Overreacting: Boston's Cardinal Seán O'Malley
In a way it was inevitable: After years of media hysteria over the issue of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, Church officials have now decided on a policy of "shoot first, ask questions later" when it comes to even the scantest allegations of impropriety.
In January of this year, in an astonishing act of injustice, Boston's Cardinal Seán O'Malley forced the resignations of three individuals from a Catholic school in Revere, despite the fact that no one broke any law or did anything wrong.
If it were not clear already, it should be clear now: "Zero tolerance" has now fully morphed into paranoia and cruelty.
Man uses bathroom, and hysteria ensues at the archdiocese
The scene of the (non-)crime
Well, at some point at the end of last year, a mother called the school to report that her kindergarten-aged son felt "uncomfortable" walking into the restroom and seeing the school's 64-year-old custodian using a urinal. (The restroom was just steps away opposite the janitor's office.) [Addendum, 3/18/15: The Revere Advocate reported in late January that the janitor used the bathroom in question "for upwards of 17 years without incident."]
At no time did anyone ever report or even suggest that anyone had committed any behavior in the least bit sexual or criminal. Never.
In other words, the boy walked into the restroom and saw what anyone would see if he walked into any public men's restroom – such as at the theater or Boston's Fenway Park.
The school was at a loss at how to respond to the mother's phone call, but at some point, someone came up with the idea that the concern should somehow be reported to law enforcement. Big mistake.
Overreacting, Cardinal O'Malley and the Archdiocese of Boston immediately forced the resignations of three employees of the parish and its school: Father George Szal, the popular parish priest; Alison Kelly, the school's principal; and an unnamed second-grade teacher.
The Cardinal's reason for forcibly removing the trio was that the group had somehow failed to report the issue to law enforcement and the archdiocese "in a timely manner." Shockingly, the archdiocese reportedly gave the three "an ultimatum – resign or be fired."
Yet even after both local police and the local district attorney investigated the case and discovered that nothing even remotely criminal had occurred, Cardinal O'Malley still would not reverse his impetuous decision. The lives of four innocent people (the trio plus the custodian) would remain tarnished.
"A misunderstanding that got crazy"
TheMediaReport.com spoke to Revere Police's Sgt. Steven Pisano, a highly respected, 36-year veteran officer who worked on the investigation. Child welfare advocates have lauded Pisano in the past for his tireless work on behalf of child abuse victims, including victims of clergy abuse.
Pisano not only confirmed to us that "nothing criminal" occurred at the school, he stated that the entire episode was a "non-issue," a "misunderstanding that got crazy," and something that "took on a life of its own it shouldn't have."
[Read the Revere Police's response to TheMediaReport.com's public record request]
In addition, even the parent of the "uncomfortable" child at the center of the episode has "indicated that she had never intended to unlock such a maelstrom on the school" with her concern.
We also learned that the second-grade teacher who was fired forced to resign was a young teacher who traveled a great distance and under great sacrifice to work at the school. And despite being paid a low salary – as opposed to the astronomical salaries at the Cardinal's headquarters – she often spent much of her own money on school supplies for her students. A parent whose child was in the teacher's class told the Revere Journal:
"My daughter's teacher is the last one who should have gotten fired … There was a story going around that she was crying when she was cleaning out her room. She told everyone that she wasn't crying because she lost her job, but because she wasn't allowed to say good-bye to the kids. That woman would have taken a bullet for my kids and you don't find that all the time. For her to lose her job over this is tragic."
Asking for logic and justice
Parents at Immaculate Conception School are naturally up in arms over the way Cardinal O'Malley and the Archdiocese of Boston have handled this incident, and they created a petition with 927 signatures demanding a meeting with O'Malley to address the matter.
Parent Jeffrey Turco, who has three children in the school, has probably summed up this entire episode the best:
"[Archdiocese of Boston officials are] so panicked about how criminally they handled [the priest sex abuse cases] years ago that now they don't care who they hurt – whether the kids, the parents or three good people, four if you count the custodian.
"The Cardinal and his people ought to stand up and say, 'Sorry, we've made a mistake here in our zeal to protect children.' However, they're so arrogant and so stuck in their office complexes in Braintree that I don't know if they have the fortitude to admit they made a mistake … It's so un-Christian the way they handled this."
In typical bureaucratic fashion, over a month later, there has been no response at all from Cardinal O'Malley to the parents' petition. No letter, no phone call, no email. Nothing.
Appealing to Pope Francis' 'Year of Mercy'
Is this the kind of Church Cardinal O'Malley wishes to lead? A Church where paranoia, personal reputation, and "ultimatums" trump justice, Christian charity, and common sense?
Just last Friday, Pope Francis announced jubilee year dedicated to Divine Mercy. "It shall be a Holy Year of Mercy," said the pope. "We want to live this Year in the light of the Lord's words: 'Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful' (cf. Lk 6:36)."
Is there a reason that Cardinal O'Malley cannot extend mercy to these completely innocent men and women in Revere?
In the spirit of this Lenten season, TheMediaReport.com calls upon Cardinal O'Malley to immediately reinstate Rev. Szal, Principal Kelly, the second-grade teacher, and the custodian to their jobs.
Justice and decency demand it.
**Respectfully contact Cardinal O'Malley at ArchbishopSean@RCAB.org or at 617-782-2544.**
[NOTE: Before publication of this story, Archdiocese of Boston spokesperson Terrence Donilon ($208,293 total compensation in 2012) did not return calls from TheMediaReport.com to answer questions about this story. Mercy.]
The Wall Street Journal edition of Friday, April 3, 2015 has an article entitled “How the Tort Juggernaut Trolls for Clients” (p. A-11 in the print edition).
The editorial summary box for this article says “Judges and juries have begun to expose the fraud behind many injury claims”.
This is of clear relevance to understanding the dynamics and nature of the Stampede.
The specific area of concern addressed by the article is “asbestos-litigation” (characterized by Supreme Court Justice David Souter, quoted in the article, as “an elephantine mess” and by the article’s author as “the most massive of mass torts in America for decades”).
Asbestos had quite a while back been causally linked to mesothelioma (an incurable cancer caused by the inhalation of asbestos). But while the government health statistics indicate that the epidemiological peak for it was reached “in the 1990s”, yet somewhere between two and three thousand new claims are still being filed every year.
And what is now coming under “serious” scrutiny is “personal injury law firms’ aggressive recruitment of asbestos clients and the legitimacy of the claims”. (You see the relevance to matters of concern to this site.)
In fact, in 2012 two Pittsburgh torties were found liable by jury in a civil trial for “civil racketeering”; the plaintiff corporation (the transportation giant CSX) had complained that “the lawyers had worked with a radiologist to falsify chest X-rays to pursue asbestos-related claims”.
Readers may consider how much easier such scams are to run in the Stampede matter, where the ‘torts’ or ‘injuries’ are far less susceptible to testing, either a) in establishing that claimed psychological and emotional and mental maladies genuinely exist (as opposed to simply being mimicked by the allegant) and/or b) that such maladies were caused by the alleged ‘abuse’.
And in 2014 a federal judge determined that “’manipulation of exposure evidence’ had been perpetrated by several plaintiffs’ firms”.
Currently, as well, the former Speaker of the New York State Assembly has been arrested and indicted for using his political clout to “steer asbestos clients to a law firm that paid him millions”. In that case, I would add, the State judge who was appointed to adjudicate cases in a special asbestos-claims court was removed after it appeared that she too was in on the huge inflation of awards claims to those torties’ clients and allegants. And a professorial researcher was also cut into the deal: State grant monies were funneled to him and he produced ‘studies’ that supported the plausibility of such claims.
The firms spend over 30 million dollars a year to advertise on TV (and many readers may have seen those ads). This is not something we see in the Stampede, although the front organizations such as SNAP and others, with the help of the media’s amplification through its uncritical and sensational ‘reporting’, have filled that role.
The article thus refers to “the mass marketing of torts”.
And the article asks: if there are only a finite number of “legitimate clients”, then is there not a “fierce competition” among the tortie firms which would “create the incentive” for those firms to “pursue speculative or even illegitimate claims”. And the article gives an example of what I would call the Causality Problem that we have seen in the Stampede: “lifelong smokers” who blame their consequent lung and other medical problems “on supposed second-hand trace exposures to asbestos dust decades earlier”.
But the asbestos arena is not the only one where “mass tort [is] marketed” by the torties. Many such law firms hope “to force gigantic settlements” against a variety of large corporations.
And in the pelvic-mesh arena, a federal district court filing three months ago “offered extensive evidence of seemingly wholesale fraud in recruiting mesh plaintiffs”, including “transcripts of recruiters’ calls” demonstrating “brazen invitations to lie in order to collect” large sums.
And “there are many more examples of personal injury lawyers’ mass marketing of mass torts”.
The relevant point here, I would say, is that the Stampede is very legitimately to be analyzed as an instance of what is clearly a well-and-long established stratagem by torties to garner huge payouts for any clients they can muster, collecting substantial fees in the process.
Ultimately, the article concludes, while torties’ have protections under the First Amendment as to “truthful commercial speech”, yet “judges must do a better job of weeding out meritless and even fraudulent claims”.
And that State bar associations have to “revoke the law licenses of attorneys who have plainly” engaged in such activities.
So I would say that the Stampede is certainly an area where this type of tortie stratagem has been working busily (and – alas – successfully).
Gee The Wall Street Journal says! Is this the same Wall Street Journal that never criticized the bank and Wall street bailouts. Is it that Wall Street Journal? They are so notorious for telling the truth.
How exactly would victims, who were raped by your church, be "recruiter" called to sue?
How would lawyers get victims' names and numbers to call? Victims call SNAP who gives them Jeff Anderson's phone number. No cold calls here. If lying is being done; it's individual victims who have to lie from the get go to even get a lawyer. How many people like that do you really think there are? Sorry I asked that question of a sociopath. P sees liars and thieves everywhere but at the core of his religion or in his own mirror.
Lawyers aren't "manufacturing" victims. Real victims exist en mass.
As to the 6th at 1146AM:
In regard to the first paragraph: Atwill, seeking to make a major historico-theological claim, claims as support not any scholars in at least some of the relevant fields, but instead – waitttt for ittttttt – a 16th-century poet and playwright. And whatever “others” JR includes without actually identifying. Readers may consider the heft of such a precedent as Marlowe in such serious and complex matters.
In regard to the second paragraph: The “Render unto Caesar” statement depends completely upon what the hearer determines is ‘due’ to Caesar and what the hearer determines is ‘due’ to God. In this way it leaves huge interpretative gaps wide open and thus the statement can hardly be considered as clear and convincing evidence that the “Imperial Romans” were trying to inveigle Jewish or Christian believers into accepting Rome’s hegemony in all things. (Unless, of course, one presumes the Romans were political imbeciles.)
And JR’s bit here utterly avoids the pericope about “All power in heaven and on earth” which in and of itself rather clearly undermines any such purported Roman objective.
And whether “turn the other cheek” is an individual ethical or a political maxim is – among that pericope’s many complexities – open to serious question.
In the third paragraph JR tries to pull Atwill’s mush out of the fire by the claim that “the Flavians created Jesus to exist before the time of the Flavians”. But since the Pauline corpus was completed years before Josephus (even using Atwill’s rather dodgy early dating of 73AD) even wrote. Christianity clearly existed already so why would the Romans engage in such a stratagem?
And the bit about “Jesus might prophecy the Flavian emperor[s] as being ‘The Son of Man’ returned” also fails. First of all, only one of the Flavians (Vespasian,presumably) could have been the (singular) ‘Son of Man’ so this gambit would do nothing for the subsequent two Flavians.
Second, there is utterly nothing in the secular or religious record that at any time any emperor of Rome ever claimed to be Christ or “The Son of Man”.
Thus Atwill’s theory fails, whether JR has (always a problem with him) accurately presented Atwill’s position or not.
In the fourth paragraph we get the bits about the Flavians themselves (as an imperial family and/or clan) being “the real first Christians” (correction supplied);and b) that they were the “first saints made by the Church” – with St. Helena, wife of Constantius Chlorus and the mother of Constantine (centuries later than the Flavians) being the example. But given the impossible difference of time (she lived in the 3rd and 4th centuries) and the fact that by that time she could easily be construed as being a Christian through the normal workings of conversion to the already-growing Church, then this bit is ludicrous, in addition to the fact that there is no record of any of the Flavian emperors being made saints (let alone “the first saints”).
Additionally, there is no way that a Flavian or any other emperor could be considered a Christian if he were to claim to be “The Son of God”, nor is there any evidence of any kind in the historical record to support this theory that either Vespasian himself or any of the following Flavians or any other subsequent emperor ever claimed to be “The Son of Man” or descended from “The Son of Man”.
And even if we presume the accuracy of this gambit, then how did the Flavians ‘lose control’ of their plan? How is it that the purported plan left no trace in any subsequent historical record nor in any Church records (where the inclusion of a Flavian or anybody else in the Trinity would most surely have appeared in the records of early Church theological debates or Councils)?
Whether JR himself has read Atwill’s book or not is anybody’s guess. But if JR did, and these problems and the others mentioned in my link did not quickly occur to him, then he is grossly under-informed historically and theologically, and one must seriously question the usefulness of any of his forays into such matters.
Further purportedly corroborative evidentiary reference is then made – waitttt for itttttt – to yet another dramatic and fictional work, “I, Claudius”, an English novel from the 1930s by Robert Graves (subsequently made into a 1970s TV miniseries). While a lot of stuff seems to ‘come to’ JR’s ‘mind’, he doesn’t seem able to judge their relevance very well.
And – the fifth paragraph – while the Roman emperors did deify themselves for a while, that is not the point at issue here. The point at issue here is whether the Flavians or any other Roman emperor claimed to be not simply ‘a’ god, but the Christian God (or, at least, “The Son of Man”). And there is nothing in the historical record – secular or religious – to indicate that they ever did. We have only Marlowe and Robert Graves (the latter being dragged into this thing without his approval).
Thus the concluding paragraph with JR’s ‘logic’ can remain right up where it was put. We have in it merely an example of how factoids (and not so factual thing-oids) can be glued together in some types of minds to achieve what would appear (only to that type of mind) as a perfectly demonstrated and utterly logical conclusion.
And on the 6th at 1215 we merely get – and who can possibly be surprised – JR’s considered and informed conclusion as to the fatal problem posed by the existence of the Pauline corpus years before even Atwill’s dating: Paul – doncha see? – was “a fake path that was created to lead Jews to Jesus” (although wasn’t the Emperor supposed to be “The Son of Man”?).
So- doncha see? – the Pauline Letters Problem is not a problem for JR because he hath now donned the Wig of Knowing to declaim and declare that Paul never actually existed. And that the Jews merely created him.
I leave this bit for readers to consider as they will.
Prove that Paul; Jesus ; god ;and satan that any of them ever existed. You say they are/were real. It should be easy to prove.
I never said the Jews created Paul.
On the 6th at 1156AM we get another Playbook and also juvenile dodge: JR will try to avoid the material in the WSJ article by simply making fun of the WSJ; his old epithet dodge.
But it might also be pointed out, following his gambit here, that the Boston Globe supported the Iraq War in 2003, so why should we trust it in regard to anything else … like, say, the Abuse Matter?
And is he seriously suggesting that the WSJ “never criticized the bank and Wall Street bailouts”? (correction supplied) He needs to enter some phrase such as ‘Wall Street Journal criticism of bank and TARP bailouts” into his search engine and see how many hundreds of thousands of hits instantly come back.
But wouldn’t that be ‘un-Christian’? Or ‘sociopathic’? Or ‘obsessive’? Or ‘heckling’? Or ‘quibbling’?
Then on the 6th at 1256PM:
JR asks – amazingly – how (in the Stampede, presumably) torties would get the names and contact information of prospective allegants (cartoon term: “victims who were raped by your Church”). That’s precisely what the front-organizations like SNAP and Bishop-Accountability were designed for, as I have often said;’ these organizations – masquerading as victim-support and information organizations – act as funnels to the torties.
Although it’s an interesting question: why would the Stampede torties not advertise on TV like so many other types of law firms do now? Probably because the mainstream media – for their own purposes – were providing all that free advertising in their ‘reporting’ on the Stampede.
And, of course, it would look kind of tacky to do TV ads (most readers, I presume, have seen some of this type of attorney ad). And a TV ad would too quickly and clearly suggest a scam, whereas the media ‘reporting’ usefully makes the whole Abuse Matter sound as if it’s not a scam come-on but instead a serious major factual news development.
Of course, then, there is no need for “cold calls”: the media do the ‘advertising’, the prospective allegants go to SNAP and the other front-funnel organizations that were publicized in the media, and the front-funnel organizations move them on to the torties (with some kick-backy funds then donated to the organizations from the torties out of the proceeds of the claims). And Bishop-Accountability, setting itself up as an online ‘registry’ of accused priests, maintains enough useful bits and details that could burnish up a story, once a target was selected.
Really, it’s an operation that Arnold Rothstein could have been proud of.
But then a nonsensical bit that yet reveals something: JR says that “If lying is being done, it’s [being done by] individual victims who have to lie from the get-go even to get to a lawyer” (corrections supplied).
If you think about the statement for a moment … what can it possibly mean? Why would a prospective client have to “lie from the get-go” simply to “get to see” a tortie? In what way would such a prospective client have to “lie”? In what ways did prospective clients actually “lie”? Clearly, JR is either a) making up yet another assertion with little if any basis in fact or else b) JR knows how things operated and has accidentally let a cat out of the bag here.
But he quickly moves us beyond all that ‘quibbling’ with – have you been waitttting forrrr itttttt? – an epithet. This time, the old stand-by that I am a “sociopath”. Why would that be? – one asks the Wig of Diagnosis.
How many people like that do I think there really are? Well, clearly there are a lot of them in the mesothelioma arena. And there are most certainly some (I’d say more than some) in the Abuse arena. But who are you going to believe – JR or your own lying eyes? Are we seriously to imagine that a high-powered, long-established scam strategy that has been characteristic of big-tortie activity for so long a time had absolutely and utterly no significant presence in the Abuse arena?
And apparently now JR, donning the new Wig of the Friend of Man, is going for the high-ground by suggesting that there really aren’t that many “liars” out in the world at all, except – of course – for those who don’t buy his stuff and make him “look bad” by assessing his stuff (which so conveniently constitutes, in his head, a “sociopath”).
And the whole thing concludes with an assertion seeking to spin-away the mesothelioma example that reveals the long-established and sleazy tortie business plan by simply insisting that “real victims exist en mass” (corrections not supplied). An assertion for which not even he has ever provided a shred of supporting evidence.
Have we seen any credibly “real” victims on this site? Is it even remotely probable that the same dynamics that afflict the mesothelioma arena never touched the Abuse arena?
Readers may consider all this, and tune in again for the next episode of JR’s personal ‘Abusenik Twilight Zone’.
A T.V. ad would do exactly what SNAP's owners the church are trying to avoid at all costs; bring victims together. And most particularly, such ads would take control away from Jeff Anderson and SNAP. That the church can never allow. They didn't create those two to have them superceeded or ignored.
Other lawyers might question SNAP's insane public behaviors and controlling treatment of victims or lack of elections or negations of elections; or Jeff Anderson's lack of skills as a tort lawyer; or fr. Thomas Doyle's extraordinary "transformation" from the U.S.'s leading canon lawyer ( appointed such under JP2, to hide sex abuse cases) to "advocate" and star witness and "hero for survivors" as so ludicrously heralded by the very "committees" SNAP VOTF etc. Doyle wanted created by the bishops in his first writings on the subject presented secretly to American bishops conference.
Use your common sense around these contradictions please.
Why would Doyle ask for secret committees to be formed? What exactly were those secret committees to do? Fake organize angry catholics and speak for them just like VOTF?
Control and speak for "survivors"( never victims) just like SNAP?
I'll stick with the truth.
Look at P's complicated lies. Look at my truth. I keep saying the same thing while P must dismiss; invent; and degrade and smear. And with a snobbishness and arrogance so deeply untruthful so deeply un"christian".
In his response (the 6th, 1159AM) to ‘Malcolm Harris’, JR informs us that “SNAP was dead set against recovered memory”, then qualifying that assertion with “at least they were to the few victims who went to their meetings”.
We have no way of knowing if that is true. I can recall no public statement by SNAP to that effect but I also do not claim a comprehensive familiarity with all of SNAP’s press releases over the decades.
However the assertion certainly seems counterintuitive, if not also improbable.
The now-discredited theory of ‘repressed memory’ was a major ‘scientific’ mainstay of Victimism and sex-abuse (however defined) charges in the 1980s and 1990s and even into the early 2000s.
To recap the conceptualization of ‘repressed/recovered memory’: one might (notice that there is no absolute causality here) experience a traumatic event (however defined) and forget the event in one’s memory; however at some point in the future or even distant future that memory might return or be ‘recovered’; and further, the ‘memory’ thus ‘recovered’ would be – like a piece of meat left in the freezer and forgotten – pristine and perfect and perfectly reliable as ‘evidence’ of the traumatic event (like an old photograph stored and forgotten but then ‘recovered’ in all its pristine clarity).
There were many fundamental problems with this conceptualization from the get-go:
The brain has no physical architecture or neural system that could accomplish the steps and tasks required by the imagined ‘syndrome’.
The original Vietnam-vet related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder theory (from which Victimst PTSD was then adapted) noted that vets ostensibly afflicted by PTSD reported intrusive, recurrent, and un-suppressable memories, and n-o-t ‘repressed’ memories. The vets were afflicted by memories they could not stop, and they were not complaining of memories they could not remember or didn’t remember. (As you can see, the original PTSD theory was therefore hardly useful for grounding allegations and ‘reports’ of long-ago and never-reported sexual-abuse; thus the Victimists had to literally reverse the dynamics of the original theory – without anybody noticing this profound tampering.)
The accepted and known dynamics of human memory development (and I am not here talking about Darwin’s theory of evolution as it has developed among non-theist and atheist and Monoplanar circles) would indicate it to be most evolutionarily useful if humans were to remember dangerous or painful incidents (so as to avoid them in the future) and not to forget them.
‘Memory’ is never like a photograph; the mind does not take perfect snapshots of external events but rather takes partial impressions; and the selection of those impressions that form a ‘memory’ can be affected by the actual physiological health and integrity of the brain, the observational powers of the individual, and – most certainly – the emotional conditions at the time when the event took place. Thus, for example, a person under extreme emotional arousal – especially such negative arousal as fear or terror or rage – would not be able to observe and process as capably as a person not under such stimulus.
The entire recovered/repressed memory ‘syndrome’ – being completely internal – could be manipulated by individuals (they could mimic or imitate the ‘symptoms’ or simply make a claim that they had recovered such a repressed memory) and this would especially be so if rewards or advantages to the claimant were available, whether those advantages had to do with psychological/emotional rewards, an increase in status in the community, or pecuniary rewards, or a mixture of all the foregoing. (And here you see the utility of this ‘theory’ for Victimism: i) a powerful mutually-rewarding bond could be forged between claimants and the tortie industry, especially if ii) legal evidentiary laws and principles were deranged to make room for the theory in legal cases and iii) media reported the claims and ‘memories’ as if they were indubitably factual.)
This theory held sway for quite a few years until finally the courts themselves accepted the long-standing objections of numerous types of neurological authorities that the recovered/repressed memory construct was incapable of being taken seriously as a credible and widely-accepted scientifically grounded and demonstrated theory.
This type of claim has played a significant part in the Stampede, either overtly or presumptively: allegants could sidestep the abyssally deep problems of their never having reported or claimed long-ago abuse by simply and breezily claiming that they had just recently ‘recovered’ the memory (and gone right to a tortie). And legally evidentiary rules had been altered to require only that a jury find such a story or claim to be “credible”, without there being any corroborating evidence whatsoever.
So then: to imagine that SNAP (and the torties for whom it fronted) did not support the recovered/repressed memory gambit would certainly be a stretch indeed.
I think SNAP is not dead set against repressed memory:
http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2010_statements/021610_oh_supreme_court_hears_repressed_memory_case_sex_abuse_victims_respond.htm
On the 6th at 1152AM JR tries a version of his signature I’m Not/You Are comeback: is it not, he asks, the Church’s position that the Church is Good and only Evil can be the cause of doubts about the Church? (This is an effort by JR to avoid the Stampede and Abusenik Playbook effort to explain away all doubts and objections to the claims and allegations as being motivated only by evil people who diss ‘victims’ (genuine or otherwise) by doubting and questioning them.)
But the Church’s position is that the first possibility for anyone of the Church’s truth is the cause, for which the remedy is evangelization and missionary work. And even if the Church’s position were as JR would characterize it, how would that make the Stampede/Abusenik deployment of such a position any better?
Then apparently in response to my comment of the 4th at 316PM, JR (the 6th at 1211PM) JR ‘explains’ the serious problems in Atwill’s stuff by simply ascribing all the incoherences to the fact that “revisions happened in christianity”. What revisions? And how did each (alleged) revision work to bolster the (alleged) Flavian plan?
(Of course, the “revisions” ‘answer’ doesn’t handle all of the problems with Atwill’s material. Perhaps JR hasn’t noticed that.)
He then goes on about his theory of “gods”: the Flavians (we are to believe) “knew” that “all gods really were created for … the rulers” so that those rulers “might be authenticated from on high”.
Whether we agree or disagree with JR’s general theory of “gods” here, it has to be pointed out that the earliest Caesars had already promoted their own divinity, based on the traditional Roman gods which were the basis of the Roman civic-religion. Why would they then try to claim descent from an obscure sect-god from Palestine? What would that have done to their credibility among the Roman people and the Senate?
And why, again, is there no record anywhere – secular or religious – that mentions any such claim by the Flavians or any other emperors?
Why, for instance, did Constantine not approach the Pope as a spiritual equal or even superior, claiming that as a descendant or successor of the Flavian “Son of Man” he was actually the true Pontifex Maximus of the Christian religion? Why, if the established (by the Flavians) tradition of the Emperor as “The Son of Man” were a historical actuality, would Constantine go to the Pope and yet not insist that he (Constantine) be formally recognized by the Church as “The Son of Man” or the successor to “The Son of Man”?
On the 6th at 1214PM we are given another instance of how little JR knows about subjects in regard to which he makes his assertions: Caligula ordered the erection of a statue of his divine self to be erected in every temple in the Empire … in 39AD. The Jews refused and Caligula’s death rendered the issue moot. But the issues of taxation and the disrespectful behavior of Roman troops toward the Jewish religion and the overt favoritism towards non-Jews shown by Roman authorities in the region created further hostility.
But the spark that set off the Great Revolt was the theft of great quantities of silver from the Temple by the out-going (and last) Roman procurator, Florus, in 66AD.
There was no statue.
The enraged Jewish population wiped out the local city garrison and then did the same to a force sent by the governor of Syria. Which led to the Romans dispatching several legions of regular troops and that sealed the fate of the Great Revolt.
Then on the 6th at 1242PM JR – if we ignore the usual epithet laced with juvenile scatology – creates something I didn’t say in order to have something to be outraged about: I never said “only the church is good” nor implied it. (He is welcome to provide a quote (accurate, of course) and explication if he sees fit.)
But while it is certainly a good thing for “people [to be] working together for the benefit of each other” (nor did I ever say or imply that such was “wrong”), yet the historical record of all of the ‘-ism’ siblings born in the 1880-1920 era has demonstrated just how fraught large-scale and government-level engagement on that project quickly becomes and how it produces so many lethally unhappy results.
On the 6th at 101PM we are back to John Paul II and Maciel, although it has already been discussed and I have noted that failure in John Paul II’s judgment of the man. But any plop is better than no plop at all.
On the 7th at 1148AM we are dragged back yet again to what must be the only comeback JR has on his 3×5 card: we are told to “prove” that Jesus existed. To which we then given the answer by the Wig of Declamation: “you can not” (correction not supplied). But that silly bit has already been dealt with in comments so let’s not waste the time again. And if Atwill’s stuff is supposed to provide substantive evidence that Jesus did not exist, then JR is doubly off the rails here.
On the 7th at 1053AM we are back to the 3×5 about ‘proving’. As if, once again, we had not already been over the issue, and explained the nonsensical-ness of the demand. Has JR already forgotten all that? Or has he nothing else? Or perhaps his muse hadn’t taken the trouble to become familiar with prior comments and is – as it were – starting from scratch here?
On the 7th at 1127 JR is correct that he “never said that the Jews created Paul”. That leaves us with the Flavians apparently creating Paul as well as Jesus. And the Pauline corpus. And the rest of the New Testament as well? And all the Apostles. And what then of all the people who would have actually have known Christ or Paul or one or more of the Apostles, who would still have been alive while the Pauline corpus (which antedates the Gospels) was being written.
And if the Pauline corpus was created by the Flavians then how explain that many of the Pauline Letters date well before the Flavians engaged Josephus? Indeed, “First Thessalonians” is accepted by scholars as dating to 51AD, almost two decades before the Flavians even ascended to the purple and “Romans” – the latest of the Letters about which there is almost complete scholarly consensus – dates to 58AD.
On the 7th at 1122AM JR, trying to deal with the problems raised by the recent exposures in the tortie industry, gamely tosses up the following: “A T.V. ad would do exactly what SNAP’s owners the church are trying to avoid at all costs; bring victims together”. How would a TV ad do that? And how would a TV ad to that better than putting up a shingle as a victim organization, utilizing the internet and scads of free media publicity (masquerading as ‘reporting’)?
And – as I said – a TV ad for abuse victims would impart to the whole business a queasy, ambulance-chasing, constructed-ness. And that would ‘bring together’ people who might wonder if the Stampede were not just another version of the old tortie game of whomping up huge lawsuits against deep-pockets defendants.
But JR has enough money to run a TV ad. Why did he not try it and see where it went? Would it indeed “bring victims together”? Surely 500 ‘victims’ were gotten together for the LA lawsuit, and yet – as JR himself has informed us – all but 16 of them showed no interest in staying-together any longer than it took to pick up their checks.
So we are left with nothing much here. And that nothing is buttressed by a further nothing as JR tries to use as fact what has never ever been demonstrated: that Anderson and SNAP are tools and creatures of the Church.
Nothing plus nothing equals …
Then in the second paragraph JR tries to imagine various scenarios resulting from TV ads:
“Other lawyers” might question SNAP – but why have they not done so after so very much publicity provided in regard to SNAP by the media coverage? (We also note in this bit a reference to SNAP “elections”; it would appear that JR tried to get himself elected to something in SNAP although perhaps SNAP has no mechanism for elections (why would a front organization for the torties want to risk such a thing as “elections”?) or SNAP realized what it was dealing with and most surely wanted to save itself some serious irritations.)
“Other lawyers” might “question … Jeff Anderson’s lack of skills” – but Anderson has achieved far more professionally than most torties and has also received a great deal of publicity, yet not “other lawyers” have raised any significant objections or criticism of his methods nor belittled his success.
“Other lawyers” might question still-Father Doyle’s “extraordinary ‘transformation’” (from a high-ranking canon lawyer to the SNAP still-Father) – but why would “other attorneys” be interested in that or in him and why would all that free media publicity not have sparked their speaking-out even though there were no TV ads? (Also: there is utterly no evidence to support the assertion that Doyle was assigned by the Vatican “to hide sex abuse cases” and he clearly has not done so; he is included in JR’s demonology because he got where he got and JR remains where and who he is.)
And in this paragraph, we note that just about every extant victim-organization and leading personality is included in JR’s demonology of – as he likes to say – “false flag opps”. If you tote up a list, it would appear that the only real good guy on the Abusenik side is – have you been waitttting forrrr ittttt? – JR.
And in this paragraph we also see that the “other lawyers” mechanism was inserted merely for the purpose of JR once again tossing up the contents of his 3x5s about SNAP and all the rest of it that we have seen before. But nothing – as ever – establishes that that pandemonium is a tool of the Church rather than of the torties.
And then – marvelously – feeling so confident of his production so far, JR doth don the Wig of Instruction and tell us to “use your common sense around these contradictions please”. What “contradictions”? And what sort of “common sense” would or could take this material of his and demonstrate the Church’s central role as the organizer of everything?
Then we are back to “secret committees” in the Doyle proposal of 1985, although – yet again for the umpteenth time – the term never appeared in the proposal. And the proposal was, we recall, rejected.
Thus his series of insinuating questions remain precisely that, and thoroughly unsupported.
But having convinced himself to his own satisfaction, the Wig of Upright Integrity announces that he “will stick with the truth”. Yah.
But this almost self-parody of a declamation then shows itself to have had a more specific purpose: it provides the lead-in for the next paragraph where JR exhorts readers to consider my “complicated lies” and then to look at his “truth”.
And then – with most uncharacteristic shrewdness (surely a muse’s hand is revealed here) – JR will try more conceptual jiu-jitsu: his constant repetition of his same stack of 3x5s is to be taken for “truth” while my extended explications and discussions are to be taken for ‘dismissing’ and ‘inventing’ (what have I ‘invented’?) and – have you been waittttting forrrrr itttttt? – ‘degrading’ and ‘smearing’.
But his constant repetition of the same points, without corroboration or even rationally coherent explication, and without substantive refutation of opposing points, and his consistent deployment of the panoply of Playbook distractions and dodges, work to undermine this otherwise cutesy set-piece of a scenario; it only works if you forget the entire record of his material on this site.
And the whole thing concludes – as if scripted – with the old Playbook epithet about “un ‘christian’” (corrections not supplied).
On, then, to the 7th at 1045AM.
It opens, as usual, with an epithet.
In the second paragraph he apologizes for his “obscenity” (correction supplied). Which leads instantly to yet another epithet. And then a whine: could anyone please tell him what else a person in his “place” could do? (In other words: this is his signature making-excuses-for-himself move.)
I was specifically not asked but it’s a free country so here’s what I would do: b) I would take all objections and answer them as fully and accurately as I could; I would be – as the attorneys say – ‘responsive’ to the questions and points put to me. But that, of course, would presume a) that I had taken a position that could honestly and rationally and coherently be defended.
But as I have said, it’s not really the offensiveness of his presentation that is at issue. Rather it is the indication raised by the obscenity (among other indicators) that we are not dealing here with a credible and competent commenter in these many matters about which he issues so many (unsupported) assertions. The primary problem at hand, in other words, is not that he is offending anybody else but rather that he is undermining himself.
And we are informed now that there were two abusers among his high-school teachers.
And we are informed – according to the stock scripting of this sort of thing that we have so often seen and discussed in regard to the Causality Problem – about all the sequelae of his (alleged and now multiple) ‘abuse’ (here downgraded from his usual “rape”).
But – to repeat what I have discussed in general terms in regard to the Causality Problem: there remains as so often the distinctly troubling possibility (if not probability) that i) the problems besetting the allegant in the present were not only pre-existing in the allegant before the alleged abuse but also that ii) those presently-observable and pre-existing problems were themselves actually a causal element in the lodging of the allegations in the first place.
Readers who read the WSJ article I referenced above on this thread would see this point covered in the example of an asbestos-claimant with present serious lung-problems, who had had only minor exposure to asbestos but who had had a lifetime smoking habit. But, of course, you don’t get paid for a lifetime smoking habit – but you can collect a hefty sum in ‘compensation’ if you can tie yourself (by any means necessary) into a lawsuit over asbestos exposure.
And the article concerning the standard and basic tort-law (which I also put up on this thread) gives us an even larger and deeper picture of just what stratagems and practices are and have long been standard in tort-industry practice.
Then more epithet and a riff on the epithet (this site has become “a pig-sty”), followed by the almost de rigeur reference to ‘re-victimizing’ (“to abuse the already abused”) – although we don’t have any credible assurance on that point.
But this histrionic set-up thus provides – to JR’s satisfaction at least – his indulging his Inner Juvenile and he takes full advantage of the opening he has given himself in the penultimate paragraph.
And in the concluding paragraph he then – marvelously – conflates his eructations with the workings of “karma” itself, and even better than just plain old “karma”.
Then on the 7th at 1040AM JR informs us that “Satan” is “not mentioned in the bible either”. There are almost 25 relevant references in the Old Testament and more in the New Testament.
What a hodge-podge of ‘knowledge’ JR considers himself to possess.
Hey I just found out that this article is on Bishop Accountabilty's website. Did you know that, Dave?
Thank you, Mark!
Yes, occasionally BA will publish our articles.
The underwater crucifix and the pilgrims to it; only illuminates the decadence of your church since the JP2 reign of reaction.
The U.S. has been slaughtering in illegal wars millions for the past 12 years and your lot walks out on a frozen lake to look at a thrown away chunk of marble.
Now I know where Andres Serrano got the idea for his Piss Christ.
Please elaborate, if you will, how the underwater crucifix and the pilgirms to it illuminates the decadence of "your" Church since the JP2 reign of reaction. Also, how are the "lot" who walk out on a frozen lake responsible for the US slaughtering millions, please site documents to this claim, in illegal wars? Could you post a link to where Andres Serrano got the idea for "Piss Christ".
It's decadent to pay attention to a carved piece of rock and to treat it with religious respect. And then treating Maciel like a living saint. All the while burdening the children of god with superstition over care and ignorance over insight. imho. JP2's attack against the Theology of Liberation was a crime against catholic and Jesus's mandate. Again in my opinion.
I'm just trying to make people think. If I've been too rough. Well I'm not perfect and I'm tired of shit passing for Shinola.
It's my analysis/ supposition regarding Serrano's art . I have no idea where he may have actually got the idea for it.
I believe that the energy spent on mysticism, while people are suffering is, to me, decadent. And not what Jesus would do.
Collective energy can do incredable things. think the pyramids for example. What wonders could those worshipers create if they aimed to? Why look at a man made object when your god's own creation, his own works of art, humanity, needs to be polished, cleaned, cared for, worshiped perhaps; if god is everywhere he's in us too. And I think he wants us to honor the god in every human creature. He's there if he's anywhere. imo.
I think the Piss Christ is a great work of art on so many levels including a religious one. A positive religious one.( and if god is everywhere he's there too.)
You eat Christ. Canibalism is outre but it's the heart of your religion, in the mass.
Sometimes god is revealed in the shock of something different. A cross is not god. It doesn't mean anything. Someone manufactured it.
The P Christ is on some level beautiful. a reminder that people are more powerful and are much more than symbols. That's kind of beautiful; don't you think? Are you shocked by it? I hope not negatively. I think Jesus would like it. I'm not being mean. I think he'd get it.
Regarding the "devotion" shown by the pilgrims in the snow. Jesus never said god needed to be worshiped. God never said he needed to be worshiped. (If your god, I guess, you'd worship yourself ; and isn't that what the Holy Ghost is supposed to be? the love between the father and the son?) Women do a pretty damned good job of loving but the guys who wrote the bible left them out in the god department.The bible never mentions a trinity either. All male, just like a desert patriarchal tribe would imagine god to be; just like themselves. Women didn't count.
Jesus not only said God needed to be worshipped, He commanded it. Luke 4:8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
I'm not sure what you mean about women being left out of the God department. The only thing I can say in reagrds to women, the Catholic Church holds Mary in high regard. I mean, the Queen of Heaven is a pretty lofty title.
The Bible doesn't mention a triune God. You are correct. The only thing I could do is post a link to the Catechism where it explains our beliefe: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm
Forgive me for not responding to your other posts. If I find the time to respond, I will do so.
Peace.
Jimmy, "It is written" could be Jesus just stating a fact that it is written.
But see I don't believe there were gospel writers, period.
I believe the whole Jesus story and christianity itself was a Roman Imperial scam. A black opp as it were to have people OBEY. Just like the church consistantly demands today. Obedience or damnation. A pacification of rebellion and a continuation of the Imperial family as god. The pope is Pontiff Maximus. An Imperial title given to the emperor. It shows that the Imperial rule has never died it's still running the obedience scam.
The Romans invaded Israel because the Jews wouldn't worship Caesar as a god. The populations in the rest of the Roman world did.
Christianity was built on hatred of the Jews for "killing Christ". With in my life time in the U.S. Jewish kids were still being beatup for that imaginary murder. Joseph Atwill says it all in Caesers Messiah. Christianity is all about an obedience and subservience to the state through it's chosen religion. A religion that demands obedience to the state as part of obedience to god. It's "God" as Big Brother.
Sorry I should have said cristianity was a psych opp. It's a black opp too.
This is the guilt and remorse that christianity sells.
Really religion's major product: Guilt and self doubt( i.e. a presumption we are bound to do wrong before we ever do right. Such nonsense; Instilled early enough, breeds nothing but obedience and fear)
We aren't children stumbling around learning to survive We're grown. We don't walk into a busy street; and don't burn our hands boiling water. 99% of the time anyway.
The church says; christianity says, we should stay like children; believe in god like a child would. Problem is, Children are expected to obey and if you're the child; who then is the grown up?
Why i guess it's the guys who keep telling you to be children and obey them. The self annointted adult figure in a religious nursery. How convienient!
Most of us humans are grown up and don't screw up because like every animal we like to survive
And the church and state are so locked together each validating the other. Even though the games they endorse are rigged and always rigged for the benefit of the rich.
The rich, who both government and the church really work for and who we really pay for. All of them. Such a deal!
It is written means the Word of God. Jesus is quoting scripture in his battle with Satan.
In regards to your statement that Christianity was built on hatred and Jewish kids were still being beat up for that imaginary murder, I have to call BS on this. I live in the Northeast and know many, many Jews, cultural and Orthodox and I have never come across a claim of them being beaten up for killing Christ. I find it common practice for anti-Catholics to embellish or right out lie in making statements against the faith to bolster their claims.
I won’t debate you on the Roman Imperial conspiracy theory. I don’t see the point in arguing against a conspiracy. For anyone interested in Joseph Atwills Caesar’s Messiah, Just type in his name and you will find plenty of material on his book.
JR on the 3rd April at 11.47pm comments as follows:-
"We aren't children stumbling around learning to survive. We're grown. We don't walk into a busy street, and don't burn our hands in boiling water. Not 99% of the time anyway."
Well that's just expressing the reality of living and learning. He is right. Which is why I have always been puzzled that some psychologists supported the invention of "recovered memory". This is not simply an academic issue…. because such dubious evidence sent some priests to prison. Basically it was used to explain away the inconvenient truth that an alleged victim said nothing to nobody… for 30 years, or more. The victim would claim that the abuse was so traumatic that he consciously buried the memory. Only to recover the memory 30 years or more later.
Now this idea arises from physical injury cases, such as a car accident or war-time wounding. The brain suffers actual physical injury, memory can be lost, sometimes permanently. Or it can return years later. But these physical injuries should never have been used as a template for psychological conditions, that arise from non-physical trauma, such as sexual abuse, when the harm is not physical but emotional. Shocking for the victim… but not sufficient to physically damage the brain… and cause any memory loss. So the theory of "recovered memory" is baloney. An invention of greedy lawyers and tame psychologists.
JR rightly says we learn that some water is too hot and it hurts.
Malcom Harris, SNAP was dead set against recovered memory, at least they were to the few victims who went to their meetings. Interesting tact don't you think if they supposedly rep victims?
So I'm not a "credibly real victim"? Fuck you!
If the readership thinks I resort to obsenity too often or easily, my apologies. Could someone, other than shit for brains, tell me what you would say, if you were in my place? Someone who was sexually abused by two of his high school teachers.
These acts screwed with my entire life.; and when I speak of it here. P, this living piece of trash, who doesn't really believe in god or heaven or truth or decency, does this disgustingly abusive dance on the worst moments of my life.)
He's a pig. Since when did this site become a pig sty? Since P thought he had a right to abuse the already injured.
Again. P, fuck you from the bottom of my heart and die a miserable; horrible; painful death and do it as quickly as poossible. You deserve pain.
There, karma returned with interest.
Satan? Who's that? He's not mentioned in the bible either. What a hodge podge of a religion.
Luke Chapter 4 verses 1 and 2:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
The devil, satan, whatever you want to call him, he is mentioned.
Hodgepodge? Maybe. We are Universal with many different cultures sharing in one faith in a variety of manners. It can look jumbled but open minds can see there's beauty in it.