manipulation or intimidation rather than rational mutual reasoning to achieve the best possible common agreement.
I have been amazed at the comments by JR-and to some extent FAAFRather than comment as Pub is doing the job nicely better than any, I will do a grandmother used to say–"Jesus, Mary and Joseph.!!.." .and my own "Prayer can move some moveable mountains."
Jim: Do you have any speculation as to why SNAP is so quiet when it comes to Dr. Steve Taylor and Clohessy's brother?
Ken, I haven't a clue? maybe the Dr Taylor love letters from Blaine (Taylor is a louisianna shrink who worked with SNAP convicted later on kiddie-porn charges who Blaine writes lieniancy letters for) are meant to show victims to be hypocrites./ The Church loves victims to appear as that.
Also as far as David's brother goes that's tough. On one hand: I can see how a brother wouldn't want to snitch on his brother. If that's David's choice fine then don't be head of a (the only powerful) victims group.
There is a real conflict of interest there. Particularly since SNAP wants everyone else to report on peds.
Look, to me this whole thing stinks. It's like there's a fake fight in front of your house and you go out your door to watch and your house is robbed from behind.
The fake fight here is Dolan ,Donahue, Media Report vs. SNAP pretending to be us victims.
Who asked for the fight and who's benefiting from it? And why am I feeling like I've been robbed?
P.S. Ken No victim I have ever met thought it was a good idea to behave like SNAP. We want the faithful on our side. All we sought was due compensation . Jeff Anderson gave us SNAP and if you read Tom Doyle's report to the Bishops in the '80,s. In the "Project" section it described a lawyer who would fund various "committees" to "Control victims and their families" for the BENEFIT of the Church. On another page at this sight I think you can see who that lawyer is.
Let me follow that Lincoln-Douglas-slavery thought a little further.
Lincoln personally opposed slavery and was actually emotionally repelled by it. But he also realized that in order to combat it – or at least its extension, which was the only politically possible option in the late 1850s – he had to persuade voters and Citizens. Nor could he – nor would he ever have wanted to – simply espouse a government-initiated, from the top down, imposition of the ‘right thing to do’ by trying to legislate slavery away (the idea of an Executive Order such as we know today wasn’t even a possibility back in his day).
(Yes, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but only as a war measure in the midst of an actual Civil War – and even then he didn’t simply obliterate all slavery with a stroke of the presidential pen.)
The Abolitionists also were repelled by slavery. But their approach was to risk the country’s political cohesion rather than let it stay a moment longer. Better no country at all than a country with slavery – that was the Abolitionist approach. Which was precisely the Awful Bargain presented to the Framers by the Southern States in 1787: either there will be an America with slavery or there will be no America.
Lincoln, to use my own imagery, realized that you couldn’t burn down the ship at sea in order to get rid of the rats. Like a competent surgeon, he realized that there was more to the business than simply grabbing a hack-saw or a scalpel and get to work; you had to give a thought to the patient’s (that is to say, the country’s) survival after the operation was over and you had finished sawing and cutting.
Lincoln realized that you couldn’t simply give top-down orders in a democracy; and he valued the democracy that made the country the remarkable Experiment in human government that the Framers envisioned it to be. If there was to be change – especially lots of it – then The People had to be persuaded as to the need and value and workability of the change; to do otherwise would be to risk not only the integrity and health of the polity, but also even the legitimacy and integrity of the Law and the government itself.
But in this country during the later 1960s the approach embodied by the Abolitionists became popularized and also became the favored Beltway approach: the government can simply make laws and policies that demand the abolition of this and the embrace of that. And with all that came the embrace of the Abolitionist mindset – which was also the mindset of the European revolutionaries (such as the Marxists and Leninists): this is What Has To Be Done and It Must Be Done Now and if most folks ‘just don’t get it’ then they need to be ignored and the government Must Lead Them Like The Cattle They Are. This was not Lincoln’s way and it is not the way of any healthy democratic republic.
In a complicated alchemy, the pretext for such Abolitionist practice and thinking was pretexted here by ‘sensitivity’ to this and that victimization that had to be stopped Right Now. If there is an outrageous situation, perhaps especially if there are crimes involved – or at least the possibility of crimes, then all of that had to Stopped Right Now By Whatever Means Necessary.
The Church became a lightning rod for this in great part because the Catholic positions on such national issues as secularism and this or that specific group’s agenda or demands created an obstruction to creating a favorable public opinion for the agendas and demands. (In the early 1980s the American Bishops had stood strongly and publicly against Reagan’s re-nuclearization of foreign policy, as you may recall.) So the Church had to be discredited in the public mind.
Sex-abuse (however defined) had already been made a highly public matter through the efforts of radical-feminism. But in the chemistry of political strategizing, it could be weaponized against the Church (although such abuse – however defined – was hardly unique to the Church).
And so began what has been a quarter-century campaign of selectively focused attention on the Church in the matter of sex-abuse (however defined). Nor were any countervailing facts allowed to stand in the way, especially when – in the decade following 2002 – major reforms were instituted and all the extant research and analysis revealed that those reforms were having great and good effect: very few recent and ‘current’ abuse cases were being reported. (And by the 2000s – as opposed to the 1980s or 1960s – it didn’t take much courage to make such a report to the police or especially the media.)
So then the selective-focus shifted to long-past cases, and in most of them it was very very difficult to establish legal-grade evidence. And the solution to that problem was to weaken the requirements for evidence and to weaken the Constitutional protections for the accused. So much for the Rule of Law.
Now, as we have been seeing recently, the focus is shifting, expanding to the public-school sector and not so selectively focused on the mis-characterized uniqueness of the Church.
That’s my take on the background of matters here.
First your Church plays the innocent vis a vis sex abuse then when your caught with our pants down we are quilty????
The commisariat in the Vatican and everywhere else hid the crimes. Hid The criminals and past them on to abuse again. That's the story. They've been doing it for centuries.
And the victims are the bad guys.??????
No wonder the Church is failing to convince anyone that they're more "moral" than not.
Due Compensation? What is the dollar figure? Is this an amount of money any person gets from any organization for the same exact offense?
Due compensation is determined by jury verdicts which are usually larger than what settlements cost.
Hense the high costs.
jim robertson, You may have legitimate reason to be angry. But lying in comboxes about Catholic history does no one any good. Unless your objective is to drive people away from the church at any cost. But ultimately, such lies hurt you more than anyone. A person's own hatred and their own willingness to grasp the third rail hurts themselves.
Why would I want to drive people away from the Church? Your faith is none of my buisiness. I argue my athiest logic because that's what I believe. Hun you can believe what you wish. I have no control over you nor do I wish for control over anybody.
Media Report portrays victims as frauds. I take issue with that.
Media report implies SNAP is working for victims, I take issue with that.
Media report says SNAP's attacking the Church. I agree with that. And I have put forward exactly to whose benefit that would be. Most certainly not victims.
But calling me a liar. That's going too far.
Prove it.
And what "third rail" am I crasping? Wouldn't that again render me dead?
And though( sadly) that might benefit you. it doesn't do much for me.
I had written and submitted my long comment in response to ‘JR’ before seeing his of 11Aug at 6:53 PM, so I will say this: yes, I was being overly polite with the oxymoronic “inaccurate facts” so I will correct myself: ‘JR’s ‘factually inaccurate assertions’ is a better phrasing. Thus I am saying that ‘JR’ delivers far far too many ‘factually inaccurate assertions’. Thus his neat reduction of this exchange to merely being a matter of dueling but equally valid assertions is also undermined.
If he would care to point out some examples of ‘factually inaccurate assertions’ I have made, let him do so and I will gladly and promptly respond.
But I have not ever presented the Church as being “innocent” nor has has the Church presented herself as being “innocent”.
Here’s the scam that explains that bit of his: a Stampede is whomped up, over-correcting for whatever individual failures (and there were clearly some actual ones) there were on the part of the Church and some priests, by simply erasing substantial protections and proper jurisprudential practice and procedure, with the assistance of a scandal-and-crisis hungry media and of eager legislators enabling the whole game with ‘victim-friendly’ reforms that were actually ‘de-forms’ (used as a noun; pronounced like ‘reforms’).
Then, in the process of defending herself against the actual deforms that fueled the Stampede, the Church – to some mindsets – can then be accused of ‘denying everything’. But I say here that at no place and at no time has “the Church” ever made such a global blanket-denial and if anybody says differently then let them provide the quote that supports their assertion.
The Church – I will say it here – is not ‘totally innocent’ in abuse-matters (nor is any other large organization on the planet). But the Church is also not guilty of the cartoon-film script scenario of being a millennia-old, world-wide criminal abuse-organization or any such thing; that phantasm, constructed to conveniently lubricate the Stampede against the Church is nothing more than a sly construct (hugely useful to SNAP and the tort-attorneys), embraced in their need by numerous either/or-thinking types and unripe mentalities and mindsets for whatever purposes and gratifications and rewards they might receive from such an embrace. (Thus ‘JR’, as a sterling example; but you can go to, say, the NCR or Philly trial sites for plenty of other examples.)
Are there genuine victims? I most certainly imagine so and I could not and do not accept any assertion that all victims are “guilty”. But then I would also say that a) there is a great difference between a self-declared ‘victim’ and a genuinely-proven victim; and that b) any victim – genuine or otherwise – who has knowingly made false official claims under the pains and penalties of perjury or filed a fraudulent claim or allowed a fraudulent claim to be entered on his/her behalf for any reason or purpose is indeed guilty in a legal sense; and that c) any genuine victim or not-genuine ‘victim’ who has become enmeshed into believing this phantasmagoric scenario about the Church has thereby started down a dark path of delusion that will only ultimately create more problems for them than it ‘solves’.
And once again, the reductionist and either-or thinking so amply demonstrated by ‘JR’ clearly indicates how easily such a mindset can be lured and – yes – seduced into this whole scam.
And ‘JR’ further reveals his mindset’s frailties and rather gross historical inaccuracy by his claims about the Church in the age of European expansion to the effect that most of that booty was “shared first and foremost with the Church”: that was not the Modus Operandi of Catholic imperial governments (such as financially-desperate Spain) nor - surely – the MO of any Protestant monarchies or imperium. It was de las Casas and others like him who wrote and worked so hard to mitigate the Spanish treatment of the South American natives.
And to whom has the Church “never had to give a dime back”? Are we talking about the imperial history of Europe here or victimism in the current Stampede? Or does it all moosh together in ‘JR’s mind into a huge evil goo? But once again, such fuzzy if not also gelatinous thinking precisely feeds the delusions of all those who not only a) want to attack the Church but also b) need to somehow convince themselves that what they are doing is reely reely Good and they are ‘heroes’ for going after such a phantasmagoric world-historical monstrosity as they fantasize the Church to be.
And it is too clever by half to piously inquire of ‘Julie’ how SNAP could “bring down the oldest and largest Christian faith” since he has already in prior comments referred to the Church as being “in ruins”. How square that circle?
Nor can it be asserted that “SNAP is the Church”, which is as self-serving and megalomaniac a delusion as any that are woven into this whole Stampede. This grossly inaccurate claim was made at some point in the past year by SNAP-supportive priest Richard Doyle (I came across it a while back on the NCR site) but it utterly insupportable in Catholic theology. So for that matter is the idea that Catholics were taught that priests were their “kings”; in fact the only relevant bit of Catholic thinking on the matter that I have found is Aquinas in his “Letter to the King of Cyprus” – giving advice on the nature of a good Christian monarch – who actually refers to the people as “kings” (at Para. 109).
And in regard to the Clohessy un-reported child abuse matter, notice how neatly things are switched around: if SNAP-types are discovered in some sort of flagrante delicto themselves and it is noticed, then the whole bit can be written off and ignored because “the Church loves victims to appear as that” – so slyly it becomes a matter not of what the ‘victims’ actually did but rather of how they appear for PR purposes . And on top of all that, the Church is somehow responsible for making the ‘victims’ appear in a bad light when their bad actions are brought to light. Neat.
There is no “commisariat” at the Vatican. If this is a poorly-spelled effort at somehow connecting the Church to the organs of Soviet government with its “commissars” then you can see how this mentality works.
The only explanation ‘JR’ has – although he appears perfectly satisfied with it – for the Jewish rabbi’s book about the Church’s role in World War 2 and the Holocaust is to toss off the accusatory assertion that “the Church hired some poor Rebbi to write a book”. Proof? Or is that thinking too much?
Then he drags in Galileo and then he drags in Machiavelli since the latter was “a nice Catholic boy” (the Church opposed his anti-moral theories of governance from the get-go). You can see the cartoon quality of the thinking here.
And why not toss in Stalin and Hitler who were both baptized? And Stalin was a seminarian for a while too! So would that be ‘proof’ that the Church set up Stalinism as it mutated in the USSR? Although Stalin was baptized in the Russian Orthodox faith – or is that not a problem? Who knows? And who should care, since in a cartoon you can simply take your crayon and change the scene to fit your phantasms?
And as far as Galileo’s matter goes, a little background: the problem was not Galileo’s astronomy which even the Church, which supported a great deal of science in the Renaissance, could see was more accurate than not. The problem was that the old astronomy was based on Aristotle, but so was the moral and ethical system adopted by the Church. So if the Church formally accepted that Aristotle was wrong about his astronomy, the pastoral problem for the Church was the awful specter of people then concluding that Aristotle was also wrong in his metaphysics and ethics. It took a while for the Church to figure out how to deal with that. (And given the consequent Modern and Post-Modern derangements in ethical and moral philosophy, the Church’s original fear has turned out to be rather accurate, I would say.)
Thus ‘JR’s adolescent toss-off: “it’s all yada-yada”. Works around the cafeteria table at lunch, and I have no doubt around the Kool-Aid cooler, but that’s about all. But I would say that this is indeed the level of thinking and the quality of mindset that fuels a significant amount of SNAP and victimist ‘thinking’.
Thus then to the truly jaw-dropping assertion that SNAP and the Church actually are in cahoots, and simply seek for their respective purposes to somehow ignore ‘victims’ (which status ‘JR’ asserts online for himself, along with his many other assertions). So the Church, sly and ancient world-historical abusive criminal enterprise, has shrewdly gotten into cahoots with SNAP, at a cost to herself of hundreds of millions (perhaps by this point a billion and more?) of dollars and all this bad PR … as part of a Plan? And what benefit or advantage, pray, does the Church get out of this sly alliance?
“Due compensation” is ultimately decided by judicial review, which can reduce the amount awarded by a jury. And in the current practice of what I call ‘bundled lawsuits’ in an era of Stampede, it’s a neat bit; but if juries or judges start turning back these lawsuits, then I wonder what tune certain mindsets will start singing.
Let me conclude with this thought. I have spent a great deal of time on the ‘JR’ material because I believe it is so revelatory of much that has gone wrong with the while abuse-matter in regard to the Church. And I believe that by making my comments, other readers might also be helped in gaining a clearer understanding of many now-typical assertions that are encountered here and there in discussions of the Church abuse-matter.
But for myself, it becomes increasingly clear that ‘JR’ is not anybody who is going to ( or perhaps can) be changing his mindset anytime in the forseeable future. I will continue to comment on ‘JR’s comments for as long as they seem to be useful examples of the general whackeries of SNAP-type or victimist thinking as it applies to this entire matter. When I feel that the ‘JR’ goldmine has been exhausted, then I won’t be spending so much time on his material, such as it is. It will be sufficient to just let it hang up there where he put it, to twist in the wind – the stuff will speak for itself.
How different is what I say from what you say? You call my and others' sexual abuse a scam. And I say you are the scam. Stalemate.
Are you being paid by the Church for the history you invent here? Or do you expect your payment later in Paradise? Or do you plan collecting at both ends so to speak?
Was Galileo forced to recant his writtings under fear of the stake or was that a misinterpitation of historical facts on my part.? He lived the remainder of his life in house arrest.
What in the heck is a Kool-aid cooler?
Sir what you refer to as a "stampede" the victims and the press and the state refer to as a reaction to criminal acts.
The priest's name is Father Tom Doyle and this former Canon lawyer who worked at the Vatican Embassy in Washington D. C. and was appointed during the reactionary reign of JP2 was the creater of VOTF and SNAP as he defined those groups as "commitees" in his report to the Bishops conference in 82. It was refered to as the "Project" in those papers . All this information is in Doyle's own book: Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes, by Doyle, Sipe and Wall, Volt Press. starting at page 100. So much for "jaw dropping assertions and delusions"
SNAP is counter intelligence you are supposed to think they represent victims at the victims' will. They don't. They arn't in "cahoots" with the Church they are the Church
Tell me after everything you've written here that the Church doesn't put it's own PR "spin" on things.
What has gone wrong with the "abuse-matter inregards to the Church" seems to me the fact that the victims aren't ashamed about what the Church has done to us anymore. We know where the shame belongs. And it aint with us.
Darlin I sign my real name to everything I post. Who are you really?
And how can a Goldmine twist in the wind??????????Death seems to be your ultimate destination for everything including my goldmine.
And you seem to respond to everything I write here, but my critique of your lack of love in the tradition of Christ.
What the Church gets out of this creation, this plan called SNAP is the Church is actually paying far less than it rightfully should to victims.
Why does this happen?
When' s the last time you saw SNAP organizing victims to change statutes of limitations in order to sue the Church for the damages they caused?
How about NEVER.
Some victims' group.
Oh SNAP may testify at a few hearing 4 or 5 but that's it . And their testamony is odd to say the least.
P.S. I'm very new to computers and my spelling does suck.
And again the "the benefit the Church gets from this sly alliance" is this. CONTROL of how and if your "enemy" meet. and how they present themselves to the world.
Quite the advantage actually.
The vast majority of us victims weren't abused in groups. We have had no way of meeting each other to organize ourselves democraticly.
SNAP conventions are whore houses for hustlers selling products. Mostly supporters attend them. Supporters and hustlers. SNAP's "conventions" are at expensive hotels and for the majority of victims in this economy travel, hotel and convention costs are unaffordable. The costs for the three day convention in Chicago were roughly $1200 per person including airfare. Most families can't afford that kind of cost.
The vast vast majority of victims in America have had no compensation. In Ireland victims recieve about 80,000 dollars. Not much when you consider a ruined life. How are lives ruined by this . I give myself as an example on vacation recently I woke up an entire hotel. I had a night terror and screamed every one awake. I have been fired from almost every job, I have ever had. I have issues with authority.I have had no love relationship but lots of compulsive sex. .
Again I tell you so you may know.
I had posted something I'd worked hours on in response to Pub ,and Media Report chose to not print it. I forgot that Catholics are used to controlled debates to the point of silencing a perfectly decent response to Pub. And you wonder what benefit a "controlled" respose offers.
It was posted at last.
Again my apologies.
I’m only going for the ore, here. The detritus speaks for itself.
‘JR’ apparently can’t see any difference between what he writes and what I write. I am reminded of cargo-cult islanders during the Pacific war: watching how U.S. personnel could speak into little can-like doohickies and suddenly great silver birds would come stuffed with a cornucopia of supplies, they rounded up empty C-ration cans and mimicked the personnel almost exactly and … no planes came. They couldn’t think why.
What history have I “invented here”? Give an example. And the “are you being paid” is not only a cheap juvenile shot but is also a classic example of the “conspiracy” accusations upon which all such mentalities must fall back when they can’t otherwise explain their failure (unless they start examining themselves, of course).
The reason Galileo was put through that has already been explained.
A reaction to criminal acts is what we see every day in standard criminal process in every court-house in the country. What we see in the Church abuse matter is a Stampede.
So if Doyle was “appointed during the reactionary reign of JP2” then how does that fit into ‘JR’s schematic? Does that not work to discredit Doyle, if the papal reign was “reactionary”? Or how does the cartoon work in this case?
And if Doyle – who appears to be a hero of the Vatican-unfriendly NCR site and all those types – started SNAP, and he himself is rather clearly anti-Vatican, then how does that disprove ‘JR’s jaw-dropping assertions? Unless we presume a conspiracy in which Doyle is actually a secret Vatican agent. And are his co-authors of the referenced book also secret Vatican agents? And is NCR a secret Vatican-run scam as well?. In other words, it appears that ‘JR’s ready solution to all the holes in his cartoon is that there is a conspiracy that nobody knows about except he himself. But quoting the text by page and giving the publication information is a nice bit of mimicry. Maybe the planes will come after all.
If SNAP is the Church, then on what Catholic doctrine is that based? Doyle said it in an NCR article, but is ‘JR’ himself thus in cahoots with Doyle?
Really, who knows if my first name isn’t Publion? Who knows if ‘Jim Robertson’ is his real name? For that matter, a commenter who titles himself ‘Jim Robertson’ has been on the NCR site for quite a while (and the Philly trial site), and the style and mis-spelling are the same in the comments there. So I seriously doubt the veracity of the claim that ‘JR’ is "very new to computers". The mis-spelling can have a number of possible explanations but let’s not go there. And the sentence following that in his comment of 2:21 PM today makes no sense at all, although somehow seems to involve me with death. Charming.
And – another one of these types that is an atheist but loves to pontificate in the accents of Gospel and Theology – this self-proclaimed atheist claims to have been critiquing “my lack of love in the tradition of Christ”. I recall that somewhere in the Gospels Jesus chased the money-changers out of the Temple … does that have any bearing? Just what “tradition of Christ” is it, precisely, in which (to ‘JR’s mind) I am deficient? But let me “respond” to whatever ‘JR’ is trying to get at: I am for Truth, and I can’t see that half-thoughts, cartoon-thinking, cheap adolescent one-liners, and the rest of ‘JR’s repertoire are serving that cause. I consider that Christ-like. “What is truth”, asked Pilate slyly. As if he didn’t know.
And just how exactly has the alleged SNAP-Church alliance worked to effect the Church’s “control” of the abuse matter? The current Catholic abuse crisis is somehow an example of the Church’s control?
And on what demonstrable basis does ‘JR’ make the assertion that “the vast vast majority of victims get no compensation whatsoever”? Just how many genuine victims does he think there are? How has he arrived at that figure?
Sexual-abuse far short of rape creating a “ruined life” is an assertion that needs some major explanation and justification. Without such, there is another hardly improbable alternative explanation: sexual abuse short of rape doesn’t “ruin” a life in and of itself. If it does “ruin” a life, and it has been going on for millennia – as abuse advocates generally claim – then how has the species survived?
I credit ‘JR’s nightmare story about as much as I credit the story that he is “very new to computers”. Or that his name is really “Jim Robertson”. In other words: maybe, maybe not, since this is the internet and anybody can claim anything. But in light of the ‘new to computers’ bit, I’m not buying it. But if it is true, on top of the other symptoms he mentions, then perhaps some professional sessions are indicated.
I haven’t seen anything I’d call a “perfectly decent response” from ‘JR’ to anything I’ve written - nor have I seen such to anybody else. But I very much would like to. And the spelling isn’t a problem – just the quality of mind and thought.
I wrote a respose to Pul's most recent post. But it appears I was banned here. I don't know what to think about this.
O.K. you got me. I'm not me.
I claim the majority of victims are uncompensated because the statute of limitations in most states are closed. In Michigan victims have one year from the time they are 18 to their 19th birthday to sue.
Tell me an 18 year old straight male (I write "straight male because the vast majority of victims were straight males), who's ready to deal whith his abuse legally, socially and publicly. Not many. there fore majority uncompensated. Shame keeps males in particular, silent.
Please read Tom Doyle's own book, don't buy it request it at the library. It is the initial report to American Bishops 23 years ago that predicted this "upcoming crisis" and what the Church needed to do about it.
Phil Donahue ; and Opra winfrey werte having daily confessionals dealing with secrets. The Church's tide of shame, usually directed outward was turning against it. And Doyle wrote what to do about it to the Bishops. Read it yourself.
What reason would I have to write what I write? and yes that is me at NCR and elsewhere ,Go ahead,you invent the conspiracy. What am I up to? To criticize both SNAP and Your "side" what's in it for me? Or for the victims I claim are uncompensated and un-treated. and unrepresented by the group that claims to represent us?
Who benefits from a conspiracy with no goals or gains?
Juxtapose what I have said about SNAP vs the Faithful; and my conclusions about who benefits from that fight. The benefits of controlling the "enemy's" side are obvious.
The 'crisis' isn't under the Church's control the victims are.
And pul if there are any "money changers in the Temple" it aint the victims.
Now to the heart of the matter: Christs admonition to love each other.
I use what I was taught at 12 years of Catholic schools. FYI, I believe in love. and I believe in truth. and I know what Christ said and did. One can still be an atheist and honor the social teachings of Christ.
John Paul Sartre didn't believe in god but said we can live like Jesus.
Just because I'm a Luddite doesn't mean I'm a liar.
And you still refuse to identify yourself.
P.S. the"accents " of love and truth are not owned by Jesus. And since I assume you to be a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, I expect better from you.
P.P.S My mispellings i own but I did disliked my spelling teacher Sister Victorine at Ascension School at 111th st and Figueroa in Los Angeles in the '50's. My fault not hers.
Dislike, I wish they had an edit button.
SNAP is counter intelligence,Pul,. Not what it pretends to be.
Father Tom Doyle: fake revolutionary , real Catholic arch conservative i.e. appointed chief Canon lawyer for Vatican in U.S> is Counter- intelligence. An Agent provacatuer.. If he's so anti-Catholic, why is he still a priest?
Who do victims call? Who do victims hear and read about: SNAP.
Why does Jeff Anderson "give" Snap to his and other lawyers clients?
Because SNAP has all the victims names.
Names that lawyers want.
SNAP gives lawyers clients.
Lawyers give SNAP representation as "victims voice".
SNAP is church.
Church controls victims.
Victims there are and were. What was to be done with them, for them; or to them is another matter.
Let me recall Tom Doyle. He is not an agent provacatuer but more honestly an agent controller.
JR:
Perhaps while striving for a better brand of justice, this conversation is getting off track.
This researches of this site are focused on fairness and objectivity in the media, not
any one set of personal experiences and outcomes.
Please consider reading a fabulous book I discovered in graduate school:
Stigma-Notes of the management of a spoiled identity–By Erving Goffman.
I believe the simple question is: Why should INNOCENT priests be portrayed otherwise?
And, are they being portrayed otherwise? Ask them.
Thank you.
Who are these innocent prieests you speak of ? Name them please. Yes the vast majority of priests are innocent men. I would expect no less.
I (Dave Pierre) wrote a book about falsely accused priests which includes many names:
Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories.
I find it amazing that some lies still get much circulation. But then I suppose the saying is true, that if a lie is repeated enough, it becomes the truth. Thus it is with the notion of Pope PiusXII,s alledged silence. It would appear that JR is using it to muddy the waters in his anger against the Church. But lets look at this "silence".
In his first encyclical Summi Ponticatus, he clearly rejected Nazi antisemitism and the world knew it. There was also ordered Vatican radio and L,Osservatore Romano to reveal what the Naiz were doing to the Jews and others. In March 1940 he confronted German foriegn minister Joachim von Ribbentrop about the atrocities the Nazis were perpetrating.
Then there were his 2 Christmas adresses in 1941 and 1942 in which he denounced the treatment of the Jews and the Nazis themselves interpreted them as such.
In what universe does this constitute silence?! If JR were some college freshman I could understand but since he is a 65 year old JR should be ashamed of uncritically swallowing this propaganda from a disafected playwrite hook, line and sinker. His judgement should not be clouded by whatever real beefs he may have with the Church.
To better get a sense of what really happened one should read Rabbi Dalin,s book The Myth of Hitler,s Pope. This "poor Rebbi" is a professor of history and political science with a PhD. from Brandies and is the author of many books and has published many articles in jewish publications. In other words, someone to take seriously.
Whatever pain one feels is no excuse for promting historical inaccuracies. J R is only muddying the waters inhis anger at the abuse crisis and could very well loose any credibility sympathy he may otherwise get.
Joseph,
FYI Rebbi is what Jews call Rabbi's.
Disafected playwrite vs a guy with a PHD. What can I say? 6,000,00 died. Did Roosevelt do enough? no. Did Churchil? no. Stalin was loosing 20,000,000 but was enough done ? no. But a Pope putting his life on the line at the very least would have been a credable immitation of Christ's sacrifice.
The Pope speaking out did not put his own life on the line. It put many other people's lives on the line. That's the thing.
Oh yea Hitler would have started a civil war because the Pope said "No Killa d' Jews."
Please And don't pretend The nuns never taught us personal responsability.
.Suppose old Popy Boy had said this ." Every Catholic country in the world will take the Jews. Let's divy them up and save them. They gave us the Saviour now we're going to save them."
And make it dogma. a pronouncment on faith and morals.
For which his holiness could have said "This act is infallable." ( And he would have been right. )
America North and South would have raced to obey.
Remember the excitement the Church droned up for Vatican 2. When the Pope's happy all Catholics are happy. (The core of Facism.) To bad it can't be a Church that is more; when the people are happy then the pope's happy. I think Jesus would have liked that.
Historicly there had been examples the Pope could have followed. The Sultan of the Ottomans who saved Spanish Jewry from Isabella and Ferd. He sent boats for the Jews and saved them.
Jim -
You are igfnoring the evidence that Pope Pis XII did save countless Jews!
This had to be the craziest reporting yet. My class was in tears laughing at the stupidity of Mediareports.
What is your class dear? Horticulture?
Rondre,
Are you sure your "class" was not in tears because they have to "yes" you endlessly, and, support
you until they are handed an inflated grade if (and, only if) they agree with you?
Sympathy gets me nothing. Empathy. we are as one.
Oh yes, in answer to Dalin's book have you read or seen (there's a great documentary) Constantine's Sword. it's by a Catholic priest, i think a former priest. whose Dad was Airforce Commander in Germany in the 50's. In my opinion it's top draw.
You refer to James Carroll, a Boston Globe columnist and bitter ex-priest.
We have debunked him here, here, and here.
You know what really pisses me off. Doyle and all thought we weren't smart or litterate enough to read what the great "liberal" hero Doyle wrote. And that if we did read it. We would be too awstruck by himself and SNAP too awestruck to suss.
what was going down……..and what was going down was us.
Rondre, I have taught college courses. You have no business in the classroom.
I hope you are having as much fun as we are Julie!!! You seem to know wha teveryone needs and should be. Who cares about spelling? Suck poor reporting does not deserve and kind of spell check.
Keep laughing!!!
Only one point to make: a response to the repeated call by ‘JR’ that I ‘identify myself’.
This is the internet – so how can anyone really be sure who anybody ‘is’ or what stories they choose to tell?
Nor is the internet like a face-to-face exchange or sharing. In the physical presence of another human being you can get an intuitive grasp of the other person’s credibility, which is a presence that is absent in internet exchanges.
So for internet purposes I am the ideas that I contribute. An idea – unlike a story – can by analyzed and deliberated-upon by any rational person.
I take the approach of those sites where people who work with some specific area of expertise exchange ideas. On the TMR site, then, I consider everyone who comes to it to be specifically interested in the matter of Catholic clerical abuse and its ‘crisis’ and I offer what ideas seem most accurate and helpful to the general conversation.
Thus I don’t put much stock in a call to ‘identify’ myself, especially when I have put a lot of ideas into comments.
There was – and I think still is – on the Philly site a commenter who chose to identify him/herself as an experienced, practicing attorney and who also somehow teaches attorneys (whether as a law professor or occasional subject-matter presenter, it isn’t possible to infer from his/her comments). This commenter has some odd ideas of law, evinces no interest in legal principles, and has a method of argument and manner that does not reflect – as best I can make out – either a law school education nor the expertise and mental habits of an attorney, yet this person ‘identifies’ him/herself precisely for the purpose of claiming that his/her ‘authority’ as an attorney must override any commenter’s material that s/he doesn’t agree with. Nor will this otherwise credential-waving commenter identify his/her Firm or even his/her name and area of practice. Yet continues to make comments that ‘demand’ acceptance on the basis of the claimed lawyerly-authority.
So you see the problem.
The same thing holds even more so for ‘stories’. If it’s not infrequently difficult to credit ‘stories’ told – especially in victimization matters – in an actual ‘live’ human exchange, it is vastly more difficult on the internet. In that way, internet exchanges differ in their very nature from face-to-face exchanges between persons.
But ideas – I am saying – have a sort of universal accessibility, to anybody who cares to examine and think about them. That, I think, is the true and genuine value of the internet.
I had mentioned this in comments to and concerning ‘Rondre’ who claims to be either a teacher or professor – of media matters, somehow – and yet evinces neither the mindset of a teacher or professor used to exchanging – presenting and assessing – ideas nor the quality of thought that would reflect competent personal deliberation about such matters. Rather, s/he merely makes entry-level type assertions, poorly expressed, and which – on top of that – all seem to serve as nothing more than a vehicle for expressing her disagreement with any material that does not apparently suit her own take on matters. Yet his/her material is always expressed with the (pseudo) authority of a teacher or professor.
I don’t buy this sort of thing. And I don’t see where it furthers anybody’s comprehension or offers a reader the chance to deepen – through acceptance or critique – the subjects that are discussed on this site.
There are several commenting-philosophies in the Web-world. Some simply toss off immediate and visceral reactions and make no bones about it. Others try to engage the ideas.
And then there are those who evince no familiarity with thought and accurate knowledge, yet also attempt to inject their visceral feelings as if those feelings were carefully thought-out and accurately informed analysis. So often, these are the types that simply “cawn’t think why” (Gilbert & Sullivan) their comments are not immediately accepted as the serious and worthwhile contributions they imagine them to be.
Lastly – and this is especially true in such conflicted subjects as the Catholic abuse ‘crisis’ – I think a major reason for ‘identification’ is to fuel ad-hominem tactics: if I can’t refute or don’t care to engage your ideas, maybe I can find something out about you (on the Web, but of course) and tar you with some bits of that and thereby somehow distract attention from your ideas and simply make fun of some aspect or other of your other internet contributions. To a certain type of mentality, this constitutes ‘debate’ and legitimate exchange of ideas – when really it is just a sly but age-old ploy to keep in the game without actually having to go out on the field and do the real job.
So, for example, in this matter of Pius XII and the Holocaust, look at the type of mentality that simply dismisses all his efforts on the basis of the fact that he once conducted a formal Vatican diplomatic mission to Germany and was photographed outside the Chancellery with German-helmeted honor guards in the background. That this photo was taken in the Weimar era (thus before Hitler came to power) makes no difference to a certain type of mentality, nor the fact that it was simply a file photo of one of the innumerable Vatican diplomatic visits and formal calls upon officials that the Church always conducted in that era and still does today: the photo of Pacelli (then an archbishop and Nuncio)) with the iconic German military helmets on the heads of the German diplomatic honor-guard is all that this mentality needs to ‘establish’ to its own satisfaction that the future Pius XII was a “Nazi sympathizer” and (but of course) much worse. With this type of information-processing and ‘thinking’, very little hope for accurate and serious deliberation can be held.
So I will remain ‘Publion’. And keep on thinking.
"Visceral reactions" are also ideas Pub. Especialy when written down.
You continue to write about "types of mentality"could you define please. Are they " types of mentality" because you judge them beneath you? Less than your type of mentality. More than yours? What?
I know, you write, you don't believe that I am jim Robertson. That's me alright.
My guess is you are a retired religious, a teacher perhaps, degree'd oh yes. Fine, but my signing my name constitutes my willingness to take responsibility for what I write.
Do as you will, you will anyway but every " outrageous" ( and I admit to many here they are outrageous) statement I make. I back up with my signature.
Also.If you look at it in a certain way, I am being "paid by the Church" to post here.
My settlement bought my first and only computer in January. I posted from the public library for 1 year before that.
I looked at the Media'Report's stories on falsely accused Priests. There were not even 7 mentioned out of hundreds named.
I regret if any have been falsely accused. Especially if witnesses have perjured themselves and innocent people are in jail.
May I suggest your efforts directed to lengthy postings might do more good in helping the people you hold innocent?
Pub I have no control over what ever you do.
I have no intention of attacking your hominem. I believe you to be a cleric and probably a school teacher.
You are whatever you are.
I ask who you are so that i may know you. not in the Sodomic sense but just what you've spent your life up to.
Thank you Publion. As always, you have nailed it.
Rondre has to be on your side.
She or he aren't making themselves look good. Isn't school still out around the country? Maybe Rondre is doing this ages version of "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"
You know Pub, consistantly sneering the words "types of mentality" is not the same thing as an arguement, pro or con anything. In fact it has all the ear marks of an ad hominem attack.
I ask: if 'JR' so clearly has so much trouble dealing with my ideas, of what possible use to him/her would it be to know more about what I've "spent my life up to"? Commenters aren't on this site to become buds, but simply to share and deliberate on thoughts relative to the Catholic abuse matter.
What ideas??? That I'm a goldmine, a juvinille delinquint, a shot gun shooter, a liar, "a type of mentality" that you scorn because I'm juvinille, a liar; not who I am; and not do what I say I do. And Least we forget an inaccurate fact maker. Satan must be a few ranks under me.
Your ideas about me, in my opinion, arn't true but I sign my name so when you call me out as any of the above. I take offense. I've consistantly asked you to comment on how Christ's 2nd major commandment. "To love your nieghbor as yourself" is meaningful to you in the context of these posts. And for a religious person you almost act like you don't know what I'm talking about?