Fibber: David Clohessy, National Director of SNAP
As if any further proof were needed of how the anti-Catholic group SNAP manipulates the media and lies to the public about the Church's handling of sex abuse cases, consider this recent ominous media statement from David Clohessy, the group's National Director:
"A new child sex abuse lawsuit has been filed against Fr. William Authenrieth who is apparently still alive and living in Massachusetts.
"We urge [a Florida bishop] to urge his colleagues in Massachusetts to warn the public and their parishioners about Fr. Authenrieth …"
But wait …
There is no "Fr. William Authenrieth." Authenrieth was indeed once a priest, but as a few seconds of research clearly show, the Church laicized him some three decades ago, in 1985.
In other words, Authenrieth is a private citizen, no different than you, me, or the esteemed Clohessy himself. And unfortunately for Clohessy, our Constitution allows him to move about as he pleases.
But Clohessy apparently believes that the Catholic Church should track the exact whereabouts of all its former employees accused of abuse and then hold regular press conferences to announce the results of its monitoring, even though there is not a single organization on the planet that does this – and to say nothing of the civil and criminal liability attendant to an organization stalking its former employees.
And as we've reported before, the ever-hysterical Clohessy has never once publicly reported the current whereabouts of his own brother Kevin, a former Catholic priest, who sexually molested innocent young boys for several years until the early 1990s. Indeed, the whereabouts of Kevin today are a complete mystery.
Perhaps Clohessy himself should go looking for his brother and warn the public before he goes lecturing others about their duties with respect to employees from three decades ago.
When you need hypocricy to be underlined count on SNAP. We victims have, and they never fail us i.e. Dave's Bro; that case of withholding evidence in St Joe; etc. etc. and hypocricy is all we've gotten out of them. Here's Fr. Tom Doyle's speech to the SNAP convention. http://christiancatholicism.com/how-survivors-have-changed-history-by-thomas-p-doyle-o-p/ Just count the times victims are mentioned at a victims’ convention.
I'm not happy with what I wrote above.
It isn't the number of times victims or survivors are mentioned in Doyle's speech. We are mentioned, only, to "authenticate" the speaker ,Doyle, as to his being pro us. When really, he mentions us; but never what our needs are; or the horror of our damages. That's 25 years worth of saying the words "victims" and or "survivors" by a priest and yet never hearing about victims save in the most peripheral of terms. How is that anykind of "movement"? How does SNAP or Doyle's demanding that the church hierarchs, change do anything for victims? Movements "for victims"," by victims" should be (a priori) about victims. Not about the church.
As far s SNAP's accurately named "hypocricy" goes: I thought I had added Blaine's letter in favor of the convicted kiddie porn owning child shrink. All these instances of hypocricy were created to make victims look bad purposfully. They couldn't find another victim other than David Clohessy, who hides his brother, the perp priest, daily, to represent victims????
Add to that every hypocritical act SNAP's performed. All done on purpose by SNAP; none accidental. And you have a tainted victims' "movement" created to "fight" the church.
If SNAP represented you as badly as it represents us would you agree with them?
SNAP has to Keep The Ball Rolling and it’s no surprise that they would like to use the Church as a mule to do so.
One might have presumed that in the US the existence of sex offender registries would preclude this gambit.
But – of course – there is a problem of certain legal turkeys now coming home to roost: in order to achieve their objectives, the Anderson Strategies pursued matters in the civil law (lower threshold of evidence, prospect of huge payout settlements) and lawsuits rather than in the criminal law (higher threshold of evidence and proof, reliance upon District Attorneys, no huge settlement payouts); the civil route and the lawsuits would generate huge attorney fees (to be shared quietly with the victim front organizations like SNAP and Bishop-Accountability) and would also offer a solid prospect of out-of-court settlements which could – at the torties’ behest – also enable the torties to arrange the safe locking-away of the assorted claims, stories and allegations from public examination once the checks were cashed.
And a pretty plan it was: amassing the cash (in attorney fees) to be shared with the very front-organizations that would then work to generate more claims, stories and allegations that would then generate more cash in settlement payouts and in tortie fees that would then be used to seed more claims, stories and allegations – and all the while the assorted claims, stories and allegations which had been used to generate the cash could then be disposed of and hidden-away from public examination.
But as a result (and hardly surprisingly) this meant that almost all of the accused were not examined through (what remains of) a serious and careful and public examination via criminal trial. And thus most of the accused do not appear on a sex-offender registry. (Although for its own purposes Bishop-Accountability tries to do the job – yet cannot vouch for the accuracy of anything it puts up on its site.)
So SNAP wants the Church to essentially function as if it possessed the rights of the government’s Sovereign Coercive Authority and subject the accused priests – who have the rights of citizens – to inclusion in some simulacrum of a sex-offender registry.
Clohessy should be tried as an accessory to his brother's crimes.
Dave, you failed to mention that then Fr Authenreith has admitted to molesting many young boys while a priest, the suit states that the diocese knew about his propensity to molest young boys and just transferred him from parish to parish. He now lives in Massachusettes, perhaps he will read your defending the indefensible? There have been several accusations in the past, so this one should come as not surprise. Yes since the diocese KNEW and assisted in concealing his misdeeds, as he abused new unsuspecting young boys, the Archdiocese should work to uncover and heal those he may have harmed by Fr Authenreith, isn't that why they defrocked him….you don't agree with that???
Mark did you read the post?
You are confused I think.
Anxiously awaiting answers to Publion's questions to you,,,,,
Very well said, Publion. The cozying up with journalists, like Laurie Goodstein, who threw ethics out the window a long time ago to pursue agenda, is also a horrifying aspect to this whole thing. She's an example of why people trust journalists less and less.
"Journalists"??? They've gone the way of the passenger pigeon and the dodo. There hasn't been a journalist near SNAP that didn't swallow the bait: That SNAP really represents victims.
Even loonies that post here believe SNAP truely repsents victims or at the very least our lawyers. Only the most partial of truths.
In regard to ‘Another Mark’s comment of the 19th at 708AM:
First, it’s clear from AM’s own comment that the Church authorities did not at all merely “just transfer[-red] him from parish to parish”. Rather, he was laicized (or ‘defrocked’).
Second, he is living in the US (Massachusetts) apparently, and thus well within the reach of any DA or police department in the country that might seek to pursue any of the allegations. And – one presumes – also living under his own name.
Third: was the period between episcopal authority’s initial awareness of his propensities and his laicization spent in trying to get him some form of psychiatric intervention and help and also corroborating the allegations? How many times was he ‘transferred’ prior to his complete removal from ministry and was it indeed “from parish to parish” as if nothing were wrong or was it with some form(s) of monitoring or limitation on his ministry?
Fourth, when did he make this alleged admission?
Fifth – although it is not of primary relevance but is of clear secondary relevance – did he request laicization or was it imposed upon him by Rome?
As to the timing of his laicization: the allegations were made in or about 1983 or 1984 and he was laicized in 1985, according to the link to the Newsday article linked-to in the above TMR piece. (The USA-Today information is too vague for any further specificity. Also, the USA-Today information refers to the Orlando diocese laicizing him, which no Diocese or Ordinary has the power to do.)
In formulating these questions I am not nit-picking; I would like to get a clear picture of the events, the circumstances, and the timeline and temporal context of the history here. And I’d also like to see to just what extent this case does or does-not conform to the usual Stampede scenario, which we are supposed to presume is the only way that things happened.
Lastly, about this “defending the indefensible” trope that we see so often from Abuseniks here: just what is TMR “defending” here (accurate quotes from this TMR piece, please – and some explanation of how the quoted-material grounds the assertion about such “defending”)?
Because we may well be seeing here merely an echo of the usual Abusenik cartoon presumption that if you don’t agree with the Abusenik scenario completely then you are and must-be “defending the indefensible” (and ‘re-victimizing’ and so on and so forth).
Just another example of SNAP living by its own rules of justice…which generally DO NOT include due process!!
The church can demand due process any time it wants it. It wants to settle and it does settle. What dynamic is forcing that settlement by the church if it isn't the simple fact that 80% of the cases brought at least would be found to be true by a jury..
The "settlement" issue is more complex than you may understand. The cost of legal representation in terms of money and massive time in assembling a defense is the initial reason for settling a case rather than adjudicating it. More importantly is the reality of damages in a trial exponentially exceeding any settled payout . Most likely a lost jury trial is in double digit millions resulting in bankruptcy with loss and harm to innocent others.
According to the Complaint:
· Father William Authenrieth was ordained as a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn in 1962. Father Authenrieth served as a priest in parishes and schools of Diocese of Brooklyn until he was transferred to serve as a priest in Florida in or about 1973.
· In approximately 1978, Father William Authenrieth molested John Doe, a 14-year old parishioner and altar boy at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Florida.
· John Doe has been an active military member for over 30 years. The Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act prevents the statute of limitation from running on this claim as long as John Doe is an active member of the military.
· Prior to sexually abusing John, Father Authenrieth sexually abused other minors whom he met through his duties as a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn. Upon information and belief, Fr. Authenrieth disclosed his sexual activities with minors to other priests of the Diocese of Brooklyn.
· Despite their knowledge that Father Authenrieth was unsafe to be around boys, Diocese of Brooklyn chose not to issue a warning and/or take any action to prevent harm to Diocese of Orlando parishioners, including John Doe, who were within the foreseeable zone of harm of Father Authenrieth’s dangerous sexual propensities.
John Doe No. 93 v.Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn was filed in the Eastern District Court of New York.
Why was he NOT reported to authorities so THEY, the police could investigate his actions, at the time the diocese first learned of his abuse of young boys? He went from at least one parish in Brooklyn to the next parish in Florida after other priests knew of his violation of young boys. Dave's Post never mentioned WHY he was laicized. Further what happened to once a priest always a priest??? Now you want others to believe he is not a priest, he may not have faculties but does he still recieve any form of support or pension from the Archdiocese/Diocese? Is he allowed to perform certain functions or scaraments in certain situations, such as someones immenant death?
Lastly, weather he abused 30 years ago or yesterday, should not our church seek out others who may have been harmed as a child who may be suffering today?
Certainly the bishop of Massachusettes should be warned, would if Authenreith tries to present himself as a priest, this has happened in recent years even after new protocals were put in place to prevent this. Even corporations work hard to ensure a terminated employee does not have the ability to present himself/herself as an active employee or gain access to facilities they once worked at. Apparantly our Church does not try hard enough to ensure that does not happen.
http://www.hop-law.com/former-altar-boy-files-sex-abuse-lawsuit-against-orlando-diocese/
Interesting, John Doe had no recollection of abuse until after he read an article about the priest being sued.
On the 20th at 1220AM, JR sort of makes a point that (at least most) “journalists” have ‘swallowed the bait’ that “SNAP really represents victims”. So far so sort of good: SNAP is a front-organization for the torties and always has been since Blaine said Yes to Anderson.
But once again we see the need to create what doesn’t exist in order to keep an illusionary schema going: there are, we are told, “loonies that post here [who] believe that SNAP truly represents victims” (correction supplied). I can think of no commenter here who can be thus described. Can JR name one and provide an accurate quote demonstrating this assertion?
But then he slyly shoe-horns in “or at the very least our lawyers”. But if SNAP “truly represents” the torties, then it becomes a front-organization for the torties. And there is nothing about that point that qualifies as merely “the most partial of truths”. Or does JR care to demonstrate rationally how there is anything “partial” about it?
Then on the 20th at 1232AM we get the simplistic toss-off that “the church can demand due process any time it wants it”. No it cannot and could not: it was – to repeat for the umpteenth time – hemmed in by the Anderson Strategy elements of a) bundled-lawsuits comprised of numerous Plaintiffs and b) the media synergy whereby – pre-existing the Stampede – the media became indentured to the Victimist scripting of Pure Innocent Good Bethumped by Pure Deliberate Evil.
Under those circumstances there was no realistic hope of “due process”. And – with the checks safely cashed – no Abusenik effort to then claim that the Church (and the Insurers) could have opted for trials of the lawsuits can hold much, if any, water at all.
Thus too the mere assertion that the Church “wants to settle and it does settle” fails for the same reason. The Anderson Strategies neatly reduced the practical options for the Church and the Insurers.
And, but of course, JR’s reading of his favorite tea-leaves to the effect that it is “a simple fact” that “80% pf the cases bought at least would be found to be true by a jury” merely proves that JR is not at all clear on the concept of what “a simple fact” is.
And is that “bought” a typo or a Freudian slip about the importance of cash in all of this?
Then ‘Another Mark’ comes back (the 20th, 740AM).
He quotes – as far as we know, since there is no link to his source – the Complaint. But the Complaint is merely the Plaintiff’s side of the lawsuit, putting forth the Plaintiff’s claims and characterizations of the issue. Thus we have here nothing more than the story of what the Plaintiffs want the court to believe and accept.
Why did the allegants not report to the police? Would it have anything to do with the fact that the police might well not have enough evidence to corroborate? For that matter: was the matter reported to the police by the allegants and the police found nothing sufficient to act-upon? (The Complaint need not put forward anything potentially detrimental to the Plaintiff’s case.)
And again, what do we actually know about what Authenrieth did (or did not) admit? Were these other priests called-upon to explain precisely what he told them? If so, what did they say precisely?
Did they report to the Diocese what they heard? Did Authenrieth confess this to them sacramentally?
And then this paragraph of AM’s segues into a rant about the Catholic theology of ordination and Holy Orders, and whether one can be laicized at all in the first place.
And does AM have any valid and accurate information as to “why he was laicized”? Does he know whether the laicization was requested or imposed?
And if he is a former priest, of what relevance is the point about whether he still receives any “support or pension” from the Church. (Actually, this “point” is in the form of a question, so AM clearly doesn’t have any accurate information here either.) And if it is a “pension”, then what are the legal ramifications of the Church refusing to pay it?
Then the old trope about the Church’s responsibility to “seek out other[s]” alleged victims. After 30 years of the Stampede, these people – having had a crime allegedly committed against them – cannot themselves go to the police? This bit is then somewhat manipulatively burnished with the bits about “child” and “suffering”.
Do we know that “the bishop of Massachusetts” (correction supplied) has not been informed of Authenrieth’s presence there? Did the Diocese of Orlando even know that he had moved to Massachusetts so as to be able to inform “the bishop of Massachusetts”?
And where has it happened “in recent years” and what stipulations are there in the “protocols” (correction supplied) that a priest laicized would simply move to another Diocese and attempt to … what? Walk into a Bishop or Pastor and say he’s a priest and wants a job in the ministry there? Walk around the streets in clerical garb and simply present himself to strangers as a priest … ?
Does AM here actually expect us to believe that a priest (or merely a person in clerical garb) unknown to anyone in a Diocese can simply walk into a Chancery and without examination or any reference-credentials get himself a job in ministry? Does AM himself actually believe that this is a credible possibility?
And on what basis, then, does AM say “apparently” (correction supplied) in his concluding sentence?
Or is this just a scare-rant so dear to the Abuseniks and the Playbook?
And since he refers to “our Church” then as a Catholic just how much does he actually know (and not-know) about Catholic organization and praxis in these matters?
Thus his concluding exhortation fails because for all anybody knows here (including AM) the problem he describes in this bit does not and cannot exist.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/1987_12_31_Cannon_ChildAbuse.htm
Authenrieth case did not need any Jeff Anderson 'synergy' or 'strategies' way back in the mid-80's. Anderson was just getting started in all of this at about the same time.
This whole case unfolded in FL just as others did in so many other places because the RCC handling of predator priests and sexual abuse was universally and uniformly self-serving.
Amen! LDB
While ‘Another Mark’ seems to have nothing to say, we are fortunate to be graced by LDB, who returns (the 20th, 222PM) to help him out; which is nice since they seem to think and write to very much along the same lines. And JR weighs in – as so often – with a content-less cheerleader bit.
The media sourcing provided in the link is from an article archived by Bishop-Accountability but originating with a series appearing in the San Jose Mercury News in 1987. That venue in California may be familiar to readers who recall the dustup a year or two ago (and discussed on this site at that time), where – conveniently timed to coincide with the release of a since-forgotten Stampede book – a man deliberately stalked, deceptively gained access-to, and beat up an elderly priest whom he claimed had abused him decades before – and the local San Jose County jury did not find that his premeditated criminal assault did not take place, but let him off anyway. (Also of interest as an amazing coincidence is that the old priest was a Jesuit, living at a Jesuit retirement facility at nearby Los Gatos, and the Stampede-Abusenik book publishing break-out was being held at the nearby Jesuit university.)
The Authenrieth (hereinafter: ‘A’) matter began in 1984 when an apparently sexually-conflicted 24 year-old claimed his suicide attempt was the result of being “fondled” by this ‘A’ a decade or so before; his brothers – also altar boys at that parish – then claimed they too had been “fondled”.
In the accents of reportorial innocence, the reporter sets the script in stone for all readers to follow: “That would be a pattern for the whole case, characterized by finding new victims – and new molesters – at every turn”. Such a dynamic should come as no surprise, given both the i) vagueness and ii) potential omnipresence of “fondling (buttressed by the equally vague ‘molesting’).
Such cases – as the Doyle ‘team’ had implied in their 1985 proposal to the US Bishops – were becoming more feasible, as torties began to applyto the Church the tactics deployed in the 1970s against other types of large corporations and organizational entities.
But what individual torties here and there had done as a matter of business-as-usual, Anderson – with the multiple-Plaintiff ‘bundling’ and the development of a sympathy-seducing front organization such as SNAP and the extensive, concentrated synergy with the media – raised to the level of a far more complexly-rooted art-form a few years later.
The Mercury News reporter then pretty much relies completely on the torties in the case for their ‘history’ of how-they-did-it.
He is buttressed by statements made by ‘A’ himself; but those statements were made only after the guarantee of immunity, which raises – of course – the abiding legal-forum question as to what a potential criminal-defendant might be willing to do or say in order to placate the State and avoid charges being brought against him. These are the seamy underside dynamics never absent – but often out of sight – in such instances of testimony-for-immunity. The reporter – following the torties – treats the ‘A’ material as gospel, nonetheless.
The ‘A’ material includes his claim that he had told at least four priests (or 3 and a monsignor), that they had advised psychiatric help (which suggestion ‘A’ ignored), and that – the reporter suddenly and slyly elides – ‘A’ thus continued to “have sex with” various “parishioners”. While a priest “fondling” anybody (if this is indeed defined as inappropriate touching for emotional or sexual gratification) is utterly unacceptable, “having sex with” leads us to a much more intense plane of miscreant behavior altogether.
During his “probationary period” of three years (in the early 1970s) he did apparently “tell” some “other priests”, but it was – as best can be determined – in the context of confession, thus complicating the matter substantially.
During further years he continued to demonstrate ‘touching’ and sexually-suggestive innuendo problems – and almost exclusively with young males – and did so to the point where his behavior was a matter of common-knowledge and some humor among the altar-boys.
His pastor at that time received an anonymous letter, and when confronted ‘A’ claimed he had done nothing wrong – and the pastor let it go at that (and – unhappily – the pastor gave the anonymous letter to ‘A’, who apparently destroyed it).
It certainly seems to me that there was a clear case of an emotionally and psychologically un-ripeness here in ‘A’. And that type of issue should have been noted and dealt with in seminary or even pre-seminary screening.
You could make a case that such un-ripeness, if present in a prospective seminarian, is for all practical purposes a disqualifier for acceptance into a seminary since by that time in a person’s life there will be so much to rework. But if instead the Church is willing to accept some level of such psycho-sexual un-ripeness, then it must create and institute some strong program for effectively dealing with such a ‘syndrome’ (using the term loosely).
That is the direction seminary training and screening seems to have taken in recent years, but ‘A’ was trained in the 1960s and 1970s. In that era an attempt to deal with psycho-sexual un-ripeness would – in this country, certainly – have fallen afoul of a broad cultural sense that sexual expression was vital to a human-being’s ‘health’ (broadly defined) and one should not be ‘judgmental’. And that situation would only have been intensified if one were to do so for a homosexually-oriented psycho-sexual un-ripeness (which, I think, is itself a term or category denoting a phenomenon that some might insist cannot even exist in that particular demographic group).
It is surely necessary to take into account the cultural pressures of the historical era when these events took place, especially since they are so different from current contemporary pressures and priorities.
This type of daunting complexity was not what Bishops were prepared for back then, which recalls my own concerns about the quality of Bishops and those points I made about ‘city cohorts’ as opposed to ‘the legions’, to the effect that the Church’s integrity requires far stronger character in a Bishop.
But as a human institution the Church is susceptible to the inevitable human organizational dynamics that push toward appointing an organization man, a ‘safe pair of hands’ as the Brits might say, and the characteristics that might provide such a person do not always (perhaps not often, either) simultaneously support a sense of personal authority and strength, that demonstrates i) an independence of mind and spirit and ii) such an independence yet deployed in a powerful faithfulness to the organization’s goals. The genuine ‘team-player’ is actually a rare creature: capable of competently playing the organizational game yet also dedicated to the team in such a way that he does not simply ‘go along’ but also points out where the team needs to improve its play.
And can one have an army generalled by all Pattons? Can one have an army generalled by all Bradleys? The same type of problem confronts the Church as it does every large human organization.
But what I do think has happened now is that the Church can see more clearly not only a) how she must intensify the quality of Bishops and priests but also b) that the era of the Church’s honeymoon with things American is over. And that may not be such a bad thing.
Whether you go back only as far as JFK’s era, when there was a serious national discussion as to whether a Catholic could even be President, or you go back further to the struggles of the Great Immigration era or back further to the Nativists burning convents, there remains the profound matter of the Church’s relationship to any particular culture and society: how does the Church actualize and conduct that relationship?
Does the Church become merely a cheer-leading adjunct to that culture and society or does the Church take an adversarial stance to that culture and society or does the Church somehow preserve her genuine independence of vision while simultaneously supporting and contributing-to the ‘host’ society and culture?
And then too: what is the Church’s relationship to the government of that culture and society? Which is a separate but deeply related issue.
The Church in the US has been primarily engaged in accommodating herself to American culture and society – and certainly during World War 2 deeply participated in the national life and achieved a never-before-seen synergy with the government as well. At times, it almost seemed as if the Church in the US was becoming something of an Orthodox or mainstream Protestant polity, i.e. as a cheerleading and subsidiary adjunct to government and culture.
But that only lasted for a while, and after the government’s and (elite) culture’s sharp lurch to the left in the 1960s (and continuing) – which included a swing toward Victimism among many other things – then it should have been clear to the Bishops that the honeymoon was coming to an end.
And when the Church’s stance on various issues ran afoul of the visions dear to the government and the cultural elites, it should have become clear to the Bishops that the valence of the Church-culture and Church-state relationship was in dynamic flux.
That issue is separate and distinct from the issue of the maturity of seminarians (including psycho-sexual maturity) but the issues are clearly connected.
So the Church in the US has much on its plate. One hopes that Rome is able to identify and select Bishops who are up to these tasks.
As for this ‘A’ case, now decades back and a revenant of other times, one must consider a) the era and what was and was not possible, b) the relationship of the Church to culture and society, and c) the integrity of the Church’s ministry as expressive of her fundamental beliefs and tenets.
Yes, one must also d) be concerned for the ‘victims’, but – to repeat yet again – given what we have seen of the Stampede, there must first be solved that fundamental problem of identifying genuine victims from those otherwise-classifiable. And I have seen no proposals as to how this task might be accomplished, even from Abuseniks who have by now been given more than enough opportunities to explain how they would solve this problem.
Yawn! Is it just me or is someone sucking all the air out of the room?
In regard to the 22nd at 909PM: there may indeed by a “sucking” vacuum in all of this, but I would say that it is in the Stampede itself, whose absolutely fundamental core presumption – that large numbers of priests ‘abused’ (or ‘raped’- the Abuseniks would like the terms to be interchangeable) and were hidden away without further action and perhaps still are doing so – is nothing more than a manipulative illusion that fuels the Stampede and all its self-serving and variously-remunerative elements.
Thus too, beneath ‘H’s comments (the 23rd, 557AM) there yet remains that vital foundational substrate that has yet to be demonstrated: how many victims were genuine and how many cases actually conform to the Stampede’s preferred fever-vision?
So the question remains: about what might one be ‘warning’ in regard to this person? Are people to select the ‘fondling’ or the ‘having sex with’? But of course the Stampede’s entire gameplan requires that people simply go with the Stampede’s preferred fever-vision.
Thus, since at this point ‘A’ must be advanced in age and not in - or eligible for – any position where he might be near children, what would be the purpose of the Bishop-Accountability or SNAP ‘warning’ at this point? I would say that the answer to this has much less to do with ‘safety’ against an actual present threat and much more to do with an effort to Keep The Old Ball Rolling (as dubiously-grounded as that Ball was and has always been).
Or even – as we saw with that elderly Jesuit out in San Jose – to provide some sort of pretext for allegants (or even ‘concerned others’) to go find these old men (there are, we recall, very few current cases).
Then suddenly the ball in the ‘H’ comment takes an odd bounce: that “the Bishops need to continuously speak about how they will care/deal with offending priests”.
Not a few questions instantly arise:
How determine a) if the priest has ‘offended’ and b) just precisely what the priest demonstrably did that constitutes the ‘offense’?
The Bishops have already set protocols for dealing with priests (interestingly, ‘H’ here doesn’t distinguish between accused and “offending” priests) as has the Vatican, and those protocols are frequently being intensified. Is ‘H’ unaware of this? Or does ‘H’ propose that each Bishop should be giving public updates as to what protocols are in effect in the Diocese? (Or perhaps this might be a type of fishing-expedition by which Bishops can be inveigled into providing public updates on any ‘cases’ (a prospect ever-desired by the Stampede).
And if a Bishop makes (or has made) a clear public statement as to the protocols in effect, why would he need to then “continuously” keep making that statement?
And LDB then doffs the Wig of Knowledge and appears on stage without any headgear (except his sideways ball cap) on the 23rd at 824PM.
The military imagery was apropos, I thought. Certainly, LDB has presented no substantive objection to it and instead contents himself w the cafeteria-level epithet “limp” (no Freudian slip intended, I presume).
“Psycho-sexual” is a standard clinical usage and what we see in this bit from LDB is simply a demonstration of how little he knows about some of the topic areas directly relevant to any informed discussion and assessment in regard to this matter.
But, of course, they cafeteria mind is content simply with its preferred Cartoon and it wouldn’t occur to such mentalities that substantial amounts of knowledge are necessary when dealing with complex issues. But then again: Cartoons are by their nature not complex, but instead are merely simplistic caricatures. And they are an indispensable staple of the Stampede.
The remainder of his comment can stay right up where it was put, for the amusement of the readership.
You have, within the Church, some who will care for those priests who have abused and some who will not. Priests are not employees nor former employees in the eyes of the Church. Once upon a time, if a priest or religious were guilty of this horrible crime, they were never left alone. Now, it seems it vary as some just don't want to deal with them.
Urging someone to warn others about him is not lying. He is no long a priest, SNAPS mistake in putting FR before his name.
The Bishops need to continuously speak about how they will care/deal with offending priests.
I knew that WWII was part of this somehow! Pseudo- Psycho- sexual immaturity or whatever term Publion conjured up is either the greatest admission he ever made or it is 'otherwise classifiable'. Limp.
After reading P's latest, I can not but wonder as to who thinks this guy, P came out of nowhere?. It seems he has a panoply of excuses that are deeply thought out. Not randomly or as one person might come to but all most like an advertising group or legal defense might make.
The only problem is us victims. The fact we exist just doesn't fit into his thinking at all. How like the church's behavior towards victims of the churchs' crimes.
P can only pretend we are liars; frauds; thieves . But we aren't. the John Jay report says we aren't; and that's the church's report not Jeffy Anderson's.
So it's only P, some sad old priest or nun; and or lawyer, typing away the catholic church's blues.
What you call "a sharp turn to the left in the '60's" ? The rest of us call the civil rights movement the realization that the people paying the bills for the government i.e. war service; taxes; loyalty deserved, in a democracy, to be treated equally.
And for you deny that African/American people; Hispanic people; Asian people; Women; Jews, Gays did suffer persecution (brought on by religions and the government. The very religions and government they were fighting for, paying for and loyal to. ) is to dismiss liberation as a mere" sharp turn to the left "
Since the left is based on and in economics. There has been no move to the left economically in this country.
Your premiss is total nonsense. Nothing new from you there.
Apparently, JR (the 24th, 534PM) cannot imagine that anyone might take an interest in thinking-through a subject simply because a) the subject is important and b) thinking-through is both valuable and rewarding in its own right. Instead, JR has to imagine that one only exerts oneself if one is going to be paid (which itself raises some rather interesting questions in regard to Abuseniks and the Stampede, does it not?).
And we also see that in JR’s cartoon world, anything that doesn’t fit into the Cartoon is merely “excuses”.
And he seems to imagine that most people only think “randomly” – perhaps, as usual, mistaking his own habits for those of the entire (normal?) world. And that anything “deeply thought out” must be done for pay because … why else would one do any thinking unless one were going to be paid? Marvelous.
But “the only problem is” that we still do not know who are really “us victims” (in the genuine sense) and who are simply Wig-wearers posturing as victims. And I still don’t see any Abusenik proffer as to how one might go about determining who is genuine and who isn’t.
And if the Church also realized that there was a serious and fundamental difficulty in determining who is and isn’t a genuine victim (which is hardly an improbable explanation) then yet another problem arises for the Stampede: the Church may well have not forked-over cash forthwith because the Church couldn’t figure out who was genuine and who wasn’t. And that takes a lot of air out of the usual Abusenik talking point about how ‘victims’ were ‘treated’; the presumption being that all victims were genuine and the Church therefore was denying cash to demonstrably genuine victims rather than trying to figure out who was who (genuine or otherwise-classifiable).
I – to repeat yet again – “pretend” nothing. I have pointed out problems and await substantive responses to the problems raised. It is the Abuseniks who seem to be ‘pretending’ that all or almost all allegants are genuine victims.
And where does “the John Jay report” say that they “aren’t”? Which of the two Reports and where in that Report? Or is this just another fake rabbit pulled out of JR’s hat?
And apparently I now have a wife and am also some “sad old priest or nun”. Add this bit to the rest of the list of what JR most surely ‘knows’.
On, then, to the 24th at 552PM.
What I called “a sharp turn to the left in the ‘60s” was the government’s (led at the time by the Democrats) deliberate embrace of anything that would weaken the fabric of American culture so as to make room for the newly-embraced (or created) demographics and their demands – with (as is typical of revolutionary thinking) no thought for costs or consequences. That would include, especially, the engorgement of the original civil-rights movement epitomized by MLK that saw its apogee in the August ’63 gathering in front of the Lincoln Memorial and was, along with MLK himself, kicked to the curb by the revolutionary New Left by 1966 or 1967.
As a result of which “sharp turn” we saw the Democratic Conventions of ’68 and ’72, and throughout the ensuing decades the Democrats’ and then the Beltway’s continuing embrace of ever-intensifying and expanding demands to secularize and ‘deconstruct’ American culture and society in order to create more Lebensraum for their further demands as the concept of “rights” was increasingly expanded.
And it was the Church’s formal opposition to certain key elements of that panoply of demands that led to the government’s deployment of an American variant of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf against the Church. And it was the brilliance of the Anderson Strategies to realize how this broad and deep current could by synergized with the Stampede.
Although the book does not directly deal with the Stampede, readers interested in these matters might want to consult Fred Siegel’s newly-published The Revolt Against the Masses, a short but highly readable and informative look at all of this.
Thus then the real nub of JR’s comment – the histrionic and un-grounded declamatory Wiggery about what I am supposed to be ‘denying’ to various groups – fails, since the definition of “rights” is not sufficiently defined.
As is also the problem with the concept of “liberation”: is it, for example, a “liberation” to remove the grounds and the boundaries that Shape human nature? Or is there no human-nature and are all grounds and boundaries merely oppressions-of-choice imposed by society and culture upon the unbounded and un-Shaped whims of the individual?
Or had JR (or whoever is the source for the thought in this 552PM comment ) not considered any of these vital and profoundly relevant questions?
The short paragraph beginning “Since the left is based on and in economics” a) makes no sense as written and also b) seems to be defining “the left” as primarily or purely being “based on and in economics” (which rather closely resembles Marx’s materialist and reductionist conception of society and culture).
And does the “redistributionist” thrust of the present Administration not reflect some sort of “move to the left economically”?
Thus then the concluding bit – again a Wiggy declamation, this time around as to my “premise” being “total nonsense” – fails as well.
And so at the end of it all, “nothing new from” JR here. But the Abuseniks do like to denounce and declaim, do they not? Explaining their denunciation and declamations rationally and coherently … not so much.
I need explain nothing to trash like you.
Wow I remember the jingoist,( it still is), racist, (it still is) America I grew up in. Great days when black folks couldn't eat at the same lunch counter as whites or go to the same schools or vote. But they sure as hell could die in fucking Viet Nam by the tens of thousands.
The '68 convention was "radicalized "(not a bit in fact) by a Chicago police RIOT according to Walter Conkite and a war that had slaughtered millions for what? There were real peaceful demonstrations by the U.S. citizenry that were attacked by a police state. (That Chicago cop riot making the left appear destructive played directly into Nixons hands he won the election.)
For whose benefit ?The catholic church in Viet Nam? Or for Cardinal Cook? The ghost of Bobby Kennedy?
The jingoist America that rose from the dead after Watergate thanks to Reagan is the Zombie that bankrupted the world.
I'm not buying the world was a more moral place before 1968; why are you?
Look up the John Jay report yourself. You can read; can you not? Or do you need spell check for that too? Does P stand for Pickayune?
When your material body rots and your imaginary soul leaves this veil of tears and flies away. Do try and come back and tell us of the plane you are on. (A Piper Cub,or Bi Plane; or an imagined Lear jet, Hot air ballon?)
I'd just love if you could do that . Go as soon as possible please.
And if I go first I'm aiming straight for hell; to be ruled by the second dopeyist despot in the universe. The guy who was so "bright" he fought the unbeatable god (and yet this love god let's him the 2nd biggest ,dumbest, imaginary entity screw with people before he burns them forever and ever). That's not love. It's torture, as a punishment for apple stealing. If that's true, God is nuts.( and believing in god is even nuttier.) God is immoral. The whole "goodness" bubble breaks.
So let's get it clear as to why you are here. I say it's to keep money from injured catholics on this material plane. Right here and right now. And that's all you're concerned with.
I admit it's all I want, materially, for victims; but not at fire sale prices.
Cronkite.
We Catholics seem to think that the press lies about our church but is otherwise truthful. WE support their humanitarianism in Libya which saves the terrorists so they can chop off the limbs and heads and breasts of the Libyan people who we miss with our bombs and crack snipers. We believe that Gaddafi is a dictator because the media uses dictator before his name. Well, he did dictate to his children that the Girls should go to school as well as the boys and that there is to be no racism… Other than that, he lived frugally and liked to live frugally, he implemented a system of direct democracy and like Sarah Palin, he had a system so the people would have a direct sum from the oil wealth…but his had more and free healthcare, university grants even for Harvard or Oxford if they got in, they also had living grants sufficient to run a car on, They received an income equivalent to the wage they would receive for their job, if they could not get a job. there was 50.000 dinars for a marriage grant and 5000 dinars grant for the birth of each child. Their food and petrol was subsidised their water and fuel for their homes was free.
The rebels wanted to live like millionaires and felt deprived because they did not.
Putin is again a great leader, Assad is the most benign leader in the middle east and NK is frightened after NAM, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria…& the economic warfare waged against peoples and nations. Maggie Thather lost an election because Soros decided to speculate on our currency and crashed our economy. We should try to understand others more. Another thing we should also remember is that the devil is not above using misguided Catholics who go abroad to further political ends and he is not above disguising his usually misguided workers as Christians to carry out political or evil ends, Some of the time that Christians are persecuted, it may not always be because of Chrtist but for some more other far understandable reasons.' Understandable, that is if we do not allow the media and devils lies to be our criterion for judging others. .
Once again (the 25th, 719PM) a vivid demonstration of that ruefully marvelous psychic economy: JR knows a whole lotta stuff but doesn’t need to explain any of it to anybody. And once again we see: synergizing with Victimism’s dogma that you cannot re-victimize a victim by questioning the story, the Anderson Strategies masterfully created the opportunity for such types to appear on stage (as long as you didn’t ask them to “explain anything”).
But of course one also cannot doubt what JR ‘knows’ because that too is re-victimizing and it also demonstrates how profoundly (pick one or several: dumb, evil, sociopathic, insensitive, un-charitable, un-Christian) anyone who doubts the Abusenik stuff most surely is.
And the epithetical bit just for a distracting dash of (what passes in the cafeteria precincts for) humor.
Readers may take the reminiscences based on what JR ‘knows’ about the world he grew up in and file them with his assertions about the world he lives in now.
The political dynamics within the ’68 Democratic Convention had nothing to do with the “police riot” in the streets of Chicago as described by Walter Cronkite (correction supplied); the elements pushing for the ‘radicalization’ of the Democratic Party were in place before the Convention ever took place . And those same political dynamics then went on to define the ’72 Democratic Convention (with consequences and costs still bethumping the country today).
Thus this attempt of JR’s (or whoever was the source of this bit) to the effect that the Democratic Convention of ’68 would have been a fine political convocation if only the conventioneers hadn’t been radicalized by the police actions out in the streets doesn’t hold water. For purely political reasons pre-existing anybody arriving in Chicago for the Convention, the ’68 Convention never had a chance of being simply the political concomitant of MLK’s August ’63 gathering at the Lincoln Memorial; the Party had already begun to indenture itself to ‘revolutionary’ politics and visions and agendas and MLK’s vision of 1963 had been kicked to the curb by ‘66 or ‘67.
What we see here is somebody’s effort to create a ‘history’ that a) avoids the political problems and costs and consequences related to the Dems’ change of course in the late 1960s while b) seeking to avoid the Dems’ and the New Left’s responsibility for that change of course, by simply claiming that the conventioneers were spooked or radicalized (“not a bit in fact”) by the police actions outside.
And that “not a bit in fact” actually gives the game away: the conventioneers who finally wrested control of the Convention were already very well “radicalized” when they blew into town.
Thus it was not the “cop riot” that “made the left appear destructive”; the Dems’ own embrace of the revolutionary in content and method (so alien to MLK’s vision) contained very destructive seeds (many of whose poisonous fruits we have since seen blossom).
Then – in an effort to harness this political Cartoon to the Stampede Cartoon, the ‘mention’ of the Catholic Church in whose benefit the – what? … the “police riot”? – is now supposed to have been conducted.
Then the effort to blame it all on post-Watergate developments and Reagan (although in the ’72 election, given a chance to choose between the New Left Dems and the Republicans, the country chose against the New Left Dems 49 States to one, the largest political/electoral rejection in the nation’s history).
But then the concluding bit on this (very uncharacteristically extended – if grossly flawed) historical disquisition: JR shifts the subject to whether or not “the world was a more moral place before 1968” – which is not anything I had discussed; I had discussed costs and consequences and not whatever “moral” intention underlay the actions that brought those costs and consequences to actualization.
But again we see yet another sly effort by the New Left apologists (whose work JR has clearly mined for his 3×5 collection) to distract from what has now happened: they had “moral” intentions and that’s all you need to know.
And – of course – in order to spackle up that claim they have to also insist that the world before they got to work on it was grossly and utterly not-“moral” … at least they way they define “moral” and thus a) they had good intentions and b) they thus had no choice but to do what they did in the face of all that non-moral stuff and c) anything that has gone wrong is probably anybody’s or everybody’s fault but their own.
The New Left and the Abuseniks share much of the same Playbook. And when the day comes when the Stampede and all its pomps and works are generally exposed to the light, you can be sure that the Abusenik defense will largely include appropriately-tweaked variants of (a), (b), and (c) immediately above.
In regard to his assertions about what the “John Jay report” (there were, alas, two of them) says, he merely tells us that we can go “look up” the Report(s) ourselves. Nothing new with that. Bottom line: JR has no answer.
And then the effort to distract what even he must somehow on some level sense is a truly “limp” response by distracting with some ketchup-splotched ‘humor’ to the effect that – waittttt forrrrr itttttt! – checking facts and references is somehow “Pickayune” (and you can imagine how this bit would be so well-received by Abuseniks who weren’t really interested in having their stories, claims and allegations examined anyway).
Then – Dr. Freud to Examining One stat! – we see a revenant of a dynamic we had seen in many ‘Dennis Ecker’ comments (and I noted this at the time): the queasily unripe violence lurking in the lower recesses of the Abusenik mentation – when I die and (lovingly described) my “material body rots”. They don’t like to be questioned, these Abuseniks, and the anger is hard to hide, even with Wigs.
And the whole bit then larded with more juvenilia that – as always – presumes precisely what has yet to be demonstrated: that no other Plane of Existence exists.
Further spackled by the sassy bits about JR looking forward to going to Hell and so on and so forth.
But then the concluding bit – attempting to get off the stage with a sassy flourish (before the Wig falls askew and the pancake begins to run): JR wants to “get it clear” as to “why [I] am here”. But then – marvelously – he simply equates ‘getting it clear as to why I am here’ with his own utterly un-grounded claim (doesn’t that sound familiar?) about what he says is the case.
And what is that case of his? That I am here merely “to keep money from injured catholics on this material plane”. But – of course – that presumes what precisely has yet to be demonstrated: just who are and who are not the genuinely “injured”.
And anyway, the “money” has already been paid out, so this whole bit fails utterly. (Unless you want to invest in the vision that there are a hundred or a thousand times more ‘victims’ still out there.)
And the bow to wrap it all up: the Wig of Upright and Dedicated Decency and Goodness doth declaim that all it wants is to get “money “for those (un-demonstrated) victims (genuine and otherwise). But – the Wig of Shrewd and Upright Horse-trading – “not at fire sale prices”.
And to think he used to go on here about how it wasn’t all about the money.
Lastly, and at this point it may not need to be noted, this is far too much mentation – flawed as it may well be – for the source usually monikered as JR. So, to borrow from the great Durante: Goodnight, JR’s actual source, wherever you are.
You are a lying sack of dung. I've never said I wasn't here "about the money". Never.
Compensation for victims is the only thing I care about. What else but money, as compe nsation for our rapes as children, have you to give?
Nothing. You pretend victims don't even exist.
I have never said the church and it's insurors and the public need automatically believe everyone about everything.They don't.
False claims injure real victims; even more than they injure the church. They cast the same false shade on victims veracity as you do. You don't want them and we want them even less.
The difference between us (among many) is you believe no one, period.
The 68 Chicago pig riot was what radicalized the right in America not the left. The delusion of bomb throwing radicals disrupting the Democraic convention gave Nixon his "law and order" stance that won him the election. The cops and Mayor Dayley called the violence as coming from the left when all the violence, The war, Jackson state; Kent State; the Chicago porker riot all of them were coming from the right. The Chicago show made decent citizens out to be rioters. Remember the Chicago 7 trials? All the defendants innocent.
Do I think a real "Candyland" exists because there's the child's board game? No, I don't.
Just because you believe there are other "planes" does not mean they exist. (Actually your believing it, along with everything else you have no proof for, is more of a reason not to believe.)
Telling you to "look it up yourself" regarding John Jay report. was my answer to your question, you big dummy.
What your material body won't rot? Aw! Isn't that nice and so rare too. There's headline news. You must be st. Teresa of Avilla.
How reminding you of your own (and my) mortality equates to violence, I don't know?
You would make a dead person angry.
And what have we got on the 27th at 1238PM?
We open with a nicely vivid epithet.
Then we are now re-informed that it actually is all about the money (and was all along?). JR would, however, like to spin the “money” as “compensation” – but that requires having distinguished and determined the status of this or that allegant as genuine … and that hasn’t happened yet nor has he nor any Abusenik come up with a way to make that determination.
Then again with my supposedly ‘pretending’ that “victims don’t even exist”. JR will not be able to produce any accurate quotation from my material to support that assertion; I am simply questioning how many allegants are genuinely victims … which, it apparently has to be pointed out, is not the same thing at all. But once again we see that the Playbook requires one to create a more convenient statement when one cannot address an actual – but inconvenient – statement.
And that gambit is then repeated, but this time – with a nice creativity – in reverse: JR clams that he has “never said the church and its insurers and the public need automatically believe everyone about everything. They don’t.” Well then: how many allegants should we believe? And how do we determine which allegants to believe and which not to believe? If JR can answer, then we can make some progress.
Then – for the first time that I can recall – JR doth lecture us on how “false claims injure real victims”. Why Yes, yes they do.
But No, false victims do not “cast the same false shade on victims veracity as [i] do”. False victims undermine genuine victims by using the status of ‘victim’ to make false claims. All I have done is to ask the question as to how we can know a false victim from a genuine victim (nor has JR bothered to respond yet with his solution to that rather fundamental problem).
And in the case of my questioning, what actually ‘casts’ a “false shade on victims veracity” is the fact that no Abusenik has responded to my rather fundamental question. But the Playbook gambit here is to ‘blame the questioner’, so ‘blaming the questioner’ is what JR will do.
And whether JR is entitled to speak of victims as “we” is up to the readership to decide as each will.
And once again: JR will not be able to produce any accurate quote from my material to the effect that I “believe no one period”. But when unable to deal with the actual material, the Playbook recommends creating (here, by exaggeration) a false quotation of material and then try to run with that.
Then we get yet another version of the history of the ’68 Democratic Convention: this time, the “pig riot” (oooh, a cool 60s adolescent usage) “was what radicalized the right in American and not the left”. And the Black Panther revolution talk and the SDS stuff from that era … all that was from “the right”?
And “bomb-throwing radicals” was a delusion? So the Manhattan town-house that blew up when the yippie revolutionary bomb-makers in the basement screwed up their bomb-production … that was from “the right”?
And Nixon’s “law and order stance” did not get him elected … the voters got him elected, because after looking at everything that was going on they chose between the revolutionary Democratic New Left and the old New Deal liberal Nixon. Whether they voted for Nixon or against the revolutionary Democratic New Left is an interesting question for historians, but the bottom-line was that the voters elected Nixon.
The Chicago 7 were found not-guilty of conspiracy to cross state lines to incite a riot. What the relevance of this point is to the question at hand (something about the revolutionary violence of the New Left and the Democrats’ embrace of them) is something JR has yet to establish.
Thus the attempt at a Cartoon here – that the revolutionary left were merely “decent citizens” and all the “violence” was on the right … fails.
The citizens had seen everything that was going on and in their capacity as the electorate they elected Nixon … twice (and the second time by the largest margin of States in the country’s history).
Does this theory of JR’s (or whomever thought it up) want us to believe that both the ’68 and the ’72 elections were based on a huge number of deluded citizens?
This is the same type of Cartoon history we saw in the many bits JR brought to this site about the Vatican and World War 2 and the Holocaust (I still chuckle at the bit about all the Polish Catholics needed to do was blow up the rails but they didn’t and all the Western allies had to do was bomb the camps – which, actually, Stalin could have done with his air force).
Then, progressing from one Cartoon to the next, JR will once again go on about what he thinks (believes, is perhaps a better term) in regard to other Planes of Existence. He is entitled to his own belief. But can he prove that Heaven does not exist? Can he prove that any other Plane of Existence does not exist?
So then, to use JR’s own bit against him: Just because he believes that no other Planes of Existence exist, does not mean that they don’t exist. It simply indicates that JR doesn’t choose to believe they exist. Fine and dandy.
And as I have said before: Abuseniks are most certainly in no position to be raising the issue of ‘having no proof’ for something they claim and allege. Especially when the physical proof required for their allegations has not been forthcoming, while the metaphysical Plane of Existence is – by definition – beyond the realm and reach of physical proof.
He then claims that not providing an answer to the question of textual support for his assertion is an answer. Were he to have pulled this gambit in a deposition or on the stand, it would be termed formally non-responsive. But then, the Abuseniks largely avoided having to commit this howler in public because they so often avoided trials and then their torties got their allegations and claims locked-away after the settlements.
And then, to shore up his stunningly weak bit here, he tosses in an epithet (the “dummy” bit).
He then tries to dance around the point I made about the violence of the death-imagery with a misreading of my point (as if I had claimed that my body would not rot when I die). Typical Playbook stuff.
And since he claims – the Wig of Goody Two-Shoes – that he doesn’t know how reminding anyone about their mortality “equates to violence” – I will point it out clearly: to remind somebody of their mortality one need simply say “I remind you of your mortality” – which pretty much covers the conceptual ground. But to dwell on vivid description of somebody else’s mortality is not the same thing: it introduces the element of extra vivid focus on that person’s demise – and then that raises the question of why one would deploy such a focus, or entertain such a focus in the first place.
And then the concluding epithet. But of course.
100. Only believe 100 victims.
Wait a minute no that's 16. Only believe 16.
Sorry that's 10,000 in the U.S. 10,000 that's all who need to be believed.
You are a complete idiot. There are as many victims as there are. Period.
If "only" 1% of catholics were abused by clerics; that's 12 million 500,000 people.
If there are any false claims then that's just the price you pay for ignoring the victims your church did know about and then their passing on those known child rapists to rape more catholic children. Your tough luck. Your church's hierarchs put you in this position not the victims.
Bernard Law didn't lose his job for nothing. The Paracletes didn't create "rest homes" for rapists for no reason.
As far as my reminding you of your mortality?
But you aren't going to die, dear. Remember? Your going to live forever and ever in the Candyland of your dreams. :^) You can take that and put it in the vatican bank.
We are deeply indebted to JR (the 28th, 1148AM) for confirming clearly that at the bottom of everything the Stampede is built not on solid facts but on abysses of presumption (into which public opinion has been manipulated to accept as fact).
Filtering out the usual Playbook distraction of snark, it quickly becomes clear that JR has utterly no answer to the fundamental problem of distinguishing genuine from non-genuine allegants.
The best he can do – as usual – is an epithet (“You are a complete idiot”) larded onto a truism (“there are as many victims as there are” – with that “Period” as a Wiggy effort to sound definitive and conclusive).
Bolstered – so to speak – by this rabbit pulled out of his hat speculating or fantasizing about the number of Catholics world-wide and so on.
And then – retreating to the position about “if there are any false claims” – as if there might not be – well, that’s “just the price you pay for ignoring the victims” and then the bit about “child rapists” (again) and it’s just “tough luck”.
But none of this resolves the fundamental problem: the possibility – or even probability – that the Stampede fever-vision of innumerable genuine victims of actual rape by legions of depraved priests enabled by cohorts of enabling bishops that has been going on for ages and continues to this day … is a created phantasm that has been sustained for so long because it contributes to a wide and various list of agendas.
And as if to confirm the problem that even JR apparently senses confronts him, we get (the 28th, 1159AM) the queasy gender-bendy “dear”, an epithetical gambit to which he resorts when an especially thick distracting smokescreen has to be laid down.
No one male has ever called you dear? How sad.
Don't have a heteroid panic, dear. With you I was being ironic. Loosen up.
I only mentioned your going to Candyland in your imagined after life because you religionists spend so much time in this life, considering it. Sans any proof what so ever. Again, how sad!
What? Did you miss Australia; Austria; Germany; Holland; Ireland; England; and Scotland; Mexico Canada; Malta and the U.S.? Your hierarcy (lower-arcy really) covered up catholic children's rapes in all those countries. And thanks to st JP2, Maciel was saved and honored twice; by the number one man in your church: st. pope-a-dope.
On the 29th August, JR sites Australia as just one of the many countries where "your hierarcy covered up children's rapes". Well I'm still bewildered as to how that cover-up could have been accomplished. Most children have parents, to run to, whenever hurt or afraid. Again I fall back on personal experience and could swear under oath that the following is true. In my own childhood I never heard so much as a hint that a priest had molested a child. Yet the community was a hotbed of rumour and gossip about all kinds of things. I did hear something during my adult life and the perp was a lay teacher at a Catholic High School. My niece told me that a new lay teacher had started his appointment on the Monday and had been sacked on the Tuesday. The story was that he had touched a boy in the amenities block and had also suggested a later meeting. The boy told his parents that night, they phoned the parish priest, and the priest confronted the teacher the next morning. He was told to pack his bags and hit the road immediately, otherwise the police would be informed. He chose to hit the road.
In thirty years of living in the same parish that's the only case I ever heard of. But my real poiint is how could the Church possibly cover up when a child would likely do what that kid did….tell his parents. The parents actually rang the priest…. but could just have easily phoned the local cops. Does the phantasms that JR imagines also have the fevered vision of the Church controlling the secular police force?. In reality there are some anti-Catholic bigots everywhere, including law enforcement.
Readers will by now have noticed that there is utterly nothing new in the most recent pair of comments (the 29th, 1155AM and 1205PM) and all of the issues or points have been dealt with before. As per the Playbook, all we have here is – aside from the juvenile snarky bits – a repetition of the same 3×5 cards, clearly from the bottom of a box that was never very big to begin with.
However, moving on to more substantive developments, readers may have noted the most recent (August 29th) posting by Ralph Cipriano on the BigTrial site. In a pitch-perfect example of what I have been saying, it is not the Church but the State that has now demanded (and gotten) secrecy – in the form of a court-ordered sealing of the documents – in regard to the Msgr. Lynn case, where there is apparently documentary indication of prosecutorial misconduct.
This is where the Stampede leads legal systems that seek to conform themselves to its demands.
You know I'm just thinking of how one of catholicism's proofs of it's being moral is the charity it gives to the poor, the ill; the needy. Yet this font of morality refuses openly to compensate it's own victims. Strange.
If the church was really so busy doing good work all the time why are they so very very late to the table regarding their own injured? You would think if they really were good at the business of charity. They'd err( if they erred at all) on the side of victims first; but they've never, ever done that.
Maybe they've always known what was going on and didn't care or called it a "mystery".
Believe you me,It was no Agatha Christie.
According to their records they've known from the get go, 360 c.e. and they fear all of us, victimized that we could really number into millions of catholic children. Really used; really harmed and really ignored.
You may have heard a lot about the scandal but you've heard very little from and about the victims, en mass. Your too busy wanting to be seen as THE victim. It's a very old catholic ploy.
I mean Frank's been threatened by Isis. Gosh! Where are the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew when you need them? Frank must be good the "bad"guys hate him. Reminds me of the Mafia don's in wheelchairs. A very old ploy indeedy!
As if to demonstrate just how close to the bottom of the 3×5 box we are, the most recent JR comment (the 1st, 103AM) now dredges up yet again for the umpteenth time the bit about the Church not ‘compensating’ “it’s own victims” (sic). But you can’t “compensate” a “victim” until you are sure you have a (genuine) victim –and that is precisely where the 3×5 card (and the Stampede) stops short.
However, to compensate for the content problem, JR has apparently decided to vary the tone and style of the comment (now it’s homey, folksy, the narrator “just thinking”) – and it’s anybody’s guess whether what we have here is merely the result of a rather remarkable Wig or is simply the product of some other source.
And since the whole thing is built on the abyssal failure to determine who is and who isn’t a genuine victim, then the rest of the comment fails.
But there is an interesting sly bit mixed in, this time around: it would have been better if the Church had simply “erred” on the side of Victimism and had just forked over the cash to anybody who showed up.
But then – even more slyly – the possibility thus raised that there might be any ‘error’ in the Stampede is quickly squelched by that “(if they erred at all)”. This is quite a bit of nuance, and such fancy conceptual footwork is very unfamiliar coming from this commenter.
But in light of the extensive material on this site establishing the possibility and even probability of there being substantial numbers of non-genuine allegations, then this sly bit is insufficient to dispose-of or compensate-for its actual problems and short-comings.
And we are now informed that “according to their [the Church’s, I presume] records, they’ve known from the get-go”, and that “get-go” is further specified (so to speak) as going back to “360 C.E.” (correction supplied). Could JR rummage around for the Wig of Church History and give some references here?
Just what has the Church “known from the get-go”? To what “records” does this JR comment assertively refer?
And on that almost-phantasmagorical basis, this JR comment then goes on to fantasize about “millions of catholic children” over the course of almost two millennia. (The rhetorical flourish then built around that repetition of “really” is – really – too much of a muchness coming from this commenter.)
So we see once again that “victims” and phantasmagorical visions and fantasies seem inextricably interwoven. Which has been a key foundational element in the Stampede from “the get-go”.
Then the reference to “the scandal”, which presumes what hasn’t at all been proven (and instead has merely been fantasized). Although it opens up the interesting possibility that the Stampede itself is “the scandal”.
Upon which is then layered a thick lard about all those “victims” from whom we have “heard very little”. Yet one hardly impossible explanation as to why they haven’t been ‘heard from’ is that they don’t actually exist. And another hardly impossible (and actually quite probable) explanation is that they got their cash on the basis of unexamined allegations and now don’t want to talk about it or attract further attention to their stories, claims, and allegations.
Just like the Philly DA, who now doesn’t want to talk-about, and doesn’t want anybody else talking-about or examining, the claims and stories and allegations his office proffered as the basis for his increasingly dubious case.
Then, the effort to blame the Church (and Catholics) for seeing itself and themselves as “the victim”. Which actually reveals something useful: the Church and Catholics are indeed the actual victims here … of the Stampede. And in support of that possibility we have seen quite a bit of reality-based material put forward on this site. Whereas in support of the Stampede/Abusenik scare-visions, we have gotten only the type of phantasmagorical stuff proffered to us here in this comment (wherever it comes from), drumming up fever-visions of “millions” of “victims” not only i) unreported in the present or ii) in the future but also iii) going back almost two millennia into the past. .
And the use of deceit in order to get money is indeed “a very old … ploy” and hardly limited to Catholics.
Then the comment merely trails off into increasingly nonsensical riffs about mystery writers and the Mafia and the Pope.
And that’s all, folks (as the Cartoonist saith).
It was Porky the Pig who said it, Mel Blanc really. but it'll do coming from you. Maybe there is a god after all.
Mr. Harris, Wasn't there a police sargent or detective who testified that his superiors called him off the case he was investigating? Didn't his coming out about that experience initiate your hearings?
Also the majority of victims were heterosexual males weren't they? Well name a male child straight or gay who's going to blow the whistle on their priest, the man who was closest to god? I never wanted ANYONE to know. I didn't want anyone to find out. I didn't want to talk about a homosexual act, against my will with an adult cleric. I didn't want to endanger my shot at heaven or upset my older ill parents. But mostly I didn't want any of the other boys, my peers to find out. I dreaded the words fag and queer. Already I'd been identified as gay. I wasn't out to myself let alone anyone else.
Now yes, young people are more likely to say something, after all of us victims have come forward; and now parents are asking questions thanks to our revelations. But macho ruled when I was young. I don't think that's changed much. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.
JR, on September 1, has brought up the serious accusations of a Detective Fox, of the N.S.W. Police Force, who accused his superiors of taking him off a team that was investigating the Catholic Church. This made headlines, about 18 months ago, and triggered a state enquiry and also a federal enquiry. A feeding frenzy for the left-leaning media and a few grand-standing politicians. So in Detective Fox's own state the goverment ordered a independent judicial enquiry, because if his allegation were true, it meant police were complicit in covering up sexual abuse of children.
A few months ago this judicial enquiry finally handed down it's findings, after hearing testimony from all who were ordered to attend. In regard to Detective Fox (then on stress leave) it was revealed that he had never been on the team appointed to investigate the abuse allegations in the Catholic Church. So how could he have been dumped from it?. He had also claimed to have damning new evidence that he refused to give to his police colleagues. Because he didn't trust them. When this material was handed to the enquiry it was found it was only the victim's statements, which the police already had on file….so no new evidence actually existed? The findings described Fox as "an unreliable witness" and the he "gave false evidence under oath" and that he was "obsessed". From memory Fox has intimated that he will now seek to be pensioned off on the grounds of disability. His colleagues were cleared from suspicion. The Church came in for criticism, but it was only mild, compared with what Fox had already fed to the media.
Not surprisingly some sections of the media failed to give the same publicity to the judicial findings as they previously gave to the sensational allegations.
Compensation, right now in Australia, is going to be an agreement by the church and the government. Victims repped, horribly, terribly by SNAP.
SNAP sold out the victims in Australia by repping them and by agreeing to these settlements by saying they agreed with the church from before the start; "if the church lived up to what it said it was going to do". Who cares what the church lives up to other than to compensate it's victims.;
if it's in league with a government to decide the price of our compensation and too, that a fake victims group agrees immediately to the church's set cap on comp. Please! The Australian government wants "off" their liability and so does the church. Victims' only hope are the lawyers of Australia. Remember the church used to offer $12,000 ,then upped it to tops: $100,000. Thats one eleventh of my settlement and juries give much more to victims.
If Australia's lawyers don't stop this sell out, nobody will.
On the 1st at 248PM we continue to see this folksy, fireside chat ‘JR’: in addition to the construction of several extended sentences – reflecting a bit, at least, of research – we get the respectful and cordial “Mr. Harris”.
Alas, ‘JR’ – to the story of whose purported rapid promotion to some grade of Sergeant in his military hitch we were treated quite a while ago – seems to have forgotten how to spell his fabled rank (yet he was reportedly responsible for vital-paperwork of some sort, having to do with passports and such).
Be that as it may.
The skeletal structure of the ensuing proffer is this: a) a priest “was closest to God”; b) no heterosexual or gay boy would thus “blow the whistle” on a priest; c) therefore … that apparently explains fully – we are supposed to believe – the gaping absence of then-contemporary denunciations and allegations. Thus: the priest was closest to God – no adolescent would blow the whistle on God – thus the lack of then-contemporary reports is totally explained.
This is one of the earliest Abusenik/Stampede gambits. As you can see, upon a closer look it reveals itself to be a tissue of presumptions and undemonstrated assertions. Was the priest actually considered to be “closest to God” to the vast majority of adolescent boys (notoriously not-known for their respect for tradition or conventional usage)? And if it is a stretch to imagine legions of abused (however defined) boys not telling anybody in authority, how stratospherically implausible is it that they didn’t tell each other (the predilections of that Fr. Authenreith, we recall, were a standing joke among the altar boys) – and if legions of boys were talking about it, then how did it not come to the attention of adults and parents?
Why did the Australian investigator’s superiors call him off the case (as is supposed to have happened)? (We are, of course, meant to leap to the conclusion that the only reason that would happen is that the investigator was Pure Virtue trying to do some Truth-telling, and bethumped by Evil Authority In Cahoots With Other Evil Authority – that’s the way a soap-opera script would handle it.)
And JR then goes and confuses his own position by then introducing a second potential explanation for his claimed silence about his claimed abuse (however defined): not only was his ‘perp’ “an adult cleric” (are there any other kind – does the Church ordain kids?), but he was leery of having it get out among the lads that he was the object of “a homosexual act, against [his] will”.
But if a kid was the target of “a homosexual act” inflicted upon him “against [his] will”, then what would be the shame in that? The “adult cleric” would be revealed as a rapacious assaulter and – given the wiring of the teenage mind – the target of such a monstrosity would become something of a hero. Thus this effort to explain-away the absence of then-contemporary reportage also raises more questions than it answers.
But we then encounter yet another layer of ‘explanation’ in this highly-layered and somewhat selectively-constructed apologia: apparently his peers had already “identified” him as gay. But – yet another convolution in this layer – JR didn’t want to agree with that “identification” (and thus places himself in the ranks of yet another all-explaining highly-scripted modern ‘identity’, that of the homosexual who has not come to terms with his homosexuality).
And – yet another layer – he didn’t want to have any of this (the orientation or the fact of the alleged attack or something else?) getting to his (but of course) “older ill parents”, who – but of course – had no idea about his being “gay”. (This my-parents-didn’t-know trope is fundamental to the now-obligatory ‘coming out’ script; could so many parents really have been so utterly clueless for so very long?)
And – marvelously sly – he also didn’t want to “endanger [his] shot at heaven” … but how would that work? Does this mean that he didn’t want God ‘mad at him’ for turning in this (allegedly) assaultive priest? But if JR was so good a Catholic at that point, then clearly his homosexuality itself would have interfered with his “shot at heaven” so from that theological standpoint what did he still have to lose? And once again, a proffered explanation raises more questions than it answers.
In the Stampede game-plan, these are not questions that were supposed to be asked. We were simply supposed to accept this heaped-up lasagna-layered type of story, presume that somewhere in there everything was somehow ‘explained’, and then just shut up and take up our scripted role of being the cattle in the Stampede.
And then – in conclusion – the frosting on this queasy cake is that things are so different today (thus seeking to preclude any effort by today’s people to accurately assess the circumstances of ‘yesterday’) precisely because of “all of us victims who have come forward” … which, but of course, is a presumption that has yet to be demonstrated.
And so – as always – when you finally get to it, the Stampede is nothing but a hall of mirrors.
And the whole thing concludes by confounding itself: in an effort to go for the Folksy, Shy, Modestly Uncertain effect, a Wig is slapped together of incompatible materials: JR doesn’t “think that’s changed much” – but “Hopefully [he’s] wrong about that”. Well, if he already knows what he thinks, then what’s the purpose in hoping that he’s wrong?
But this bit, of course, is simply an attempt to strike a pose and go for an effect, by stringing together a couple of familiar expressions that usually make their speaker look nice and look good. You aren’t supposed to actually assess them for coherence and accuracy. The Stampede feeds on feelings, not thoughts.
It apparently has to be pointed out to JR (the 2nd, 1238AM) – and the point is incisively relevant – that the cartoon character Porky Pig is – not to put too fine a point on it – a creature of fantasy and, more specifically, of the Cartoonist’s imagination. And so once again, and so vividly, we see the Abusenik tendency to conflate and confuse fantasy and actuality.
So according to you P, Porky Pig and god have a lot in common. Both are imagined and both are cartoons. Thanks.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/03/ex-pastor-arrested-after-woman-accidentally-uncovers-boyfriends-10-year-history-of-abuse/
I found this story particularly interesting because it is contemporary and has close parallel to my story of 10 years of abuse, staring at a young age. The victim was not going to say anything. So it is good that in the modern day a text message could bring the abuse to light and help to support the story of the victim against the priest who will likely, of course, claim innocence.
Let's see how it goes in the coming years because this case will likely make it under whatever criminal SoL's PA has on rape of a child, sexual assault and battery on a child under X, and child endangerment or whatever specific names PA gives to these sorts of crimes. Also, it will be interesting to know the documented history, if there is one, of this priest's service in order to see what the church superiors knew about him.
And now for something completely the same.
In best Playbook plop-toss form, the usual Abuseniks return … not to continue the (for them: uncongenial and difficult) consideration of matters and questions already on the table on this thread, but instead to try to just toss some new plop and see if that does anything to distract readers.
Thus JR on the 4th at 1031AM:
Readers will first note that bit about “according to [me]”, although what JR discusses is nothing I actually said but rather is merely something JR – using his noted ‘logic’ and ‘knowledge’ and insight – seems to think he sees in my actual material.
And Porky Pig and God do not “have a lot in common” unless one first assumes that a) mere ‘imagination’ and b) faith are the same thing. Which, for the Abusenik mentality as it has revealed itself to us so vividly on this site may very well be the case, but that’s about as far as it goes.
Then LDB returns (the 4th, 1036AM), ditto in all respects. He proffers a link to an internet news story that – by amazing coincidence – provides a neat vehicle to insert a commercial about (apparently) his own story and claims and allegations of abuse.
But once again, we wind up with far more questions than answers, let alone any substantive insight.
The link reports that a clergyman already removed from ministry was arrested just recently in PA on the basis of a “woman” who reports that her mother told her to report that she had discovered by reading his cell-phone text messages that her 19-year-old boyfriend had – up until “a few weeks ago” – had a “relationship” with that clergyman, spanning – we are told – almost a decade, during which lewd porn, oral sex, and lewd emails were included.
First, the clergyman was a Methodist, which is and for some time now has been a rather ‘liberal’ ecclesiastical polity in many of the major aspects so dear to ‘liberal’ Catholics.
Second, the photograph attached to the link appears to be a stock (and perhaps actor-modeled) photo of a headless torso in clerical or ministerial robes and handcuffs, with fists clenched (either in anxious guilt or unrepentant and monstrous chutzpah).
Third, there remains a question as to why this “relationship” continued beyond the boyfriend’s arrival at legal majority (at least as defined in the sex-offense laws).
Fourth, there remains a question as to why – in this day and age or even a decade ago – the boyfriend did not himself go to the police.
Which ties into the fifth point: given that this Methodist clergyman was given a Methodist ecclesiastical trial in 2011, why has it taken so long for the same (or different?) allegations to be publicly brought to the police? And were the young man’s parents not at any point aware of what is claimed to be a long and very involved “relationship”? And did the much-‘liberalized’ Methodist upper echelons (clerical and/or lay, male or female) do nothing further after the 2011 ecclesiastical trial?
Nor in this case do the usual Catholic Stampede tropes – so recently seen deployed on this thread – apply: Protestants (High or Low) do not see their ministers as ‘other Christs’ or possessed of any profound sacramental and ontological status through ordination; ‘gay’ relationships or being ‘gay’ do not bear the stigma they did decades ago and have not for quite some time.
Sixth – and this point seems to have escaped the (allegedly) trained legal mind of LDB – the lodging of the claim is ‘current’ or ‘contemporary’, but the claim actually covers criminally actionable allegations that are themselves ‘historical’. This, as readers may quickly realize, fits the same template as the Catholic Stampede.
There’s not enough substance in this story to be making any conclusions about the case, let alone whatever relevance it is supposed to hold for the Catholic Stampede.
Is this former-minister a long-time abuser who has finally – somehow – been officially and publicly discovered? Is he the target of the same sort of Stampede-type gambit whereby somebody conveniently already under-suspicion is pig-piled with claims by other allegants? Is there now an effort by the usual various interests to get the Stampede dynamic (and perhaps the Anderson Strategies) to Get The Ball Rolling among Protestant church polities?
I also note LDB’s characterization of this former Methodist minister or clergyman as a “priest”, which indicates either i) a rather clear ignorance of Methodism or ii) a deliberate effort to confuse and conflate Methodism and Catholicism for the usual Stampede purposes.
Lastly, it is interesting to read LDB’s bit “Let’s see how it goes in coming years”. It would seem far more constructive to say ‘let’s see how it goes with this case’, but – as we have so often seen – Abusenik plop-tossing precisely does not try to stay with any innuendo-making bit of plop to see how things develop further. Instead, it will ‘forget about it’ and move on to some other bit to toss; a neat way of avoiding the necessity of dealing with uncongenial developments in their original story or claim.
P is Plop!
Faith and imagination are very much the same. No proof, for what 's ever "believed in", is nothing but imagination and only imagination.