An agenda exposed: Feminist Majority leader Eleanor Smeal headlines this year's SNAP conference
Lest there be any remaining doubt that the advocacy group SNAP is more about advancing a radical left-wing social agenda than providing actual helpful support for clergy abuse victims, this weekend's annual conference for the group in Washington D.C. is headlining a speech by Eleanor Smeal, the rabid president of the abortion activist group Feminist Majority.
Smeal's contempt for the Catholic Church cannot be overstated, as she has made it clear that the Catholic Church is her number one obstacle in advancing unfettered abortion-on-demand.
A few years ago, she told a pro-abortion gathering, "Opposition from the Roman Catholic Church and of the hierarchy is a major reason this issue (abortion) stays controversial. We've got to keep more pressure on this hierarchy [because] they're vulnerable now [due to the clergy sex abuse scandals]."
Smeal's appearance comes on the heels of last year's headline speaker, Rev. Barry Lynn, the ringleader of the loopy Americans United for Separation of Church and State, whose speech consisted almost entirely of him railing against the Catholic Church for its opposition to the Obama administration's healthcare mandate, thus providing more proof that SNAP really has another agenda at play.
Wheeling out tired Church bashers
There he goes again:
alleged Catholic priest Tom Doyle
Doyle actually admitted at last year's conference that he has "nothing to do with the Catholic Church," he has "nothing to do with the clerical life," he is "not associated with the Church in any way," he operates on his own, and his beliefs are "about as far away from the Vatican as you can get."
In other words, Doyle is a dissident priest who has essentially conceded that he is really not even Catholic.
The conference will also feature the angry psychiatrist Marianne Benkert.
This will not be Benkert's first appearance at a SNAP gathering, as the Catholic League reported that her talk at the group's 2011 meeting was "the most inflammatory address of them all."
According to the Catholic League, Benkert wildly claimed of the Catholic Church: "[It] refuses to acknowledge sin; it engages in scapegoating; it sacrifices others; it is a master of disguise and pretense; it fosters intellectual deviousness; it lies; it forces the faithful to submit their will to the Church; it is controlling; and it causes 'religious duress'."
In all, the League characterized Benkert's anger and hatred as "off-the-charts."
Indeed, in 2008, Benkert co-authored a rambling and bizarre paper with Thomas Doyle called, "Religious Duress and Its Impact on Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse."
Politics and malice, not support
In the end, the issue of clergy sex abuse has become nothing but window dressing for a larger broadside against the Catholic Church. The appearances by Smeal, Doyle, and Benkert play very well into SNAP's real motive: to promote a radical, "progressive" social agenda in direct opposition to that of the Catholic Church.
The ongoing, relentless broadsides against the Catholic Church at SNAP's annual conferences, which have been repeatedly documented, certainly make it hard for SNAP to argue that it has no vitriol against the Catholic Church and that its mission is merely to provide support for victims.
[See also: "SNAP UNCOVERED: Shocking Facts About the Media's Favorite Church-Bashing Group"]
May I write P's take on my perps released records?
Oh but then you'd have to read it twice.
I eagerly await the abuse not because I'm a masochist, I don't think I am . I just want to see Christian love in action. I wait for it every time but it never seems to come. Do you even know what that is?
Gee, I must be missing something in those documents that JR proveded a link for. I now am even more skeptical about those settled law suits (actually, was it reported that at least half of LA suits were bogus from the get go). If I find some time, I'll have to look further as I may have blinked. But even some news articles say they are lacking in evidence. I know Publion has commented previously.
I need to clarify that the Marianist entries were what I followed most and seemed rather vague and unconvincing.
It’s the 4th at around 945AM and I have come across the recent comments. I am going to put up a few thoughts on the material in the comments themselves and then I will take a look at the link JR provided and put up my thoughts in a second comment.
On the 3rd at 156PM JR slyly does some pre-emptive damage-control by claiming that once I look at the documents I will “just write what [I] always do”. I write what I write from what arises in the material; if it turns out that we will have in these documents merely the same type of gambit that has been run in all the other ‘released documents’ material we have managed to view on this site, then since it the same old Abusenik gambit then my thoughts will run in the same direction again because the material runs in the same direction again. We shall see.
JR has now learned to mimic “modus operandi” and we’ll see how that works when spoken into the coconut half tied to the vine tied to the empty packing crate.
Thus I will take JR”s ‘recollections’ and put thoughts about them on hold until I see the documentary material. Meanwhile I might note that there is no sense to be made out of “In my opinion the whole room was perpetrated by these acts” (although, again, the mimicky “in my opinion” sounds nice).
The connections between his thoughts in the Fox News paragraph in this comment are anybody’s to guess.
So more from me will be forthcoming shortly when I’ve looked over the link to the documents.
At 217PM on the 3rd JR says that he doesn’t “discount your ideas” … “it’s the content and delivery I loathe”. I don’t believe he was addressing the comment to me, but I will ask: once you take both content and delivery out of “ideas”, then what is left? This is the equivalent of saying ‘I don’t hate people; it’s their bodies and souls I loathe’ – what’s left not to loathe? But notice that grammatically it’s a way of saying X while seeming not to say X. Neat. And from an otherwise grammatically challenged it goes to reaffirm – I would say – that despite the lack of actual competence in processing and delivery of ideas, there is a certain primal slyness at work in so much Abusenik material.
At 1113PM on the 3rd JR has apparently given more thought to his possible vulnerabilities once the documents are actually examined, and takes another stab at some pre-emptive damage-control: May he write my “take on the my perps released records?”. But it is snark: why should he do so (he doesn’t dare try it in the first place) because then readers would have “to read it twice” – how thoughtful of him. Of course, as I said above in this comment, if we run into the same Abusenik gambit that we have run into before with released caches, then the commentary is going to be somewhat the same. He suspects that, it appears – or knows already that we are going to run into the same Gambit again and is trying to somehow foam the runway for what he knows has to be coming. It certainly whets the appetite to have a look at these docs.
But notice then that this paragon of the Abusenik mind has already classified any comments except supportive and total-agreement comments as “abuse”. When you are working with mentalities that can feel ‘abused’ if they are not completely agreed-with (and immediately given what they want) then you are going to be in grave and constant danger of committing ‘abuse’ right here on the site … in front of all the readership as ‘witnesses’. Thus the geography and dynamics of the Abusenik universe.
And –but of course – we are lectured that any such “abuse” will be just more examples of “christian love in action”. And so once again, we are warned that if we don’t totally-accept his claims, and if we doubt or raise questions, then we are violating the tenets of “christian love” and demonstrating – no doubt – its useless hypocrisy. It’s even easier to ‘sin’ in the ‘atheist’ universe (or at least JR’s version of it) then it is in the Catholic world, isn’t it? In JR’s universe you can sin simply by not giving him what he wants … a requirement with which, curiously, any parent of a two-year old would be familiar.
I wonder why JR – whose military experience, as he has revealed here on occasion, has prompted him to deploy ‘military intelligence’ and ‘counterintelligence’ methods in conducting his examination of SNAP (and its purported cozy relationship to the Church) – doesn’t consider the application of military-intel and counterintelligence methods to the examination of his claims and assertions to be equally valid. Textual analysis is textual analysis, after all. And it surely isn’t a violation of Christian charity and love. Telling lies and twisting the truth like a pretzel would be such a violation, though.
And so then who can be surprised when he plaints that “I wait for it [i.e. Christian love] every time but it never seems to come”. Of course it doesn’t “come”, if you’ve defined it as being-given what you want with no questions asked.
“Do [I] even know what that [Christian love] is?” I do. And I know that it isn’t charitable to anybody to give a two-year old everything he wants when that ‘everything’ includes the violation of truth and accuracy, and to do so in front of a lot of other people (the readership).
I also note the nice rhetorical touch – so dear to the Abusenik heart – of referring to “my perp”.
Lastly, we have commenter Ecker – who may or may not have yet tried to use his self-claimed judgment-of-character expertise in the bathroom mirror (without Wigs) – who demonstrates that while talking into the coconut doesn’t necessarily bring the great silver birds and big canoes, it does seem to connect to other of the cargo-cult community. So there’s a bit of ‘magic’ for everybody to ponder.
I will be posting before too long, once I have reviewed the documents in this cache that JR links-to.
Here we go. Did you think there would be a smoking gun in those records? Josie? As I said earlier they didn't even show my letters sent in "92.
I don't have prove any thing to you cretins. My bank account is proof enough. I hate you. And P hasn't even unleashed his vitriol yet. D. isn't even in the running. Every village has one.
None one but leftists are supposed to have their own opinions about the "human race"? Just because our opinions (fact based) do not align with yours (not fact based), we shouldn't express them?
And, this is a perfect example of an overindulged political constituency that has been so accustomed to shutting down opposition speech (that annoying 1st Amendment, there it goes, again) that whenever they hear something they don't like it is considered offensive (i.e. racist, homo-femo-Islamo Phobe….).
Oppressing free speech is as every bit as "bad" as oppressing any God-given (natural) rights and obligations, and those of the US Constitution (which were informed by a Judeo-Christian theo-philosophy - not by Islamism, paganism or Atheism).
Why does the left support such oppressive philosophy? Usually, that behavior is expressed by the small-weak of intellect/mental/emotional/moral prowess (and sometimes, stature), and number. They may succeed for a brief time, but, are always conquered, eventually – thanks to God.
The generation of "progressive" (def: only if hell is your destination) thought and policy is nearing an end since the evidence of it's monumental destructive failure abounds, throughout the worlds afflicted societies, in all it's ingloriousness.
Meanwhile, we will continue to exercise our God-given and Constitutional rights and obligations as we, alone, with the help of God, see fit.
Perhaps, there's a little kid down the block the lefty-petunias can still bully into submission?
I will gladly train any thief off the street to get money from you. Any thief. They stand morally taller than you lot. I fear I've fallen in with sociopaths.
I am not in the running for anything; I could not possbily care any less about your personal records/files and claims. My sole focus is on the antiCatholic hatred, driven by a few different entitlement groups on the left, mostly, but not exclusively, that is also driving the media bias/bigotry, and not on any one claimant-victim.
As you say, your case was settled, so your matter is settled, for better (if you were a true victim) or worse (if you weren't). No one but you and your abuser(s) will ever know that truth.
I do find your response to the commenters – that which appear to question the ability of the released files to support any abuse claims, of particular interest as a case study of a victim-claimant's emotional stability. First, there is your invitation to or expectation of criticism (why?), then the "I hate you" outburst (you really weren't surprised since you practically invited such response) and finally the threat to use illegal means (thiefs) to continue to convict [more?] innocents. Is that what we do to get our way? Is it really "the ends by any means"?
While you well may have been a victim (I actually happen to believe you were, oddly enough), the fact that you still can't let it go (you did get your justice, I believe?) and your sole intention, as has been repeatedly expressed here, is to continue to brutalize the Church, and faithful (those that don't agree with your ideology) Catholics is one of the most troubling aspects of your types of "cases".
So, I believe you were abused (regardless of evidence, you seem authenthic in that regard), and that really is terrible, and I am sorry that horror happened to you or any minor - and your abuser(s) should have been convicted/punished (not settled) for their crime.
On the other hand, there needs to be discernment in the Church abuse matter. It is bad enough that minors were injured and predators were unpunished. It is also bad if the opposite occurred, or is still occurring – due to hate and bigotry. If abuse victims are frauds and innocent priests are now the victims, that is no better situation. To my mind/eye, TMRs focus is the latter, not the former – and you and other abuse victims, if you are honest about your intentions which is only to bring justice to other real victims, are using the wrong outlet for your grievances – hence, the "ka-boom" dialogues at TMR.
As is thoroughly documented, the majority of your comments on TMR (and elsewhere) are designed to continuously poke the eye of faithful Catholics and to express hate for the Church and Catholicism. Why would a true victim of abuse who claims to be only searching for justice be doing that?
You make no sense.
And, that is why some commenters are questioning everything, from you, or others – as they/we should (it's the separation of the goats from the sheep, it's what Catholics are suppossed to do). Only hate and bigotry explains your continuing venomous vitriol consistently expressed against the Church. If it's hate you need to thrive, you won't find fuel for it here, no matter how hard you try, or distort or deceive. You will have to manufacture it yourself, as you have already done many times.
God help and bless you, and all victims, including innocent religious.
Apologies – I was on the road and it has taken longer to get back here today.
I have gone to that law office’s site and reviewed the documents pertaining to Plieman (194pp) and McGloin (272pp). There were several other Marianists’ files and files from other Orders, but I stayed with the two JR had mentioned in his comments here.
In re Plieman: The file begins with a collection of documents going back to the 1930s with supporting information for his application to the Order – that takes 28pp of the cache.
Then on p29 of the cache we have a letter from April 4, 1973 in which he requests dispensation from vows because, generally, he considers that his “faith is not strong enough”. And there are some letters back and forth about that. [Readers interested deeply in canon law will note that as a ‘PS’ to a letter from Plieman’s superior to a higher authority in the Order, there is an off-hand mention to the effect that Plieman’s superior had applied for the laicization of a priest – one Choo (nowhere else mentioned here or in the case, as far as I can see) – without Choo’s knowledge. I don’t know whether this was canonically legal in 1973 but I am under the strong impression it is not canonically legal now.]
Then on p53 of the cache we get a July 5, 2005 email-memo from one “bbolts” stating that in 1984 a former student (name blacked-out here) had definitely not approached him – and in the presence of another grad – at a reunion claiming he was “molested”. This ‘bbolts’ then goes on to say that from what he knew of this grad’s academic performance, it is not surprising that the grad would have named both his math and science teachers (Plieman and McGloin) since the student didn’t do so well in those subjects. He also mentions in this email-memo that the blacked-out-name also claimed another student was molested, but ‘bbolts’ says that no other student/grad had come forward with any such accusations.
That’s that for the July 5, 2005 email-memo.
Then there is a repetition of some of the earlier documents from the 1930s and 1940s that I mentioned above.
And finally there is a document or a couple in the cache in which Plieman requests dispensation from vows as early as 1969 for his “faith” issues.
And that’s it. With the exception of the July 5, 2005 email-memo there is nothing else of immediate relevance here; nothing else but a long collection of the various types of forms, certificates, permission-requests, budget projections and so forth that would accrue – I imagine – in any personnel file anywhere over the course of decades. Nor are the cache documents in chronological order; and there is, as I said, a notable amount of repetition in the reproduced documents.
I was also surprised because I was looking for both a) more information-on or references-to “molestation” or even some of the court documents or sworn-statements submitted by the law office on behalf of its client (JR, presumably). Yet all we have here is a 200-hundred page compilation of run of the mill material that has no relevance to the matters at hand here.
Why did this law office not include the sworn-statements or such more directly-relevant material? Why did this law office include so much non-relevant material? (My thought: to claim that it had ‘released hundreds of pages of material’, which to some out on the Web might simply be taken to be ‘evidence’ and further ‘proof’ and so on.)
Then to McGloin’s even longer (272pp) cache of material. There is, in addition to the usual entrance-application documentation, a 1970 request for dispensation in order to get married. There is (p34 and subsequent) a 1951 standard Order evaluation form about him that notes a certain “forwardness in speech and lack of judgment” as his notable weaknesses (although it also lists strengths). There is a repetition (p62) of the 1970 request to leave to get married
Then (p65) there is again reproduced that July 5 2005 email-memo from ‘bbolts’ about the 1984 re-union and the student (name again blacked out), as I discussed above in regard to Plieman.
And (p266) there is another standard form evaluation dated April 1, 1965 that notes at the end of the form that McGloin “has a problem of which the Provincial Administration is aware of”. This may well refer to his ongoing desire to receive dispensation in order to get married, or it may refer to something else. But in any case there is nothing else in the cache that discusses it further.
And that’s it.
First, let me say that all the above material in my comment here is simply a description of the material in the cache listed under the names of these two people.
And I again note that I was expecting to find some substantial documentation as to claims and allegations, sworn-to by the plaintiff and perhaps the supporting documents (if any) from others in regard to the client’s claims. But the law office has provided nothing of the sort.
Both of these gentlemen seemed to have ongoing issues with their vocation (one because of “faith”, the other because he wanted to get married and had formed some deep emotional ties to some “nuns”) and were conflicted about continuing in their ministry and vocation. But with the exception of that July 5, 2005 email-memo there is nothing in either of these files to shed any light – although that may conceivably be because there was nothing relevant to matters of relevance to the TMR site’s concerns.
If the law office is in possession of more relevant and informative documentation, it has chosen not to put that documentation up here.
Thus, at this point we are left with nothing but JR’s claims here – most recently to the effect that in the presence of a classroom-full of students one of these gentlemen – Plieman – put his elbow or forearm on JR’s groin area. And the claim that Plieman “was, by far my lessor abusor” – presumably implicating McGloin as the more serious abuser, but again the cache does nothing to support anything.
Concerning JR’s claim that “Plieman was the most angry violent man I’d ever seen” we are left with a large cache of documents – including newspaper clippings – that gives no indication of any such thing. And we have JR’s substantially-demonstrated propensity for looseness with definitions, accuracy, exaggeration, and so on and so forth. (He was “absolutely wrecked” – spelling corrected from the original – when going over these materials as recently as a few days ago … a rather vivid exaggeration, surely.)
The idea that a 16 year-old wouldn’t “know” if he “needed a therapist” – although the offer was made – is a bit much, if the damage done was as great as JR claims it to have been. Many people without clinical certification in mental-health studies can and do find their way to therapists because they feel they need one. And this would only become more so as the years went on and one reached (chronologically, at least) adulthood. The parents were never informed: not by the faculty or school because – for all we know – there was nothing to report to them; not by JR because he was so “ashamed” – of what? We still have no way of knowing what happened, from reading this remarkably bland (and ‘perpetration-free’) cache released by the law office.
We remain with this remarkably odd situation where the actual documentation documents relevant to the cases and claims and settlements are not provided. I say again that my thinking has been that it would not be in the interests of the law offices (and their Plaintiffs) to have the actual court documents released because it would expose those claims and allegations and ‘stories’ to public examination and – as I think is supported by what we have seen (yet again) in this released document-cache – there is a great deal to doubt in all of that Plaintiff-submitted material.
But this on-going ‘stay tuned’ approach to the release of documents does serve some purposes for some ‘interests’ involved in the Stampede: a) it serves to refresh ‘belief’ among numbers of un-thinking readers who don’t carefully or particularly follow the Catholic Abuse Matter but will simply assume that The Ball Is Still Rolling; b) it serves to stimulate and whet the appetites of those who have not yet decided to try for a whack at the piñata; c) it enables torties to claim that they have yet hundreds and thousands of pages of fresh ‘revelatory’ material that will be sure to outrage and stun; and d) it enables various media outlets to Keep The Ball Rolling in order to keep up readership. (In that regard, it seems that the Boston Globe, media initiator of the 2002 phase of the Stampede, has now been sold for 10 cents on the dollar (less if you subtract the value of its real estate and office and production facilities and machinery assets), not long after its editor jumped the ship he had wrecked and went on – unlike the captain of the Italian liner Costa Concordia – to helm yet another major paper.)
So once again, in terms of looking at a released-document cache trumpeted by JR, we get … pretty much nothing. For all we know from what is in these files he has simply used the release as a pretextual occasion to repeat his still-unsubstantiated claims.
In a 600-million dollar settlement (and I have discussed at length on this site the sue-the-bishops strategy of lawsuits and D’Antonio’s descriptions of Anderson’s initial vision) another million might have simply been the baseline amount for dubious but necessary-to-settle claims. That possibility cannot be ruled-out here, especially in light of the (non-)documentation we have in these files. And as I have noted previously, it remains a notable oddity in D’Antonio’s very very victim-credulous text that JR is specifically singled out as someone “who said he was” abused.
So many questions – I make no effort to say anything more dispositive than that, because there is certainly nothing in these released documents that would justify it one way or the other.
Back to square one. As usual.
When I put up my second comment of the day at 959PM, I noticed a couple more from JR (1256PM and 101PM).
Apparently we are to blame for thinking “there would be a smoking gun in these texts”. As my own comments have made clear, I was looking merely for some confirmation of allegations already made, not of any ‘smoking gun’ of further abuse un-claimed.
And once again: why was the law office so selective in what it published? As my 959PM comment indicates, the documents in the files of these two gentlemen are almost ludicrously bland and are irrelevant and immaterial as well. If the offices had more material such as anything JR might have submitted (certainly it must have the sworn statements or the Complaint or at least the relevant parts of the Complaint) then why were those not included? The matter of secrecy is one I dealt with in the 959PM comment – and it is my thought that such secrecy quite possibly serves the interests of the Plaintiffs at least as much as if not more than the interests of Church.
JR is quite right that he doesn’t “have to prove anything” to us “cretins”. However we then are under no obligation to credit his claims, assertions, allegations, and stories. Surely there is no illogic or un-charitableness in that.
The in-your-face about the bank-account is pretty much what might be expected with ketchup and fries as is the “hate” bit and the rest.
However the comment of 101PM does add something useful. JR asserts that he “will gladly train any thief off the street to get money from you” because such thieves “stand morally taller than you lot”. I think we are seeing a rather marvelous demonstration of projection here – to use the term in the clinical sense. And I think that what we are seeing in this comment is also a revelation of both a) the type of mentality involved more than anyone would care to think in these Abusenik allegations, and b) the type of rationalization in defense of its actions that such a mentality deploys.
Thus the thieves – in this vision – stand morally taller than the persons from whom they are taking the money. Just so. What thief in prison hasn’t consoled himself with the idea that he is Robin Hood and therefore totally justified? What tortie, for that matter?
And JR ‘fears’ that he’s fallen in with sociopaths.
P, Keep on inferring me to be a thief and I'll sue you for slander. When I offered to train any thieves, of course i was being facetious. I just wanted to live down to your opinion of me. But as I said, I find thieves to be morally superior to you.
You don't get that if a boy is molested in front of other innocent boys (and it happened to 3 different boys in that class) that the whole room is perpetrated? Then you obviously know nothing about the subject of sexual abuse and it's consequences. You are a spoiler and a professional one. I have no doubt.
Bolts, that jerk, missremembered a 1 minute conversation from 21 years before; about two different things. He however was sure that both my perps were innocent good men. Bullshit.
And again Brother Plieman was THE most scary person I've ever had to deal with until now and you; and I've delt with a lot of people in 66 years. So congratulations your horror show beats out many others. Quite the triumph.
Why don't you tell the truth, you are religious not because you love a god who you have no proof exists but because you're narcisisistic, frightened,and greedy for a life after death and a "Candyland" as it were, where you an live in eternal bliss vs. burning continously in your god's barbeque. Your god is immoral if that's the game "it" plays with human beings. And you just follow "his" lead. The sane no longer see you as on the side of morality but on the side of "self". I will admit sometimes you people are moral and do do the right thing but it's hit or miss. and as far as your own victims are concerned. You are beyond corrupt and decadent.
You should be ashamed but sociopaths never are.
Your god is also immoral because he performs "miracles" through Mary at Lourdes yet allows: The slave trade and the holocoust and the sunami. If he is all powerful and all good "he's" a creep.
Roughly 7 million children a year under 5 years old die on this planet while your leadership wear gold and carry diamond chalices to worship your "all good all powerful" god. Well if'he' is those things and does nothing he/it is immoral because he/it is not just.
i, personally would spit in his eye if he was real. just for morality's sake.
I guess I should have had my perpetrator initial and date his underwear and had him give it to me. that I could show you ala Monica Lewinsky. But that wouldn't be enough, would it, P?. Perhaps a DNA test on the garment. Still not enough for P. If only I had a photographer with me when it happened. But if a photgrapher had been with me the abuse wouldn't have happened; now, would it?
Jim Robertson and Delphin needs to go to a marriage retreat and see a counselor about their individual issues. Have they made a point in reference to the article. Little odd that there is a member of the mentioned anti-Semitic group SNAP with the name Jim Robertson.
Thanks for your opinion. Explain please anti Semitic re SNAP? I used to be with SNAP at the beginning in L.A. but pulled away from identifying with them after about a year. I would appear at demonstrations with SNAP because that was where other victims would be.
I ask because my room-mate and most of my friends are Jewish. Are you saying that because SNAP doesn't go after Jewish religious perps? I don't know if they do or don't. inform me please.
First of all: D
Thank you D for believing me. I appreciate that. It took long enough but I do, truely, thank you for that.
I disagree with everything you say, practically. I see you as a racist; but no one has ever stopped you from writting what you want to, here. I've never tried to get you stopped. Where you are at, says much in my favor as a lefty. IMHO.
But aside from that, i do say to you: thanks again.
Now to P
Both my parents went as far as 8th grade in school. Both had to leave for economic reasons.
(Still my mother could answer at least half of the Jeopardy "answers" on each show.)
My father's father died in a mental institution after his liveray stable burned, it had been his life's work, everything gone; and worse some of his favorite horses died horribly. Today he would have had therapy and anti-depressants probably. Any way therapy was mocked in my home. (My father didn't believe in evolution either.) They thought if you needed therapy you were "crazy" and that was a touchy subject for them. They thought "insanity" was hereditary and sometimes it is i guess.( I found out all this in front of my father's sister who was furious my father had said anything about it. His family was very big on keeping it secret, including from their own children. she never told hers')
So psychiatry was degraded in my house as a sign of "insanity" or as an indulgence for rich people. And homosexuality was horrific to them. a double whammy for a 16 year old to handle ALONE. Anyway that was the matrix I was coming from.
As far as my being wrecked is concerned,
I believed I was ending McGloin's career when I told and thought I was protecting other children in the future and Fr. Clemens personally assured me that would happen.
Instead, he and McGloin worked intimately for 7 more years together. Even having McGloin escort Clemens' sister and brother-in-law around Maui.
Maybe Clemens thought like you P that I was making this stuff up. I don't know. But if I was doing it to "get something" I didn't even try when I could have. I didn't even tell anybody, outside my friend in school, till i was in my late 20's I was still shamed by it even then.
I don't know why I keep talking to you like you're a "regular" human being ;and that if I'm just honest enough you'll 'get me" and then we can " all just get along"; But still I do.
I really like people and want to get along with them but I know that won't happen with you P.
Sorry I was saying about being wrecked: I guess I thought they believed me and now I don't know if they did.
Everything I told them was absolutely true but this new stuff just f#%ks with me. Sorry there is no other word.
Maybe McGloin denied it. I was so obedient and so religious. i wanted it to END. Yet I could not disobey a teacher when he said to report to him. And I thought they will never believe me over him. Never. And maybe I was right.
Hell, Bro Bolt was vice principal of the school , at the time. I was sure he knew, at the time. But now I don't know and all that has wrecked me. that's just how I feel right now: Betrayed and wrecked.
Sorry that's "livery"
And P i noticed you never mentioned McGloin asking Clemens if he was "opperating under a cloud" and Clemens writing back that he wasn't "under a cloud".
…..Isn't it aways the left that throws the first stone when it comes to name-calling, and bigoted rants.
Poor unhappy, unhealthy things. Diseased souls being reflected through their diseased bodies and minds.
Thank you Delphin. I feel just fine. How are you?
Sorry again, What's going to be "interesting", I am planning on attending my 50 year reunion in May. It will be at the school.
I wonder: a) If Bolts will be there again? I think he will.
and b) If I should conduct a tour of where I was harmed, The class room; the office; the closet (literally),for storing chemicals for his labs.
I'm nothing if not shy. Once I learned where the shame belonged and who it belonged to.
I asked if there would be any problems with my attending? The answer came back: No and that I was welcome. I look forward to it as seeing old friends should be great. It was last time.
Mathius makes no sense – absolutely irrational post. Moving on….
I challenge the race-baiters to cite one post of mine that could, in context and without distortion, ever be deemed racist by any definition of the word, even if found in an urban dictionary. You made the charge, now, go find the post that led you to your erroneous (…speak of libelous) claim. You can't. Moving on….
Find ways, fellow adults, to disagree without inventing boogey-men. The lefts strategy is to first demonize the opposition, making it as personal as possible, and then dismiss them and their contributions via your (failed) reprofiling of their character. Won't work, been around the block a few too many times for that kiddie-nonsense.
So, aside from some links that led nowhere, for most of us, and opened old wounds for another, the fact remains that some (many?) settlements were made on flimsy, if any, evidence, and the media and its lefty supporters are practicing a nasty ritual of extreme bigotry against the Catholic Church (try to follow along here, Mathius…).
Finally, there is no response addressing why abuse victims who have reaped their justice still have so much unresolved hatred for Catholics and Catholicism, as is expressed here even recently (still with us, Mathius?). This fact is at the heart of the whole Church abuse matter, which is the hatred for the Church that drives the current persecution, and no recognition of the criminal act committed by individual men (very sick men), which is where the focus needs to be if these crimes will ever be successfully addressed, and, we can save other potential victims. Sick men commit their evil acts everywhere, and mostly everywhere but the Church. That is just another one of those annoying facts that refuses to go away.
Yo, Mathius, everything still OK out there?
Is it occurring to any other observers here that Jim is trying to use his "frenemies" here to help him resolve his issues with those past abuse events?
Assuming they happened (I do) and that he really hasn't been able to move on (would explain the fresh hatred for everything Catholic, and the still raw emotionality), how could any of us here, participating for an entirely different reason, possibly help? If anything, we could be (quite innocently) making resolution worse for at least this particular commenter.
Have we been wrong to assume that he is emotionally healthy enough to debate such an emotional issue, logically? Perhaps this distorted world he's apparently stuck in is the only truth he knows. Would it not be like opening that wound, repeatedly, if no one, even 50 years later, believed you- and neither you nor they could make the pain and memories go away?
How easily he slides back to those times, the labs, closets, those classrooms, his parents, the players, the loss of the family business – he hasn't really moved on emotionally, intellectually from those days. He's still that kid fighting those same demons. He's still trying to convince some "good Catholics" of what happened, and punish them – his teacher- brothers, parents, family, friends – good grief, what a tangled psychological web.
Yo, Jim, you need to not look for resolution or justification of your sanity, or worth, on these sites. You do need to get with a pro and let this possession-obsession of your soul (and your mind) be exorcized, finally.
Seriously, dude, no one here (not the TMR "residents") is into sadism, certainly not me. Unfair fight! Even if one of us was qualified to help- this is not the place/forum for such an undertaking.
Go get this thing out of your life, already (no need to take it to the grave), then come back for a battle of another day.
Well I'm amazed. All I have is a very good memory. I can remember my grand mother on 3 occasions and she died when I was 3.
Again i always think if you know your "enemy" in this case me. You might, through exposure to said enemy, walk a mile in their mocasins as it were.
Excuse me Delphin do you think your qualified to judge my sanity and to do it here? Do you have any qualifications to make such a judgement? a degree and license to practice medicine perhaps? Till then may I quote the gospels to you? The story about the mote in your neighbors eye compared to the beam in your own.
I don't know if you got that in catechism class on Saturdays or not. I'm not being facetious here. Or judge not lest ye be judged. etc. I think you think your attempting to be kind, kind of.
But I don't trust you as far as i could throw you. You too are a bit of a wild card. The fact you can't see where you've been racist here says a lot. I'm not the only person to have said it about you LC said it too. That was not intended as an ad-hominum attack. It was just true I know I hoped you'd take that critique to heart and do something about it. But you just deny it and frankly I don't have the energy to go down that path with you. But I want for your sake to figure out why two absolute strangers to you and each other see you that way. I believe your worth telling the truth to. That's why I'm saying every thing I say here.
As far as fake abuse cases go you don't know how many( if any; and I sure don't know if there are any. You can't even give one or two examples and that's out of one hundred thousand victims in the U.S. and that's according to the John Jay report. So what's the story? What you are not getting about this scandal is it's a scandal because of what the "un sick" did. Not the ill perps. Not the abusers; but their bosses. That's the scandal. Those are the crimes as well.
P.S. If telling you the truth is "punishing" you? You might want to figure out why telling the truth is a punishment to you and not a reward. That you might find out where you are.
P.P.S. Calling somebody a "lefty" isn't an insult in your book? That's not demonizing your enemy? We are just people who have individual names and problems and joys and sorrows, just like you.
I notice a hardly-surprising slew of comments from JR. None of them address the major curiosities and oddities that I mentioned in any substantial way. But there are some relevant and useful bits.
At 1206PM JR approaches legal thought with the same looseness and lack of focus that I imagine lubricated his allegations: I did not say he was a thief, and ‘inferring’ is something else altogether. And he was the one who brought it up thievery in the first place. But he has inferred himself to be a thief now … and that is what it is.
He ‘finds’ (my, my) that thieves are morally superior to me – but he has a whole lot of opinions he’s expressed here over the course of time and they are what they are.
He “was, of course, being facetious”. As always, when caught, this type of mentality suddenly claims it was only joking, and with the Wig of Bemused and Hurt Victimization cannot think why anybody would have taken him seriously (and yet how often have I been taken to task here because I do not give due consideration to JR’s material?). A conclusion with which I am certainly now inclined to agree. And – neatly but almost too slyly – defends himself by claiming that he was merely “trying to live down” to my “opinion” of him. Neat.
And we are now to believe that “a boy was molested in front of other boys” (the forearm or elbow in the groin area – in front of a classroom full of other students, I presume). He does not apparently have a sufficient grasp of the language to realize my point about his statement as to an entire roomful of people being “perpetrated”.
He asserts that I “obviously know nothing” about sexual abuse and its consequences” – although at this point he has now equated the elbow-forearm incident with sexual-abuse and being “molested”; and what consequences might flow from that experience, especially when it appears from his story that a) that experience happened in front of other boys (so nothing to be secretly ashamed of); b) it happened to other of the boys (so no isolation); and c) it involved not only no sexual penetration but as related to us does not clearly establish the motive or context of the teacher involved.
I have said several times before in comments on this site that one of the key Victimist gambits is to compress the entire spectrum of sexual experience so as to make the case that – for example – an arm on the groin is the equivalent of a rape or other overt and legitimately-characterized brutalization. But – as we see here – we are presented with the possibility of all the worst psychological and emotional outcomes on the basis of that arm across the groin. Given this non-symmetry (between experience and consequence) other possible explanations for the claimed extensive damage are created: the possibilities that arise are i) untruthful exaggeration and ii) a prior fracture-proneness in the psyche (because if any sexual experience equivalent to an arm across the groin-area were in and of itself to create such life-wrecking consequences , then how has the species survived at all?). This is not in any way to condone such horseplay or – in the case of a teacher and a student – such unprofessional and assaultive behavior; but if such a level of ‘victimization’ were in and of itself capable of creating the life-wrecking consequences Abuseniks claim, then we as a species would not be having this conversation in the Year of Grace 2013.
I am indeed a “spoiler” to the extent that I am spoiling JR’s preferred story and chain of causation. But I am working with the material provided and that material simply doesn’t work out to the results JR also claims. As for my being a “professional” spoiler, I have no idea what that means. I might add that “military counterintelligence” textual analysis techniques are specifically designed to “spoil” various deceptions; JR himself originally raised this line of thinking. And JR has “no doubt” about a lot of things; and so what?
We are now also informed that in order to accomplish the aim of professionally ruining or disabling his pictured “perp” JR had a “1 minute conversation” about that (arm across the groin) experience “from 21 years before”. Surely this effort can hardly be construed as an effective and sufficient way for the now-adult (chronologically, anyway) JR in 1984 to go about the strategic task of achieving his objective. And there remains the dog(s) that didn’t bark here: where were the other 3 boys or the rest of the class? Were none of them at the reunion in 1984? (I don’t know who came out of the woodwork when the piñata was erected and – 21 years later in 2005 – the potential and easy financial rewards of the now-established sue-the-bishops Phase of the Stampede was in place … but that very fact of potential and easy reward itself creates unsavory possibilities that serve to vitiate and “spoil” the stories then sworn-to in lawsuits).
There is nothing, as I said, in the files published by the law office that supports JR’s assertions about Plieman’s character. Why that might be … is at this point open to various possibilities.
I am then informed as to why I am “religious” (am I, really?): it is not “because [I] love a god who [I] have no proof exists” … but alas for JR I have sufficient experience that has convinced me; enough for me and yet I don’t go demanding that everyone embrace it.
Rather, I am “religious” (however defined) because I am “a narcissistic, frightened and greedy for a life after death and a ‘Candyland’ as it were, where you live …” and so on. (The “as it were” is a nice bit of mimicry, though). First of all, I note here that JR has – willy or nilly – opened up the psychiatric and psychological level of analysis (sauce for the goose – sauce for the gander, as he recently said). But if I engage in that, it will be only if there is a useful way of illuminating the overall Abusenik approach or stance.
Second, readers are welcome to consider the validity of Dr. JR’s diagnosis. It is one thing to assess the quality of conceptual material; it is another thing to pretend a psychiatric diagnosis: not even competent clinicians ethically or professionally deliver such diagnoses ‘from a distance’. But then, JR has given no indication whatsoever that he qualifies as a clinical-professional.
Third, the reduction of belief to psychiatric issues is a gambit we have seen before in recent world history.
Fourth, I am “beyond corrupt and decadent” – I’ll be sure to give that assessment every bit of the attention and respect it deserves.
Fifth, I am a “sociopath”: the Doctor – as they would say in the Peanuts Cartoon – is in.
At 1221PM JR is on about God with the usual stuff about letting all the suffering go on in the world while performing “miracles” at Lourdes. Here, JR’s eagerness to put enough snow together for a ball has led him off the rails once again: if the quotation marks around “miracles” is meant to imply that God doesn’t actually work miracles at Lourdes, then the wind instantly goes out of the attempt to blame God for somehow misusing His power. But if the “miracles” is merely meant to indicate a quotation from my material – and thus God does indeed perform miracles at Lourdes – then JR has gone and admitted an awful lot about God’s power and – willy nilly – existence.
Then at 1229PM we are informed that whatever his “perpetrator” did required “underwear”. There is no indication of this in his prior material, where Pleiman is not mentioned in any such context; and if McGloin was, then we have no evidence of it either in the files. But we still wind up with a situation where JR apparently was involved at the “underwear” level with somebody (McGloin? ) but only mentioned it in a one-minute conversation 21 years later.
And we are left once again at square-one, with JR complaining that it’s not his responsibility that there were no witnesses to what he claims happened, and yet no indication that he has understood and considered the fact that without any evidence he is merely telling a story, as far as other persons being able to credit his claims is concerned.
Then to 326PM. I don’t see the relevance of the 8th-grade comment; clearly his parents were aware of the workings and dynamics of sex. If it takes a high-school education to understand the physical workings of sex, then our species would never have survived for the length of time it has.
However, we are after all this time informed that there is a history of mental institutionalization in the immediate biological family (or is this a non-biological father?). This is a flag-marker fact that would have to be taken into consideration in any competent formal clinical analysis. It is also a fact that has to be taken into consideration when assessing the matter of JR’s claims and allegations. It is not of itself dispositive, but it has to be taken into account. While no formal clinical assessment can take place here, yet in the matter of the Stampede and JR’s participation in it this is an element that cannot be ignored as readers consider the material that is put before them.
Slyly, JR tries to have his cake and eat it too by quickly positing a functional reason for the institutionalization (the burning of the livery stable), thus working to neutralize the possibility of an organic cause (inherent mental illness). The most interesting aspect of this particular point is that JR would tell a story that appears carefully constructed precisely to cover all the possible bases in order to maximize the victim-value of the institutionalization while simultaneously minimizing the possibility of a pre-existent condition of mental-illness in the (presumably biological) parent. Like so many of the Abusenik stories we have seen, this story seems almost deliberately-constructed to cover all the bases (you would get an effect or result of this type if – say – a tort attorney or staffer coached you in how best to craft and present your story).
Nonetheless, the fact remains (as he himself has related it) that therapy was offered to JR initially and he refused: it may have been a regrettable fact about his nuclear family, but the fact that JR came from a family that seems to have been so spot-on against “therapy” is not really an issue to be laid first to the responsibility of the priest or Brother who offered it. (Another question is immediately raised by all this: did this cleric offer therapy on the basis of the claimed abuse or on the basis of the cleric’s assessment that JR was not altogether mentally well in the first place?)
There also remains, of course, now, the possibility that some sequelae of a possible mental issue were evident in JR even as early as his student days, and certainly by the 1984 reunion, and the priest or Brother at the reunion was also aware of it. At any rate, a one-minute conversation surely wasn’t the sign of any mature seriousness about the matter. (But then came the Stampede and the piñata and that first lifting of the Statutes of Limitations in CA, as time went on.)
Since we don’t have a clear idea of the father’s mental issues – except JR’s effort to steer us toward some sort of stress-related cause – we cannot accept JR’s subsequent effort to explain the shortcomings of psychiatric/psychological therapy in that era (whenever that era was in this story). The failure of therapy with the father may have been a result of the intractability of the original issue, rather than the insufficiency of stress-related therapeutics in that era. We really don’t have enough to know anything here.
The “wrecked” bit arose in my comments as a response not to the consequence of the alleged abuse, but as the descriptor JR used in describing his claimed reaction to reading the law-office cache material just a few days ago. For someone of his advanced years and (self-presumed) maturity, to be describing himself as “absolutely wrecked” is substantially problematic: either he is accurately describing himself at this point and the probability of some amount of consistent or even intractable fragility is introduced into the equation here, or else he is merely exaggerating – and if that is what he is doing then we are once again reminded that we are dealing with somebody for whom expression and facts themselves are rather plastic and mutable.
There is no evidence in the files about any communication involving Clemens – the local superior in the Order – that references conversations that JR says happened. Why would the law-office leave any such material out? Or if there was no such material in the file, then what are we to make of that?
JR doesn’t know why he keeps talking to me as a “regular’ human-being”, claiming that he imagined that if he were just “honest” then I would “get” him (is that what the slang means by ‘grokking’ somebody – as in ‘I grok you’?) and “we can all just get along”. That’s not the purpose here, certainly not for me. This isn’t a support-site for Abuseniks; I am trying to get to the bottom of a Matter whose proponents themselves seem intensely-invested that such investigations or analysis only goes in certain directions and not others. And – I repeat again and again – nothing has come to light to indicate that allegations and claims happened exactly or even generally as they are claimed to have happened. There’s no getting around that fact without simply ‘agreeing’ to ignore it – and that I will not do.
Did JR not mention that he had difficulties with relating to people even in that brief military stint? I think – like commenter Ecker’s self-fancied expertise in judging character – that JR is being rather too generous in his self-assessment of his competence in camaraderie. The fact that I have not joined in those preferred errors may irritate both of them, but that’s not my problem.
In regard to his 341PM comment, I really don’t know what happened; I have seen no indications in any of the law-office’s released material that supports JR’s claims of what happened; there are clearly now alternative explanations that cover a lot of the bases that need to be covered in explaining what happened; and so I really don’t see where there is anything more that I can do. Readers can consider the matter on their own and reach their own conclusions.
And again – to feel “betrayed and wrecked” almost half a century later doesn’t so much sound a familiar theme of pathos as it raises some rather serious questions about deeper and more personal issues that I don’t think it is proper to pursue further here.
Lastly, in regard to the 351PM comment: I noticed that bit in the material but – as with other bits – could not see that it had any clear relationship to any claim JR has made, rather than to the ongoing issues McGloin was having with his entire vocation as opposed to leaving the Order and getting married and those several intense personal relationships he had developed with various nuns. But I would like to think that the tort attorney didn’t base his JR-section of the Complaint on that single oblique comment about the “cloud”. But then again, in a Stampede, and in the sue-the-bishops Phase of the Stampede, who knows?
And that is the epitaph here, I would say: who knows? Who can know? On what basis can any rational assessment of the extant material help any observer to know?
Maybe a poster or two on this topic is in need of the "medication pinata" in order to provide more precise and clearer analysis of the issues being presented.
First of all what I post here is my truth. The fact that you call my take on things. "usefull bits" is degrading per usual. My life and take on this, your church's scandal, is not posted here for your vivisection. You are superior to no one here. So get off your high horse, boss.
I started out dealing with you P, around the length and monotony of your posts. I said the length of them was boring. And they were and are that.You demand more attention by their length and all they are are ad hominem attacks. Every one can see your scalpel as you begin to carve.
Brief military stint? I was a draftee who served this f&$%king war machine "country" for 2 years. I exited the army a Spec 5 with a good conduct medal. Who the f are you to judge me or anyone else?
You really aren't very bright are you? "Nothing about Plieman as a teacher" Nothing about my conversations at 16 with Clemens. My lawyer and I didn't write the church's files on my perps. The church did. This was about getting the church files. The fact that the church didn't file my letter or show records of my abuse has nothing to do with my side in this case. It does however show their's.
As far as "mimicry" goes. I don't know who or what you think you are. I'm writing the way I write you don't like it or my mispellings? Go spin.
Everything else you've written in this post is foolishness.
There was nothing in McGloin's files about my or anybody else's complaints. So the order or just Clemens kept the secret. Duh! there's a big surprise.
I would have been surprised if there was a smoking gun recorded from the time of the criminal act and released now.
And now I'll give you back your style of "logic": How do we know the order or Clemens didn't have secret files showing the real history of these brothers? They might exist they might not they may have been destroyed. We don't know.
But don't you think my telling Bolts about my abuse 30 years ago according to his letter, shows that I was telling the truth. It was long after i could have sued due to the statutes of limitations. If I was lying or trying to get something from your church that I didn't deserve why did I only write the church about what happened to me 8 years after that reunion asking for help?
Again with the amatuer uneducated shrink crap?. You know nothing about PTSD absolutely zip. If you did you would'nt be posting such dung.
My attorney never saw McGloin's records till now. These are newly released documents to US. Unseen by us till now. Get it?
Are you allright? You are making even less sense than usual.
I am a "Stranger in a strange land" here for sure. I can believe you've never "grocked" any one. You've no empathy at all. Hence the "sociopath".
THE most traumatic event in my life happened 50 years ago. I based my entire life on some level both consciously and unconsciously on that event and what I was told about the resolution of that event by Bertrand Clemens. Finding out what I thought was true, as told to me by him, was not; has brought up lots of pain for me. Pardon me for mentioning to a sociopath that I have pain behind this.
[edited by moderator]
If talking to a victim isn't getting to the 'bottom of the matter" AS It WERE, what is.? Your made up "stampede"? Your incredulity at everything coming from our "side"? I have no problem with honest skepticism but your's isn't honest. Why are you seeking answers here? Does Delphin have proof to back your assertions? Do you? No you don't. You've merely proposed "your' "thesus" on the matter sans any proof at all. Just postulations on your part. You are the one with out proof here. So why not, put up or shut up?
Let's nail some definitions down, correctly, here:
Racism: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race (Merriam-Webster)
Leftist: the principles and views of the left; also : the movement embodying these principles; advocacy of or adherence to the doctrine of the left (Merriam-Webster)
Just because you dont agree with the ideological position of traditional-libertarian-conservatives (center-right) on matters regarding a citizens obligation to be productive contributors to society, does not mean they are racist. We believe that all people of all races, religions, gender, "preferred sexuality", economy and education are worthy and capable of self-sufficiency and independence from government dependency/enslavement.
We believe that all men have God-given talents, equally distributed, regardless of the lefts politically-determined entitlement designations, to guide men in service to God.
Leftists do not.
You tell me who the racists are?
Two antiCatholic leftists claiming racism everytime they hear something they don't like (ala Sharpton, Jackson, Matthews, Rangel, Wright, Holder, Maddow, Reed, Pelosi, Savage…shall we go on?) does not a racist make. Two commenters here started the typical lefty racist rant against me (and others, incidentally), which is nothing more than the Alinskey Rules for Radicals centerpiece. It means nothing in light of actual facts, which are my written words, as illuminated by those pesky definitions. Facts just suck for the left – don't they?
You identified yourself as a socialist-communist- liberal, atheist, homosexual activist. That makes you a leftist. It isn't a criticism or "name-calling", it is a fact.
Facts (such as statistics) are also those things that I use to support my position regarding the wrong-headedness of the lefts ideology that is morphing our (American) society-culture from one of independence, ingenuity, life-affirming and productiveness to slothfulness, selfishness, deceit, conceit, gluttony, murder and dependency = welfare/slave state.
Atheists (and leftists) never quote Jesus in context or with true intent when they attempt to use His Word to oppress Christian speech or obligations. Christians are required to assess right from wrong, good from evil, and evaluate ourselves and others faithfulness to His Word. Only God judges man for eternity. No one judged you, but, it is the natural law and Gods law that humans (and animals) make life-sustaining and soul-saving evaluations/assessments every day. Quite frankly, you put the beam in your own eye, for all to observe, and then invited input. Well, you got it. Regardless, get your Christian theology correct, do not distort it to fabricate a false debate. If you didn't want yourself to be assessed, personally, by TMR commenters, why did you provide such personal and emotionally-charged information about yourself? Why do you turn every article and commenters debate toward you, then, criticize the attention you so desperately crave when it doesn't perfectly align with your own worldview? Are you schizophrenic, too?
Finallly, and most importantly, to get off of you and your lifelong issues and back on to the topic- the reason that political ideology (such as Eleanor's), emotional-psychological health, morals, ethics, integrity and physical (or even circumstantial) evidence matters to the Church abuse matter is because all those things directly affect the reason for and, potentially, the outcome of the current unjust persecution of the Church.
So, you see, who /what the persecutors of the Church are matters as much as who/what the victims are, and who/what the accused are. You claim to be one of those players, I don't, and neither do the majority of the other sane commenters (hint: notice who the few loons are) at TMR. Emotionally-psychologically-mentally disabled "victims", coupled with an astounding lack of evidence and suspension of the SOL (again), does not an honorable (moral, ethical) prosecution, including settlements (not admission of guilt), make.
Enough is enough. I have been biting my tongue over the past couple of days but I must way in.
Publion, Delphin and Josie with their latest posted comments have made it very clear how truly clueless they are regarding the subject of clergy sexual abuse in the catholic church.
They clearly have no clue of what a abuse victim goes through regarding their past, present and what their future holds for them. They truly believe they know the true facts of what their catholic church is doing for survivors of clergy abuse. They believe that by reading newspaper articles or being told what their church is doing is fact. They do this without one ounce of experience of what survivors have been through and might go through.
Delphin, you FEAR Mr. Robertson with your entire being. You fear his way of life to obtain happiness in this world and you fear his beliefs. We both believe in God, because we have FAITH that once we finally close our eyes there is something else waiting for us, but you are also afraid to face the possibility there maybe NOTHING there except being placed in a box and dropped in the ground. Now since none of us truly knows what is going to happen when we die because we lack experience we should respect too what others believe. You maybe met with 72 virgins when you die.
Your clear attack of his lifestyle because they way you have been taught comes across as so uneducated it makes you seem you have no thinking brain cells of your own. If anyone who has commented here and should question that lifestyle would be me. I was abused by a man, and to tell a short story I was stationed in South Philadelphia in a highly gay community and I will admit I acted the same way you do now. I did not understand. But I educated myself and you know what I found out ? The gay community is no different then the straight community. We are all looking for the same damn thing. However your character is truly from the old days. If you needed blood and knew it was coming from a gay individual would you tell the hospital "no thank you" ?
Now to Josie. You have always been a follower. You will always be a follower. There is nothing else I can say.
Finally Publion. You are the most confused of all. What are you trying to prove ? Your only thing in life you have to look forward to is this blog. You have even made an apology because you felt people were sitting on the edge of the seats waiting to read what you have to say stating " Apologies – I was on the road and it has taken longer to get back here today". WHO CARES ?
You think of Mr. Robertson as a thief and you think of me as being a violent individual. If I was Mr. Robertson I would sue, you have been warned. I would instruct Mr. Robertson to make copies of your comments. I have.
You think of me as being violent but truth be told I do not condone violence. I will be very very honest though when I learned that my abuser died of a painful stroke after being seen in his doctors office only a few hours earlier and was given a clean bill of health, I have to admit it placed a smile on my face. Would it be normal if I felt saddness in his death ? I will let you answer that. Do I gain strength when clergy members or any abusers are found guilty in a court of law and put away for years ? I will let you answer that also.
Finally, to my friend Jim. Won't tolerate the attacks. GOT YOUR BACK.
There are 16 James Robertson comments since I last commented ( 8/4} on one of HIS comments-sheesh! ( The comment was regarding his finally giving this forum some link to back up his stories about his experiences, etc. and I simply said that I did not find anything worthwhile there.
So Dennis this brings me to you (who I thought had maybe gotten a job or hobby or gone on vacation (maybe from from his vacation) from his very important involvement here being resident worst judge of character and interpretation of events.
Your post above is really quite comical with regard to your take on Delphin and Publion. I hope that you did not spend much time thinking of words to say while biting your tonque before posting the above nonsense. They can speak for themselves but it is hardly worth it. You are just plain "off the wall" wrong and everyone knows it. You just get everything wrong-and misspell, misuse words and phrases while you are at it! Very comical but annoying…
So, you devoted one sentence to me -great-no problem…but I just want you to know that the most incorrect description of me would be "follower". My titles through my life have been Executive Director, Coordinator, Manager, Managing Editor, and President -oh, probably about 10 times of many groups, eg. local library, home and school, and many more clubs that I have been a part of. I have never been the secretary or treasurer, just president. People who hardly know me think that I am in charge. My family and friends Know I am in charge. You need to stop thinking that you are good interpreter of anything. You are NOT! So, if you continue to "way in"-( by the way, it is "weigh in") try to stay away from the stuff you are not very good at.
One thing I forgot to add.
I was not raped by a homosexual. I was raped by a pedophile.
Big Difference
A pedophile has victims (many) that are 11 yrs or younger. I thought that you have stated that you were in high school (it is a little vague) when you allege that you were "abused" (now , you call it rape?). I have always wondered about your assertions and what you said, your protests, your incorrect observations. your reporting method and so much more. In any case, you need to get your terms right, too.
If I may, I'd look to provide an example of my idea of a pre-constructed statement: A couple of decades ago Jesse Jackson was addressing a group of drug addicts. He said "I too was once addicted … although only for a short time … under a doctor's supervision".
What you see here is a statement that is trying to have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand Jackson wanted to establish his common identity with the addicts in order to establish his creds and authority. But on the other hand he wanted to avoid the serious downside of having anybody take his 'addiction' and pursue the negative implications of that statement.
Thus he added the two follow-on bits. But – as I think most readers can see for themselves – in trying to avoid the negatives he completely undermines his original idea, since 'addiction' as these addicts would have experienced it is precisely not something that a) remains under competent supervision and control and b)lasts only for a short time.
Yesterday I was a racist, today I am homophobic, tomorrow I am….what?
Let's just cover all the usual lefty mudslinging defenses all in one fell-swoop here and now:
If/when I disagree with the left I am a homophobic, misogynistic, anitsemite, racist, Islamophobe, animal-murdering NAZI that eats babies, puppies and kittens for late-night snacks.
[edited by moderator]
Thank you for your comments, everyone!
We are closing this thread for now. (We also have two new posts up!
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When I put up my most recent comment this afternoon, the comments of 1134 on the 7th; by Sken) and JR (1206 on the 6th) were not up.
In regard to the former comment: I am not sure just how I can be more “precise and clearer analysis” – perhaps Mr. Sken (not usually known for same) might provide more information as to what is not precise and clear to him. I do point out, however, that with mental illness at institutionalization level now on the table, I am – as I made clear – going to go too far down that road beyond what general comments the JR material would support.
Now to JR’s of 1206 on the 6th.
Yes, precisely: What JR posts here is “my truth”, as he says. I have merely been pointing out the difficulties of squaring it with any evidence that might enable JR’s personal truth to become a shared truth (to the extent that such a congruence can legitimately be achieved).
The Wig of Victimization: saying that I will cull JR’s material for “useful bits” is – but of course – “degrading”. But that is what this site is for: to find useful material for persons trying to get as solid a grasp as possible on the Catholic Abuse Matter. As I said, this is not a support-site for Abuseniks (there are already sites that do that). But there’s nothing like declaring some form of victimization to grab the high-ground early.
Now before I go any further, I point out another complication that has arisen for me: there is now the possibility that we are dealing here with some level of mental illness and I am not really comfortable going down that road too deeply. This may or may not be connected to Mr. Sken’s comment, but I want to avoid getting into anybody’s personal swamp here. JR seems to have taken to the tossing around of specific psychiatric or psychological diagnoses (“sociopath” being a recent example) but that’s what he does; it’s not what I do.
Again with “the length and monotony” of my posts; as I have said: ideas will have that effect on some people and there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t “demand attention” by my posts for the simple reason that any reader can ignore them if s/he wishes. The “demands” to which I made reference are the actual textual insistence that one be believed or that others accept one’s assertions. I don’t do that (objections to that statement should be accompanied by accurate quotations, thank you).
I said JR had a “brief military stint” and he has confirmed he was a two-year draftee. I fail to see how I have thereby ‘judged’ anybody. There is no way to validate JR’s military awards and promotions (as there is no way to validate mine) so that bit is a non-starter in the internet context. (The stylized expletive remains what it is.)
Now to the files matter (about which I apparently – to JR – have demonstrated a lack of intelligence): If there is nothing in the files about any evidence relevant to the case, then there remains the question as to why the law office has published them. Surely the law office reviewed the files before it published them. We have files; we have no claimed “letters” or “records of [JR’s] abuse”. That is, he says, not his fault or his lawyer’s. But then it is not anybody else’s fault if it is then pointed out that JR’s assertions remain hanging in the air with no evidence. And the absence of any such claimed evidence does not necessarily demonstrate anything about the Order (“the church”) but still demonstrates the fact that there is no evidence in the files. It is what it is.
I have explained my “mimicry” thoughts and examples when and as they have come up. Enough said.
Readers are welcome to entertain the assertion about my comment being “foolishness”.
The absence of anything in the McGloin files falls under the purview of the comments I made a couple of paragraphs ago. But I would add here that we are then led to the question: if there is nothing in the files then upon what evidence was the JR segment of the lawsuit brought?
I do not say this to single out JR as opposed to the other 500-plus Plaintiffs; it’s simply that we are working with JR material here. Actually, our experience with the JR material actually raises questions in regard to all of the various allegations in the 500-Plaintiff lawsuit. Or are we dealing with a huge lawsuit that was largely brought on the basis of very little evidence at all? If there was no “smoking gun” in these files, a) why publish them at all? And b) was there any “smoking gun” in the evidence at all?
As you can see, we are getting here to a very substantive question about the entire lawsuit and perhaps about the Stampede itself.
My own “logic” is to look at the material that is presented and work with what we have. JR’s claim to use my own style of “logic” is to imagine the existence of even-more “secret” files that we haven’t got and which may not even exist. The two “logics” are – as I think it is clear – rather different indeed.
And in any case, for the Plaintiffs to say “we don’t know” should actually pretty much derail a lawsuit. But in the Stampede era, we have seen and continue to see that that need not be the case: lawsuits can still proceed. You see where this type of thing can go.
No, I don’t see how what JR himself calls a “1 minute conversation” at a reunion 20 or so years after the fact “shows the [he] was telling the truth”. Especially since ‘bbolts’ didn’t have anywhere near the same recollection of the event that JR has.
There is no indication of whatever JR did “write to your church [the Order?] 8 years after that reunion asking for help”. What “help” did he ask for? (Perhaps a fruitless thought at this point and in the internet context since we have no documentary evidence before us.)
Now to the psychological bits and the characterization of me as an “amateur uneducated shrink” with my “crap”. First, what evidence does JR have that I am actually an “amateur uneducated shrink”? None (to save us all some time here). Second, I precisely did not involve myself in any diagnostic material or thoughts; I simply stated sound general clinical principles to the effect that a) a history of institution-grade mental issues in a biological parent is a “flag” that must be considered in any “formal clinical diagnosis”; b) which I then immediately went on to say was not something that could be done “from a distance” and I wasn’t going to do it; but that c) the fact (as stated by JR) was something that had to be taken into account even by readers when they were assessing his material. I made no diagnosis of JR (I didn’t – for example – call him a “sociopath” or “narcissistic” or make any claim that he actually was suffering from any substantive mental issues). Doth JR protest too much? Even if so, it is not dispositive in any diagnostic sense.
The “records” were clearly “seen” by the law-office – and perhaps the specific attorney who represented JR – once they were released and before they were put up. Or are we to believe that the disk containing the records was simply taken out of a mailing-envelope and transferred immediately to the law-office’s website? (But even if so, they were clearly formatted and divided up by Order and individual cleric.)
So – yes, I am “allright”. And clearly JR doesn’t “get it” if he expects us to believe that that “now” somehow disposes of a significant sequence of actions and tasks including reception of documents (whether printed or on disk) from the Order by the law-office, review (or no-review) by the law-office personnel (no attorney saw them?), and then formatting and posting on the law-office’s site by law-office personnel or by its IT sub-contractors.
There are many possible reasons why JR might consider himself a “stranger” but I said I wasn’t going to go into that on this site and I won’t. And if JR wishes to believe that the only “strange land” here is the one inhabited by the readership (and myself) then there’s nothing for it and he can do as he pleases in that regard.
Again, his explanation of his diagnosis of “sociopath” falls far short of professional clinical requirements, and it is even deeply questionable whether I have no “empathy”. I have said many many times that I will not enter into the error of conflating “empathy” or ‘Christian charity” with the unquestioning granting of credibility to JR’s assertions and claims. So this ground has already been covered.
We have no way of knowing just what “the most traumatic event” of JR’s life was “50 years ago”, soothe assertion remains there where it was put. We have nothing more than his claim that Plieman’s arm-over-the-groin was not the worst and something else (involving McGloin) involved “underwear”. As I said before and say again now: nobody else and none of us here have any way of knowing one way or the other.
The fact that JR seems clearly to want something more than that result from this site’s readership indicates that he – and not I – wants something far more from the readership here than simple conceptual assessment of relevant material in order to get a more solid comprehension.
Thus, finally, I would say that the value of all of this drill has been to get an inkling (a ‘clearer comprehension’ is, alas, too much to say) of what odd evidentiary lacks and absences seem to exist, and perhaps not simply in this particular Catholic Abuse case but in others as well.
The Ecker comment was not up when I wrote my prior comment.
What am I “trying to prove”? I am not trying to prove anything. The question should be: What are the Abuseniks trying to prove – because I have not been able to find any evidence in any material that has been presented here.
Mr. Ecker seems to think that since he doesn’t care about what I write then nobody else does. I have no way of knowing. I apologized because I said I was going to comment quickly and I was unable to do so.
It was JR and not myself who brought up the “thief” trope and you will need to provide a quotation (an accurate one) to substantiate that I have called him a thief. And if you claim to know what I think – “you think of Mr. Robertson as a thief” – then that is even more unsupportable an assertion.
In regard to Ecker’s own “violence”, I clearly explained that I was referring to an interior disposition toward violence that is evident in his material (as I explained at length). And as if to confirm that, he now intones that I “have been warned”. And the legalese-y bits about the “copies” are clearly frosting on a poorly-baked cake since my comments here are now part of a permanent electronic internet record – although, as I also said, there is some serious question as to just what is legally actionable. But the legal noises are threats and we are back to the original point.
Mr. Ecker’s claimed experiences and feelings about the asserted death of his asserted abuser are – for all the reasons I have often explained on this site – not something that can be examined here and I won’t.
And lastly, we see yet again the Abusenik gambit: if you disagree with me or don’t accept what I claim, then you are ‘attacking’ me.
The significance of all this is not the individuals involved here. It is the fact that I think we can see clearly here the type of mentality that has played a much much larger role in the Catholic Abuse Matter and the Stampede than most people would care to think.