No one is immune: Every priest is a target
According to a truly shocking story in the Chicago Tribune, two men recently walked into the sacristy of a Catholic church after Mass and demanded cash from a 73-year-old priest.
That alone is frightening enough. But what accompanied their demand should send chills through any decent person. One of the men ominously said to the priest:
"We'll say you touched us, read the paper, they'll believe us."
Indeed, such words are the fear of every living cleric. It is open season on Catholic priests today. An accusation, threat, or mere suggestion of abuse is enough to destroy a priest's reputation and vault a man out of the priesthood forever.
Even long-deceased priests with previously unblemished records are not immune from specious accusations, which the media then dutifully and loudly trumpet.
Whereas mainstream media outlets like the New York Times and the Boston Globe are willing to fall over themselves to report any and all accusations against Catholic priests – no matter how long ago or how flimsy – the time is long overdue for them to seriously address the issue of false accusations and the dauntingly vulnerable position which priests in society find themselves today.
This frightening episode in Chicago only underscores this critical need.
Once again to the most recent crop. Readers will bear in mind here, I hope, that the value of going over them lies purely in what we can learn about the overall Abusenik Playbook and the Stampede in its dynamics and its costs and consequences.
On the 19th at 1133AM JR now doubts the existence of the Apostles and the Evangelists, asserting that they were “inventend 200 years later, after christ”. Reality simply cannot be allowed to interfere with the Abusenik mind’s dampdreams and phantasms, and in exculpating itself it demonstrates not even sufficient self-awareness so as to wonder if its immediate utterances will not generally undermine its own credibility even further. Again: you can see clearly the second great element of the Anderson Strategies: to prevent any tortie from having to risk the whole shebang by going to trial and putting such mentalities on the stand, for the record and in full view. (And, on top of that, to then claim that the reasons for so few trials of allegations was merely because the Church didn’t dare face a trial.)
And in regard to the time-line involved: Josephus did not even write his works until after he had gotten himself ingratiated with Vespasian after both Vespasian’s quelling of the uprising in AD 70 and Josephus’s arrival in Rome; his writings date from the period of 71AD to 99AD; his Antiquities was not written until the end of that period. And by the 90s of that century the Apostles and the early Church had been preaching Christ for almost 70 years.
So the time-line itself clearly indicates that the Christianity that Josephus allegedly invented had already been in robust and vigorous existence for at least half a century, and the “rebellion” itself – which was the alleged pretext for this whackery about Vespasian being the Messiah – had already been put down. This, then, in addition to the other points I already raised in prior comments here.
Clearly, also, JR (who once told us that his “reading” sufficed as the equivalent of a university education) had not noticed in the material to which I linked that in addition to other Saints Constantine there was – as I had said – Saint Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor. And the reasons why – as the Catholic Encyclopedia explains – he is a Saint. Nor does JR offer any support or links that might ground his claim that he is only a Saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Churches. So much for “that’s a fact, Jack”.
He then rehearses his old hash about SNAP being invented by the Church or – this time – by “the Dominican nuns of Sinawa” who were “following Father Tom Doyle’s suggestions in his initial paper, a secret paper to the American bishops conference” [readers will note that I am not reproducing the JR grammatical mistakes since it’s a lot of work to override manually the word-processing program’s automatic correction function] – and all of this is according to that Economus website that was long ago examined for its problems in comments on this site.
But that would be news to Barbara Blaine and Michael D’Antonio and even Anderson, for whom D’Antonio provides much verification for Anderson’s initial and subsequent encounters with Blaine and nothing about the aforementioned nuns. And in what way was Doyle’s paper (the rejected paper of 1985, one presumes) characterizable as “secret”? Since it was rejected even for consideration by the Conference, then there was nothing officially to publish. Which doesn’t quite add up to its being accurately characterizable as “secret”.
I would also note this curious historical symmetry: Reich Sicherheitsdienst Office II B 113 (the SD counterpart of Gestapo Office II 1 B 1), the SD unit specifically assigned to cover the Catholic Church, was comprised of 2 ex-priests and 4 ex-monks. These gentlemen, who in a prior era might have been termed ‘renegades’, had left the Church for whatever their personal reasons or issues, and had offered themselves to the Nazis, who were happy to give them SD rank and uniforms and pay (and all the other perks) since the government was trying to create as much negative material about the Church as it could possibly drum-up. While in our own day the primary drivers and writers seeking to expose (or, more accurately, establish) the Catholic Abuse Matter in this country include a number of disaffected ex-monks or ex-priests, including Sipe, Economus, and the curiously still-Father Doyle.
Which leads rather strongly to the conclusion that the concept of a government embracing disaffected ex-clergy for the purposes of discrediting the Church … was not invented here in our own time, but rather was simply applied – as best might be done under the different historical circumstances– to the secularist governmental interest in trying to overcome the Church’s opposition to its regime and its agendas. (Again, Michael Burleigh’s Sacred Causes is an excellent starting point here for readers thus interested.)
And as for the rest of this paragraph of JR’s, we have gone over this hash at length in prior comments on this site. Of course that was in some ‘yesterday’ and Abuseniks only live in some ‘today’ … except for the ‘story’ they want heard, so long as that being-heard is purely approving and accepting, and so long as it is accepted that the ‘story’ may change from time to time – perhaps even significantly – yet it still must be accepted as true and accurate.
And as for the bit about there being “no other support groups for victims” – again and yet again – this would equally and even more effectively lead to the conclusion that such “victims” as exist are not interested in forming any other groups (which in the internet age is as easy as virtual creation can possibly be).
And then to conclude his comment, JR defies even his own personal type of “logic” and refers to the “25 years of revelations and scandal” which have come about through the activities of SNAP and Anderson (who are, in this theoretical schematic of JR’s, tools of the Church). And I would say that what we have seen for the past three decades or so are not so much “revelations” as they are something far less certain and assured.
Then on the 19th at 1140AM JR tries to square the circle by asserting that “The Jews were successfully rebelling till they lost” – which basically is to say that if you just saw off the bits of historical reality that are uncongenial or inconvenient, then you can claim just about anything you care to. The Jewish rebellion failed. And – as I noted above in this comment – it did so before Josephus had his alleged divine revelation about Vespasian being the next Emperor and (from wherever this bit comes) the Messiah.
Wherever he gets the idea that “Rome needed a religion that offered ‘peace’, cheek-turning and obedience”, it is not from Roman history. The Flavians embraced or re-embraced the cult of imperial divinity and not Christianity (if that is what he is referring-to as that “religion that offered ‘peace’). And was Vespasian supposed to be – in this crackdream – the Jewish Messiah (to appease the allegedly rebellious Jews) or the Christian Messiah? Since clearly the Jewish Messiah – tailored allegedly to placate the Jews – would not be primarily interested in “peace”, as the Hebrew Scriptures rather voluminously demonstrate. And if Vespasian wanted to placate the Jews, why would he then create Christianity? And if Josephus wanted to ingratiate himself with Vespasian, why would he create a religion that utterly rejected the imperial cult of divinity? So once again we are confronted here with a hash.
I would say that historical facts are not as malleable as the various Abuseniks and allegants and historical story-tellers and story-creators have imagined them to be. But those allegants cannot, I would say, be held totally responsible for this mis-apprehension, since the Stampede’s own core dynamics required it and assured them that it was all going to work out at the end of the (pay-)day.
And in regard to the bit from the 19th at 1140AM: the Romans were quite capable of ‘supporting’ “slavery” and didn’t need any new religion to help them along on that score. Or was the Spartacus Revolt (only the largest of many smaller slave-revolts) also just ‘made up’ at some later date?
Thus we can leave the continued riff (JR riffs when he’s on a roll) in the comment of the 19th at 1250PM to hang where he put it here.
But now to the comment of the 19th at 1157AM, where JR tries to make a case for “who you are as a person here” as being “not irrelevant to the argument here”. Because – he gives the Game away yet again – “how do we know you’re not a bishop or a lawyer for the church or even [oh my, he gets positively nasty here] the head of a pedophile group”. Oooooh.
First, I am none of the above-mentioned. But – again and yet again – what difference would it or does it make when what we are dealing with here are ideas and concepts and facts which are demonstrably coherent and rational and verifiable or else aren’t? An idea or a concept stands or falls on the integrity of its content, not on its source. The Nazis were baaad people, but they came up with (among other inventions) the first operational jets and the first operational ballistic missile. Regardless of the desirability of the Nazis as a source, the content of their knowledge was world-changing and invaluable.
But that’s not the Abusenik approach: in the Abusenik Stampede schematic, it does not matter whether you claim anything rational or coherent (or accurate); it just matters that the source of what you say is sourced as coming from a ‘victim’ and all the rest is doo-doo. As I have discussed at length here, the unwritten deal among them is that you don’t question my story and then I don’t question your story and so we can all believe all the stories and stay in business until payday. And we can thank JR for reminding us of this queasy bit once again.
And thus too the bathetic but queasy efforts to characterize my material as simply being nothing more than “your amazing ability to discount your fellow human beings here” – when actually what I have done is simply analyzed the material that various Abuseniks have put up of their own volition and see where that material leads. But to the Abusenik it truly is a matter of love-me-love-my-dog: you either accept my story or else you are baaad and “discount” me. And as Sidney Greenstreet said to Bogie in The Maltese Falcon: I don’t see how we can do business on that basis. If I am to be required to accept whatever is force-fed to me in terms of Abusenik material, or else be characterized as evil or baaad in one way or another, then how is any analysis ever going to get done? (Time-saver here: that’s the whole Abusenik and Anderson objective – to prevent any analysis from ever being done.)
JR then – Lord, just when you think you’ve hit the bottom of his barrel – tries to justify his demands and desires to find out about my ‘education’ because – waitttttt for ittttttt! – it was “such a bad education”. As opposed to … what we have seen here of his? But when you’re in the plop-tossing business, then you have to toss a certain amount of plop every day or people will think you’ve lost your edge, I guess.
And – the bottomless barrel just doesn’t quit – I clearly can’t be educated if I “believe in an afterlife”, which is just “dumb” – and not only “dumb” but “dumb in fact” (which is another term he needs to put on his list of definitions-to-be-looked-up). And this gentleman not only got a million bucks for the story he told, but apparently even enjoyed for a while some status as a media-type – which only goes to demonstrate to us all just how seriously deranging the consequences of the Anderson-media axis really were (and to great extent remain).
But then but then but then: He actually gives the Game away even more marvelously: he wants to know about me so he can ‘slap’ me the way I have (in his personal vision of things) ‘slapped’ him. To which I can only respond: a) I can only work with the material provided by the Abuseniks and b) analyzing is not ‘slapping’, except to a rather primitive mind.
(But again: if student-JR, half a century ago, figured that a poor grade for poor work was a ‘slap’, then can you imagine how that lethally irrational presumption would work out in his attitude to those who gave him the bad grades and thus ‘slapped’ him? And didn’t that administrator all those years ago figure that out? And when the Anderson Stampede offered him the chance to collect on his presumption, then wouldn’t it all have paid off? And how often did this scenario play-out in the Stampede, offering types similarly-minded a chance to a) explain-away their life problems while b) collecting handsomely on them at the same time?)
Then – the 19th at 1207PM – he tries to get out from under the worm-can of payouts by asserting that (only?) “Rome and the insurers” have the figures for the average payout. But we needn’t buy that. There were 11 thousand allegations recorded in the most recent John Jay figures; toss in an extra thousand for the time elapsed since then. So take – say – one and a half billion and divide it by 12 thousand and … well, as he says, “do the math”. And – yes – subtract 35percent or 40percent as the torties’ cut. (But don’t include “Dennis”, who got his swag and trucks and boat and houses by surfing a different wave and – if I correctly recall – was never remunerated for his story about being abused by the Church etc.)
Then an effort – perhaps supplied by more 3x5s in the mental shoebox – to change the subject and try to get into why SNAP doesn’t complain about payouts as varying according to this or that state. This is irrelevant to the question of SNAP’s being a tool of the Church – and I have never said that SNAP is an organization that is concerned for “victims” (genuine or otherwise-classifiable). SNAP and Anderson were focused on other things – and so, apparently – were most of the formally declared allegants (who at this point don’t seem to see any reason to band together and thus expose themselves to an examination they have already so nicely avoided). So JR’s point here does nothing to support the SNAP-Church tool connection, and yet works strongly to indicate the motivations driving the allegants and payees and also the torties.
And the concluding plaint about “harmed” and “not protected”.
Then on the 19th at 1215PM he thanks me for my one-word answer as he had requested. But then, as if he had not read my further comments on that point above, he notes – as if he was broaching a revelation – that I hadn’t answered his second question. He didn’t get the “more involved answer” because – as I explained – his question was irrelevant and distracting.
He and the rest of my “opposition” here have no right to anything except to consider and respond as they see fit to the ideas and concepts and material that I put up here. And that is either something that they are incapable of doing or else don’t want to do. Which is not my problem. I didn’t ask them for personal “information” (or, actually, their stories as they have chosen to tell – and re-tell – them). They chose to go the ‘personal story’ route because, I think, it’s the only gambit that they have ever used and for so long and on a number of other sites that gambit has served them well enough. But that was then and somewhere else. And this is now and here. And that’s a fact.
Then on the 19th at 1227PM JR tries to extricate himself from the bishop-furniture bit by tossing whatever plop is on the 3x5s. And thus brings up the German bishop (who, he neglects to mention, was called to Rome to get a lecture from the Pope himself). I would also note the sly and inaccurate concluding bit that “it’s tough to be a priest” and apparently he has to be informed that a priest is not a Bishop (the same way, if he has also forgotten his military training, that a Lieutenant is not a General).
Then on the 19th at 1247PM he asserts (perhaps on the basis of the tin-foil hat) as fact that “life after death is an imaginary thing”. He has no proof to demonstrate that his assertion is accurate any more than anyone has proof that it is not. And I certainly don’t care to interfere with his beliefs. He then goes on about what is classically known as the Theogony Problem, but seems to be under the impression that he is the one who has just discovered it. It is a long-standing element in theology and has been rather extensively dealt with over the millennia. Perhaps he has come across it among all of his “reading”.
And we can leave his (the 19th, 101PM) theological eructations about males for whomever cares to consider them for what they are worth.
I would conclude the JR section of things here by noting that those comments of the 18th at 1242PM, 1246PM, and 1248PM are, I would say, JR without any Wig on at all, and thus revelations of the genuine article.
Now to ‘dennis ecker’ on the 19th at 2254PM.
That “many states” consists of five (LA, MT, OK, SC, TX). And yet not for “abuse” of children, but for the most extreme forms, i.e. rape, and repeated rape at that.
But – on top of his rather inaccurate characterization of the number of states and his inaccurate characterization of the crimes which create eligibility for the death sentence – he then apparently tells us (without supporting links)what those states (but not himself, of course) were thinking or feeling when they passed these laws (the constitutionality of which continues to be uncertain) .
Charming.
His thoughts on this subject “is undecided”. And yet he continues to head further off the path of accuracy by trying to shoe-horn in his usual bits about “abuse” – which, as I noted above, is not the triggering event for the laws he himself has brought to the discussion. And readers can consider the sly insertion of his “knowing first hand” about abuse and “the lifelong damage that a abuser creates” [sic] – another story to be told, no doubt.
And I would point out again that we have discussed at length the problems with establishing as fact and as general-consequence that any amount of abuse causes “lifelong damage”. Most Abuseniks don’t seem to notice the careful hedging of scientific studies that claim in conclusion that abuse may or can cause damage, nor how they do not establish correlations between the type or severity of the abuse and the type or severity of the consequences, and that even on top of that they are confronted with the problem of explaining how there can be so much variation in terms of consequences or sequelae among those who ‘report’ themselves as ‘abused’.
And, of course, there is the Causality Problem: how establish a definitive link between the damage displayed by the patient/reporter/claimant and the abuse (however defined on the spectrum) that putatively caused it? And how rule-out diagnostically and reliably that the patient/reporter/claimant was not already long and/or deeply damaged before the claimed abuse?
So this particular trope of victimist and Abusenik ‘science’ really stands on very little actual science at all.
As far as I am concerned, genuine and serial pedophiles may very well need extended incarceration, but that’s a far cry from execution.
Then a classic Eckerian construction whereby he is too victimized to give “an honest feeling on the subject” because – as fate (or luck, or the script) would have it – his abuser “is already dead”. Alas. But what difference does it make to the story if the bad-guy is already dead? They make movies about Jesse James and Jack the Ripper and such types even though they are already long and very much dead. I don’t see his point here.
And then he continues with his riff even though there is a vast distance between his “abuse” and the serial-pedophile-rape that is the subject of the laws he himself has mentioned. But hasn’t this little bit about the death-sentence laws provided a handy mule for his purposes here? Why quibble about coherence, rationality, and accuracy? And the general run of abusers do not enjoy the same clinical high-probability of re-offending as do the serial-pedophile-rapists, as even the legislators of the five States apparently realized when they wrote the laws to apply to serial-pedophile-rapists and not to all ‘abusers’.
So I concur with him that the readership should consider his material here and then, as he says, “You decide” – as to the reliability of his material.
My god man! you live on fantasy island. It was on your link I read that Constantine the Emperor ain't a saint. You are truely an ill person.
It not just me who doubts the existence of the gospel writers M M L + J but many bible historians. Some just appeared in a documentary, Bible Secrets Revealed on the History channel that I recorded on Friday the 15 at 12:03 am. Let's remember it was your church and the state that supported it, that killed people who translated the vulgate into other languages; maybe your church fathers didn't want the man in the street to know anything ever..
If Constantine was made a saint in the rcc when was it done? I remember no churches named after him. Like a st Constantine's grade school or priory or parish. What was he the patron saint of, wife and son killers?
http://orthodoxyandheterodoxy.org/2013/11/18/a-response-to-the-history-channels-bible-secrets-revealed/
I knew you'd try and wiggle out of the German bishops spending spree on himself. How did this guy get this far to be a bishop? That's the issue. Not that he was finally disaplined. If things weren't so looked at now in the church's behaviors would his behavior have breezed on through?
If no one ever came back from the dead (excluding j.c. and Lazurus, of course) Where's there proof, emperical proof for an after life? There isn't any and j.c. and Laz never described what went on on the other side. When they came back.
Maybe they thought they left the oven on. Or maybe j.c. needed to give a 30 day notice to his land lord. So he could get back his cleaning deposit.
Your banking on some big ifs.
We have every right to know who and what you really are. We have that right because you've libeled the victims who have posted here. You don't get to throw up your own PLOPS of libel with out being held responsable for doing so, Snipey.
On the 20th at 941AM ‘dennis ecker’ continues to flog his not-quite-relevant bit about the death-penalty for serial-rapist-pedophiles (the legislators on the record so far) or “child molesters” (‘dennis ecker’ and others). As we saw in the Jay Reports, very few of the Catholic Abuse allegations rose to the level of serial-pedophile-rape, so the relevance here is tenuous.
He provides a link which brings us to an online petition on which – by amazing coincidence – “Dennis” appears as the top comment (as of the time of my reviewing it). Having dealt with his own thoughts in my comment of the 20th at 1151AM, let me focus here on the text of the online petition itself.
First, there is the fact that while the accurate phrase “serial rapist pedophiles” was available, the petition chooses to open with the muzzier “child molesters”, although – as perhaps many readers now realize – “molest” can mean just about anything nowadays. (And I would say that there is no small possibility – especially given the tics in grammar and conceptual style – that “Dennis” himself is the author of the petition, although that does not strike me as overly significant. Yet, one has to wonder again: did this person actually have a job where delivering and writing accurate and comprehensible reports was essential?)
Second, there is that vague “guidelines”, rather than something more specific such as ‘criteria’ – but that would require more serious and clear thinking-out of the proposal, which is not the Eckerian style.
Third, the parameters in the text don’t actually correspond to the parameters in the bullet-points: the text’s one point in this regard does not mention serial or repeat rapings, whereas the bullet-points do include “Repeat Offenders”. But then again, the petition text is vague as to whether its bullet-points are i) cumulative and must all be satisfied to trigger the death-sentence eligibility or whether ii) the satisfaction of any single one of them would trigger that eligibility.
Fourth, we note that the majority of the petition text (after that first sentence) deals with a familiar Eckerian manipulative declaiming that seeks to sway the emotions of the reader (who would not have been too exercised or worn-out from considering the actual technical points of the proposal since there aren’t too many).
Fifth, readers may credit the claim by “Dennis” that he is a parent (“us parents” – rather than ‘we parents’) or not, as they see fit.
Sixth there is that innocent-sounding “in a reasonable amount of time” – which queasily blows the old Victimist and Abusenik dogwhistle that Due Process shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with conviction and punishment. (Yet – one might ask – what reason would there be for squelching the Due Process of appeals if the convicted is already behind-bars and unable to commit further crimes? The answer, I would say, is that the Eckerian position drinks deeply of the poisoned well of Victimist legal-theory: once you are presumed and/or found guilty by a trial court, then Due Process shouldn’t really matter because it merely re-victimizes the victim. This bit is gravid with deranging consequences for jurisprudence and the justice-doing process and the judicial system generally.)
Seventh, since “inappropriate touching of the genital area or in a sexual manner” seems clearly included in “actual sexual intercourse” then we are left with the only rational conclusion (presuming the rationality of the original proposal here to begin with) that these “guidelines” are not meant to be taken cumulatively, but rather that any one of them would create eligibility for the death-sentence. Thus then: anybody over 21 who commits “inappropriate touching of the genital area or in a sexual manner” upon a person under 12 would be eligible for the death-sentence.
Eighth, the term “in a sexual manner” is legally vague if not also overbroad and one has to wonder – yet again – if a great deal of informed thought went into the creation of this proposal. And – yet again – one has to wonder if the mind that created this proposal had ever been trained in clear and rational diagnostic and structural analysis and assessment. (Yes, a possible response to that is that “Dennis” wasn’t the author or guiding-force behind the proposal; but that would still leave us with the fact that whoever the author was, s/he did not really have the desire or the competence to think this proposal through. And thus “Dennis” has signed himself on to a rather mushy project indeed. But is that so surprising?)
Ninth, the proposal concludes with the blithe Victimist bit that “this maybe [sic; “Dennis” again seems to echo in this text] a violation of their 8th Amendment” [sic; ditto] “but child molesters violate their victims 8th Amendment too” [sic; ditto]. The 8th Amendment – of course – prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments inflicted”; it might occur to a reader that this Amendment specifically relates to punishments imposed by a duly-constituted court, which fact then becomes inapplicable in regard to what the accused or convicted had done to the victim, since the accused or convicted individual was not a duly-constituted court and thus the act committed by the accused or convicted does not actually constitute “cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” by a duly-constituted court. But, as always, such thinking-through is neither the preferred modus operandi of Abuseniks and victimists, nor is it their objective (which is, rather, to stitch-together whatever Frankenstein skein of manipulative and emotionally-inciting mumbo-jumbo they can, larded more or less artfully with legal-soundy words and phrasings).
Thus, it is a violation of the constitution for duly-constituted courts to ‘inflict’ “cruel and unusual punishments”; but it is not a violation of the constitution to commit a cruel and unusual crime (which is, rather, a violation of the criminal law). Again, this is a vital point that, to the Abuseniks and victimists, represents entirely too much thinking … and that, in no small part, is how we have gotten to the point of Stampede. Nor can it be characterizable as “cruel and unusual punishments” if the proper pursuit of Due Process and related evidentiary and procedural safeguards built-into traditional Western legal process does not sufficiently quickly and decisively create for the accuser the satisfying and dramatic ending so often seen in the movies and on TV police-procedural shows.
Thus the (so typically Eckerian) concluding declamation is not accurately grounded in legal thinking.
And yet this online proposal takes upon itself the matters of life and death and the ultimate legitimacy and integrity of the legal system.
It should be clear – I would say – just how profoundly unserious these gambits are, despite their histrionic and Wiggy declamations and the mimicry of legal thinking and the crackpot stitching-together of whatever emotionally-manipulative bits their authors can find readily to hand.
Then – as for JR’s of the 20th at 704PM – he neatly avoids providing any quotation that justifies his ongoing claim that Constantine is (even by the material to which I linked) not a saint on the Roman Catholic list (which list he apparently didn’t read or has ignored in favor of the little screen behind his eyeballs). Would he care to put up the (accurate) quotation from my material that states that Constantine the Great is not a saint in the Roman tradition?
Nor do I have any doubt that JR is the only crackpot who “doubts the existence of the gospel writers”; indeed, I presume the existence of others if for no other reason than the fact that the substance and composition of much of JR’s material along these lines is too much for his mind – as I have seen it demonstrated here – to come up with and express on his own. But beyond that, we find ourselves in his material back in sophomore year of high-school, with the cafeteria crowd who don’t find they need to do their homework instead contenting themselves with ‘doubting’ whatever they haven’t taken the trouble to carefully examine. And that is what it is and let’s leave JR to his fries.
I haven’t seen Bible Secrets Revealed (again, the preponderance of JR’s ‘knowledge’ seems to come from movies, TV, assorted crackpot websites, and his own fry-fly predilections) but – oh my – how professional of him to note the date and time that he recorded this show. Perhaps his experience with the Deschner material didn’t impress upon him just how many such gambits there are out there in the wide world of the web and the media. But it does relieve him of the need to deal-with any of the conceptual problems with his Josephus-Vespasian material. There’s a method in the madness.
As to his questions about Constantine, I refer him to my earlier comments on this thread where that material was covered.
Then on the 20th at 709PM he accuses me of trying to “wiggle out of the German bishop’s spending spree on himself”. And how – pray – did I try to do that? I pointed out – and not disapprovingly – that he was forthwith summoned to the Vatican for a personal lecture by the Pope … which even in his own phantasmic vision of the Church must surely indicate a rather stern level of reproof.
But when one is in the plop-tossing business – and perhaps has adopted it as one’s life project – then plop must daily be tossed. Yes, indeed.
How did the German get to be a Bishop? I don’t know the specifics of his career. How did JR get to be a media-personality (so to speak)? Stuff happens and people get into positions they really don’t have the chops to be in.
But at least in the German case here, appropriate authority has stepped in.
Hey Snipey, here's the link I got from the link you gave http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=2731 He is referred to as a st. in a category discription but he's only a saint in the eastern orthodox; anglican and coptic churches HE IS NOT A SAINT in the rcc. GOT IT?
Excuse me, not coptics but Byzantine catholics regard him as a saint as well. So if you are a roman catholic Constantine is not a saint.
Here's a short link to Dr. Blackhirst, lecturer in Religious Studies at La Trobe University, Australia.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndAnzWduwP8
JR’s personal theological bits need not detain us here (the 21st, 1109AM).
But (the 21st, 1131AM) it occurs to me that this ‘libel’ bit (as if anything anybody could say about his material could possibly do more damage to his credibility than the material itself) is the internet version of a claim of ‘abuse’: if I don’t like what you have said or done, then you have ‘abused’ me (if there was a physical presence to the interaction) or you have ‘libeled’ me (if there is only a virtual presence to the interaction).
Readers may consider the possibility that a teacher giving JR lower grades than he felt his due was taken as a “slap” and perhaps as some form of “libel” but certainly (when the surf was up) as “abuse”. And the price for that outrageous outrage was … as we have seen (and, nicely, continue to see).
Again – and this is the value of the material under consideration here: notice how nicely the combined Anderson strategies work to invite (or lure) such types out of the woodwork, and then simultaneously a) mine them for their allegations and outrage while b) preventing their ever being seriously examined while c) enabling the torties to avoid ever having to actually defend the ‘stories’ (or the story-tellers) and yet d) scoop up large settlements and fees (for largely unexamined allegations).
Once the spell of the Stampede is broken – or once it starts to break – then I think people will see the actual lineaments of the dynamics that have always been driving it. Which is why the Abuseniks become so agitated (and nastily so) when the possibility of the spell being broken draws closer.
I feel the "spell" of the stampede has already started to "break". When I discuss these matters with fellow Catholics, there are very much over this "crisis". The fringe will hang around some more but they are getting nowhere as it is the same cry over and over. Most people are more tha comfortable with the way the Church has responded to past failures. The safety measures put in place to protect children are superior to ant other group. The press seems to cover this business less and less. Although, it would be great if they were to cover child abuse other than the small percentage of priest's old cases. We have a serious problem with child abure now (notin the Church) and they just ignore it, Amazing!
Can you even admit that Constantine is not a saint in the rcc? Can you even do that one small thing?
I told you I was failing my chem class. I didn't hide that fact from you. Your libeling me, as to my making up an abuse story to ameliorate my failing grade, is all on you.
Do you ever take responsability for any of your actions/
I wish I could agree with Josie and her statement that clergy abuse cases are beginning to "break" and she also states "most catholics are more than comfortable with the way the church has responed to past failures".
Unless Josie has been living under a rock or has failed to listen to the news she would like you to believe those words. (FACTS PLEASE)
Like in Boston, Philadelphia and other archdioceses across the world the surface of abuse by clergy has only begun to be stripped away in other places like St. Paul Minn. We once again see the same old playbook being used. The moving of abusive priests, the hiding of documents and the destruction of evidence.
The difference this time around we are seeing is more employees of the archdiocese coming forward, the parishioners speaking out, and most important we see the innocent priests speak out and challenge the hierarchy. One priest during his homily to his congregation has stated that in more the sixty years he is "embarrassed to be a catholic" Strong words coming from a very popular priest who knows there are people like me who bunch together the innocent priests with the guilty. Fair or not this priest knows the catholic church is not giving the public any reason to trust him. He wears a uniform of shame.
Then there are the donors who after decades have closed their checkbooks until their demand of the ouster of the archbishop is completed, and organizations who are telling parishioners not to give their donations to the archdiocese. Something the archdiocese has plead to the parishioners not to do. Cutting off the money is no way a business (as Josie put it) can survive.
So as much as I would like to believe Josie's statement that clergy abuse has started to "break" there is no proof. As states change their SOL laws we will see for sometime in the future how evil the catholic church really continues to be.
If clergy abuse happens in big city Philadelphia or small town USA it is still clergy abuse.
Dennis, it is pure evil of yourself to bunch together innocent priests with guilty ones. The time for you to stop is now.
How can changing SOL laws (past) illustrate how evil the Catholic Church continues to be (present)? That is like saying that I am evil for the creepy things my great-great grandfather did.
It’s not much but it’s all he has (or dares to deal with), so JR will dig himself deeper into the Constantine-as-Roman-Saint bit. Thus (the 22nd, 1015AM) we are now informed that while Constantine appears as a Saint on the list to which I linked, yet “he’s only a saint in a category discription” [sic]. Now this concept of a “category discription” provokes some thought, since it seems a rung or two above JR’s characteristic level of mentation. I examine this bit for its usefulness in de-coding whackery, rather than for the purpose of going around the bush on Constantine yet again.
Thus: what does the phrase even mean here? Is this the equivalent of saying, for example, that George Washington appears in a list of US Presidents but that’s only a “category discription”? There’s a list of Catholic Saints, Constantine is on that list, and so what does “category discription” mean here?
And on what authority are we to accept the term ‘category discription” in the first place? Does the site publish a disclaimer or advisory that the saints listed therein are only saints for purposes of ‘category description’ but really the list is not to be taken for what it says it is? (Time-saver: No, it does not publish such a disclaimer.)
So, then, whence cometh the authority for JR’s invention of the term? And the short answer for that is: from JR, whose ‘personal truth’ should constitute more than enough authoritative-knowledge for us to credit his assertion because either a) he always tells the truth and does not lie or b) he always tells the truth as far as he knows it. And we note in addition that (a) does not equal (b).
Even though JR goes to the trouble of ‘shouting’ (which apparently is supposed to make his assertion even more true than it allegedly was in the first place).
Perhaps he has made the mistake of misreading that site’s text that Constantine “was revered as a saint, especially in the Eastern Church”. Is he under the impression that “especially” here functions to rule-out the Roman Church? But that “especially” cannot grammatically perform such a function.
But what it does do is offer a possibility as to why JR is mistaken to begin-with: the Latin/Roman rite hasn’t done so much with the fact of Constantine’s sainthood, and thus Latin/Roman rite Catholics would not have put up so many parish churches named for him and thus – marvelously and characteristically – since JR had never seen a parish church named for him, then he jumped to the conclusion that Constantine is not a recognized Saint in the Roman Church. Because, of course, if JR doesn’t ‘know’ something, then clearly it is not worth knowing and – in the obverse – what JR ‘knows’ is and must be genuine ‘knowledge’ (and hence corresponds with ‘truth’ and ‘fact’) and nothing else does.
But if we apply this type of presumption to stories and allegations in the general Abusenik universe, then you see what we are (and always have been) dealing with here in the Catholic Abuse Matter. And we see also the extraordinarily neat value of the Anderson Strategies as it relates to the credibility of those stories and allegations.
Nothing they say can be relied upon, neither in its own right nor in terms of what they will claim on some ‘tomorrow’. I am reminded of the old Stalin-era witticism: that no Soviet citizen could ever be sure of what yesterday will consist of. (Because you could never tell when – on some ‘tomorrow’ – the Soviet spinners would suddenly change the history of ‘yesterday’.)
And we are then (the 22nd, 1111AM) offered a You-Tube link to a “lecturer” at an Australian university. Once again, JR’s ‘knowledge’ seems more largely based in You-Tube and such rather than in published and peer-reviewed books. Nor, as ever, does JR care (or perhaps dare) to explain just what we are supposed to find valuable in this lecturer’s lecture.
But have we not seen this gambit so often among Abuseniks, here and on other sites? They don’t explain their thoughts (perhaps reflecting upon the fact that they haven’t done any thinking) but instead toss up – magpie-like – whatever link they hope will lead others to feel as they do, perhaps picking up some congenial and Stampede-friendly presumptions in the process.
Look chump, Is Constantine an official canonized saint in the latin rite roman catholic church, or isn't he? If he is, when was he canonized.? What miracles were credited him? Who canonized him?
These are simple questions. If I'm wrong I'll admit it. Why won't you?
I'll tell you why you won't. You have a need to appear perfect in this argument. Why you have that need? I don't know. Maybe it's because you think your defending something "perfect" like your imaginary diety or your faith.
If our side in this debate hasn't been thinking. i.e." explaining our thoughts" according to masterly you; Maybe it's you that's the problem not us. Your bizzare standards and complete lack of responsability for your actions merely mirror what your church has done for eons now.
Why don't you man up and quit being so stupid. If you can. Admit when you're wrong. Are you capable of that? Ever?
You sound like Bll Maher or Alec Baldwin.
Recently Fr. Paul of Our Lady of Calvary church in Philadelphia left his position as pastor stating one of the reasons being stress.
While under investigation by the archdiocese of Philadelphia for sexual abuse allegations archbishop chaput allowed Fr. Paul to remain in his position not only as pastor of Our Lady of Calvary church but also Our Lady of Calvary school where hundreds of children attend, in addition parishioners were kept in the dark regarding any claims against Fr. Paul.
This story pulled at the heart strings of people like Bill Donahue who felt the innocent priest was a victim of the stampede and in an article that he wrote requested his readers to pray for Father Paul.
Now recently I have learned that the archdiocese of Philadelphia has removed Fr. Paul from ministry and until further notice (if there will be one) Fr. Paul or as we should just call him now as Paul is not entitled to publicly present himself as a priest.
Why this decision was made by the archdiocese is not clear, but why would chaput knowing of these investigations by his archdiocese allow Paul to remain as pastor, involved with children, to remove him only after his resignation.
I am not the only one who has many of questions regarding the archdiocese actions, hundreds of angry parishioners of Our Lady of Calvary also have questions. The feelings that their own church did not give them the information that could have been used to protect themselves and their children.
If I was to quote a statement that Josie had made on 11/23 at 0934 "most people are more then comfortable with the way the church has responded to past failures." I would suggest to her to go to the neighborhood of Our Lady Calvary and speak with the parishioners and get the truth of how false her statement truly is.
I don't think we will hear Bill Donahue as for prayers for Paul in the near future.
When was the alleged abuse? In order for people to make a decison shouldn't they have all the facts?
Little research shows the alleged abuse was to have happened 45 years ago. And now since then there have been nothing else brought up against Fr. Paul i would imaging. Is that correct Dennis?
And to you referring to him as Paul, that is your choice but certainly not your right. He is stll a priest and deserves to be called Father or Reverned until the vatican says otherwise.
PS – Keep up the good detective work. Makes me feel safer to know you are out there patrolling the internet for gossip that your so called work is doing to help protect the innocent.
Well said, Dennis.
Dennis,
Please provide a link, news article or quote from a named source as to the "hundreds of angry parishioners from Our Lady of Calvary" that have questions. I haven't seen that anywhere.
Some of your comments have seemed regurgitated from a familiar anti-priest/ catholic church blog that I find boring and offensive among other things. Knowing that you even read all the comments after articles in the paper and get material there as well, you must know where you have been hanging recently. I have told you before that you do not have to tell the truth on these other sites. You just say you are a victim and everyone says that they believe you, no matter what. You should stay on these blogs. You don't really cut it here.
Still waiting, Dennis.
When were you in the neighborhood of Our Lady of Calvary Church or school? You imply that you have spoken to parishioners yet you live no where near there (you have said that you do not live in Philadelphia) and are not active in Catholic Churches or circles. You are telling me to go there to get the " truth" and thereby recant my statement that most Catholics are comfortable with the entire system of the protection of children that has been in place for years. I think that you have not spoken to anyone from Our Lady of Calvary, you read one or two comments on another blog saying that they are upset about the investigation of the pastor due to new allegation and you start making stuff up. That is why I, for one, don't believe you.
I am in Catholic circles all the time. The pay absolutely no attention to the fringe-catholics for choice, change or whatever other fringes are out there. The majority of them do not blog anywhere-don't have time or desire, They know what is going on more than you ever can imagine. .Some are just plain sick of the press on this when public school child abuse, among others is ignored. Most don't believe Billy Doe in Philadelphia and hope justice will be served in the appeals. And I will add that they know that the Church did not handle these matters well in the past. It is you that needs the truth, Dennis. You are just deluding yourself and you arguments don't work. Go on that other blog that you have discovered. Again, you can say anything and people will rally around you.
On the 23rd at 346PM ‘dennis ecker’ demonstrates some creative re-combinations of Abusenik methodology.
He ‘wishes’ that he “could agree” with ‘Josie’ (thus here the Wig of Regretful and Pained True Knowledge): from everything seen of his material on this and other sites, it would be a sad day indeed for “Dennis” if The Ball Stopped Rolling (and we may rest assured that he will apply every effort and deploy every gambit to help prevent that unhappy dawn).
‘Josie’ opines that the abuse cases are beginning to break, and Dennis opines that such is not the case. He inserts the thought that ‘Josie’ might have been “living under a rock”. But by then shouting “(FACTS PLEASE)” he slyly seeks to structure the dueling-opinions as if his were somehow supported by “facts”. (And the prospect of “Dennis” basing his material on “facts” is nothing if not humorously ironic.)
Continuing slyly, he leaps from “Boston, Philadelphia” to “and other archdioceses around the world”. But readers will note that “Boston” refers to more than a decade ago (during which intervening 11 years much has happened, including a verrry sharp decline in formal – not to say factual – allegations). And “Philadelphia” refers to the most recent and still-in-progress queasy revelations about the Billy Doe allegations and the local judiciary system.
And then quickly leaps to “the rest of the world”, without further elucidation. Nor does it give him a moment’s pause that there is certainly no small probability that all we are really seeing around that world is an attempt by secular-wannabe governments to re-create the Catholic Abuse piñata under their own aspiring regimes.
And then simply copies all the old decades-old stuff off his relevant 3×5: “The moving of abusive priests, the hiding of documents and the destruction of evidence” – without actually demonstrating that any of the recent material has been shown to have anything to do with those old primary claims (indeed, from what we have been able to actually examine on this site, just the opposite appears to be the case).
He then tries to update the old stuff by putting a coat of fresh wax on it: there is “a difference this time around” (thus inadvertently giving away the fact that at very best what we are seeing here is some sort of resurgence following a prior fall-off – although even here he uses examples that simply seek to draw from the recent misfires in the MPR media gambits). Not “more” but “an” employee came forward; we don’t know for certain who among those “speaking out” was or was not a “parishioner”, and – I’m not sure of the provenance of this one – “we see the innocent priests speak out and challenge the hierarchy”.
In regard to this latter bit: what “priests” are these and if they are “innocent” then about what are they ‘challenging’ “the hierarchy”? And – as so very often with this commenter – we are given no links or supportive material, and merely his own assertions, about his selected (if not entirely imagined or constructed) material: what priest said – and in what context – that he is “embarrassed to be a catholic” [sic]? Is this “priest” talking about abusive clergy or enabling hierarchs or is he, say, talking about Abuseniks?
But again, we are cast as the herd in a Stampede; hence we do not merit evidence or context since our purpose in this movie here is not to consider evidence or material but rather our scripted purposes for existence is merely to stampede robustly when the emotional red-flag is waved.
But then but then but then, in mid-paragraph, and from one sentence to the following sentence, the entire thrust of the material suddenly shifts almost 180 degrees: suddenly the “popular priest” who – we are to accept, apparently – is the source of this “embarrassed to be a catholic” [sic; ditto] statement is a priest “who knows that there are people like me [i.e. “Dennis”] who bunch together innocent priests with the guilty”. Soooooo … if we can follow this erratically bouncing Eckerian ball here … this bit apparently involves a priest who is speaking out against the Abuseniks and/or the Stampede in some way (while, it seems then, his Archdiocese is officially keeping mum about such speaking-out). … And this is supposed to be an example of how ‘Josie’ has been “living under a rock” because – we are to believe – The Ball Is Still Rolling?
And in what way is it, then, that this priest (prepare for the Wig of Reading Other Minds, here) “knows the catholic church is not giving the public any reason to trust him”? To which “Dennis” then slyly adds his own mind-reading take: this priest “wears a uniform of shame”.
Queasy, repellent, but sly – that’s the tactical squirming we see here as “Dennis” keeps spinning his skein.
“Dennis” then goes on about “donors who after decades have closed their checkbooks until” and so on and so forth. He knows this for a fact, does he? And does he similarly ‘know’ that there are no donors who have opened their checkbooks because they realize what a scam has been concocted and conducted against their Church? He knows nothing of the sort, if he knows anything at all.
And once again “Dennis” – who has provided no thoughts about the fundamental problems with that online petition which he has endorsed (and perhaps written) – gives us the clear indication that he conceives of himself as being present at the creation of the demise of the Church. Readers so inclined may thus add his name to the file (a rather thick one indeed, covering two millennia) of individuals who in their brief moment were absolutely certain that they would see and perhaps even usher-in the end of the Church in their day. We shall see.
Then – as always – he reminds us of his essential queasiness: he repeats that patently untrue smarmy clucking to the effect that “much as I would like to believe Josie’s statement” and so on. And claims that “there is no proof”. To which I would have to add: on the basis of his bits here, there is no proof against Josie’s opinion either. Not hardly.
And then he proffers – again from a 3×5 card with no thought as to accuracy or relevance? – that “as states change their SOL laws”, although the most recent demonstration in that area has been precisely the opposite. But – so characteristically – he assures us that “we will see for sometime [sic] in the future how evil the catholic church really continues to be”.
If – prescinding from the historical facts noted immediately above – SOL laws are more widely weakened, what we shall see is merely the increase of opportunities to deploy what we have already seen here to be a skein of sleaze, quease, and cash-grabbing, all of it lubricated and enabled and induced by the cumulative Anderson Strategies and the larger secularist special interests that have always been just behind the curtains on this slimey stage.
And thus – apropos of nothing that has gone before it – the concluding remark that clergy abuse is clergy abuse no matter whether it happens in a big city (he actually uses “Philadelphia” as an example of the Stampede’s accuracy and legitimacy) or in “small town USA” [sic].
To which I would simply echo: And a skein of sleaze, quease, and cash-grabbing is a skein of sleaze, quease, and cash-grabbing whether it takes place in a big-city or a small town. And clearly there are some . for whatever reasons and on whatever pretexts, are heavily invested in seeing it all continue.
Mr. Manos,
You are wrong. It is my right to refer to the ex- father John Paul as nothing more then Mr. Paul. He is no better than you or I even if the archdiocese did not remove him from ministry which they have. Fact is I am better then him. I am under no investigation by either the police or the archdiocese for child abuse. I went under the tuffest test anyone could face on this earth being abused by one of your priests and I survived with no help from your church.
You feel since there has been no other claims against Mr. Paul in 45 years he should get a free pass. But what about his victims who may have lived with the torment of what he did to them for 45 years. The possibility one of his victims may have taken their own life because of his abuse, or the failed marriage, or the possibility of drug abuse or worse yet the possibility of one of his victims becoming an abuser themselves. Your closed mind like others would like to block those possibilities out. You are one of many who feel that if abuse has happened decades ago the victim should let it go. Let me assure you that is not how it works.
I am not here to protect the innocent because the innocent do not need to be protected.
You have entered your comment to me which was respected. But you can now go back and live your life with your head in the sand until once again you get the urge to leave a comment.
And now comes ‘dennis ecker’ (the 24th, 840PM) with a – rather breathless – announcement that he has “just learned” of a Philly pastor resigning. (The case seems familiar and I think we have discussed it before here, and recently.)
I have looked at various reports and include here links to two of them: here http://articles.philly.com/2013-11-12/news/43935216_1_parish-rectory-allegations-archdiocese and here http://catholicphilly.com/2013/11/news/local-news/local-catholic-news/ne-philadelphia-pastor-resigns-due-to-stress-from-allegations/ .
The pastor – now 67 – is resigning after having been very recently accused of sexual abuse that allegedly took place in 1968, now forty-five years ago, not involving any members of the current parish. The police have completed an investigation and the DA has declined to press charges. The AOP allowed him to remain in his pastoral position while it conducted its own investigation or assessment (still ongoing) and now the pastor says that after thirteen years in the office and considering all the brouhaha it would be best for the parish and because of his own “emotional duress” (standing in front of the Stampede runaway train) if he were to resign at this point.
As is apparently standard practice, the AOP will continue to conduct “an internal investigation [that] seeks to determine whether he is suitable to continue serving as a priest”. (I include links to two local articles below; the first is from a local media source and the second is from the local Catholic media source.)
The AOP – “in the interests of transparency” – notified the parishioners a week or two ago.
Thus – even in the face of an allegation from almost half a century ago – the AOP implemented its protocols in terms of notifying law enforcement, initiating its own internal investigation, and requiring the accused not to have unsupervised contact with minors. But at this point the accused feels it’s in the best interests of the parish, and in light of the pressures on him personally, to resign – which is certainly understandable, no matter what may be the result of the AOP assessment when it is completed.
The AOP allowed him to stay in his position and to continue ministry while the investigation was being conducted, which – given the ‘historical’ nature of the allegations and the fact that nobody from the parish was involved – doesn’t seem unreasonable.
But we are now proffered the usual Eckerian treatment. First, no links, but instead just whatever specific spin “Dennis” wants us to take-away from his ‘report’.
He notes that the priest was left in charge of a school “where hundreds of children attend” and “in addition parishioners were kept in the dark regarding any claims against” him. Since i) the allegations are rather ‘historical’ and ii) do not involve any members of the parish and iii) the law enforcement authorities have declined to bring charges, then readers are welcome to indulge or reject the usual Eckerian innuendoes.
I can see why anybody – and not just “Bill Donahue” – might be concerned for the priest, given the circumstances and the ‘historical’ nature of the allegation(s) – dating back, as they do, to the era of LBJ.
Then the snide – but in light of its gross inaccuracy, witless – bit about whether we should now be required to call him not “Fr. Paul” but just “Paul”. There is absolutely no indication in any of the media reports (one can enter terms into any search engine to sample the available media coverage) that Fr. Paul has been laicized. Nor is there anything in the reports – nor anything with which I am familiar in Catholic and canon law – that forbids him from “presenting himself as a priest”, since he has not had his faculties removed nor has he been ‘defrocked’ (as the general argot has it). He is now simply a retired pastor without assignment.
“Dennis” then gets it wrong by referring to “this decision [that] was made by the archdiocese” – when actually the AOP has made no decision at all here: the protocols require the internal AOP investigation or (more properly) assessment, and it was the pastor’s personal decision to resign (which would spare the parish any sustained experience of being under a Stampede-media focus).
Thus too it was the act of his resignation (accepted by the AOP) that “removed” him from his pastorate (and not “from ministry”, as “Dennis” puts it).
And what did “chaput” [sic] know “of these investigations” such that the AOP would “allow Paul to remain as pastor” and “involved with children”? The Archbishop knew that a) there was some allegation or allegations dating back forty-five years and that b) the authorities had declined to bring charges. So what’s the problem here? And whatever the pastor’s ‘involvement’ “with children”, it hadn’t apparently caused any concern for the parishioners during the thirteen years of his pastorate.
And thus so much for the typical Eckerian innuendo (never, of course, developed) about why the AOP would allow Fr. Paul to remain in office.
We are then given another characteristic Eckerian bit: “Dennis” claims that he is “not the only one who has many questions regarding the archdiocese actions” [sic] since there are also – he asserts – “hundreds of angry parishioners of Our Lady of Calvary” (impressive use of appropriate caps, for once) who “also have questions”. First, there is nothing in the news reports I have reviewed that indicates any such thing. Second, “Dennis” neatly omits saying whether any such questions would be against or for the pastor (and given the ‘historical’ nature of the allegation(s), I could see where more than a few might be concerned for the pastor in all of this).
And what “information” was there to give the parishioners that “could have been used to protect themselves and their children”? (Which phrase is standard Abusenik boilerplate and no doubt inscribed in big block letters on a 3×5 card at the front of the ever-handy file.)
Thus too the inanity of the attempt to toss this incoherent pile of plop at ‘Josie’ by exhorting her to go to that parish “and speak with the parishioners and get the truth of how false her statement truly is”. There is utterly nothing in the reports (unless you want to go to something like the ‘crimes of the vatican’ website, which colloquially puts the Vatican and Satan in the same sentence) that indicates anything along the lines of the claims and assertions and innuendoes in this ‘dennis ecker’ comment. And as a further Note for the Playbook, I would always advise some whisker-twitching whenever Abuseniks start larding on various grammatical riffs on “the truth” and “truly”.
What “Dennis” sees in the tea-leaves in regard to Bill Donahue is there for readers to assess as they wish. But his theology – such as it may be – of prayer seems rather seriously deficient from a Catholic point of view. Nothing new there either.
Is he or isn't he a saint as dubbed by your church? if your church is the rcc, HE'S NOT! ( I shout because you do not hear) Therefore, you again are wrong.
You cannot make this stuff up.
Sean Fitzherbert the athletic director at Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia is under investigation by the Philadelphia Police Department SVU for inappropriate conduct with a minor attending Father Judge High School (site of my abuse) the archdiocese announced.
With the resignation of Fr. Paul earlier this month and the removal of his ministry unexplained by the archdiocese this will once again place a black eye on the archdiocese and the protection of our children if a criminal act has occured.
Anyone who feels that there is a "break" or people are satisfied of how the catholic church is handling abuse cases are sadly mistaken. The very sad part about proving those statements wrong is a child is affected.
We can only hope and pray the archdiocese of Philadelphia cooperates 100% with the police and since the investigation is in its infancy if a victim has come forward you are not alone.
close minded? Take a look in the mirror idiot. You focus only on issues that relate to the catholic church. where is your position or backing of the youth football coach who was just brought up on charges. guess you missed or skipped over that one. and in typical DE style there will be no follow-up.
And for your knowledge, Fr. Paul is still a priest until the vatican says he is not. where do you get your information from? Obviously it must be the highly decorated, recognized and chastised philadelphia inquirer.
Actually, you can make this stuff (wow-rythmes with tuff but wrong spelling) up and some people do (N.B. we are not talking child here, Dennis).
You can also make up spin which is what your comments does through and through. Particularly, your saying "we can only hope and pray that the archdiocese cooperates 100% with the police". Huh, what-they reported this as they have been doing. What are you doing? as in your fav expressions, 'putting your head in the sand', 'living under a rock'? Anyone who thinks that there is a (here we go) "black eye on the archdiocese for this one" is under all the debris that you can conjure up! Again, stick with that other site-you can say anything!
I have asked this question before. You have to keep trying to convince us of your alleged abuse. You keep saying Fr.Judge High School, yet you ran to a convent to look for a favorite nun who wasn't in the convent(and then just forgot about it?). So sorry if I have you mixed up with JR's story. If you would be less confusing, it might help.
http://catholics4change.com/
More on the removal of Fr. Paul from Ministry
More interesting bits from “Dennis”.
On the 25th at 1040PM, he instructs ‘Mark Manos’ that Mr. Manos is “wrong” because “it is my [i.e. “Dennis”] right to refer to ex-father John Paul as nothing more than Mr. Paul”.
Marvelously, “Dennis” thus commits two charming howlers for the price of one. First, John Paul is at this point an ex-pastor, not an “ex-father” (a point which had been covered previously in comments on this thread).
Second, “Dennis” had originally written (the 24th, 840PM) that “… or as we should just call him now as Paul is not entitled to publicly present himself as a priest”. Granted that given the iffy grammar (so characteristic of this commenter) it is not clear whether this bit is meant to be taken in the declarative or the interrogative. Yet there is a deeply revelatory bit yet to be found here: whereas in his comment on the 24th “Dennis” had proposed that all of us (“we”) “should” presume the accused to be an “ex-priest”, now he simply defends his characterization (and his consequent assertion that ‘Mark Manos’ is “wrong”) merely on the basis of it being his “right to refer to the ex-father John Paul as nothing more then Mr. Paul” [sic]. Because – doncha see? – “Dennis” can never be wrong because he has made his pronounciamento Ex Wiggedra (once again, how quickly Abuseniks like to speak in the accents of hierarchical authority).
And – doncha see? – “Dennis” is justified in this not only because it is a) his right to call persons and things whatever he wants to call them but also because b) Fr. Paul “is no better than your or I even if the archdiocese did not remove him from ministry which they have” [sic].
In regard to (a): speaking for myself (other readers can speak for themselves if they so desire) I’m not really sure I want to be lumped into the same category of ‘goodness’ (i.e. “no better than”) as “Dennis” – but then again, all of this word-playing is simply taking place on the little screen behind his eyeballs so what’s the problem, really?
In regard to (b): i) I don’t see where it’s been demonstrated that Fr. Paul is “no better than” “Dennis”. And ii) the AOP has not – by any extant information I have discovered – acted to “remove him from ministry”. Might we have a link and accurate quotation for the authority supporting this rather serious claim? Fr. Paul has resigned as pastor and his resignation as pastor has been accepted. He has not been “removed” from ministry (if by “removed” he means laicization, thus rationally and legitimately justifying the characterization of Fr. Paul as no longer being allowed to call himself and present himself as a priest; or if by “removed” he means the withdrawal of faculties); Fr. Paul is at this point a former-pastor. If by some workings of the AOP protocols there are any limits temporarily put on his ministry pending the outcome of the AOP investigation, then that is something canonically far far less than anything “Dennis” has sought to assert here.
But we see two general Abuseniks characteristics displayed here: 1) that they cannot ever be “wrong” and 2) that what they want-to-see as being real is what not only they but also everybody else must see as being real. And thus for anybody to have the insensitive temerity to suggest or to demonstrate that what the Abuseniks see on the little screen behind their eyeballs is merely and only stuff that appears on the little screen behind their eyeballs … is an outrageous ‘mockery’ and re-victimization and (fill in the blank).
But then but then but then: “Dennis” will wade even further into the Abusenik Swamp of Theory and declare that actually and come to think of it “Dennis” is indeed “better then him” [sic], meaning better-than Fr. Paul. Because – doncha see? – “Dennis” is “under no investigation by either the police or the archdiocese for child abuse” – which point, for whatever it is actually worth, ignores the fact that being under investigation for X in a time of a Stampede-Against-X is hardly evidence or proof of either guilt or some deeper turpitude.
But Abuseniks – and the larger category of Victimists from which Abuseniks derive – hold that once one is suspected or under-investigation then one is legitimately presumable to be guilty. (Some readers might remember the old Al Capp comic-strip Pogo, wherein – during the days of the late-1960s – the uniform-wearing police authority (in the form of a large dog with Spiro Agnew’s face) informs the storekeeper Miggle, whom he has just arrested, that “A man is guilty until caught; you’re guilty, Miggle, so shut up!”.) As I have said before on this site: Victimist – and hence Abusenik – law ‘reforms’ actually constitute not progress but rather a profound regression in American law and the entire Western stance toward law and jurisprudence.
And then and then and then: in the same (densely loaded) paragraph “Dennis” informs us that he had undergone “the tuffest test anyone could face on this earth” (we notice again the deliberate use of a spelling that no word-processing spell-check can be induced to accept). And we might also notice the queasily histrionic characterization (and self-dramatization) to the effect that some alleged “abuse” by a (long-deceased) priest was and remains simply the most trying and demanding test any human being could ever face. (To deploy a maxim he himself has deployed here in recent comments: why did he not report so utterly profound and extreme a “test” – and the alleged crime that constituted it – to the police or at least a tortie? And to deploy another Eckerian gambit (if I may): could it be that he knew his allegations could not stand up even in a Stampede-friendly forum? … Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, no?)
And the paragraph concludes – once again – with a queasy filching of the Holocaust terminology and imagery.
Then in the next paragraph – having selected another 3×5 from the shoebox – “Dennis” lards on all the bits about the many possible “victims” of Fr. Paul “who may have lived with the torment of what he did to them for 45 years”. Or – it must be added – what Fr. Paul did not do to them and thus that there are no such hypothetical and innuendo-sketched “victims” out there at all in the first place, whether in the ones or the tens or the hundreds.
The text continues with material the overall problems with which we have already seen discussed at great length in comments on this site: A) establishing the veracity of any such allegations (especially from the long-long-ago) and B) establishing that any damaged personalities making allegations received their damage from the (alleged) abuse and not, rather, that their assorted characterological or cognitive or other damage is the source of the allegation – rather than the consequence of the (alleged) abuse. Again, I point out how brilliantly the cumulative Anderson Strategies have worked to prevent such profoundly serious aspects of allegations from being examined.
However, having kicked-free of the boundaries imposed by any reality principle, the Abusenik theory (deployed in this instance by “Dennis”) is free to imagine such horrific and vivid imaginings as it may find manipulatively useful.
Further, I would say that it is not so much an issue of “if abuse has happened decades ago the victim should let it go”. Rather, it is an issue of establishing with sufficient evidence that any such (alleged) abuse happened in the first place.
And further, that it is not a matter of any allegant having to “let it go”, because any person who personally knows him/herself to have been abused can and indeed must deal with that reality in his/her personal life. Rather, it is a matter of this: any person who wishes to take the matter into the public legal forum must be prepared to accept the fact that for the Sovereign Coercive Authority of the government to be deployed against whomever the person accuses, there must be sufficient evidence. And again, I point out the brilliant – if also profoundly corrosive – objective of the cumulative Anderson Strategies: to a) conflate the personal and the public forums, and thus to b) conflate i) the personal ‘knowledge’ which the accusing-allegant claims with ii) the objective evidence required (at least until Victimism did its work) to prove the allegation and justify the legitimate deployment of the Sovereign Coercive Authority against the accused.
Thus readers may consider whether they wish to become ‘assured’ by the assurance “Dennis” proffers, to the effect that “that is not how it works”. Perhaps “Dennis” can explain a) what “it” is here and b) how “it” actually does work.
And then the gnomic declaration that “Dennis” is “not here to protect the innocent because the innocent do not need to be protected”. Which is – to put it bluntly – baloney in the original package. The innocent must always be protected – that’s why the Framers wrote so many protections for the accused into the constitutional legal principles and praxis: because there will always be those elements or interests who will find it convenient to their purposes to deploy the Sovereign Coercive Authority against the innocent. Thus rules of evidence and statutes-of-limitation and the very presumption-of-innocence of the accused were enshrined at the outset – so as to provide firewalls and speed-bumps so as to prevent the type of deliberately-manipulated Stampedes by which the accused can be overwhelmed (and also – the Framers were wise enough to see – the very legitimacy of the courts and even government be placed in great hazard).
And again, I point out the brilliance of the cumulative Anderson Strategies in this regard, while also noting that Anderson’s work simply took advantage of long-standing dangerous tendencies in human affairs, i.e. the tendency to deploy officially-sanctioned violence on the basis of emotional urges, rather than rational reasons. And how often – even since the dawn of the 20th century or going back to the French Revolution – have we seen these dynamics run riot, and to catastrophic effect?
But perhaps the “abuse” that “Dennis” underwent seriously degraded his cognitive abilities such that he forgot(or repressed the memory of) his civics classes. So many possibilities.
And then – dear dear dear Readers – a marvelous and classic Eckerian conclusion, with the Teeth of True Nastiness chattering in the Wig of Outraged Decency like cheap castanets: “Mr. Manos” can now go back and “live [his] life with your head in the sand until once again you get the urge to leave a comment”. I can only add that Mr. Manos is lucky not to have revealed any of his personal information and address in his comment. Because you can see clearly where this type of mentality can go, and with few speed-bumps to deflect it.
But before all this, “Dennis” had also shared some bits on the 25th at 718PM.
The athletic director of the very high school (allegedly) where “Dennis” (allegedly) underwent his own extreme experience of “abuse” is now “under investigation” by the Philly Police (the suspicious credibility of whose recent burst of Catholic Abuse inquiry has been raised on this site) for “inappropriate conduct with a minor” (whatever that might mean in this era of Victimist/Abusenik Stampede).
We are then instructed to think that this, on top of the Fr. Paul matter (such as it exists in the Eckerian imagination), “will once again place a black eye on the archdiocese and the protection of our children” … “if a criminal act has occured” [sic] [italics mine].
The Billy Doe case – we note – brays forth its existence here by omission: what are we to think of the credibility of the Philly police and DA agencies after seeing what has and has not transpired in that repellently intriguing saga of official skullduggery?
But the usual Eckerian innuendo here is that all of this (such as it is) must surely prove that those who see a “break” in the Stampede are “sadly mistaken”.
And further that it clearly does indicate that “people” are not “satisfied of how the catholic church is handling abuse cases”[sic]. It does no such thing. And rather, it simply indicates that the agencies who were part of that matrix of special-interests working behind the color of law to pursue their agendas against the AOP and the Church are now trying even harder to find ‘stuff’ that can somehow make them look better to compensate for the Billy Doe fiasco.
Then the Wiggy smarm in conclusion that “we can only hope and pray [bearing in mind the peculiarities of the Eckerian theology of prayer] the archdiocese of Philadelphia cooperates 100% with the police” and then that old Victimist/Abusenik dogwhistle about anybody feeling they might want to make a run at the piñata should consider this as an Eckerian invitation to have-at-it.
One can only add that anybody who has knowledge of a perjurious and conspiratorially-concocted allegation against an innocent party – individual or institutional – and on the basis of which such conspiratorial and perjurious allegation(s) large sums of money were extorted from the accused party … might also feel free to “come forward”. We might also wonder (deploying a gambit here so dear to the Abusenik Playbook) if there are not myriads of such persons ‘out there’.
Lastly, while I certainly do not hold myself more expert than Abuseniks in how to “make this stuff up”, yet I do have to say that one certainly can “make this stuff up” and, further, that such “stuff” has in all probability indeed been made up, far more often than the Abuseniks would like us to think.
P, must only use expensive castenettes in his Carmen Mirandaesque drag show. Ole! You look so real, dear.
You are a punk, P.
And Mr. Manos , Dennis posts about catholic perpetrators because he was raped by a catholic priest. That's his balleywick. He has no need to talk about other sex abuser there are more than enough catholic rapists to take up and post about for the rest of his life..
Josie what's your reason to post about this subject? Who are you to ask Dennis to provide you information about his abuse? You are the next to last person I would tell anything to. About anything. You are, abysmally, close minded and nasty.
Again, May I suggest you sponser a tour or press conference with all your falsley acused priests. Trot 'em out girls. If you've got 'em let's seem "em.
JR- Dennis has conflicting stories-I have said that I don't believe him. Dennis makes things up/spins it.Why should anyone believe him-because he said it is so? He said on this thread that he was abused at Fr. Judge High School-he just said that-I am pointing out his inconsistencies. Dennis should not talk about his alleged abuse if he has issses with anyone commenting (I told him he should move to a victims blog where they might coddle him!!!)
You are calling me nasty? Oh my….Don't really have the desire to go back in forth with you (ever since I saw that picture of you chaining yourself to the LA Archbishop's chair during Mass at the Cathedral there…well, let's just say you are a little outragious and leave it there). I figured that SNAP did not approve and that is why they distanced themselves from you. Hence, you hate them too.
Six of the several falsely accused priests that I know have been exonerated, cases dropped, various scenarios…some have gone on with their lives and forgiven the poor evil men that accused them. There is no way there would be a "tour or press conference" or any outragious thing that you imagine would be done. What is wrong with you exactly?
Well, I am called “a punk” (JR, the 27th, 1026AM). Does that mean I have been “libeled”?
Then we are informed that “Dennis … was raped by a catholic priest”. Was he really? That’s news. Or – actually – it isn’t yet news, but merely a claim made on the internet. Nor – apparently – did “Dennis” report this outrage to the police, if for no other reason than to protect others and prevent a repetition of the alleged abuse being perpetrated on others (including, of course, “children”).
And a) how does JR come by this information? And b) how does JR know it’s accurate and true?
And as we know from the formal allegations, there are few allegations of rape (presuming, of course, that one does not define any and all ‘abuse’ or ‘molesting’ as rape … but with Abuseniks that’s admittedly a gratuitous presumption that perhaps should not be made.
But I would note here that we are once again confronted with a key whackery in the Abusenik Stampede: the conflation of the personal forum and the public/official forum. When two persons who know each other well are sitting together over coffee or a beer and one shares such a story, then it is up to the hearer to decide – on the basis of a great deal of prior assessment and information about his/her friend – about that claim. That’s how it works among acquaintances and friends.
But then there is another setting: a stranger sidles up at a bar (coffee or beer) and relates a story. Now the hearer is faced with a rather different situation indeed.
But then there is yet another setting. On the internet, a person whom one does not know at all, and who is shielded from even the most minimal interpersonal interaction (whereby humans can gauge with some degree of intuition the veracity of the story-teller if not the story itself) claims a story. How does one even begin to assess that? (Answer: one must rely on the coherence of the story material in all its aspects and conduct a more analytical set of operations than would be the case with a face-to-face encounter. That’s – as some here like to say – the way it works and, I would add, the way it has to work.)
Beginning with those 1980s TV shows where persons could get on TV simply on the basis of the story they choose to tell (or, if you wish, ‘share’) we began to see this conflation of the personal and the public forums. And after a while it migrated into the legal forum, which was the recipe for even more corrosive mischief (as we have seen).
And it was precisely this development which Anderson incorporated structurally into his Strategies.
“Dennis” has linked above to a website where one of the comments is indeed an extended example of this dynamic: a long and detailed story, the details of which are so vivid and engrossing that readers may well forget the fact that there is utterly no way for them to know or gauge its veracity. Yet it is – it must be – the story’s essential veracity, and not the ancillary details, that governs the reader’s conclusions. Otherwise, what can so easily develop is simply a large and credulous following for a ‘story’ that, in point of fact, nobody can be certain is true. On top of which, such a dynamic, once it is rolling, creates a gravitational pull, an invitation, a seduction even, for others to jump into the pool with their own stories as the ticket for admission to the warm and accepting membership of the club.
As I think we have seen more often than we care to think.
And then (the 27th, 1034AM) JR asks ‘Josie’ what “reason” she could have “to post about this subject”. The presumption here is that since ‘Josie’ hasn’t printed-up her own ‘ticket’ in the form of an abuse-story, then she can’t swim in the pool. Whereas others such as JR and – now, apparently, “Dennis” – have done exactly that and are not happy that non-storytellers are also in the pool. That’s how it works.
As for the rest – including the queasy sexual/gender bit about calling the readers “girls” – we are treated to the “abysmally nasty” undertow that exists in so much of the Abusenik material we have so very often seen here.
And if the Abuseniks have any credible stories to tell, well … “if you’ve got’em let’s see’em”. (But I wouldn’t advise readers to postpone Thanksgiving dinner until they do.)
Punk is as punk does and punk you are.
Josie, If only 6 priests out of thousands of abusers that's still 6 innocents who should never have been accused. So if you have 6 and truely believe that the majority of accusations are false you should do something. You don't like press conferences? If your issue is the church is being slagged by the media, I disagree. But rave away you're really turning the tide of public opinion.
I did not say 6 out of thousands. I I am in Philadelphia-no thousands in any city for that matter. I (personally) know 6 priests that were recently accused , exonerated beyound doubt and returned to ministry-scathed but forgiving. I am sure that there are more than are falsely accused here as well Furthermore, I did not say the majority of accusations are false although it is looking more and more to be the case these days. You are not even mixing my words-you are just mixed up.
I didn't say I don't like press conferences. I was in a press group many years ago. I have relatives and friends in the local press. You suggested tours and press conferences for the innocent priests just to be cute. I thought that I was reasonably implying that these exonerated priests are not in need of touting their innocence just in getting their lives back together after being placed on leave when falsely accused, going through a very painful time. You like chaining yourself to a bishop's chair for the press (or whoever)-most people do not like drawing attention to themselves in any way no matter what they have been through.
You don't comment on what I said . You spin it and don't get it in the first place. I am done. Not interested in sparring with you. It is a waste of time. P.S. As much as you don't like it,it is very apparent that the tide has been turning for awhile.
Really? where is the tide turning?
I wasn't being coy. If you mention false claims against a few priests as being more or equally important to tens of thousands of real claims by priests' victims; who were raped as children. Then I wonder what your deal is. You don't think tens of of thousands of victims are more important than 6 priests? If that's true, your sense of justice is wanting.