Publicity Trumps Kids’ Safety: SNAP Knew About Abuse Claim Against Chicago Priest ‘For Several Weeks’ But Did Not Call Police; Instead It Held a Press Conference

[edited by moderator]

D, Uganda isn't a socialist or communist nation. It's a majority Catholic nation; and it ; and It's catholic arch bishop want their own gay people killed by the state. The pope has said diddily about this wilfully un christ-like act. So explain that; if you will.

Linda L.,

Clohessy and Blaine were, after all, Catholic children raped by Catholic priests. Why wouldn't the Catholic church be their focus? The other institutions victims can defend themselves much better than SNAP's defending us.

SNAP's never talking about compensating the church's victims which is rather odd since they claim themselves to be " THE oldest and largest" victims organization. They do not claim themselves to be the "oldest and largest" protector of the uninjured Catholic children; yet the uninjured are all they talk about.

This is a ruse to focus on the Church being a NOW "safe" place to send the kids. The church is losing in the collection plates where it really matters to them.

SNAP only talks about "protecting the children" so much so that the church can then wave it's "How we protect the children program". SNAP never mentions victims save to authenticate itself as our "leader' Get it?

The Catholic children raped THEN did not matter to the church and we still don't. Otherwise they'd have compensated all of us. they'd have done the right thing in the first place.

What matters to them most is the money coming in from parents now; because it isn't rolling in like it used too..

In the long run this behavior will cost the Church more money than if it had compensated all of us justly in the begining.

Several of the posters here MUST be paid apologists for the church.  The amount of ignorance is astounding OR you know the truth and are attemting to continue to keep the faithful in the dark. 

As a member of SNAP, my children go to catholic school and we continue to support our faith (not our bishops and NOT financially) if that makes me a bad catholic so be it.  As a survivor of abuse as a child the local bishop was informed many, many years ago.  I was lied to and the priest WAS NOT removed from ministry as promised.  Yes he went on to abuse at least one other child.  Guess what, he is still a priest today, and collects his church pension paid for by YOU.  Yes the diocese, many years after they learned of his abuse of at least 2 children, restricted his ministry in 2003 because the state stepped in, so what, he is still free of any criminal prosecution because the BISHOPS who knew what he had done, failed to report him to the police as required under state law.  These are the truths SNAP exposes time and time again, and the only way you can discredit SNAP is by calling us anti catholic dissedents.  Why don't you ask the people in my parish if  my family is ANTI-Catholic.  I ask you then, why did the bishops invite this group to speak to the bishops in Dallas in 2002?  It was the same people leading this organization then.  [edited by moderator] just don't want you to lnow the true extrent of crimes committed against children by clergy, but the real problem was and continues to be why BISHOPS fail to take swift and appropriate action when they learn what these men have done.  This is the crux of the crisis that continues yes, unfortunately even today.  [edited by moderator]   Just shear ignorance or woeful deception, the Media Report is one or the other…you decide.

In regard to the most recent comments I can see here:

As to the 30th at 1045AM: The key question underlying this point is whether the SNAP leadership are “dissident Catholics” or “faithful Catholics” (the JR position).

I am not sure I would even limit the former characterization to “dissident” rather than “anti-“, but for the purposes of this discussion let’s stay with “dissident” as the bipole to “faithful”.

We have SNAP’s demonstrated comments and actions, and there has been much discussion here of the strategy behind SNAP’s leadership very reliably and predictably conducting itself in a way i) completely supportive of the Anderson Strategies and the Stampede and ii) a counterpoint to the Church (or ‘anti-Church’) source of sound-bites (but never any extended discussion or analysis) for the media. And we have D’Antonio’s extended revelations in his book, which is a book that is hardly pro-Church in its approach to the Catholic Abuse Matter. That goes robustly toward the theory that SNAP is both a front-organization for the Anderson Strategies and a reliable panderer of ‘stories’ to the media.

(And thus, while SNAP may very well indeed not have ‘victims’ as its primary concern, this lack of primary concern reflects its being a front-organization and tool for elements of the Stampede.)

On the other hand, we have assertions by the Abuseniks that insist that SNAP is a tool of the Church (run by “faithful Catholics”). In support of which theory we have … what? Nothing but assertions with no evidence and assertions that can otherwise explain the D’Antonio revelations except to further claim that a) Anderson and the torties and D’Antonio himself are also tools of the Church, and that b) the mainstream media coverage of the Church in the Abuse Matter has either been i) balanced or ii) un-balanced merely because all of the “rapes” (formally allegated and otherwise, genuine and otherwise-classifiable) are true and thus that the un-balanced coverage is justified as reflecting that (claimed, asserted, and presumed) ‘reality’ of all the “rapes” (and we have already been around the track many times here about the problems with the elastic and play-dough defining of ‘rape’ and ‘rapes’).

And then we get the bit that it is SNAP that is “making … the ‘survivors’ look bad again” [giveaway exaggerated formatting omitted] and that (we are apparently to infer) therefore if SNAP is “making … the ‘survivors’ look bad again” then it must clearly be a tool of the Church. Whereas I have been saying that while SNAP is indeed “making … the ‘survivors’ look bad again”, this is simply the inevitable result of the exposure of the fundamental flaws that have existed in the entire strategy of the Stampede from Day One (i.e. create a situation; w) where the Church and the clerics are presumptively guilty; x) because any and all of the allegations and claims must be presumed true and accurate; and yet y) the various claims and allegations cannot be questioned or doubted no matter how dubious they may appear; and z) much much money is therefore ‘deserved’ by such claimants and their lawsuits are necessary and “justified” because the Church did not simply cave to their claims and stories and give them the cash in the first place.

Readers are welcome to consider the possibilities for themselves.

And also that – in the JR theory – “SNAP must appear hypocritical” [italics mine] simply because it is (somehow, although never rationally and coherently explained) a tool and cat’s-paw of the Church. Thus then that SNAP has been a ‘successful’ tool and cat’s-paw of the Church (since it has theoretically served the Church well in the Church’s apparent plan to cost itself almost 3 billion dollars). Readers are welcome to go figure.

Then – in best Playbook style – the torturous complications and incoherences created by this theorizing of SNAP as a tool of the Church is side-tracked by the distracting and tendentious effort to claim that persons who doubt or don’t believe all this are “real hypocrites” because – waittttt forrrr ittttttttt – they are not following Jesus (Who apparently would buy all the claims and stories of “the raped for our rapes” and wouldn’t call such allegants and claimants “criminal fraudsters” – even though, as I have said, the dynamics of the Anderson Strategies so very strongly and closely resemble the long-established dynamics of the general strategy of disability-fraud claims).

Readers are invited to consider all this as they will.

Then (the 30th at 1112AM) we are informed that “Clohessy and Blaine were, after all, Catholic children raped by Catholic priests” – which instantly puts these two individuals into the category of the very allegants and claimants whose un-demonstrated claims cannot in any way be distinguished by any rational observer as being deliberate and gratutitous and self-serving and strategic phantasms rather than being demonstrably honest and accurate and true reports of actual events.

And thus once again – as in so very much of the Abuse Matter claims – we find ourselves as if in a carnival midway hall of mirrors: surrounded by all sorts of weird images yet not having moved forward in any real way.

And if their claimed ‘rape’ experiences might possibly explain why “the Catholic church [would] be their focus”, then why would they not also be as negatively focused against the Church as are so many other Abusenik commenters who have claimed the same type of (alleged) ‘rape’ experience at the hands of the Church and its clerics? Does a claimed ‘rape experience’ not rather uniformly pre-dispose a person to be negatively focused on the Church rather than to work continuously in the Church’s service? That would certainly appear to be the case with the various Abusenik commenters we have seen here.

SNAP’s purpose as a front-organization for the torties is precisely n-o-t to ‘talk’ “about compensating the church’s victims” (note the odd back and forth on capitalization of ‘church’ and ‘Church’ here). The torties, deploying the Anderson Strategies, will handle the “compensation”; SNAP’s job is precisely not to emphasize the monetary gains to allegants, but rather to make allegants appear to be presumptively honest and accurate ‘victims’ (bethumped so cruelly by the Evil Church and Clerics, bwa-ha-haaaa!). The money matters are handled off-stage by the torties (who then, as we know, demand secrecy clauses in the almost-invariable out-of-court settlements so as to prevent any further examination whatsoever of the ‘compensation’ claims).

And that’s how the Game has been played all along.

And all of this is nothing more than “a ruse” to make SNAP merely look-like it is not a tool of the Church?

And then – and yet again, as with just about all of the material in this current crop of comments – we merely get the same-old, same-old repetition of the mantra of utterly circular logic to the effect that in doubting the allegations and claims then the Church has proven itself deserving of the lawsuits because it did not simply believe the allegations and claims in the first place and fork over cash forthwith.

And then and then – and yet again – we get the proffered idea (the 1st at 604AM) that “several of the posters here MUST be paid apologists for the Church” [giveaway exaggerated formatting retained].

And why “must” that be? Because – it is merely asserted – “The amount of ignorance is astounding OR you know the truth and are attempting to continue to keep the faithful in the dark” [giveaway exaggerated formatting retained; correction supplied to spelling].

We apparently need not any explanation of that mere assertion because the commenter reports himself to be “a member of SNAP”. Who – the commenter also says – has children who “go to a catholic school” [sic] and “we continue to support our faith” but “not our bishops and NOT financially” [giveaway exaggerated formatting retained]. That’s quite an attenuated form of ‘supporting’ one’s ‘faith’, but the commenter’s position on that problematic bit is “so be it”.

We then get a truncated but predictably convenient ‘story’ to the effect that the commenter was/is also a “survivor of abuse as a child” (presumably by a cleric), and that “the local bishop was informed many, many years ago” (but not the police apparently), and that the commenter “was lied to and the priest WAS NOT removed from the ministry’ as – the commenter also says – “was promised” [giveaway exaggerated formatting retained]. In all of this we have nothing more – yet again and as so very often in this sort of thing – than a story (whose weaknesses are supposedly to be overcome by those giveaway all-caps scream-y bits).

And then the almost-obligatory bits about the priest then going on to abuse again, etc.

But – as so often in this sort of thing – we see a careful attention to certain specific (and conveniently self-serving) details: although this was “many, many years ago” the Church is blamed for failing its legal responsibilities to report to the police (which is a rather recent legal development). Which, neatly, distracts from the fact that although a crime was apparently committed in this story of “many, many years ago” yet nobody among the commenter’s immediate (and adult) circle thought to call the police.

And these – tah dahhhhh! – are “the truths SNAP exposes time and time again”. But I would say that if they are “truths”, they are not demonstrably proven truths; they are merely alleged truths contained in stories told long after the (alleged) fact.  And that’s quite a substantive distinction (and one which Abuseniks and the Stampede and SNAP have done and continue to do their best to distract-from).

We are then – in a nice rhetorical flourish – referred to “the people in my parish”. And what parish might that be, pray, if we are supposed to go out and “ask”?

And all of this misch is what this commenter apparently uses as the basis for his initial global assertion that any who doubt SNAP “MUST be paid apologists for the church”. Using this commenter’s ‘logic’, then is it not equally possible that this commenter here and perhaps many of the Abuseniks are “paid apologists” for SNAP? Or the torties? And if the latter, then might the ‘payment’ be the ‘compensation’ provided through the out-of-court settlements engineered by the torties deploying the Anderson Strategies (in which SNAP is cast in the role of front-organization)?

That’s the hall of mirrors to which this Abusenik and Stampede ‘logic’ inevitably leads.

And in the final analysis we actually and still do not know “the true extent” [correction supplied] of the Catholic Abuse Matter. We have scads of stories and allegations, backed up in supposed ‘evidence’ by yet more stories and claims, but when you look carefully – what else do get?

Ditto the point about the Bishops failing to take action: if there was no way to actually ascertain which claims were genuine and which were otherwise-classifiable (and that problem only became more acute as the Stampede got rolling and – with the possibility of big-bucks payouts – more and more allegations began to roll in), then what were Bishops supposed to do? (Short Stampede doctrine answer: presume they were all true and accurate and start writing checks to anybody who showed up at the door of the Chancery.)

And it is all of this, I am saying, that is most certainly indeed “the crux of the crisis” – which, yes, doth continue (although not with the oomph it once enjoyed; as JR and the Songster saith: “the times they are a’changin’”).

So –and  in this I completely agree – let the readership “decide” where there is “sheer ignorance” here [correction supplied] or – oh very much yes I do so agree – “woeful deception”.

David Clohessy and Joelle Castix held out their hands for me to shake. I told them to go f[edited by moderator] themselves and told the press that SNAP is a fake. I know this will go nowhere; but one day, if I'm dilligent, the truth will come out.

Hi, I don't comment these days but Jim Robertson asked me to post links to some information about SNAP.  The documents in question can be seen here 

You can find a few docs here click on the image and it enlarges

CofA8: 2010 (PippiLeaks): Docs in SNAP Group Leaders Packet 1997 scanned here 

Also I wrote about how SNAP tried to stop me from doing a blog and how I ended up realizing they were really from the church here. 

http://cityofangels2.blogspot.com  

AND Here:   http://cityofangels15.blogspot.com/2014/04/more-of-story-that-wont-go-away.html

Where I call it "The Story that Won't Go Away" bk that's what it is.  Believe me, I did not want the story to go this way, I wanted there to really be a support network, all of us did. There never was one, there was the opposite, they worked to keep us from even finding each other in our own towns.  

PS I don't comment anymore as it always sounds so much more snarky than anyone really means to sound, I hope…

-kay ebeling

By amazing coincidence – if readers have been keeping up with comments on the three most recent TMR articles – we are now informed that – by yet another amazing coincidence – JR has been to Ephesus (yes, the St. Paul Ephesus) where – we are to believe – he visited the ancient Forum there, and then also sang to the crowd (the song about a comedy tonight, from A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum) and that his singing was well-received by the crowd. Wow.

Moving beyond the usual questions that might be prompted by yet another amazing coincidence, I would point out that we are getting here some variant of the Argument From Locality: JR has (we are to believe) been to the one of the geographic areas historically associated with St. Paul and therefore … what? He is therefore a reliable and credible source of insight into the thought and visions of St. Paul? From what we have been told here (which, but of course, is a problem all in itself) the best that might be said is that JR has a passport and can sing and was allowed to perform. For whatever all that’s worth to any matters relevant to this site and the discussions here.

Ditto – by yet another amazing coincidence – JR has done whatever he has (he says) recently been doing to SNAP. And he (says he) got his picture taken … and are we then to infer that having one’s picture taken makes on a reliable and credible source of insights on any given matter? But to some types of mentality the answer to these questions is apparently Yes. Thus the ketchup-stained emanations from the sun-porch are paraded in full view. And they either demonstrate a) a profound lack of self-awareness or a b) profound lack of interest and concern as to whether one is putting forward credible material or not.

And on the 2nd at 1213PM we are yet again sleazily distracted by the assertion that “your church has all the information on our cases against it” [giveaway exaggerated formatting omitted]. But of course, i) the Church would only have the stories and claims and allegations as they were constructed and burnished and sworn-to and submitted under oath, and thus we are back to square-one yet again. And ii) the material has now been safely hidden away by the torties’ demands for post-settlement secrecy, so the information can’t be divulged.

Neat. With the checks already cashed, the Abuseniks can now simply point to ‘evidence’ that their own attorneys have ensured is unavailable for examination and assessment. So very neat.

Then (the 2nd, 614PM) it is now asserted that I and ‘Delphin’ are a) “conservative” (with no explanation as to how that conclusion has been reached) and b) I and ‘Delphin’ “keep[s] arguing for SNAP”. There would need to be an accurate quotation to justify that claim (but of course, no such quotation will be forthcoming because none exists and JR just made this up to have something other than the actual issues under consideration to toss up on the screen).

Thus the rhetorical question as to what I find ‘appealing’ about SNAP fails completely. I find nothing “appealing” about SNAP, although – like Hitler’s (or more accurately Manstein’s) Sichelschnitt strategy of 1940 that conquered France in six weeks – it is an interesting example of technical strategizing.

Then the further bit about there being no ‘democracy’ and ‘elections’ in SNAP – the relevance of which plaint has yet to be demonstrated.

We can take what JR claims to be “telling” us and file it with the Ephesus karaoke story and all the rest of the amazing coincidences, and once again give some thought as to how credible any material coming from this source can possibly or probably be.

I have never said that “SNAP is working for victims”. It is working for Jeff Anderson’s Strategies as both a) a front-organization and b) a reliable go-to media source for counter-Church sound-bites. Is there not a reading comprehension problem here? Or a deliberate effort to avoid uncongenial input from other commenters?

In response – yet again – to the question as to why SNAP doesn’t ask for victim-compensation I respond yet again: if my theory of the Anderson Strategies is correct, then SNAP need not demand or ask-for any compensation because the torties can do that; SNAP’s role is precisely to distract from the meat-and-potatoes cash-grabbing by i) trying to keep up the impression that the Church is merely keeping legitimately-deserved money from allegants by ii) making sure that the allegants remain in the script only as (presumed) genuine victims of the evil Church.

And of course, there remains as always the question as to how to determine a genuine victim from an otherwise-classifiable allegant. Which was, yet again, a problem faced from Day One by each and every Bishop when trying to assess the ‘stories’ and claims and so on.

Therefore also, finally, the question as to how SNAP has “worked for” the allegants fails because I have never said that SNAP does work-for them. SNAP works for the torties, and ‘victims’ count only as pawns in the great deep-pockets piñata game that is the functional core of the Abuse Matter as it has evolved.

In regard to the comment of the 2nd at 859PM: kewt, but what I am still waiting-for is the documentary evidence that the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa were somehow involved in the formal erection of SNAP as a tax-exempt organization of some-sort. Which evidence – if it exists – would then have to be assessed in terms of the further problem of establishing that the Church therefore created SNAP.

 (Readers will recall that my theory is that Doyle, at the very best, used the Sisters’ tax-exempt status to set up an organization for himself (which became SNAP), and that such an organization still achieved little until – as D’Antonio has discussed at length – Anderson reached out to Blaine, made her an offer she chose not to refuse, and both she and Doyle have done rather well by that Anderson-phase incarnation of SNAP.)

That’s what “P” is still waiting-for.

Lastly, if some readers have noticed a certain repetitiveness in JR’s comments, I would say we have finally exhausted the 3×5 talking-points file in the shoebox, and thus now – no matter where the discussion on this site might go – we are merely going to get those same talking-points from those same mental 3×5 cards, gussied up as any particular occasion might demand by the various types of diversion from the Playbook.

But that was the brilliance of the Anderson Strategy in terms of the nature of internet commenting: all manner of types can be reliably expected to come up to the surface and squirt their anti-Church, pro-Abusenik and pro-Stampede ink (or pixels), and Anderson and the other torties don’t have to risk being actually associated with them and their eructations at all.

Victims have no need to attack your church. the very fact we were raped as children in your church and we speak out about it publicly is to be construed as an attack on catholicism? Maybe to you on the right that's an "attack' but to us who the rapes happened to it's a telling of the truth. SNAP's the one whose policies underline conflict. Victims just want their due. And if SNAP has had only the same couple of political policies for 30 years with no victims input. Why would they do that? Jeff Andeson's our hired hand, easily replaced yet SNAP treated us like we were their hired hands. Just the way the church has always treated the people of god.IMO

Somewhere [Delphin - ed.] mocks my ability to return to the scene of the crimes commited against me in high school.

I went to show I'm alive.

I went to show that the shame of those crimes of rape did not belong to me. Shame belongs to the perpetrators of rape never to the victims.

I went to see old friends. I didn't choose the location of the reunion. Buildings don't scare me. People do.

Particularly religious fanatics who are so blind that they deny truth so that they might maintain mystical fantasy.

It scares me that you maintain year after year your love of god or your church to be more important than your own raped children. That's not love that's being an accomplice to rape and the exact opposite of what Jesus taught.  J.C. should come back and kick you lot out of the temple.

What I want to do here is point out how the proffering of substantiating or corroborating material works, since I get the impression that concept is not quite clear.

First, one makes an assertion or claim. Second, one then provides a clearly identifiable source (by link, by quotation, or – best – by both) for the material upon which one relied in making the assertion. Then third,  one explains how one sees the assertion i) being connected to the material and ii) sufficiently demonstrative of the assertion one has made.

Then one waits for responses or comments or questions or objections from others and things proceed in a back-and-forth from there.

One does not simply a) make an assertion without corroboration or b) offer only vaguely described supportive material and then expect that one has done the job.

This is how sustained dialog is done among persons trying to examine an issue.

This is not what one sees in many areas of the internet where some people simply toss off immediate feelings and/or assertions and leave it at that. One does see efforts to manipulate people’s responses by simply putting out one’s assertions and trying to somehow either induce people to think that there is no other position to be held on the matter, or trying to distract people from actually conducting any systematic questioning or analysis at all.

Now, then, to the comments of the 8th at 730PM and 732PM.

First, no reference to any book authored by Doyle and Sipe and Wall was initially made.

Second, there is no title and I am not even sure that all three corroborated on one single book (but knowing the title would solve that problem).

Third, until the title of the book is clear, then the page-references are not going to be useful.

Fourth, none of the follow-on work I outlined above has been done: there is no explanation – with accurate quotations from the proffered source book – as to just how one sees the material in the book supporting the original assertion.

Fifth, we then see the added distraction of insinuating that readers who demand that much ‘work’ from a commenter or assertion-maker are actually only trying to avoid doing any work themselves. The readers’ work begins when the asserter has done all the work above, and the readers then have to consider and reflect on what has been presented to them. But the readers’ work cannot properly begin until the assertion-maker has done his/her work first.

I would also add that since in this case the assertion-maker has such a vague knowledge of even the title of the book which is supposed to be the definitive source and support for his original assertion, then it doesn’t lead one to have a lot of confidence in the basic credibility of the assertion-maker.

But then (the 8th at 732PM) we are informed by the assertion-maker that he doesn’t “have to prove anything”. To which I would say: a) he does have to provide what he thinks is the reasoning by which he came to make the assertion from the material to which he (vaguely) referred and b) if he can’t or doesn’t feel he has-to do such explanatory work, then why bother to bother anybody with the original assertion in the first place? (There are several possible answers but no need to speculate at this point.)

Then we are simply advised to “read Doyle’s entire report to the American Catholic Bishops” (uncharacteristically capitalized here). That is not a reference in any usable sense. There is a lot of “black and white” there but what is required here is reference to the actual and specific bits of “black and white” that are relevant to the original assertion. And that is precisely what I had previously asked JR to provide.

“It’s all in black and white” doesn’t really do much for the process at all here. It is the equivalent of turning in a book report consisting merely of the text ‘Dostoevsky was a jerk and you can read his book about Brothers-something and it’s all in there in black and white and it’s not my job to do any more of your work for you’.

And pages 91 and 93 of Sipe’s 1995 book Sex, Priests and Power deal with psychology, sexuality and celibacy and say nothing whatsoever about “secrecy” and the Doyle Report.

Thank you Josie. That's the book. I may have the page wrong. I suggest you ask your library to get it for you. I have no interest in making the not so good father more dough. I and another SNAP non fan, had the info up at a site that no longer exists. Not an excuse just a fact. But Josie can did a little work.Again thank you Josie. P can not or will not. Do I think  he'd admit it if he was wrong about anything? Never.

I know i got some info from old Link Up News Letters put out by, the now dead, Fr. Tom Econimus. Available at Kay Eblings site.

Here's the info It was page 80 Mea culpa y'all. :^) http://archives.weirdload.com/docs/dm-report-4.pdf

And – but yet once again – it's not about anybody's "word", let alone trying to stand on it. This is not a belief-bout but rather – again – an effort to examine information and material in the physical realm (rather than positing belief in the non-physical or the metaphysical realm).

Thus nobody's "word" is at issue; rather, what is at issue is the material they put forward and the evidence or corroborative information and their own explanation as how they see all that hanging together.

Further, reducing all of this to nothing but 'belief' simply provides anybody making the belief claim a sempiternal opportunity to claim victimhood: I put myself out there to be believed; I was not believed; therefore I am a victim.

Rather than: I put assertions up without corroborative sourcing, without explication of my thinking, and even without being able to recall the putatively vital sourcing for my assertion; people raised questions; therefore I have to improve my skills in this area before I do more of this stuff.

Sorry about the "inferred" I meant implied. It's been a long time since school. My error.

This does not have to do with Catholic Priests, but on Mother's Day The Boston GlobeDecided to humiliate a Rabbi. They could have waited for another day.  Here is the simple truth:  Some people are mean, probably in their minds it was a balance.   In some bizarre way, maybe they thought they were correcting an imbalance.  They just don't get it. A serious newspaper is not one that takes delight in targeting and humiliated and individual and/or an man and his family.  The priests did not sell a house and move, and, maybe the Rabbi should just stand up to them.  Take a retreat.

Start over.

Do not let the bullies win.

We had a pastor at a church in California that had some people collect and gather complaints for a year or two….of course chit-chatting behind his back.  Anyway he and his wife handle it with such grace and maturity.  They left for a year, did some praying and sould searching and returned.  They are retired from that particular location, but there is a lot to be said for returning and writing the final chapter, versus letting the newspaper write the final chapter of a man's career.

So, if I were in that position.  I would not let them bully me out of town.  He is probably stressed out.  His followers would be a lot more forgiving.  This man needs to decide: Who is going to have the last word on 28 years of success, my congregants or some idiot reporter that does not even know or care about all of these people?

P.S. Hi Publion—I had to detox from my computer addiction.  The good news is that it has not affected my heart and unique writing skills!!

How interesting- it was all about leniency and lack of will to prosecute abuse cases 'back then'.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/13/pedophile-teacher-abused-scores-as-clues-missed/?intcmp=latestnews

Unless you are a Catholic priest.

P if telling the Dean Of Students at Serra, bro Da Silva and the one priest at Serra, fr. Clemmens, isn't "official reporting"; what is? I was 16 they were in their 40's. I did everything right, even as a 16 year old. They did nothing right as the officials of my school.