The facts are the facts: The Catholic Church is the safest environment for children to be in today.
The newly released annual audit of abuse in the Catholic Church reports that only six credible abuse allegations were made against priests by current minors in all of 2012 (out of some 40,000 active priests) and that the "fewest allegations and victims" ever were tabulated since annual reports began to be compiled in 2004.
This is obviously very good news. Yet in years past while syndicated news outlets like the Associated Press and Reuters have fallen over themselves to dig out unflattering statistics from these annual reports, the mainstream media is notably silent about this very positive report.
A search of news coverage about the Church's new annual report found only three tiny secular newspapers reporting the news: the Press-Register (Alabama), the Rapid City Journal (South Dakota), and the Georgia Bulletin.
Not a single major secular newspaper (e.g., the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune etc.) reported on the study.
The statistics that the mainstream media refuses to report
Here are the facts about the Catholic Church abuse story you will not see reported in the mainstream media and which once again underscore the fact that the abuse story is no longer really "news" but a history lesson:
• 45% of all identified priests who were accused in 2012 were already long deceased (this is the second year in a row of this record high figure);
• 77% of all identified priests who were accused in 2012 are either already deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or simply missing;
• 77% of all abuse accusations last year allege incidents from before 1985; and
• accusations against priests in 2012 were down 20% and were the lowest recorded numbers since annual audit reports began.
Indeed, current accusations against Catholic priests are extremely rare.
SNAP: Don't confuse me with the facts
Totally unglued:
SNAP's Judy Jones
Jones, who apparently lives her life trolling web sites and leaving nutty comments in comment boxes, left one of her more bizarre rants in recent memory on the site of Alabama's Press-Register.
Jones claimed that "this report from the bishops can not be trusted as accurate."
First of all, the annual audits and their corresponding reports do not exactly come "from the bishops." This year, for example, StoneBridge Business Partners, a private auditing firm, visited dioceses and gathered all of the relevant information, and it worked with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), an independent organization based at Georgetown University, to prepare the report.
In other words, Jones' claim that the information in the reports is "from the bishops" is simply false.
Then, without a shred of supporting documentation, Jones claimed that "the sex abuse and cover up within the church hierarchy is still going on to this day," that "Cardinals and bishops are still covering up sex crimes against kids," and that "they are still not removing accused predator clergy."
And if that were not enough, she charged bishops with "protecting their image and the institution rather than protecting innocent kids."
In truth, when it comes to protecting one's own image rather than children, SNAP itself has been shown to do this very same thing. The group's National Director David Clohessy refused to call the police back in the early 1990s when he fully knew that his priest brother Kevin was sexually abusing innocent boys, an action by Clohessy which possibly jeopardized the safety of countless children. And just a couple years ago, SNAP founder Barbara Blaine actually wrote a passionate letter on behalf of a SNAP psychiatrist arrested with over 100 images of kiddie porn on his computer.
So much for protecting kids.
Indeed, it would appear that children are much safer in the arms of the Catholic Church than under the supervision of the leaders at SNAP.
[See also: "Five Fast Facts About the Catholic Church Abuse Scandals"]
You keep underlining how long ago (in your opinion) abuses occurred. And that means what exactly? An silver anniversary perhaps remembering the victims who haven't been helped???
You've, after 25 odd years (centuries really) finally been called to task on the abuse and all you can say is it's happening less and less?
Well then congratulations, hooray! I believe you. Your corporate Church has finally managed to slow down your abuse of children, Again congratulations!
Lets have a feast day around it. The day the Church slowed down the abuse of it's own children..
They just don't get it Jim. I guess being in denial for so long it becomes reality for them.
An "independent organization based at Georgetown University"???? Isn't that an oxymoron?
Nothing happens on a Catholic campus that isn't either corporate Catholic or corporate Catholic approved. Particularly a Jesuit campus.
Also do you never tire of calling your opposition crazy? Or do you think resorting to ad hominem attacks as being away to get the average reader on your side?
As if unintelligent people were the true readership here, which they are not..
In the first place, we have not established just how many abuses actually and genuinely occurred, especially in the long-ago.
In the second place, therefore, we don’t really know how many genuine victims have not yet been helped.
In the third place, we have been assured (by some incarnation of JR) that the Church can’t help them anyway – except, of course, by writing checks, but that just brings us back to the first-place again.
It’s not a good thing that such abuse as may have occurred is “happening less and less”? (Answer: No, it’s not a good thing if it means The Ball won’t Keep Rolling. Some interests are apparently very – perhaps desperately – dependent on the game.)
Not being any longer conversant with Catholic affairs, JR may not realize that a number of American Catholic universities these past few decades are no longer as congruent with the Church’s general life as they once had been. Up in Boston that Cardinal has withdrawn his acceptance of an invitation by Jesuit-run Boston College to participate in its commencement ceremonies because that institution has invited a speaker whose positions are not acceptable to the Church. Last year, Jesuit-run Santa Clara University played a role in a pro-SNAP and pro-Abusenik conference that laid the ground-work for an assault trial in which somebody claiming to be a victim made a premeditated assault on the priest whom he had accused (as I commented about at length here at that time).
If I had been told a month or a week ago that Jesuit-run Georgetown (deeply involved with the elites of the Beltway) was involved in any way with an assessment of the current status of the Abuse Matter, I would have imagined a set-up, but not one friendly to the Church.
But apparently the outside and independent auditing organization that was brought in has conducted its audit-review and the results are what they are.
Nor would I accept without serious and substantial evidence any claim or assertion that is tossed-out to the effect that the auditing organization – like, I imagine, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice – is merely a tool of the Church. Neither this auditing organization nor the JJCCJ are Catholic-related institutions; they both have established reputations in their respective professional milieux; and I can’t see them throwing their integrity and ‘brand’ away simply to do the Church a queasy friendly. Especially if – as we have been assured more than once in comments here – the Church is ‘declining’ and rather precipitously.
Your dots don’t connect, you see.
Got anything else? Substantive, I mean.
Jim,
It seems from your comment that you are unfamiliar with Catholic colleges and universities, how they are run and by whom. The terms Catholic identity, and most especially Jesuit with Catholic identity.does not mean run by the Church .Nor do these words mean that the "corporate" Church as you call it approves of what is taught in the classroom or what might occur on campus. When did you go to college? As you are gay, you say, do you not recall the movements in the 70's on ALL college campuses? Do you think that they needed Church approval to form diverse student groups? As a rule, Catholic colleges or the colleges with Catholic identity would not go against the teachings of the Church, but there is a dialogue between Gospel and culture in an academic institution. The fact that CARA, an independent research group, is at Georgetown does not mean that the Church oversees anything with regard to it I do not mean to insult you. But you don't seem to think things through before you comment. You are always on the attack, finding fault..without really knowing what you are talking about. Just as long as you can repeat the same anti-Church comments over and over again.
P.S. 1) Calling out Judy SNAP Jones for her "bizarre ranting" is not attacking her. I am surprised the woman has not been sued with her libelous comments all over the country mentioning innocent men's names and.cases she knows nothing about…who know's, she may be sued yet. (I thought you disapproved of SNAP anyway because of what they did to you and others.)
2) I would think you would be relieved at the research if you cared about child abuse. If you are so content (even though you are always upset) to be saying the same thing over and over about the past..long gone past when the Church has done all it can possibly do at this point, God help you. I think people are really tired of your attitude. You are not going to get much more support with your approach. The fact that crisis is over seems to upset you. Do you want the Church or whoever to take care of you for the rest of your life? You settled, right? Do you want a house?. a job? what? If they did not provide councelling for you, is that because there was some question about your "abuse" being credible? I am simply asking because it does not make sense.
.
.
The "crisis is over" for who Josie? You?
For the victims it's never "over". Because the vast majority of victims have yet to be compensated. It looks like your "crisis is over" isn't being bought in Australia or in many other. places, Minnesota for example.
I think as long as you have injured people uncared for by an organization who says it's main premise is Love of your fellow man there's a disconnect.
And why are you making this crisis about me and how I behave and respond here?
This crisis is about you and what you haven't done.
Josie,
You know zip about my abuse so you can pretend it never happened and I'm just screwing with you while I sit on a pile of illgotten money.
I think you should roll with that analysis.
But go ahead please see me as a fake.
[edited by moderator]
But apparently the outside and independent auditing organization that was brought in has conducted its audit-review and the results are what they are.
And what organization paid for these audit services?
Michael is relying upon our natural human tendency to absorb suggestions… and not think it through. He asks us to remember who paid the auditors, re their report into current rates of church-related sex abuse. Well next time he reads the annual financial reports of any organization, including the Bank of America, he should again ask himself… who paid the auditors? The answer is the organization itself, that is what corporate law provides. If there is any doubt about the veracity of auditors then he should challenge them directly. But a word of warning, he must have real proof, not just vindictive mud- slinging.
Malcolm Harris May 16 10:10 pm,
Well Malcolm, Bank of America and City Bank and Golman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, did pay their auditors and thanks to those auditors and governmental aiuditors who failed to do their jobs., We've had the greatest finiancial melt down since the great depression. Made in America then spread world wide. So don't play innocent about the virtues of institutions.
Particularly when referencing the corporate Catholic church.
What we have in the 754AM comment is the now-familiar and also long-established ploy of insinuation innuendo: would it make any difference in this case who paid?
In the first place, whatever the results of an audit by an independent and established auditing organization would be guaranteed to become public very quickly. So any derangement of the integrity of the process of the auditing would be at great risk of exposure.
I have seen this gambit before in regard to the Jay Reports: that since the Church “paid for them” then they are unreliable. But a) there were other funding sources (the Department of Justice was a partial funder of the second Report) and b) the first Jay Report – as I mentioned in comments just recently – actually deformed itself against the Church (in its Section 5.3, as I discussed).
In the second place – as I discussed in my comment last night – it is not probable that a) a major organization is going to risk its credibility and ‘brand’ simply to do a favor for any organization – let alone the American Bishops/Church – and especially when b) there is every possibility that its results will not be quietly filed away but rather will quickly become publicized. And c) this would especially be true because organizational competitors could quickly review the results and procedures of the audit and publicize their own critiques that – if valid – would largely embarrass the original audit and the organization that conducted it.
Who did fund the audit? I don’t know and I don’t think Mr. Sken does either. It is a valid question; perhaps some readers could do some research on that.
But I point out: ‘suspicion’ is not analysis and innuendo is not ‘thinking’.
Although it passes for such in certain circles and with certain mentalities – the cliché about ‘sophomoric’ mentality comes into play here: from the two Greek words sophos (wise) and moros (fool) we get the classic image of youthful and still-inexperienced students whose first efforts at analysis and thought run so often toward simply indulging in gratuitous suspicion and feeling that they have thereby got everything figured out (and can go back to the ketchup and fries in the cafeteria).
My own experience with sophomore history papers comes back: a teacher who simply rejected what was supposed to be a term paper of analysis when it turned out instead to be simply a long string of questions and suspicions with no supportive analysis or research to actually answer or at least address the questions and suspicions that it had raised.
Once again, this goes to the modus cogitandi as well as the modus operandi of so much Abusenik activity.
"…..So any derangement of the integrity of the process of the auditing would be at great risk of exposure…."
How would any reader know for sure if he/she was not privy to the information, data, etc. that was collected and how the analysis was conducted and reports generated?
Yes, Judy Jones from SNAP is posting on Australian websites now – and spouting exactly the same stuff that she is quoted as saying in this article re the bishops and "cover ups". She offers nothing to help advance matters – just same old accusations. And claims that the Catholic church has done nothing! Which is patently false but, of course, she is never asked to substantiate anything she says and just spouts the same old, same old. Obviously she must be running out of things to do in the U.S! (Has anyone else noticed how SNAP reps never really say what they want the Church to do – just that "they don't get it", or make vague accusations about church authorities doing nothing – accusations which they are never challenged to substantiate.
I see Fran's still here.
Regarding SNAP no one knows how SNAP sets its policies. Not activist victims. None of the supporters. No one.
How they decide what to do is a mystery right up there with the virgin birth. No offense.
So if victims don't know why SNAP behaves the way it does and you've had at least 3 victims here, Kay Ebling; Dennis Ecker and myself tell you we don't like what SNAP does or know why SNAP does what it does., Doesn't that raise questions to you about SNAP's validity in representing us?
Judy Block Jones is not a victim but her reaction to the Church's stone wall regarding victims and how it treats us, is right on.
.Her belief and trust in SNAP is all I question.
Armed forces Day was created in 1949. In 1962, John F. Kennedy declared Armed Forces Day an official holiday.
Saturday, May 18
Who deleted the original verses of our music? For example, America–
Wouldn't it be wonderful if some media stations would restore what the uninformed in academia have deleted?
Verses 3 and 4:
Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom' song:
Let mortal tongues awake,
Let all that breath partake,
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.
Our father's God, to thee,
Author of Liberty, To thee we pray.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light.
Protect us by thy might,
Great God, our King.
As a veteran myself, I must say you might need a verse about gods and their kingship but I don't.
And when your diety took out a quarter of a million "souls" on a sunny afternoon with a sunami,…. oh that's right all those people didn't pray in the right religion. I guess they deserved it.
P.P.S. I think Michael S. is doing a great job here.
I thought you Americans believed in free speech. So what's with the "I see Fran's still here comment"? And other comments of that ilk that you have posted? Oh, silly me, I get it now - free speech as long as I agree with you.
[edited by moderator] Don’t you know about us Americans? We talk about free speech but we don't like people to use it, ever. Especially here in America. Which could explain the insane wars we start and bankrupt ourselves with. And our blood thirsty image, a sad reality actually, that the world judges us by. Maybe if we freely conversed with the rest of the world instead of attacking it. We'd have more friends than not. But our capitalist owned government needs war for even more profit and they rule.
I noticed you were here Fran that's all. No hidden agenda,
I would love for you to speak even more freely. Like telling us who you are and what's yoiur connection to this issue?
However your psycological diagnosises of victims posting here, unless they are backed with a medical license, those you can keep to yourself.
Publion said, "In the first place, we have not established just how many abuses actually and genuinely occurred, especially in the long-ago."
You are correct. This point is always in front of or at the heart of any argument that you make. Stand by it. It is all you need. When you argue it in full, it is irrefutable. You set out, over the course of your writings, a standard of proof for "actually and genuinely" abused that can hardly be met by any of the cases that have come so far. In fact, your standard cannot be met. I will not indulge you in repeating the components of your standard. They are repeated over and over again in your writings on TMR and your blog from the bleachers of life. If no accusation against a priest or bishop can be proven or so few can be shown to be actual and genuine, then it does follow that the Aubusenik position is a movement and is manufactured and is evil-minded. Doubt most or all of the accusations and the rest of what you say is logically consistent and coherent.
I have to say, and I think you will agree here too, that your voracious demand for evidence in abuse cases is at odds with your faith. If you demanded of your church and your god such contemporary, substantial and serious proof of say god's existence or the existence of his son or of his left-hand man, you would have come out at least agnostic on the issues. That is where faith comes in, I know, believing on no evidence at all. Jesus loves me. This I know because the bible tells me so. It is true because it is in the bible and the bible is true because it says it is true. Oh, and it is the inspired word of god. How do you know that? The bible itself says so.
You tipped your hand previously with your brief but sympathetic writing on the case of the deceased former priest, John Geoghan, from Boston. Please expand on his case, if you would. That you would defend him, if you would defend him, makes me think that you do not accept that there has been any actual or genuine sexual abuse by catholic priests. Is that your position? Or can you not be sure at this point? I acknowledge, as you have stated many times, that you do condemn any actual and genuine sexual abuse of anyone, as any morally normal person would. But has there been any? It is just that pesky proof that is the problem, isn't it? Fly under your true flag and admit that you do not believe that there has been any actual and genuine sexual abuse of minors by priests or bishops.
On your thinking, talk of bishops "covering up" does not even make sense. Why talk about such a thing? There is nothing to cover up! The only thing thing that anyone in a position of power did wrong was accept that any acusation was or could be true without being first presented with a criminal conviction in a secular court against father X for actual and genuine sexual abuse. And even then, the bishops should have further questioned/examined/vetted/doubted/ the accuser and/or the DA and/or the jury and/or the judge and/or the court system and/or the legal system and/or the goverment and/or the media and/or any people at large in society that might be influencing or affecting anything. The only thing the bishops did wrong was buckle under pressure from greedy thieving lawyers and the media at their disposal to the lying claims of some desperate losers in need of money. And if you do not believe this, then you are impliedly a Leninist Marxist Communist Nazi Maoist. Or any evil movement/regime that can be referenced. And anything that you do is a "gambit" or "Game" or "Stampede" or "Rolling Ball." And anything you say is "putative," a "narrative" or a "trope." Making up terms and capitalizing them is an annoying habit of yours. More annoying is your overuse of your favorite vocabulary words. I don't know whether to tell you to put down the thesaurus or to pick one up. Finally, please explain what is going on when things "get frakky." I saw this "frakk" in a couple of uses in your writing. Never heard of it outside of trying to get oil.
And Boston Survivor aint chopped liver either. Thank you Boston.
The question from the 1:01PM comment is well-put. This is precisely the problem in all ‘studies’ and all ‘reports’ and all ‘claims’: unless you as a reader have access to i) the data and ii) the competence to analyze it for justifiable conclusions and knowledge, how can you know for sure?
The best that can be done is to consider whether to place trust in the claims, especially if you can look around and see what other accessible information supports or does not support the material in question.
In this case, we have a reputable and established professional independent auditing organization; a clearly demonstrated and explained Report with explanations and charts and graphs; the inclusion of other formal and public documents; and the participation (in some way) of a second organization connected to a university not known to be hierarchy/Vatican-friendly.
We can read the Report, look at the numbers, and then look around in our current world to see if what we are reading in the Report seems to jive with what we can get. Are there – for example – numerous shocking instances of yet more fresh abuse coming up in the media? Is there perhaps something on the government DOJ website? That sort of thing.
And we can consider the issue conceptually. From a positive angle, we can consider the possibilities and probabilities that the efforts reported-on make sense and are reasonably aimed at the problem. From a negative angle, we can ask ourselves if it is credible that all this material in the Report is fraudulent? How could that be gotten-away-with?
But then all of this is also true of the Abusenik claims and assertions. How can we know for sure? How can we distinguish the genuine from the (perfectly possible, and perhaps even probable) otherwise-classifiable?
Claims and assertions and personal ‘reports’, government Reports and claims … these are the complexities of modern civilization. I recall the Bomber-Gap (didn’t actually exist), the Missile-Gap (didn’t actually exist to the max), and more recently the WMD thingie that lubricated our fall into Iraq.
So it’s ultimately up to individuals whether or not they can establish to their satisfaction that the information they receive is reliable.
Of course, things will also get skewed here if some persons are absolutely predisposed to doubt and deny beyond any demonstrably rational parameters whatsoever. And that is their right.
The internet doesn’t generally formally distinguish the opinions of such types from those of others and – again – it’s up to individuals to make their own judgments.
I myself still have some concerns with this present Report. It doesn’t have a ‘definitions’ section that gives us the parameters of the ‘credible’ classification. But that may not be a problem primarily with the auditing organization as it is with the fact that there are various operative definitions of ‘credible’ in use among the many Dioceses (and Eparchies). At one point a decade ago an allegation was deemed ‘credible’ merely if the allegant could simply establish that s/he lived in the same general geographic area as the accused priest at the same point in time as the allegation alleges.
I have the same sort of concern about the term “Boundary Violations”.
Also, the Report uses the term “Victim” generally and doesn’t seem to distinguish between genuine victims and those otherwise-classifiable.
Those two issues do tend to cloud a clear conception as to the extent and nature of the problem. And I – for one – would like to see as much cloudiness and fuzziness as possible eliminated, so that we can formulate the most accurate and clear conception of the actual nature and extent of the problem with as few built-in obstructions as possible.
This may not actually work to the satisfaction of those who have Kept The Ball Rolling with innuendo, insinuation, free-floating suspicion, and an overall non-rational approach that seeks continuously to short-circuit careful analysis and deliberation and instead move as many as possible as quickly as possible to emotional outrage and similar excitements.
But so what?
However, I do note – contrary to those who like-to/need-to paint the Church as a monolithic organization – that a very few Dioceses and Eparchies and other such jurisdictions still refuse to participate. The Ordinary is – in his own jurisdiction – still possessed of authority that not even the Pope can direct or command. Rome still has other avenues of leverage and as this new Pope gets settled-in, we shall see what might pan out. As it stands today, I think the percentage of participation is over 95pct.
The authoritative participation of local law enforcement and numerous established professionals is noted in the Report. So I can’t see how “secrecy” or hiding-stuff from local law enforcement can operate in the current environment in the Church in the US. If there is any unreliable material in this Report, there are more enough competent and authoritative sources of alert: local law enforcement, all those professionals, and – although we have to factor in their particular and specific objectives – even local tort-attorneys.
So I don’t see how there could be much unreliability and certainly much ‘secrecy’.
Of course, one might then retreat back further and claim that the Bishops simply controlled and arranged the whole thing before ever letting the auditors (and local law enforcement and all the various professionals) get involved in the first place.
That – to my mind – would involve Satanic levels of competence, along numerous axes of activity. And although I have always entertained my objections to this and that aspect of the hierarchy’s doings, I’ve never ever seen reason to think of them collectively as possessing Satanic levels of competence.
Still, given the way things are going for the Keep-The-Ball-Rolling agenda these days, we may yet see that sort of claim thrown around.
Great comments, Publion and Josie. And it's good to see the results of all the measures that have been put in place by the Church over the last decade. Measures that Oprah's child protection lawyer, Elizabeth Yore, calls "state of the art." Practically zero cases of molestation in the Church.
On the other hand, how tedious is the repetitious nonsense – with the same old boring and groundless accusations and insinuations from the likes of the usual suspects above; all of which are admirably exposed and skewered by Publion. Uh, who do they think is going to provide funding for the surveys? The IRS? Their naive ignorance about modern Catholic universities and how research is conducted is astounding.
Oh, and SNAP? Who were they?
While I was composing my immediately-prior comment here, the 3:58PM comment from Bos-Surv was posted.
Let’s see what we’ve got.
As far as I can see, Bos-Surv is on about me because I have come up with an “irrefutable” point: i.e. “we have not established just how many abuses actually and genuinely occurred, especially in the long ago”.
He makes the further point that a “standard of proof for ‘actually and genuinely abused [is one] that can hardly be met by any of the cases that have some so far”.
“So far”? … Is Counsel expecting a fresh wave of cases, this time with more-better proof?
Apparently he is going for this: since my “standard cannot be met”, then I have clearly (perhaps Satanically) devised an airtight objection that operates like a broomstick in the bicycle-spokes of the Abusenik joyride.
But I have gone to great lengths – and with not a small amount of overtly legal philosophizing and history – to explain my main points here: A) that if we do not know how much genuine abuse was committed then we cannot know how much of a problem we actually face; and B) that we also thus cannot determine to what extent we might be the targets of manipulation; and C) that we might thus be tempted to introduce grossly unjustified and lethally corrosive ‘reforms’ into the fundaments of our legal system on the basis of a ‘crisis’ that may not actually and genuinely exist; and that D) this problem of genuine-ness was precisely why victimist law had to kick established Western evidentiary and jurisprudential principles to the curb and embrace Bolshevik/totalitarian ‘revolutionary’ law instead.
I am also characterized as commenting here and on my blog “from the bleachers of life”. Meaning, as best I can infer, that since I haven’t been abused (and how has that been established, Counsel?) then I clearly do not participate in life. Let the readership decide.
But “if no accusation against a priest or bishop can be proven or so few can be shown to be actual and genuine then does it follow that the Abusenik position is a movement and is manufactured and is evil-minded.” [sic]
To which I respond: i) I have not characterized the Abusenik position as “evil-minded”. And ii) if indeed we have not established the genuineness and thus the extent (or non-extent) of the Catholic Abuse Matter, and yet the Abusenik ‘thing’ has carried on as it has for the past thirty or so years, then how else would Bos-Surv describe the Abusenik ‘thing’? Would the characterization of it as a “movement” and as (to some large extent) “manufactured” not reasonable, given the history of it all? How would Learned Counsel characterize it?
But all my material, he goes on, is “logically consistent and coherent” (thank you; I do try to achieve that) as long as we “doubt most or all of the accusations”. I ask the Learned and Philosophical Counsel: if we have not established the evidence that X exists, then what in Western Justice does he propose we can do with such cases?
Aside, of course, from regressing to some variant of Bolshevik/victimist/revolutionary law. But this is precisely what I have been saying all along here: that since Western evidentiary-based law obstructed the pursuit of the victimist/Abusenik agenda, then it had to be deranged and undermined in order to clear a path.
Bos-Surv is wrong to assume that I would agree that my “voracious demand for evidence in abuse cases is at odds with [my] faith”. We are not talking about Charity as a Theological Virtue here; not in the legal forum. As I have so often said: once anybody brings a claim to-be-believed into the legal forum – where the deployment of the Sovereign Coercive Authority against an accused is at stake – then Charity must be supported by evidence. Otherwise we might well find ourselves rather un-Charitably cheerleading for the deployment of that Sovereign Coercive Authority against a Citizen whose guilt has not been well-established in truth and fact. (Leading to miscarriages of the justicial process and ultimately to the delegitimizing of the legal process … if I may remind Learned Counsel.)
So without getting distracted into the thickets of theological reflection here, let me just say that once all of this is brought into the legal forum, then – can Counsel not have noticed? – certain vital requirements must be met, not simply for individual Charity but in order that the Sovereign Coercive Authority, acting in the name of the People and on their authority, not be untruthfully deployed, to the moral detriment of everybody involved.
Counsel then asserts that I “tipped [my] hand with [my] brief but sympathetic writing on the case of the deceased former priest, John Geoghan”. My sympathy – aside from the fact that the gentleman was murdered in his cell where the State was ostensibly providing a safe imprisonment environment – was informed precisely by my concerns for the derangement of the deployment of the Sovereign Coercive Authority as outlined above.
I did not “defend” him on the basis of his alleged crimes or on the basis of the one crime of which he was found guilty (lewdly fondling a boy’s buttocks when lifting him out of a swimming pool). I was defending the integrity of the deployment of the Sovereign Coercive Authority. Is this not an issue of concern for Learned Counsel as well?
Had Bos-Surv troubled to read my comments (yes, they are voluminous – but then he must have done quite a bit of reading to Major in Philosophy at Harvard, and surely my writing isn’t as difficult as Kant’s or Schleiermacher’s?) he would know that I have never denied that some abuse by Catholic priests existed. My questions have always gone to the genuine and actual extent of that abuse.
And I fully agree with Learned Counsel: yes, “it’s that pesky proof that is the problem”. Yes indeed. And it was precisely the issue of disposing of “that pesky proof” that has deranged so much of American and Western evidence-based law and jurisprudence in the past few decades.
Oh most very yes and certainly indeed.
And apparently Bos-Surv joins another tin-foil or crystal-ball reading commenter here in being sure that he can read my mind: “Admit that you do not believe that there has been any actual and genuine abuse of minors by priests or bishops”. Let me assure Learned Counsel: I have never denied that and … also, he needs to take the tin-foil hat or the crystal-ball in for an oil-change.
And “on [my] thinking, talk of bishops ‘covering up’ does not even make any sense”. Where have I ever said that? I have pointed out that none of the documentation we have seen on this site, and documentation imagined to be providing surefire proof of ‘cover-up’, has been up to the job it was hoped to perform. And I have explained that assessment at great length on this site.
Nor – to skip a bit – have I ever voiced complete approval about how Bishops handled these matters in a prior era. And I have voiced my definitive approval of reforms to their praxis as they have evolved them in the Dallas Charter over the course of the past decade.
If Learned Counsel has issues with how the law enforcement and court system (and the tort-attorneys who waited so long to try and bring cases?) did not do their job, then let Learned Counsel take up that matter of their poor performance long ago with those Parties.
And I will require some acute and specific quotations from my material to justify the assertion that my position is that “the only thing the bishops did wrong was buckle under pressure from greedy thieving lawyers and the media at their disposal to the lying claims of some desperate losers in need of some money”. And let the record show that it was not I who characterized allegants as “lying” and “desperate losers in need of some money”.
Once again, Bos-Surv demonstrates clearly to us just how Abuseniks go about the business of dealing with uncongenial ideas: they create inaccurate straw positions and then go after those and do so in terms of a smarmy, quasi-pious outrage. I will only say about this that they have mastered what our sadly departed Opus the Penguin so acutely called “offensensibility” – and they have gotten away with this rhetorical posturing for decades now.
And I use a lot of qualifying words. Yes, yes I do. I use qualifiers in order to enhance the precision of what I want to express, and out of respect for the complexity of reality and the human process of communication. I write with a lot of modifiers and I use a lot of words (‘term’ would perhaps be better here) precisely because it is vital in so serious a Matter to communicate thoughts and ideas as precisely as possible.
This is news to a Philosophy Major or an attorney?
Learned Counsel confesses himself annoyed at my habit of “making up terms” and “capitalizing” them. I make up terms that I think accurately capture what I am trying to express. I capitalize them – following the old 18th-century practice of the Framers – in order to remind my readers of how important I think they are in the instant discussion. Perhaps if one were to put on a tri-corn hat rather than a ball-cap sideways while reading my material, one might get into the spirit of the Thing. Just a thought.
It has been quite a while since I have used a thesaurus, although I keep several thick ones in my library. Learned Counsel does not know whether to tell me to put down the thesaurus or pick one up. Perhaps – if I might suggest – the problem is with Counsel’s regrettable unfamiliarity with ‘words’ and such, especially if they appear in quantity. Although being a Harvard-educated Philosophy Major and an attorney … how could that be?
Yes, I like ‘frak’. I have taken it from the dialog in the most recent TV incarnation of Battlestar Galactica. It was used there more vividly than I use it – but I like the good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon heft and sharpness of it. Sorry it’s not to your taste. Oh well.
Lastly, I have only pointed out the dynamics operative in areas of concern in the country today that bear a (to me, alarming) similarity to Leninist, Maoist, Bolshevik, Nazi, and totalitarian jurisprudence and legislation. How you have managed to get from that to the assertion that anybody who doesn’t believe what I want them to believe is “impliedly” a “LeninistMarxistCommunistNaziMaoist” … well, I dealt with that above.
Just one thing for tonight. At Odysseus' House, the blogger opens the blog by placing himself in the bleachers. You said it, Starbuck, not me.
thanks, Jim Robertson.
What is the corporate Church not supposed to be protecting children? So why the hossanas when they finally do?
To Learned Counsel (apparently the former Bos-Surv): Yes but my meaning in my blog intro was that I was somebody who was deeply involved, watching carefully, and trying to get a fuller comprehension of things. If that was what you meant to infer, then thank you, but then such a nice acknowledgement would be completely out of step with the rest of the gravamen of your 3:58 comment and I didn't want to impose.
Passively sitting in the bleachers, watching, then actively whinning about what you think you see. Does what exactly?
" the dynamics operative in areas of concern in the country today that bear a (to me, alarming) similarity to Leninist, Maoist, Bolshevik, Nazi, and totalitarian jurisprudence and legislation" – Publion
There has been a systemic 'conspirator after the fact' cover up of clergy sex abuse by the international roman catholic church. Evidence? Murphy in LA or O'Brien in Scotland.
And for all your verbiosity, "lenninist" and "bolshevik" are the same thing, however the legal system under Stalin could be pointed as differential, and maybe closer to your Glen Beck lumping of right and left totalitarianism.
Other than buzzwords meant to stop people from thinking what is this Maoist-Nazi legal system you speak of? Has removing statutes of limitation really created Stalinist Show Trials? Like the Star courts of England? Is US Common law derived from this history of an English "Nazi-Disney-Stalin-Mao-Goofy" legal system? 200 years before Mao or Disney were born?
The church has lied about sex abuse in its ranks, repeatedly. Their veracity in this matter should forever be questioned. The number of abuse claims dismissed by the courts is miniscule, but you assert that the degree of abuse is yet to be determined, and question what is "genuine" abuse.
This kind of blame the victim mentality is central to the culture of the church that has covered for abusers in the past and will cover in the future.
It is the same culture of 'us vs. them' and false perceptions of persecution that enable the concept that freedom of religion allows the catholic church to force their religious beliefs on everyone else, while using my tax money to do it.
Publion your defense of the church on these grounds strikes me as very un-christian. Crack open Matthew sometime instead of tuning into Glen Beck's historical revisionism.
Do you cry for the unconvicted rotting in Guantanamo? Or is your legal criticism reserved for the defense of the most powerfu organizations on earth?
Feck,
You said that P's stance is essentially un- Christian. I agree, when I ask P what would Jesus do? He ignored me for a long time then much later referencing $3 billion spent compensating some victims, he said roughly, isn't $3 biilion dollars enough Jesus for you?
My answer is NO.
Some victims get compensated and the majority don't?
Some victims are better than other victims?
Still my answer is NO.
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[edited by moderator]
You madly apply the highest standard of proof to every situation. You can do that. But it is making faulty defective judgements for you. Why don't you, for example, say that John Geoghan probably did all the evil things that the victims say he did. He did alot more than just live in the same town(s) or parish(es) as these children. You appear much dumber and disconnected for having said that. Would you argue that Jerry Sandusky was just showering with boys, if no one ever witnessed the sex? Or would it be more reasonable to be very suspicious of a man who would shower and fool around in the shower with boys? What about sleeping with boys too old to be slept with like Michael Jackson? And later, the child says that the guy touched him? More likely to have happened or not? Reality, Starbuck. Get out of the bleachers. Too much sun. Apply reason and morals. Stop defending the instituion and the religion and stop lawyering the sex abuse reports and testimonies for ways to believe the very very unlikely.
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Learned, It's Chinatown.
Jim–
I pray for you.
What do you get from holding onto this for so long?
You–all of us–are only happpy when you can forgive no matter how bad a thing once happened to you.
Whoa Nellie,
Listen up, there are requirements for healing and telling the truth is the major one. All the truth not just some, people can handle but all of it.
Clear the wound as it were. And I'm just trying to clean off the puss. Not a pretty picture but an accurate one.
And what makes you think I haven't forgiven and I have, to a point, to a very clear point and
And that is: when through rampant fraud, you continue the injuries. There is where I draw the line. Keep injuring me I stay pissed. Surprised?
Responding first to JR from 1112AM today: apparently what does not occur to JR is that observing carefully, thinking about what one sees, formulating some coherent thoughts, and expressing them … are not at all “passive” activities.
Responding to ‘Feckless’ from 133PM today:
First, it will take more than two instances of anything – even if one instance allegedly takes place in the US and another in Scotland – to establish “a systemic ‘conspirator after the fact’ cover-up of clergy sex abuse by the international roman catholic church”. [sic] And especially since i) ‘conspiracy after the fact’ is not a crime I have been able to discover in the legal universe and since ii) a conspiracy requires more than one person. So if ‘Feckless’ wishes to share with us his/her analysis of the LA and Scots examples, that would help illuminate matters.
Again we see the claim of “verbosity”. Words do seem to repel Abuseniks; they act almost like vampires in the presence of holy-water. (At least if the ‘words’ don’t go where they want them to go.)
Also: ‘Leninist’ and ‘Bolshevik’ are not at all the same thing; Lenin had problems with other Bolsheviks as to the course of action to be adopted, especially after the putsch of October, 1917. Stalin’s approach simply added to the complexity, although he smoothed his path considerably by the Purges of so-called Old Bolsheviks conducted through the show-trials of the later 1930s.
And does Feckless then see a practical difference between “right and left totalitarianism” in terms of what we are discussing here? The derangements necessary to evidence-based Western law are the same in both instances; whether the derangement is instituted by a totalitarian approach of the Right or of the Left is – in light of what I have been saying – neither here nor there. Having driven off a bridge, whether one did so by over-steering to the left or to the right is not of primary importance in trying to deal with the wreck.
I can’t logically be accused of both using “buzzwords” and also creating ‘terms’ out of my head, can I?
Feckless doesn’t know what I mean by (in his/her terms) “this Maoist-Nazi legal system”. Feckless is kindly directed to my comments on this and prior TMR articles.
Also: it has certainly started to dawn on some reporters (such as Ralph Cipriano, although I make no pretense of speaking for him here) that we are seeing show-trials now. Have we reached the Star Chamber structure of old England? No. But – to do a tad of Feckless’s homework for him/her: Have we been seeing some of the same dynamics of government pressure on courts and have we been seeing some of the same dynamics of totalitarian jurisprudence? Yes.
Also: Feckless will need to quote me as to the existence of an “English ‘Nazi-Disney-Stalin-Mao-Goofy’ legal system”. Unless s/he is referring to a concept out of his/her own head – in which case, I would have to call it whacky in the extreme. Or, at best, clearly unserious. But maybe Feckless is just joking around here. Tee-hee.
As to the reference to “US common law”: is Feckless here discussing the evidentiary principles characteristic of Western law, or does Feckless have other points in mind? If so, what are the points Feckless means to raise here?
Also: does Feckless imply that s/he sees no danger in the weakening of SOLs, in light of the points I have raised in comments on this site?
In regard to the assertion that “the church has lied about sex abuse in its ranks, repeatedly”: does Feckless mean that s/he has quotations from hierarchs to the effect that there is no sex-abuse whatsoever in the Catholic Church nor ever has been? I don’t recall coming across any such comments, but perhaps Feckless has and I – for one – would like to see them. (References need to be identified, and a link to each such would be really nice.) And if there is another organization on the planet that has addressed sex-abuse in its ranks more forthrightly than the Church in the past dozen, or three hundred, years, could Feckless please name such an organization?
“The number of abuse claims dismissed by the courts is miniscule”: Does Feckless understand the difference between an allegation that is settled-out-of-court and an allegation that is ‘dismissed by the court’? In regard to the latter, I’d be interested myself in seeing some useful information as to how many allegations have reached the trial stage and have been dismissed by the court. Does Feckless have any info that would shed light here?
I question how to distinguish between genuine allegations of abuse and those allegations that are – to use my term – ‘otherwise classifiable’. Does Feckless not see the difference between that and my alleged questioning “what is ‘genuine’ abuse”?
And now to the grand-sire of so much of the Abusenik position: from Professor William Ryan’s 1971 eponymous book, “blaming the victim”. Ryan was discussing his views on racial matters. Later in the decade, it was taken up in this country by victim-advocacy groups.
But there is and always has been a problem here: Ryan was discussing the matter of racial-blaming, and as a cultural reality, in this country. However, when taken up by victim-advocacies – especially in regard to rape and matters-sexual – there was a profound (and generally ignored) disconnect: whereas most Americans could agree that racial-blaming existed and could therefore presume its existence, yet when transposed to the legal forum, this theory resulted in the presumption that the alleged crime had indeed taken place, even before the trial began (thus, incidentally, undermining the presumption of innocence of the accused).
For a succinct discussion of how American victim-advocacies of various sorts became increasingly enmeshed in this legally hellish dynamic, see especially Chapters Five and Six of Marie Gottschalk’s 2006 book The Prison and the Gallows.
The bottom-line for our purposes here is this: the ‘blame the victim’ dynamic a) presumed that a crime had taken place and therefore b) that the accused was presumptively guilty. (Which is a rather anti-Western presumption and also bears an alarming similarity to totalitarian jurisprudence and its show-trials.)
As so-called ‘victim-friendly’ legal ‘reforms’ took place, that presumption of the innocence of the accused was variously undermined, and especially in terms of evidentiary standards (here, you might want to follow the thread of the points in the ongoing discussion between myself and commenter ‘Learned Counsel’ – formerly ‘Boston Survivor’).
And you would really need to provide some substantive references to back up the assertion that “this kind of blame the victim mentality is central to the culture of the Church”.
Nor could I agree that the blame-the-victim mentality is the equivalent of “the same culture of ‘us vs. them’ and false perceptions of persecution”. Let alone that such a purported culture “allows the catholic church to force their religious beliefs on everyone else”. What sort of “force” would that require and does the Church actually possess it? And have we gone here from the Abuse Matter to something else?
And again with this bit about my “defense of the church on these grounds” is “very un-christian”. Please see my comments above in an exchange with Learned-Counsel/Boston Survivor on this precise point. Had you not noticed it?
As to the two references trying to connect me with Glen Beck – in whatever ways and for whatever purposes – I am not familiar with that gentleman’s positions but I most certainly have developed my ideas as expressed on this site without any knowledge of his positions whatsoever.
I do have a great deal of concern for the “un-convicted rotting in Guantanamo”. As a matter of fact – and I have stated this idea before in comments on this site – it is my thought that the government, observing the success (enabled to no small extent by its own pressuring) of the usefulness of ‘victims’ in masking its assault on those persons and institutions that it regards as its enemies or as inconveniently obstructive to its purposes, watched that success in the Catholic Abuse Matter since the 1980s and then decided to deploy the same strategy of disregarding the fundaments of Western law (and even the Constitution) in its later escapades that resulted in the Guantanamo imprisonments and all the rest of that sort of thing.
If Feckless would care to specify just where in “Matthew” I should crack the Book open, that would be a help. Or does Feckless not have any specific point from Matthew in mind?
Lastly – in regard to Feckless – are we to believe, seriously, that the Roman Catholic Church is “the most powerful organization on earth”? Or does Feckless disagree with other commenters here that the Church is on the way out and declining precipitously? For that matter, how would Feckless answer Stalin’s question: How many divisions does the Pope have?
OK. This comment is long enough as it is. I will submit it and then shortly I will respond to Learned Counsel/ex-Boston Survivor’s comment of 222PM today.
Responding now to Learned Counsel (ex-Boston Survivor) of 222PM today.
I “madly apply the highest standard of proof to every situation”. We are dealing here with the deployment of the Sovereign Coercive Authority of the government against an accused, which may well result in conviction, loss of livelihood, reputation, employability, and even of life. Does Learned Counsel not consider high standards of proof to be appropriate in such matters? Is it evidence of insanity (“madly”) to make such application?
And in light of Western Law and the dynamics I have discussed at length here – and in response to Learned Counsel himself – in what way can such application be characterized as “it is making faulty defective judgments for you”? (Which phrasing, if I may make the observation, does not quite work in English).
I don’t “say” that John Geoghan “probably did all the evil things that victims say he did” (nor do I deny it outright) because I do not have the evidence to back up such assertions and accusations. Does Learned Counsel have such evidence? Personally, I don’t believe that Learned Counsel has that evidence either.
Ditto as to the assertion that “he did a lot more”. Perhaps he did – but it takes a lot more than assertion to justify the deployment of the Sovereign Coercive Authority of the government. Or – at least – it should. And up to a few decades ago, it did.
And is it that I “appear much dumber and disconnected” for not having that evidence, or is it that Learned Counsel’s approach demonstrates a profound legal imbecility by relying on assertions and emotionally-held ‘beliefs’ with no sufficient evidence? (A pre-emptive point here: the “imbecility” is formally used here, and refers to the “approach”.)
I haven’t followed the Sandusky case and so I do not venture to make any assertions about it.
But if – in the material Learned Counsel provides here – nobody witnessed the alleged “sex”, then what – pray – is a Western and evidence-based legal system to do? Derange itself from its fundaments? Is that what Learned Counsel considers to be a workable and advisable and rational and moral course of action? Because for a government to derange its justicial legitimacy is surely an immoral course of action on a huge scale. (And – speaking Scripturally – also grossly un-Charitable to the entire Citizenry, present and future.)
One is personally welcome to be as “suspicious” as one wishes, and I am a great fan of skepticism, especially when human evil or the possibility of human evil is concerned. But here we have the possibility of human evil all around, and not only in terms of individuals but in terms of the profoundly treacherous evil of a government deranging itself.
But while one is personally welcome to be as “suspicious” as one sees fit, that ‘suspicion’ cannot become the primary guiding element in any Western and classically American legal proceedings. And to the extent that “suspicion” has indeed been erected as such a primary guiding element – I have been saying – then to that extent Western and classically American justice has been deranged (and threatens eventually its own legitimacy).
As Thomas More – in Robert Bolt’s scripting of it in Man For All Seasons – said to the court of Star Chamber: “The world must construe according to its wits; this Court must construe according to the Law”. But – of course – that ‘Law’ had already been subverted and More was doomed.
(While I’ve got Bolt and More going here, I would also point out More’s prophetic warning: if you cut down the laws to get at the devil, and then the devil turns on you – how will you defend yourself, the laws all being flat? The ‘devil’ here being not so much the theological Devil but rather the power of the State to pursue and convict its Citizens.)
If Learned Counsel would care to demonstrate by (accurate) quotations just where I haven’t applied “reason and morals” – and could perhaps do so by not requiring a repetition of material I have already presented on precisely those issues even right here on this thread – I would be happy to respond.
As for my position on the bleachers and being out in the sun too long: I find daylight far more congenial to analysis than its opposite, and it seems to me that I have been able to get quite a bit accomplished while sitting in the bleachers. Certainly more, it would surely appear, than might be accomplished sitting around the law offices of certain attorneys.
“Stop defending the institution”: does Learned Counsel mean the institution of Western and American Law? Sorry, nope.
“Stop defending … the religion”: have I somehow – accurate quotes required here – been defending Catholicism with no regard for reason and morality? And is the alternative to attack it based on “suspicion”?
“Stop lawyering” – Well this, I say, takes the cake. And who is going to do the defending of Western and American justice then? The lawyers? Have we seen that here on this site? Is Learned Counsel familiar with other Approaches that have sought to inveigle lawyers or anybody else to stop defending the Law and just go with the (suspicious) flow? Is this what they are teaching in the law schools now? Or is this merely Learned Counsel’s personal take on it?
Nor, lastly, do I consider the possibility of substantial exaggeration in the Catholic Abuse Matter to be “very very unlikely”. And even so, “unlikely” doesn’t constitute evidence any more than “suspicion” and innuendo and insinuation and suggestion constitute evidence.
Starbuck, I answered your objections and questions already. You may have noticed that my comment is an edit sandwich. Pierre thought I was too harsh on you. So with what is left there, trust me, I barely got my trousers off. Too bad. Frak it. Look up preponderance of the evidence and compare to beyond a reasonable doubt. The law does not have just one standard of proof.
Ordinarily, commenters can defend themselves against such slings and arrows as fly here. But if ‘Fran’ is from another country and since assertions about America and “Americans” are being tossed around and since JR styles himself as speaking for “us Americans” then I am going to submit a few thoughts of my own.
‘Free speech’ is indeed the ideal in this country. Or it was until it imported such Marxist concepts as Political Correctness (the usage of the modern term itself originates with the Communists, although variously attributed to Lenin, Stalin, or Mao). To its great benefit, the Victimist worldview was incorporated into the dominant Political Correctness of discourse here a few decades ago (by the Right, initially, but then soon after by the Left which has since retained the control of acceptable public discourse).
Of course we must also factor in the claim of suppression-of-their-thoughts by others who are not so much suppressed for voicing politically-incorrect yet vital ideas, but instead are simply ignored for being considered rather largely unwell.
There is that distinction to be made.
Also, I note that ‘Fran’ is now being inveigled along the old familiar lines: tell us who you are. In the playbook of the Abusenik (and the wider Cause-nik) world of the American-style internet, this is the equivalent of the hero or heroine of a WW2 movie being asked by somebody in a black leather trenchcoat: ‘Zo, do you haff relatiffs in Chermany?’ And – as any viewer of a certain age would immediately advise – do not go down that conversational road. This is also true with the current internet versions of the black-leather-raincoat types.
As I have often said, one’s actual identity is hardly necessary to the key discussion here, which is of the issues involved in the Catholic Abuse Matter. And – indeed – we have, I think, seen it luxuriantly demonstrated here that revealing one’s presumably true identity actually does rather little to improve the quality of one’s material.
‘Fran’ might also note that somehow one has to have some “connection” to the Catholic Abuse Matter, as in ‘angle’. The idea that a person might simply be concerned in a general and idealistic sort of way does not occur to certain types and mentalities; there must always be an angle of some sort. It might well be that such types are themselves simply projecting upon everybody else their own ulterior enmeshment in ‘angles’, but who can say for sure?
Lastly, I would advise – with great respect – against psychiatric diagnosing. No matter how clear a symptom or even syndromal pattern one might (and quite possibly accurately) discern, it must always be remembered – I submit – that if the individual is in denial and/or one is not oneself in the position to follow up with competent therapeutic assistance (which, of course, must be willingly accepted by the afflicted individual) then one is better advised to move on to more productive pursuits. There are, I would say, many shipwrecks strewn across the sea of life, and one cannot stop to assist every single one of them, especially if they aren’t of a mind to notice their own shipwreck themselves.
You know what political correctness is to me. Seeing all people and cultures to be important. Addressing people as they wish to be addressed to see them as they wish to be seen as they see themselves. There's a problem with that?
You know if some ideas are Marxist, so what if they are good ideas.? Marx is considered a international hero not because he was a bad guy but because he was a good guy a truth teller , a major truth teller.
But so what. All those smart other people posting here and the same insults from you and the same analysis of you by them that I made.
But you won't get it you can't. You're too busy doing your rather odd version of reasoning.
But Michael, Boston survivor; Dennis Ecker; Learned and others have all called you out. They have commented on how you are and what you say. And they have been unfailingly accurate about you in my opinion.
So there we are.
Types Types Types Types is the whole world Types? What planet do you live on? There's "Other" then there's you? No there's "us" why you choose to constantly see us, all mankind as other and types is beyond me. Maybe if you expected good from the vast majority of your fellow humans you'd get it. Sad ,really sad!
I had to catch up on my reading on this site by some very well versed individuals and although I picked up at an individual who made a statement" If they did not provide councelling for you, is that because there was some question about your "abuse" being credible? I am simply asking because it does not make sense." Although I wanted to stop I kept on reading.
I wish to keep my comment short, but I would like to ask a question to those of you who never became victims like myself, Jim and Kay and its a question I have never asked before, But when do you feel the catholic church should be done making amends to its victims ?
p.s. Josie, the archdiocese of Philadelphia pays for my therapy, my wife's therapy and will pay for my daughter's therapy if she should ever need it, since she hears my screams at night. Does that validate me as a real victim in your eyes ?
I believe that the Ecker comment of 944PM on the 17th was made about the comment by ‘Josie’ of May 16 at 1246AM. On those grounds, I would usually wait for ‘Josie’ to respond. However the Ecker comment then goes on to ask a larger question to a larger group, and on the basis of being in that larger group addressed in the comment’s second paragraph, I am going to comment now.
First, I would like to note that in her comment (quoted in the Ecker submission) she actually raised a very interesting question: Was a certain other commenter on this site offered a wider menu of services? If so, did he refuse them? If so, why? If the Church did not offer such services to a certain other commenter, was that because no services were offered to any settlement-recipient? Did the Church presume that the settlement monies would suffice to provide whatever services the settlement-recipients might desire? Or was the Church told on behalf of all (or some) recipients that nothing was desired except the check?
(These foregoing questions are not intended to actually solicit an answer from that ‘other commenter’ – I don’t want to intrude on personal decisions nor do I wish to get into the ins and outs of personal individual cases. Rather, I simply wanted to open up a bit further the window of possibilities that ‘Josie’ opened in her comment.)
In regard to the Ecker comment’s question in its second paragraph, I have to say that it strikes me as manipulative and shrewdly so. It moves readers to presume that a) there are probably few ‘victims’ among this site’s readership, and b) it seeks to lead readers to assume completely and without question that commenters Ecker, JR and Ebeling are victims.
In regard to (a): we see this consistent presumption that only victims can really understand why the Abusenik Project is so good. But as I have been saying, once you get into the legal forum – and that’s where the Abusenik Project went – then that’s not good enough because it is not sufficient as a justification for deploying the Sovereign Coercive Authority of the State against any accused. In my opinion it amounts to nothing more than a contemporary version of the medieval “spectral evidence”, i.e. Only I can see it folks, but you can take my word for it and burn this witch fer shure, so let’s blow this boring courtroom and adjourn to the place of burning.
As I have said in prior comments, while it is anybody’s free-speech right to declare themselves publicly as victims and (within the bounds of libel and slander laws) to name their alleged victimizer, yet once things are taken to the legal forum, assertions and claims without sufficient evidence are (or were, up to a few decades ago) substantially insufficient.
Considering what I have seen of the Ecker approach in comments on this site and the BigTrial site, it consists in Mr. Ecker basing his comments purely in the personal-experience forum, while so much of the issue in commentary and articles revolves around problems that have arisen in the legal forum. I have spoken before of the lethal dangers of this conflation of the personal forum and the legal forum.
In regard to (b) – and flowing from what I have said in regard to (a): There is no way anybody on the internet can know for certain who is a victim and who is not. Nor is the internet merely a technical amplification of the personal forum. For that matter, not even in the personal forum can others always – or perhaps even often – “know” in the actual sense of the word; we have seen on the Philadelphia BigTrial site that even one’s own family cannot always “know”, one way or the other.
And I will go so far to say – again – that not even self-proclaimed victims can actually and verifiably “know” (rather than “believe”) that other self-proclaimed victims are actually victims. How can Mr. Ecker actually “know” (rather than simply “believe”) that either of the other two he mentioned are indeed what they claim to be? Even if he personally met and got to know them it would hardly be possible for him to “know”, and surely not possible for him to “know” sufficiently to insist that others accept their (or his) self-proclaimed status as fact. There is here another conflation or rather confusion: between “knowing” and “believing”.
Lastly, when I point all this out it is not to deliberately and insensitively attack persons who have self-proclaimed (which is the best I can definitively say of them before departing the realm of knowledge and heading into the land of belief). Rather, it is simply to resist falling into the conflations and confusions into which they are seeking to invite me or – if some might wish to put it more strongly – into which they are seeking to inveigle me or – if some might wish to put it more strongly – that they are seeking to impose upon me.
In this way – recalling a trope that came up during discussion of the 1985 Doyle Report on a recent TMR article-thread – I am resisting an effort (by self-proclaimed victims) to “control” me by manipulating my response to their self-presentations through vital conflations and confusions.
So it's only with victims you have a problem believing.
You believe in a God with no infintissimal shred of evidence to back that belief up.
The same for an after life and Original Sin and that your "faith/belief" is the one true faith superior and more accurate than all others; and all with no evidence what so ever.
So we victims who have little evidence, as far as you are concerned, are less believable than your beliefs with no evidence. Now that's bad reasoning on your part.
In response to Learned Counsel/ex-Boston Survivor’s comment of the 17th at 802PM:
First, we have a gambit I haven’t seen since JR used it quite a while ago: Learned Counsel indeed had much better material that made a full response to just about everything and to just about all of the points I had raised … but DP edited it out. The old the-editor-ate-my-homework bit.
So then: DP edited out all the best and most conceptually strong parts, and just left the stuff that wasn’t so much any of that?
Also that Learned Counsel fears that DP was afraid Learned Counsel was “too harsh on” me. While I always respect DP’s editing chops (I especially like the excision of the expletives, although that particular issue is not often necessary with Learned Counsel), I have never gotten the sense that he edits out substantial material just because – purportedly – that material would make the Abusenik position look solid and strong and good.
I have an alternative possible explanation: Learned Counsel’s excised material simply went overboard with all of the gambits – especially nasty and gratuitous ad-hominem’s, perhaps – that we have seen Abuseniks so often use when they haven’t got anything else and need to create a distraction while making it look like they are making substantive input and response.
In regard to the law having different standards of proof: Yes, that is quite true. However what we have seen in the Abuse Matter – as we have also seen in all of the various types of sex-assault cases in the past few decades – is a) that swaths of possible evidence (concerning the accuser) are not permitted to be examined and b) that evidentiary principles have been weakened to the point where (what I would call) the “spectral evidence” of material the accuser can assert but nobody else can examine is erected as permissible ‘evidence’.
And all of this has taken place in a constructed and manipulated atmosphere and surround (which I call the Stampede) whereby i) the State has clearly indicated its hostile-to-the-accused preferences through its various legislated ‘reforms’ to the legal system and the trumpeting of numerous politicians; ii) the media have so consistently amplified and ignited public opinion that almost no American Citizen today can accurately be presumed not to have been influenced by it; iii) that all of this – as we have seen exemplified in both Philadelphia cases – has unleashed a stunning panoply of (predictable and almost inevitable) prosecutorial and law-enforcement skullduggery. (Nor will I accept – as some commenters on the Big Trial site insist – that this is just the way the law works now and we should get used to it.)
In relevant developments in the military-justice sex-assault field, defense counsel are now making the defense that both pre-trial and general assertions by commanding-officer and high-ranking officers (required apparently by both the need to placate political influences and to enhance career prospects) to the effect that sex-assaulters are “scumbags” and must be declared guilty and punished have actually worked to prejudice both cases and potential jurors against any accused in a sex-assault case. (McClatchy News has been following this with several articles on its site).
And while one can make the case that the military is a formally hierarchical system that is not seen in civilian life, yet I would say that civilians too listen to the assertions and demands of their ‘leadership’ and – especially with media amplification of the various Abusenik strategies – civilian public opinion also suffers from, and has for long been influenced by, the same dynamics. And I would go so far as to say that what we thus see in the military is just a variant of the Stampede we have long seen in the civilian forum.
And I would further say that in any matter where A) public opinion is greatly inflamed – not to also say manipulated – and B) especially in the Western and American approach to law and system of law, against any potential or actual accused … then Yes, the highest standard of proof is required where livelihood, reputation, employability, and even life may well be at stake.
I would also note that so many of the allegations in the civil or tort forum were handled by settlements rather than trial (an outcome almost required by the consequences of the successful Stampede) and that in criminal trials the highest standard of proof – according to classic American and Western legal principles and not the deranged, ‘revolutionary/victimist’ praxis we have today – is absolutely required.
And I would also imagine and submit that most average Americans are not sufficiently familiar with either the scope or profound nature of the ‘reforms’ nor with the ultimate consequences that are increasingly progressing from ‘possible’ or ‘probable’ to ‘actual’ status.
So the law may have more than one standard of proof, but to intensify and thus derange public opinion in so many ways and to the detriment of the accused before the bar of the Sovereign Coercive Authority, and then to reduce the standard of proof, either to a pre-existing weaker standard or by undermining evidentiary and jurisprudential requirements … is indeed a treacherous as well as a lethal strategy.
And one that can only bear utterly poisonous fruit for the legal system and the Citizenry as well as the accused.
In regard to JR’s of today at 1235AM:
What Political Correctness is to JR is one thing; the generally accepted definition of it is – who can be surprised? – something else.
Marx may well have had some accurate observations about some real problems, but his solutions – especially as modified by Lenin and Stalin and Mao (to name just the larger demons in this totalitarian pandemonium) – were treacherously and lethally and fundamentally corrosive and destructive and bore far more catastrophic consequences for any purported good they are claimed to have achieved.
JR would need to supply some accurate quotations and explanation as to my “rather odd version of reasoning”. Although again, the fact that my reasoning is “odd” to JR … is what it is.
So JR is welcome to his “opinion”. But in the end it is more accurate not to say “So there we are” but rather “So there JR is”.
One more thought, if I may.
Learned-Counsel seems to have developed the moniker ‘Starbuck’ for me. Presuming he doesn’t mean anything related to coffee, then the first major reference that comes to mind is from Melville’s Moby Dick.
Starbuck, as may be recalled, was the first mate of the (doomed) ship Pequod: idealistic but ineffectual in the face of Captain Ahab’s monomaniacal pursuit of the Great White Whale to the exclusion of everything else.
Learned-Counsel has not claimed any special proficiency in Literature during his education at Harvard, and I impute none to him.
Speaking for myself here, I would not see myself as Starbuck: I made up my mind long ago not to be ineffectually idealistic.
Nor would I see Learned-Counsel, certainly, as Ahab. But I do see the entire Abusenik gambit – especially as it has ‘gone legal’ and eaten prodigiously from the tree of Victimist/Revolutionary thought and praxis – as something of an Ahab, conceptually speaking.
Further, if I am correct in my surmise as to the origin of Starbuck as my assigned moniker (and I don’t object to it – not that I have a right to do so in the first place) then I would see such input as arrives from Learned-Counsel and perhaps others as being akin to the various enthusiasms of Ahab’s willing (and thus complicit) crew.
More specifically, I sense in Learned-Counsel a deep presumption similar to that I mentioned I had come across in some of the comments on the Big Trial site: the law as it is today is what it is – it’s here so just get used to it.
And I most certainly will not do that. And I will do everything I can here to demonstrate just why I think that ‘getting used to it’ is a lethally and treacherously imbecilic (in the formal sense) course to pursue.
Thus it is not that I am monomaniacal in my pursuit of an ineffectual idealism (to combine Ahab and Starbuck here); rather I am highly-focused on demonstrating to as many as possible, through rational analysis, just why the Abusenik gambit as it has mutated over time is indeed a very dangerous watershed in American law and culture, and that its consequences not only for those directly involved but for Citizens generally – and are already working out to be – toxic and poisonous in profound ways.
Publion
If I'm an "abusenik" you are Defender of Child Rapists.
see how that works?
Your extremist language deligitimizes any of the actual points you skim across in your verbose screed.
Your ad hominem attacks are un christian.
There are a Billion Catholics in the world, and they all supposedly answer to one man, what do you call power?
Repeatedly moving a child rapist is an affirmative act that materially enables the rapist's commission of the crime of child rape.
http://law.yourdictionary.com/aid-and-abet
Has the policy of the church changed in regards to reporting and training? Yes.
The catholic church failed a horrible moral test and the persistance of lawsuits show that they continue to fail that test, they have not cleaned their own house. The stories of the emerging abuse scandal in Austrailia in the last few months for example are hellish.
Victims deserve compensation, Cardinal Law and O'Brien deserve to be in jail. All people should emulate the humility of Christ, non moreso than the representatives of the church.
It would take mountains of legal injustice in civil court to tip the scales of "victim" to the side of the institutional catholic church in this horrible horrible matter.
Peace.
Feckless,there it is.You've said it and beautifully.
I feel bad,I question the badinage between the Milk of Human Kindness and myself or anyone else who questions his appeal here, if in the long run it's a good thing because it shows who he really is and that would win friends for the sane side or a bad thing because he gets to repeat the same bullshit nonsense again and again. And as with all PR repitition is key.
Out of my control. However I did notice at Big Trial in Philly when Dennis Ecker and the rest of the intelligent shut up. Dennis had been" banned for life". Ralph Cipriano contacted Dennis to come back on. It seems when the opposition only has it's small following there is no debate and therefore no interest. You need us to stay relevent. Without us your an also ran. A backwater.
And since the more realistic views will never be acknowledged or supported by P, why even try?
Two surprises: (1) not knowing Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica who said frak and feldercarb (sp?) the TV series around 1980. I thought that would be a fun and funny reference. The name may have been based on Mobey Dick's character but I don't know. The actor was Dirk Benedict who went on to play "Face" on the A-Team. So I just wanted to do that when publion branded me LearnedCounsel. (2) Publion not knowing much if anything about Jerry Sandusky and Penn State. Seriously? That was huge news nationally for like two years. Still not over. Huh? It is a secular case but . . . Wow.
Publion,
I have dealt with individuals like you many times. If you are not a attorney you sure do have the skills of being one. That is taking a simple question that was asked of individuals who read this blog and turn it around to suit your own agenda. The question I asked was to any individual being or a group of individuals. Now comment at the end was directed at a one sided individual who most likely should be removing her sneaker from her mouth.
In addition if you know of my experience with Bigtrial.net. You would know that I was asked to return by Cipriano and at no time did I request to return.
Hmm you might be that well versed individual with the book smarts, but I'm a little better, not only do I have some book smarts, I also have STREET SMARTS
In regard to JR’s comment of 255Pm today: Actually, if a priest or bishop were to accuse anybody of a crime – and then were to demand that we simply take their word for it and forget about the integrity of the legal forum – then I would be very much against that too.
As for JR’s theological eructations, I’ll just let them hang out there where they were put.
Lastly here – and from a different JR comment – I use ‘types’ and ‘mentalities’ for several reasons. 1) no human being is sui generis, and sufficient informed study and observation, maturely handled, can and has for quite some time yielded some useful and interesting constructs (think of Maslow’s psychology, or Ercikson’s stages of psycho-social development, or Kohlberg’s stages of moral development … and suchlike).
And 2) I use these terms (from the realm of concepts) with an especial eye to avoiding any terms that might smack of the psychological or come from a largely psychological/psychiatric usage. Some commenters seem particularly averse to any such discourse and I try to take that into account.
I got your moral developement pal, You use studies to back your bull but when we explain how you might know us as victims because of studies. Zip. I'll stack my moral "development" up against yours any day.
[edited by moderator]
Now if I may I shall respond to 3 comments from this afternoon. I do so while reminding one and all that I respond only when there is useful information for the entire readership and material that might further the discourse and analysis here.
In regard to Feckless from 110PM:
Actually it doesn’t quite work the way you envision it. You – from all your material – do support the overall case against the Church in the Catholic Abuse Matter; I however do not support or “defend child rapists”. See how logic really works here?
If Feckless feels s/he has (accurate) quotations from any of my material that would clearly demonstrate that I do support such things, then Feckless needs to put those quotations up, with such analysis as s/he sees fit.
I think the extremism is not in my language but in the developments which I have discussed and assessed. So that also undermines the “neutralizes” bit. But after I am accused of verbosity, I am now also accused of “skimming across” points – and what points might those be, pray? (Accurate quotations required, thank you.)
I have no idea where you got the idea that the world’s Catholics “all supposedly answer to one man”. Whoever led you to ‘suppose’ that gave you a really bad spin, I would say. As has been discussed – even on this and the immediately prior article/thread – not even notable Catholic universities have all been taking marching orders from the Vatican. And when a supposedly Catholic university can do that, and not be squashed flat, then what sort of “power” do you imagine the Pope to have or to exercise? Also, you will need to consult with other types here who have shared their sure and certain illuminations that the Church’s power is rather precipitously declining.
Now as to your assay into legal thought: you first have to establish that a person so ‘moved’ was a “child rapist”, before you get too wrapped up in the technicalities of “affirmative act” and “materially” and so forth. Perhaps your graduate course from the online-law-dictionary did not cover all the ground that needs to be covered here.
The lawsuits have not ‘persisted’ in anywhere near the florid profusion of a decade or a dozen years ago. I have said on this site that my fear was that after the economic downturn in 2008 in this country, we would see a substantial uptick in lawsuits simply because to a certain type of enterprising mind it seemed an almost sure-fire way to get a nice check without much of a legal downside at all. But I have to say that 5 years later down the road, that hasn’t happened.
As for Australia: the Magdalene Laundries stories from Ireland sounded “hellish” too – and then they were discovered to have been … ‘stories’, not to put too fine a point on it.
But this raises another interesting thought. Ireland indulged in its primary (Catholic) Abuse craze during its economic Tiger years; the abuse investigations were focused – rather curiously – not on child abuse itself but merely on the Church’s alleged abuse. Since then – around 2006 – things have suddenly gone the other way for Ireland and it is no longer a Tiger.(If I rightly recall, the Irish even ‘permanently’ withdrew their Ambassador to the Vatican – although, weirdly, they simply reassigned the Ambassador to living back in Ireland.
A country eagerly seeking to sustain strong ties to the US government – which at this point is strongly secularist, Ireland has in my opinion sought to ape its master. And since the exposure of the Magdalene Laundries, it remains to be seen just how close to the edge aspiring Irish secularists – especially in government – are going to be willing to go.
Australia, also a Member of the Commonwealth with strong hopes of sustaining ties to the US, is now undergoing something of the same thing, feeling very much alone out there where so many Asian countries are attracted to China and the Chinese way of going about things.
All of which offers a glimmer of hope of Keeping The Ball Rolling internationally, especially since the once eagerly-touted Complaint filed with the International Criminal Court in the Hague (Vatican torture and war-crimes and crimes-against-humanity) has quietly disappeared after the ICC assessed it (presuming it wasn’t simply tossed into the circular file the day it was received with a polite thank-you).
Genuine victims deserve help but – to repeat this again – a) we have to figure out who is a genuine victim and who is otherwise-classifiable (had I not asked Feckless earlier here if s/he had any thoughts as how to go about that?); and b) we have to figure out what compensatory assistance is needed and desired (checks seem to be the main desiderandum so far, to the extent that I can make out).
I have no clear idea of what Feckless means by “it would take mountains of legal injustice in civil court to tip the scales of ‘victim’ to the side of the institutional catholic church” – but I refer Feckless to my extensive comments on the general issue. And I respectfully advise less reliance on an internet legal dictionary and his/her own excitements and illuminations.
In regard to Learned-Counsel’s of 535PM:
The most recent TV incarnation of Battlestar Galactica ran from 2004-2009, starring Edward James Olmos. While I am not really surprised that literature didn’t enter into things here, I am a tad surprised that the recent incarnation of the show is news. ‘Frak’ was a major bit in the 2004-2009 show.
And I will allow myself to submit that my take on the ‘Starbuck’ bit is more useful than Learned-Counsel’s, which appears to have contained no deeper bits at all.
I don’t know why it is considering ‘branding’ (as in steer, I imagine) to refer to a (self-reported) practicing attorney as Learned Counsel. Perhaps Learned Counsel would care to explain that.
I haven’t followed the Sandusky case closely enough to have sufficient information to be making assertions and claims. I would be pleasantly surprised to learn that Learned Counsel has. But there has been quite a bit of national and international news in various areas going on, and I actually try to keep up with a wide reading. I could recommend the practice.
But, as Learned Counsel acknowledges, it is “a secular case” and not directly related to the Church Abuse Matter. And the Church Abuse Matter is one that I have been following closely enough to have some informed and careful thoughts, within the range of the evidence and the dynamics of the Thing. And I could recommend that practice too.
Third and last, to the Ecker comment of 728PM.
I can acknowledge – in response to Mr. Ecker’s thought – that I have dealt with individuals like him (in terms of mentality and mentation, modus cogitandi and modus operandi) before as well. So much for that.
Beyond that, however, TMR is not a “blog” and the Catholic Abuse Matter is hell-and-gone from “a simple question”. Also, what is/was “the simple question that was asked of individuals who read this blog”?
When it comes to ‘turning things around to suit one’s own agenda’ – surely you are engaging in just a bit of projection, are you not? I have been asking questions – rationally put and explained at length – for which Abuseniks have returned few answers and a whole lotta other stuff.
I believe that – as you say – the question you asked “was to any individual” … I hereby and without reservation place myself in that category. Is there an objection? And – as always, so very vital here – are there demonstrable grounds for any such objection as may be made?
If Mr. Ecker was actually then – as he goes on to state – ‘directing’ his comment at a particular person, then the grammar and thoughts he used do not carry the weight of that intention at all. And again, in a larger sense, I note the looseness of concept and expression among so many of the Abuseniks. It makes one wonder: if they are this loose with concepts and terms and expression here, then what of any possible looseness in their claims of victimization and so on and so forth?
I made no mention of your experiences with Mr. Cipriano on BigTrial and so I can’t see the relevance of your bringing it up here with me. But personally, I would say: please feel free to keep up with what you have been doing. It actually is a valuable service – oh my, yes indeed.
Your assertion as to your “street smarts” I can credit only as far as I can credit your assertions about your other life experiences. But even so, I can’t see the relevance of the point to anything in the discussion here. Perhaps if you were to use some concepts and words to express the point … that might help things along.
So it's only victims you have hard time believing.
You believe in a God with out a shred of evidence for "his" existance.
The same for an after life and original sin.
And that your belief-faith is the one; true faith, superior to all others; and all with no proof what so ever.
So we, victims, who have little evidence, as far as you are concerned, are less believable than your beliefs that have no evidence.
There is no "Catholic Abuse Matter"; there IS a deviant militant homosexual problem. That problem expresses itself in churches, in synagogues, in mosques (but, when caught there, they are beheaded – problem solved Islamic-style), in schools, in homes, in boys camps, in prisons, in the military, and everywhere deviant militant homosexuals are permitted to lurk to commit their crimes. They are as much a scourge on society as are pedophiles and rapers of women.
The defenders of these deviant homosexual criminals, both adult and adolescent, perpetrator and victim (very little difference here many times) alike, are likely active offenders themselves. If a virus breaks out in a school, you don't destroy the school and all its healthy inhabitants, you simply kill the virus-then, disinfect the building. This deviant, militant homosexual virus needs an effective antiviral remedy, wherever there is outbreak.
Sexual deviancy can be managed by medical diagnosis and treatment. Militancy can be addresed via honest, evidence-based education. In either case, Catholics are compelled to employ charitable practices, but, we're not compelled to submission to the obvious evil of the deviant, militant homosexuals lies, crimes and sins. This whole issue boils down to nothing more than the ongoing moral and political debate between faithful Catholics and the deviant, militant homosexuals whose sole agenda is to deconstruct church dogma and doctrine.
Time to evict the deviant, militant homosexual issue from within the context and confines of our Church, or any church, and kick it back into the LGBT "community"- from where the filth originated. It is there that the joys of man-boy "intimacy" are enthusiastically embraced. Shake the dust of this despicable subset of homosexual practices from our feet and let's move on to more important Church matters; one of which is providing moral and financial support to innocent priests at risk (Opus Bono Sacerdotii is a good place to start). It is far more productive for TMR contributors to use their media analyses talents to progress the issue to the benefit of the church and especially her priests, than to permit the church detractors to bog you down in their mud (filth). Responding honestly to nonsense, lies and insanity does not advance the truth, it delays it – which is the intent of the liars.
This politically manufactured "church crisis" will pass, as have all those of the previous generations.
Have a blessed Pentecost Sunday-
I will make sure that if ANYONE in your family such as grand kids or great grand kids are either gay or lesbian by which Webster defines them as homosexual (One attracted to the same sex) that they are treated as deviant human beings. Unlike priests who are attracted to young children and who have committed sexual acts upon a child which Webster defines as pedophiles.
Delpinium! What a truely amazing piece of writing. I was spellbound. Your version of Christianity is right up there with the Inquisition. And then to finish up with a blessing!!! Does any one wonder why your side is considered hypocritical by sane people?
I hope you do get rid of all the homosexuals in your Church. You won't have much of a clergy left but you hardly have any now. I really hope you do it,by any means you like: Execution, torture. pink triangles concentration camps, what ever it takes.
Yea give us some more of that old time religion, it's who your side really is. You are your religion's best and brightest. Wonderful!
And all of this horror offered by a person whose family once owned gay bars in New York City.
LOL!
What if your innocent priest is a homosexual? Or is he deemed automatically guilty?
What stupidity there is no other word.
If JR has at any prior point mentioned any “study” that indeed “explains” how “you might know us as victims” then I can’t recall it. Since this vital bit of information must be sitting in the center of his knowledge base, would he please give the reference (again – if you wish to phrase it that way)?
This will be a study that will not deal with possible characteristics of victimhood in general, but rather will marvelously bridge the abyss between discussing the possible characteristics of victimhood and establishing who actually is genuinely a victim.
Because that is the actual issue.
In almost all of the internet commentary and media reporting I have come across, this is precisely where the trick is involved: florid and not necessarily inaccurate speculations about what can happen to a genuine victim, and studies that go on – and not necessarily inaccurately – about what might happen (possibly, probably, or certainly) to a person who is genuinely a member of the class of victimized persons.
And then come shoals of persons who claim that they have been victimized.
But in all the ensuing brouhaha, the vital connecting point necessary to close the knowledge-loop is neglected: establishing through knowledge (rather than merely belief) just who is a genuine victim and who is otherwise-classifiable.
Thus we get this sequence: A) X and Y and Z can happen to persons who have been victimized; B) I am a member of the class of the victimized; C) therefore I am a victim with all or many of those X, Y, and Z issues (and tort-damage eligible).
The difficulty is, of course, with (B): in so very much of the Victimist hoo-hah of the past decades, for whatever reasons, the vital and necessary task of establishing the actuality and accuracy of (B) has simply been skipped.
But if (B) is inaccurate in any particular case(s), then the hoo-hah is misplaced, is it not?
So the entire hoo-hah operates – survives, even – only because of the vital failure (or refusal) to verify (B).
And so it is precisely here – not surprisingly – that we run into the most florid display of distractions and rage when we try to address ‘the problem of (B)’ and see if it can be resolved.
But without having resolved (B) then it remains forever and utterly possible that so much of the hoo-hah has, in its core, been misplaced.
And – as I have been saying – when you factor in today’s relative simplicity of acquiring substantial fiscal and psychological/emotional bennies simply by signing-on to this profoundly incomplete dynamic – then we must face the fact that the failure to resolve the (B)-problem leads to a mis-placed and un-grounded sense of Crisis whose mis-application forever and utterly remains probable, by any operation of rational process.
In the above paragraph I have deliberately made my expression of the matter complex. I have done this so that persons will have to slow down and work through each of the elements. I am doing this in order to help neutralize the by-now ingrained tendency in Western and certainly American readers to see a single term, quickly fill in the blanks with what I believe to be inaccurate but popularized mental material, and thus short-circuit the process of grasping the dynamic I am trying to express.
And I do this because the Stampede has been so successful for so long in this country that many people now operate by means of a mental short-hand that they may not even realize they are using.
As we have seen here, among persons who have placed themselves within this dynamic that I have described, there is at least some visceral sense that i) the ‘problem of (B)’ has never been solved and that ii) ‘the problem of (B)’ must not ever be allowed to come to general public consciousness and awareness.
Because if (ii) happens and ‘the problem of (B)’ comes to general public consciousness and awareness, then … (readers are invited to fill in the blank).
This is why I see such efforts as this TMR site as so valuable to Citizens generally: if we can help (ii) to come about, and dispel the logical darkness contained in ‘the problem of (B)’, then we can shed vitally needed light on a dynamic that has for far too long managed to thrive in the darkness I have described.
In a way, I see this as essentially similar to the stance Reagan had to take with the Soviets: “believe … but verify”.
Thank you for your comments, everyone.
We are shutting down this thread.