Continuing the fight for truth and justice: Journalist Ralph Cipriano
If there were still any doubt about the criminal fraud committed against the Catholic Church in Philadelphia by D.A. Seth Williams and his publicity-seeking prosecutors, look no further than the eye-popping cover story this week in Newsweek by veteran journalist Ralph Cipriano.
Over the last few years on the blog BigTrial.net, Cipriano closely followed the trials against Catholic clergy which received widespread local and national attention.
The accuser at the center of it all, Dan Gallagher, claimed that during the 1998-1999 school year, when he was a 10-year-old altar boy in Philadelphia, he was serially raped and abused – sometimes for hours on end – by the late Fr. Charles Engelhardt, former Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero, and ex-priest Edward Avery, all of whom barely even knew each other.
The mainstream media wakes up
The $5 million man:
Accuser Danny Gallagher
Numerous times over the past several years Cipriano has written about a mountain of indisputable evidence indicating that Gallagher most certainly falsely accused the trio of Engelhardt, Shero, and Avery.
However, in his Newsweek piece, Cipriano expands the story even further. Cipriano now reveals details of a 40-page psychologist report concluding that because the "immature," "manipulative," and "hedonistic" Gallagher has admitted providing false information about his past repeatedly, there is no way to conclude "to a reasonable degree" that Gallagher has ever been abused by a priest, or by anyone in his life.
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any clear-thinking person, not to mention 12 individuals sitting on a jury, believing Gallagher's crazy and unbelievable tales. The evidence for the convicted men’s innocence is beyond overwhelming:
- Even members of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office itself did not believe Gallagher's wild claims and questioned whether they should even put Engelhardt and Shero on trial.
- Triple-accuser Gallagher has been arrested at least six times – once for possession of 56 bags of heroin – and has been in-and-out of some 23 drug re-habs.
[Check out a court summary of Gallagher's extensive arrest record] - Gallagher even explicitly told drug counselors that he had "no history of physical or sexual abuse."
- Gallagher has admitted that he lied when he said he worked as a paramedic and a "professional surfer" (yes, a professional surfer from Philadelphia);
- On three separate occasions, Gallagher told drug counselors that his older brother had been arrested for molestation. In truth, Gallagher's older brother, James Gallagher, is a recently licensed attorney in Pennsylvania and has never been arrested at all.
- An alternate juror even came forward after the trial with the dramatic charge that the guilty verdicts against Engelhardt and Shero were "insane," "incredible," and "a tragic miscarriage of justice."
- Fr. Engelhardt easily passed a polygraph test denying that he abused Danny or anyone, and the test administrator was a guy often hired by the Philly D.A.'s Office itself.
- Ex-priest Avery not only passed a polygraph test indicating that he had never abused Gallagher, but he also told authorities he never even met him before. In addition, records later revealed that Gallagher never even served as an altar boy at Mass with Avery, as Gallagher had claimed.
- Fr. Engelhardt previously waved his fifth amendment rights and voluntarily appeared before the Philadelphia grand jury, at which he asserted his innocence and testified, "I have no knowledge of who the person is. If he's sitting in this room today, I can't pick him out … I found it to be a very humbling thing to be called on the phone … when you know, there was no truth or that was something unrealistic that was happening to you."
- And as we have relayed before, Gallagher has told separate tales of abuse by the trio of men that not only defy any reasonable belief but have varied wildly over time.
Paging Rolling Stone magazine
Discredited – again
Sabrina Rubin Erdely
Cipriano reminds readers that Gallagher's bogus rape story was the subject of a splashy 2011 story in Rolling Stone magazine by Sabrina Rubin Erdely.
The crusading Erdely wrote, with no shortage of lurid detail, of how Gallagher, described only as a "sweet and gentle kid," was repeatedly raped and sodomized by the three men and forced to perform stripteases after Mass.
Does Erdely's name sound familiar? Well, she is the same Erdely who wrote an incredible, 9000-word piece in 2014 for Rolling Stone about "Jackie," a University of Virginia co-ed who claimed she was gang raped by seven men at a fraternity party. The story received huge national attention.
However, after the Washington Post did a little digging, the Jackie story was exposed as a hoax. Rolling Stone retracted the story, and defamation lawsuits are currently pending.
The question now is: Will Rolling Stone retract its bogus Gallagher story?
Many kudos to Newsweek for publishing Cipriano's piece and helping get the truth out about this egregious miscarriage of justice.
Billy Doe passed his polygraph too. Why is it that Dave and Ralph Cipriano always seem to leave that part out ??????
I wonder if this latest BS is in retaliation for the bomb shell dropped onto the archdiocese of Philadelphia by Common Pleas Court Judge Mark Bernstein ruling that documents and other evidence from pretrial proceedings in a lawsuit involving sexual abuse will remain public. A order the archdiocese feared since they asked for an order barring public disclosure of material.
This ruling was made in response to a wrongful-death suit against the archdiocese brought by a strong mother who believes her sons death from a accidental drug overdose is related to the abuse he suffered at the hands of a Philadelphia Archdiocese priest.
Can this be another landmark ruling if in favor for this victims mother ? Oh yeah. It will open the door for all family members of abuse victims who took their own lives or have died because of drug use to dim the pain to file and win.
See full story at http://www.catholics4change.com
Your reamrks are off point
We don't know that Danny Gallagher/Billy Doe passed a polygraph test. When Gallagher was asked at his civil deposition if he ever took a polygraph, his answer was no. His lawyer, however, gave an interview to the Legal Intelligencer where he claimed Gallagher passed a polygraph with "flying colors." Somebody isn't telling the truth. When I asked Gallagher's lawyer for an explanation, he did not respond. Gallagher certainly didn't pass Dr. Stephen Mechanick's truth test after the forensic psychiatrist examined him for three hours, as I disclosed in Newsweek.
This is awfull.Poor innocent men.They need to be rehabilitate.
Never underestimate the wealth and power of the church.
It probably owns Newsweek.
Think of all those extra tax fee dollars they would have, to buy anything they want.
i've told you for 2 years that this case seems from the get go, way too facile.
This is like the church's 9/11 an inside job.
I doubt it will get major coverage. Because people can scratch the surface and wonder, who paid for Cipriano the past several years? No body else is paying for investigative journalism where it used to exist in the media, yet, somehow, some mobster defending law firm in Philly funds Cipriano? And the victim's the son of a Philly police captain. The notoriously corrupt Philly police dept.? Please! Pull the other leg. Newsweak (corrected spelling)!
Why do the loathsome Church accusers believe that Catholic Bishops go swimming like Scrooge McDuck in their vaults full of gold coins and 1,000 dollar bills? They will never be happy until the government takes over the Church's schools, hospitals and charities and then start to watch in horror as their taxes double because of governmental corruption and waste.
I'm raped by a cleric and I'm loathsome??????!!!!!!. Does anybody follow Christ here?
And the Catholic church IS Scrooge McDuck. 2000 years of money coming in from 7 empires; and we are to believe the church is poor???????? THE finest art collection on the planet over 1 and one quarter BILLION Catholics. And they can't afford to compensate the people they have raped?? BULLSHIT!
The church is doing the backstroke in money just like Scrooge McDuck; and the Beagle Boys, the Mafia, are swiming right there with them in the same pile..
Have their verdicts been overturned? Why is the one being labled 'ex' priest? Did the church strip him of his duties because of this? So many questions left unanswered in this article.
Avery will most likely serve his entire 5 year sentence.
Shero had his supreme court appeal turned down
Engelhardt died in prison
Lynn won a new trial but remains in prison. D.A. Seth Williams has filed a appeal on that ruling.
YES to your question did the church strip one of the priests of his duties. Avery defrocked 3/06. Some say it was a mutual thing. Avery wanted to leave and the archdiocese of Philadelphia wanted him out. Only if it was done years earlier. The church might not be reported as 5 million dollars poorer just 3 million.
So, what you are saying is that "continuing the fight for truth and justice" the judge, the jury (12 individuals) and any clear-thinking person did not see and did not believe Fr. Charles Engelhardt, Bernard Shero and Edward Avery's testimonies??? You call it "Criminal Fraud" carefully here…. Then how come he got 5 million with so much "credible" information against him??? May be the information was not that "credible" after all.
You show us a picture of Danny clearly to impress us that he is an outlaw , well I do not believe your words written for the Media Report, you are not separating fact from fiction, you are saying just fiction.
Rafael Garcia Zuazua.
On the 22nd at 126PM ‘Dennis Ecker’ proffers that “Billy Doe passed his polygraph too”. If I recall correctly from reading the Big-Trial coverage, Ralph Cipriano established from extant records that Billy Doe had not taken a polygraph test. If I have recalled correctly, then what we see here is the Abusenik effort to rewrite history even while it is relatively still fresh and capable of being researched and checked, if such rewriting will bolster their basic Cartoon and Keep The Ball Rolling.
And that’s why Abuseniks always tend to leave those uncongenial parts out.
I am not familiar with the Philadelphia case to which Ecker refers. If the Archdiocese did indeed motion against public disclosure of pretrial proceedings, that of itself doesn’t seem unreasonable: if the pretrial material is going to be introduced at trial then it will become public in due course anyway; if the pretrial material is not going to be introduced at trial, then one would wonder why the allegant(s) (or prosecutor, if this is a criminal trial) would not introduce it, if it were favorable to their case and thus unfavorable to the Archdiocese.
And in a Stampede situation – as I have often said here – then pretrial publication (by a Stampede-friendly local media) could quite possibly prejudice potential jurors. This possibility would work through the media amplification of the material to the public even before potential jurors (members of that same public) are even picked, thus neatly avoiding the technical elements of illegally influencing actual potential jurors.
Continuing with my comment on the Ecker material of the 22nd at 126PM:
We may well be seeing here yet another instance of precisely the Bass-Davis line of thought as it plays itself out: relatives might be glomming onto (alleged) abuse in order to have something or someone to ‘blame’ for the life-problems (in this case including drug-induced death) of a troubled relation.
And in any case, we run into the Causality Problem as I have discussed it a number of times here: it has to be established that this large-futured individual now-deceased/was clearly moved to drug-abuse and subsequent death / by the sex-abusive action of some priest-defendant (or, depending on how the Complaint has been formulated, by the action or inaction of the Archdiocese itself).
Continuing with my comment on the Ecker material of the 22nd at 126PM:
Ecker may console himself with the tea-leaf reading that such gambits will “win” but that remains to be seen. Although, given the assorted derangements established by Victimist law ‘reform’ and amplified for so long by the media, one cannot rule anything out.
Ditto that such lawsuits (presuming this is a civil case) are merely shining examples of the now familiar and heavily-scripted Victimist soap-opera, and not instead something more along the lines of a combination of the Bass-Davis dynamic plus the tortie-supported quest for payout – both of which combined synergistically to help establish the Stampede.
Readers are of course welcome to visit the website to which Ecker links, and get a taste of how Abuseniks carry-on when they are among their own.
On the 22nd at 251PM JR will solve the uncongenial Newsweek article problem in his usual way: the Church “probably owns Newsweek”, doncha see?
But that stellar example of serious thinking is then – as so often – followed by a hyperventilating riff, this time on the Church and “all those extra tax-free dollars” (correction presumed and supplied) with which, the riff continues, the Church could “buy anything they want”. And do we hear an echo, here, of the swelling warm flourish that might accompany the cashing of a large check that one has managed to get for oneself?
And then a self-advertisement that also demonstrates the typical way that uncongenial actualities are dealt with in the Playbook: the Church is behind the Billy-Doe case itself – doncha see? – because otherwise it is “way too facile”.
Continuing with JR’s of the 22nd at 126PM:
“Facile”? That’s a sly word to deploy here. Apparently it means that the Church is behind the bringing of the Doe case; that the Church has set up the Doe case to – as it might be put – ‘make victims look bad’.
And if ‘victims look bad’ then, but of course, that can only be because the Church has so masterfully controlled this that and whatever in order to ‘make victims look bad’ … because, of course, nothing that genuine victims do could actually be bad so, of course, it can only be a matter of their being made to look bad.
And – in a typical Playbook manipulative ploy to override critical thinking and go straight for canned emotions – JR will toss in – had you been waitttttttttttinggggggg forrrrrrrrrr itttttttttttttttt? – “9/11”. Which, he also tosses in, was “an inside job” – in case you didn’t know. (But JR ‘knows’ – you can take his word for it, of course.)
Nobel prize winner Dario Fo (1997 Nobel prize for literature) has declared 9/11 an inside job. 82% of the adult population in the U.S. believe 9/11 was an inside job.
But you stick with the Bush administration.
The U.S. has the largest military budget; dwarfing all other countries. but jets didn't get off the ground to respond for an hour and a half?
And what plane crash ever caused building 7 to fall at free fall speed? 7 wasn't hit by a plane.
Oh yea! I'm the juvenille idiot.
Continuing with JR’s of the 22nd at 126PM:
In another Playbook gambit to dispose of uncongenial realities, JR then implies that a story appearing – and as the cover story – in Newsweek is not “major coverage” anyway. One wonders if the Abusenik kazoo orchestra would be playing this tune if a major news magazine had chosen to do an article supporting the Abusenik cartoons instead of exposing them.
And then that bit is followed by the familiar insinuation gambit: who is “paying for” Ralph Cipriano’s work? And the further insinuation that it is a “mobster defending law firm” that is paying for it. (Which, recalling some of JR’s prior critical investigative thinking expressed here, connects to the Church because, of course, ‘everybody knows’ that the Church and the Mob have always been in close cahoots.)
Which bit then undermines itself since the Mob-related pieces on the BigTrial site seem rather unfriendly to the assorted mobsters on trial. (But – no doubt the cartoonist will insist – that’s all just a ruse to hide the fact that the Church and the law-firm and the Mob are all in cahoots to – had you been waitttttttingggg forrrrrrrrr ittttttttttt? – make victims look bad.)
The mob has been laundering it's ill gotten money through the vatican bank for decades. That's a fact. (Ask the Euro courts) That's why the vatican bank had to be fixed. The church let the Mafia break it. That's why it had to be restructured, resurfaced actually. Same 'o same'o.
Yes Newsweak is a major news player but where's the rest of them on this "story"? And really Ralph's whole story seems based on the church paid shrinks analysis of Gallagher; and not new evidence.
Big Trial 's sponsers have defended mobsters.
Do I think Cipriano's a co-conspiritor in all this. Actually no. But I am amazed that he got so far with no new evidence where as I, a former worker and writer at the L.A. Weekly, have been unable to get any news source from the Nation to the L.A. Times to even call me back. Even with my having much more evidence on the false flagged fr. Tom Doyle O.P. Project that created the entire victims "organizations" for the entire world under SNAP.
Why wouldn't I think that the Tribune co of Chicago might be owned in large part by the largest land owner in downtown Chicago , the Catholic church. If the church owns that much of Chicago why couldn't it own Newsweak?
Continuing with JR’s of the 22nd at 126PM:
But then his desperate eagerness to take more epithetical potshots gets the better of him – as it were – and he is suddenly on about “the notoriously corrupt Philly police dept.” to which – had you been waittttttttting forrrrrrrrrr itttttttttt? – Billy Doe’s father is connected.
So – doncha see? – the police and the Mob are all connected to (and perhaps controlled by) the Church, and the Church wants to make victims look bad, so that proves that Billy Doe is not a real victim but instead he and his family and all the rest are simply puppets of the Church to make real victims look bad and so who cares about the Doe case since it was all a Church-controlled put-on anyway?
And the whole pile here is then topped off with a juvenile play on words (“Newsweak”).
Popcorn, candy and soda are available in the lobby for your further amusement.
There have never been any accusations that the Philly P.D. have mob connections? LMFAO!
Hey Ass, You've got your imaginary movie running here all the time. Shut up.
You play with words like a priest. Consider yourself outed.
Let's see how big your "story" against Billy Doe "blows up". (Sarah Palin will get far more coverage than this mess. She's a bigger one.)
One hand washes the other.
Tit for Tat.
Quid pro Quo.
Cui Bono? Roma.
Facile.
Hi Jim,
No matter what Cipriano says I take with a grain of salt. He might tell you he hates the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and he may even give you an example telling you the story when he worked for the Philly Inquirer on how he went after them, but I have no doubt in my mind he is in the back pocket of the archdiocese. Him and his employer the Beasley Firm. Law firm/PR firm. They try and put out the fires.
However, lately Ralph has not been able to put out any fires. In his past few blogs he was beat up so bad and the answers to questions that were tossed his way, he acted like a stuttering idiot. I actually started feeling sorry for him.
Now today when I checked out Bigtrial it seems they have a new and I use this term lightly "reporter" who will also be writing about Philadelphia court cases. Her claim to fame is when she wrote a piece about herself losing 85lbs. and keeping it off. Could it be the departure of Ralph ? I would not bet on it but he has been fired from other jobs before. Most likely she has been brought in to get the female comment.
Ecker, you pull things out of midair and create your own plot lines. Maybe you could get a job wriitng grand jury reports for Seth? The reporter you are referring to is a Temple U. intern who's helping us out. Nice try. As for me being in the back pocket of the archdiocese, keep your comedy stylings coming. You are a raving lunatic who has no credibility.
Newsweak's cover photo is a bit over produced for the issue isn't it?
If the kid was lying it's still only one. That's out of how many 11,000 100,000 victims?
Was this Roman 9/11 created, not merely to bring one false victim to light but to make the entire system from media; to law enforcement; to justice; look bad. Bad as in persecutory to the church?
There by making the church's rape culture not the perpetrators and enablerers that they were into THE "Victim" which they are not.
Cover of Newsweak: a Pinnochio like altar boy figurine.
Figurines are a general representation of "all". So this figurine represents all altar boys. An image of "us" singular to rep us all. (and as such, it seems we are liars liars our pottery nose grows just like Pinoc's when ever he lied.) And all of it there to rep us all?
Meanwhile Jimminy Cricket (played by Cipriano and or the church) will be our consciences' guide. Why, it's just like a Disney movie. Goody!
Quite the memorable picture. I only hope this plays out how it's been planned. More decadent manifistations of how good God's people are.
And Dave you sure make Mr. Gallagher look like a satanic bracero. He's getting darker and darker in your picture of him. Appealing to the racist Trump supporters are we Dave?
To keep my Pinnochio analagy going forward he looks like Lampwick, the bad boy who takes Pinnoc to Pleasure Island.
Keeping it simple for the flock, are we? LOL!
Keeping it simple for the flock as they are being fleeced.
Hi Jim, glad you're still carrying on on somebody else's blog. Speaking of getting fleeced, how about Danny Gallagher stealing $5 million from the Catholic Church?
Prove it Ralph. If you can't, he can sue you and Newsweak. I fight for the truth in all this Ralph and I'm sure you believe yourself to be doing the same. Don't you think it's a bit strange that of all the cases against the church that this is the one that landed a monsignor in jail. if what you say is true? There are plenty of cases to be made ( like the one against cardinal Roger Mahony here in L.A. where he told a Mexican priest to get out of town avoiding arrest for tens of abuses against children) that could and should have been persued but weren't.
JR on the 22nd says that the Newsweek's cover photo is "a bit over produced for the issue". Sounds like sour grapes to me…. cos he generally expects the mainstream media to be behind the witch-hunt. Not this time apparently….so guess you can't win them all.
Thank God that there are still some journalists out there who are a credit to their profession. Will go to the newsagency and buy this edition of Newsweek. The cover alone is worth the price. Hooray!
Hang that picture next to your 8 x 10 glossies of st JP2.
It's what every right wing catholic home should have.
I can see it now hanging in Malcolm's living room A combination of pictures of either the pope, JFK, God and a catholic priests sex toy.
If this 5 million dollar number is indeed true please Ralph explain how you feel Danny stole the money. If my memory serves me correctly and in this case it surely does I believe the catholic church handed over that large amount of money without a fight. A fight Danny was willing to take on. I know for a fact that if any monies could have been obtained by any other defendant he would have had them gladly write checks also. But you can't get something from someone if they don't have to plug nickels to rub together or is making 19 cents an hour in a prison library.
Calm yourself Malcolm. Sour grapes? I don't think so.
I thought Spotlight not that great a film as a film and of course Spotlight made SNAP appear to be what it's not: Pro victim. As an actor i thought Ruffalo played it as standard movie hero. I thought the lighting was piss poor. But as Hitchcock would say: "It's just a movie" No biggy.
But this Newsweak photo? Look at all the work that went into it. Getting that statuette made.and the lighting is dazzelling.
And all for the possibility that the one, just one, victim (who got monsignors in prison when no other heirarchs went to jail.) is lying. And some one who got judges and juries and shrinks and cops to all back him up.
Hmmmmmmm! Now thems a lot of coinkydences in a row.
Funny how the system (which could have gone after Cardinal Mahoney and many other bishops but didn't) ran the gauntlet with this case. Only to be called out by Newsweak; and only now.
The victim is called on the cover a "scheming altar boy" Them's suing words.
If Newspeak (misspelled on porpoise) doesn't want to lose money it better have proof the kid was lying; and he didn't put anyone in prison; a jury did
Hi Dennis,
if Cipriano wrote the cover story for News-weep, He's shittin' in taller cotton than he ever has before. Not quite the unemployed reporter on a law firms blog that he's been for the past several years. Quite the step up.
I told you this case would bust open. And only 3 months after the papal visit to Philly. I must be clairvoyant.
Newsweak's feeling pretty strong here. It's putting it's reputation on the line. Where do we go next? I can hardly wait.
Very rare that I get mail from Catholics4Change and The Media Report, but that's what happened today. As I have said before, I am confused and don't know what to make of this scandal.
I know that The Catholic Church has lost all credibility because of the cover ups, but I also know that you can't believe everything in the media. I guess that the truth must be somewhere in between.
On the 23rd 'Mark' informs us that he is… "confused and doesn't know what to make of the scandal"
Well Mark, something that you should understand is the law. Basically it is a bedrock principle of western justice that there is no crime unless there is convincing evidence of a crime. We are being asked to believe that the so-called 'convincing evidence' of the alleged 'rapes' is the sole testimony of a crazed drug addict… and absolutely nothing else?
No witness for collaboration, no forensics, no physical injuries, no prior accusations against Fr. Engelhardt. The alleged victim did not report his 'rape' to parents for over 10 years. Yet the alleged victim's father was a serving police officer at the time. Even the locality of the alleged 'rape' is questionable, with the sacristy being the only access to the Church's toilets.
The lack of 'convincing evidence' so obvious that the grand jury report contained mysterious 'errors' which strangely just happened to make the prosecution case more 'convincing"
Don't be confused Mark… put this one down to a stampeded jury… spooked into moral panic by anti-Catholic bigotry.
I'm not going to get upset over some cover on a magazine. I'm even going to thank people like Dave, Ralph and Donahue for keeping the subject of clergy abuse in the limelight. People in this world are not as dumb as they would like to think. Victims are not the subject of a comics joke, moms don't hold their kids a little closer when a victim walks into a room but they do when a priest does. This is better then a skywriter saying priests are pedophiles. What this does is keep clergy abuse fresh in the minds of people the same people who will sit on a jury for one of those multi million dollar wrongful death suits or civil suits. They will read what one hack writes about a young man but people will look at the outcome. One priest admitting to abusing this kid, another who died in prison and a school teacher found guilty of abusing this kid who had his appeal turned down. This attention is just as good as that great Oscar nominated movie Spotlight.
So don't be upset over some poor thought out picture on a magazine. I'm sure comics will use it as a new prop for showing what the Vatican came up with to hand out to priests to combat sexual abuse by their clergy.
I'm not upset about the picture, Dennis. It amuses me to see the machinations, the hoops that the religious will jump through to fake their "martyrdom".
Remember Dennis we real victims aren't the real victims. Our rapists are.
LMFAO!
Also look at the "C" at the end of the word CATHOLIC on Newsreek's cover.
Why it's a pincer just about to clip off the lying nose of our little altar boy.
Comment obvious.
Interesting to read Ralph Cipriano’s posts on this thread. For what it’s worth, he also comments on the link that Dennis Ecker shared.
Like I said, the truth must lie somewhere in between but as King David said many years ago in Psalm 14, "There is no-one who is righteous, not even one."
'Mark' puts on his philosopher's hat and informs us, on the 23rd ,that "the truth must lie somewhere in between" Also a biblical quote about none of us being totally righteous?
He sounds suspiciously like a fence-sitter to me. Well have tried that myself… cos it is safe and comfortable to sit back and watch the world go by. From time to time pouring scorn on both sides of any argument..
But being safe and comfortable ignores the fact that there are four guys in prison who are far from comfortable….prison cells are not safe and comfortable.
Sorry, my mistake…only three guys… because one has since died….handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Also it is not a great consolation that scripture tells us… "the servant will not be treated better than his master". Because if western law can be deranged to imprison these guys, then we can expect it to happen to many others..
The real motivation behind this thing is money, basically a very profitable cottage industry. With the lawyers grabbing up to 40% of any cash settlement. Great motivation.
There certainly are a lot of crackpots on this blog, such as Ecker and Jim Robertson. Hey Jim, the Beasley Firm that sponsors Big Trial doesn't practice criminal law. Name the mobster you've claimed they've defended.
You also seem to be promoting a libel case case against Newsweek. You don't seem to have noticed that DA Seth Williams, Billy Doe and his lawyers, the archbishop and his lawyers, have NOTHING TO SAY in response to the facts I've reported, such as that estimated settlement of $5 Million.
Meanwhile, you and Ecker continue to invent facts in support of your religion of victimology. Keep up the bogus work.
"crack pots"? "bogus work"? "religion of victimology"? "A lot of" equates to 2 people?
Ralph I don't worship or pray to my rape; my rapist or my rape's enablers. I know I was raped. It's a fact not a "belief". Religion requires faith, it requires one to believe where there are no facts.
Also Are we to believe that the entire justice system in Philly's out of wack in your conspiracy scenario of what happened? But my conspiracy construct is beyond consideration?
Your's says cops and the D.A. and the jury and judges are all in a conspiracy that put 3 people in jail.
Mine says, Why would they do that if Billy Doe's lying? You say it's one stupidly ambitious D.A. and I say if he's that easily proven wrong show me the evidence you have. So far it's all speculation and hear say.
I'm still rather amazed that such a no new evidence story is Newsweek's cover. What's your point? to circumvent the entire justice system with no more new evidence to prove your point than you had 2 years ago? And of course that would lead me to ask: Why Newsweek and why the cover story with nothing new and much conjecture?
(As an aside here: Where's Chatty Cathy (P). One post?)
My conspiracy theory is this. That the church or one of it's "friends" may have "gotten" to the D.A. saying "prosecute".It'll be good for your career or "appear to be" good for your career.
I'm waiting for the evidence that proves Billy wrong. I beleve the church would engender all this to create the myth that church's victims are only liars and fraudsters.
I say this after having dealt with SNAP and all the other fake helpers of victims that are all the church. Fool me once etc…..
But where's the last shoe to that's to be dropped here? The evidence that Billy's a fraudster. It has to appear for the "persecuted church" as victim nonsense to work in my theory.
I'm sure it will come if my theory's correct. As always if I'm wrong I'm wrong and I'll say so. We shall see.
Does Publion write here under 'malcolm harris', when he is drunk? Malcolm harris' writing uses the form and many elements of Publion's style and his typical vocabulary. But then, malcolm harris' writing is slightly dumber, more terse and more directly ungracious. Like a drunk Publion, I think. No, then again, he may just be another lazy-minded catholic parrot. Caw, caw! Epithet and invective, baby! Oh, yea.
LDB on the 25th, throws out some amusing words that are intended to needle me. Saying that 'Malcolm Harris' might really be Publion, commenting under another name. Well in all humility, Publion clearly writes better than 'Malcolm Harris',…..whatever his sobriety on a given day. So am surprised that anybody could confuse the style and merit of our respective comments.
Talking of surprises have noticed that a lot of you Abuseniks have become very active of late. Almost as though something has stirred you up. Couldn't be that Newsweek cover story….could it? Courage can sometimes be contagious. Do you fear that other media outlets might become similarly enthused…. and run the story too?
Shock…horror….!!!! So you get on the internet and go into your damage control mode. You people are so predictable.
Malcolm I only wish this story would blow up.(P "blow up" means get more attention) Dolt!
More coverage of this would be wonderful. The more who see this the happier I'll be. Honest.
LDB I sadly think Malcolm admires Publion. I think P is an unremmitting negative here denying all and treating victims like we aren't human and equal. His nastiness says it all.
In Minnesota the Church fought against settlements for a victim. Why ? Because he had a criminal background. He was a documented drug abuser, and shoplifter. They claimed his story "lacked credibility".
A man, who ran a sucessful business, for 30 years, also reported his abuse, again. Despite several undenieable facts. They said his story also "lacked credibility." Why ? Because his "profile" lacked the background of the "typical victim". He had a "well rounded life", and most "true -victims" had criminal records and psychological problems.
In other words. They have tons of apologies, and promises. But they will smear every victim, up one side, and down the other. When they demand Financial Relief. From one angle, or the complete opposite.
JR (the 23rd at 1244PM) doesn’t quite seem to be able to make up his mind about the Philadelphia legal and police systems: are they a) the avengers of the victimized providing righteous arrests and credible prosecutions and legitimate convictions of the victimizers or are they b) Mob-affiliated puppets?
It would all depend on the purposes of the plop-tossing of the moment, of course. We can leave him to “LMFAO!”, which pretty much reaches the upper levels of his assessment capacities.
Which bit is then reinforced – as if on cue – by his familiar juvenilia in his second paragraph.
Which bit is then reinforced – as if on cue – by his familiar reading of his personal pot of plop-tossy tea-leaves in his third paragraph.
He can – as so often – consider himself revealed by his own material.
And as usual, “playing with words” also plays its part in the (no doubt unwitting) self-revelation: this is from somebody who complains about the use of “adult” words in describing substantive and serious legal matters.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 23rd at 1244PM:
And then we see also the familiar whackery about the Billy Doe story ‘blowing up’ – whatever that may mean. How will it ‘blow up’? Will it ‘blow up’ the same way the Papal visit was supposed to ‘blow up’ – whatever that bit was supposed to have meant? Who knows?
And the riff takes him further off the rails with a bit about “Sarah Palin” – which apparently in his mentation has some useful relevance which, as with so much of his material, is clear only to him but the significance of which must be taken as sure and certain, on penalty of one being accused of sociopathy by the Wig of Diagnosis.
We can then proceed to his comment of the 25th at 1125AM:
As I said immediately above, his position as to the Philadelphia authorities remains somewhat confused.
And that is additionally complicated by his further effort to limn what he calls a “conspiracy scenario” which involves the “entire justice system” in Philadelphia.
If there is any conspiracy – say, for example, if the family of Doe (with its connections to the local police department) sought to surf the contemporary waves for some purpose – then I could rationally imagine such a group of persons working some sort of plan that would work within the synergies (which I have discussed at length) that have been fuelling the Stampede. The Bass-Davis line of thought (as I have described it on this thread) could certainly be involved, as could some desire for personal monetary gain. Standard Stampede stuff, I would say.
As opposed to that, we have JR’s imagining (depending on the day and his immediate excitations) that the Doe family, the police, the DA, and the courts are all puppets of the Archdiocese for the purposes of making victims look bad. In other words, that the whole Doe affair is an orchestrated put-on in which the Archdiocese has created the whole case and Doe is actually a tool of the Archdiocese (who would thus make himself so vividly dubious a plaintiff/’victim’).
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 25th at 1125AM:
He then – somewhat incoherently – tries to dispose about any doubts about the integrity of the DA’s case (and perhaps the professional integrity of the DA himself) by asserting that there is no “evidence” of that. Thus that the voluminous material introduced by Ralph Cipriano on the BigTrial site is nothing but mere “speculation and hearsay”.
But that is palpably and vividly inaccurate, since the Cipriano material includes matters of public record and material that not only supports but rationally moves any assessment toward serious doubts as to the DA’s case and the DA himself.
Thus JR here merely indicts his own competence for conducting rational assessment. His signature style, rather, is to merely wave away elements uncongenial to his cartoon-du-jour and there’s no surprise in that.
As always, readers may judge as they will.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 25th at 1125AM:
JR then reports himself – with uncharacteristic rhetorical grace – as “amazed”.
Specifically, he is “amazed” that Newsweek would run such a story with “no new evidence”.
It is always curious to read Abuseniks huff on about “evidence” when – if you get right down to it – so very much of their material is rather light on any evidence except the regressive pre-modern ‘spectral evidence’ wherein the court (and the media and the public) must accept what the allegant/’victim’ reports but that nobody else can see or know or rationally infer.
And as to the Newsweek article: I would say that it reflects an effort by at least one element of the mainstream media to begin, however obliquely, to tackle this always-present elephant in the middle of the room, i.e. ‘spectral evidence’ and its role in fueling the specific Catholic Stampede (and a number of other types of Victimist sex-abuse stampedes as well – although I doubt mainstream media, even if they can gin up the moxie to go after a single such elephant, would open their bid by going after – and inciting – an entire herd of such elephants).
All of this, of course, is far too complicated for the Abuseniks’ preferred cartoons. But no surprise there.
And along comes ‘LDB’ (the 25th at 1130AM) – whom we recall as a self-identified Harvard Philosophy major and practicing attorney as well as – in some form – a ‘victim’ of Catholic clerical abuse.
From whom we get … what?
An attempt to insinuate that I also publish comments here under the name of ‘Malcolm Harris’. I do not; Mr. Harris – with whom I have never had any sort of communication beyond comments published on this site – is an individual entirely separate from me, perhaps residing – as best I can make out from his comments – in Australia or at least very familiar with the Australian scene.
And it should occur rather quickly to any mind trained as ‘LDB’ claims his mind has been trained that persons reading extensively in others’ material might simply pick up a few stylistic tics or usages, if it suits them to do so.
JR himself, in his comment on this thread of the 25th at 1125AM opens with “Are we to believe that”, a stylistic usage that I use and which I doubt many readers would imagine would come naturally to someone writing at JR’s level.
Continuing with my comment on ‘LDB’s of the 25th at 1130AM:
Am I then – according to ‘LDB’s theorizing – also JR or is he me?
But, really, ‘LDB’s theorizing here is not some echo – let alone indication – of any advanced training in anything: it is, rather, a sly and manipulative mimicry, a pretext for – had you been waitttttttttingggggggg forrrrrr itttttt? – juvenile epithet.
He addresses no issues that are on the table, he proffers no considered reflections, let alone any bolstered by reasoning and explication.
He demonstrates himself, then, as just another of the many competence-and-maturity-challenged Abuseniks whom we have seen here. One wonders, in the final analysis, if there are any intelligent and rational and – frankly – adult proponents of the rightness of the Catholic Abuse Matter at all.
On the 25th at 217PM, we are treated to another catty just-entre-nous chat so characteristic of Abuseniks here: this time, JR bleats to LDB.
And what is the bleat? In yet another uncharacteristically grand (for him) rhetorical flourish, JR doth think that I am “an unremitting negative here”(correction supplied).
And why might that be? Because I am “denying all” (whatever that may mean) and am “treating victims like we aren’t human and equal”.
Because – doncha see? – if you don’t go along with their allegations and claims and assertions and stories then you aren’t “treating victims like” they are “human and equal”.
JR won’t be able to provide any (accurate) quotations from me that impugn the human status of anybody.
Continuing with my response to the JR comment of the 25th at 217PM:
But what does this “equal” actually mean in his deployment of it here? That their stuff is – ipso facto and per se – ‘equally’ true or has some sort of ‘equal’ claim on the status of truth?
On what basis does the self-declaration of ‘victimhood’ make anybody’s claim “equal” ‘just because …’?
But this has been the sly game of Victimism all along: if a person says he or she is a ‘victim’ / then you can’t question a ‘victim’ / because whatever a ‘victim’ says must be true / so who would be so sociopathic as to question what is by very definition true … ?
With such circular ‘reasoning’ at its very core, then The Ball should theoretically be able to Keep Rolling forever.
Which is why Abuseniks, who demonstrate so little capacity for serious assessment, yet demonstrate an almost visceral awareness that any questioning deforms that perfect circularity and thus endangers The Ball’s ability to Keep Rolling.
And isn’t that “sadly” so charming a rhetorical a touch? The Wig of Regretful Clucking, plopped on top of the Wig of Humane Equality. The Wig workshop must be working double-shifts.
On the 25th at 236PM JR now sets out an explication of what he rather generously considers to be his “theory” as to the conspiracy.
It turns out to be a bunch of suspicions more than a theory but what the hey?
And what is the – to be equally overgenerous – substance of his bit here? That “the church” or “one of its friends” might have gone and “’gotten to’ the DA”, suggesting to that elected official that it would be “good for [his] career”. (Let’s just chalk up the follow-up bit about “’appear to be’ good for your career” as simply an undigested bit of cheese or beef from JR’s dinner.)
Would a pol need the Archdiocese to suggest something that might/would be good for his career?
What entrée would the Archdiocese have with a pol like the current DA, who is much more likely to subscribe to the progressive-secularist agenda of his Party elites?
How could the Church make things any better for his career if he were – according to this suspicion-vision of JR’s – to prosecute the cases he has prosecuted against the Archdiocese? Whereas the elites of his Party might take very approving notice of his actions and reward him.
And once again we see how the Abuseniks mix and match available snippets to try to make their cartoon-construction du jour: the DA who helped provide the ostensibly righteous convictions of the various persons is actually a tool of the Church when it comes to the Doe case.
Continuing with my response to the JR comment of the 25th at 236PM:
Anyhooo … having – to his own satisfaction, anyway – delivered himself of his ‘theory’ (or mimicry thereof), JR will then don the Wig of Competent Assessment and declare himself “waiting for the evidence” … meaning the “evidence that proves Billy wrong”.
Actually, “wrong” is far far too charitable here; we are talking about lying, perjury, and generally playing mendaciously and manipulatively upon the trust and empathy of the public while hiding behind the self-declaration of ‘victimhood’. (Thus, perhaps, it becomes clear why JR has a soft spot for “Billy”.)
And after what a reader may have considered in the extensive coverage of the Doe case(s) that Ralph Cipriano has provided on the BigTrial site, something else might become clear: in his ostensibly righteous and sober wait for the “evidence”, JR utterly ignores (among other things) the numerous and unavoidably clearly evidenced problems with Billy’s several and conflicting stories and claims and allegations.
But that actually demonstrates the key to the Abusenik game: present a story supported by nothing more than spectral evidence / get it accepted upon only spectral evidence / and then piously declare that you are waiting for real and actual evidence that it was all a lie. Neat and sly.
Continuing with my response to the JR comment of the 25th at 236PM:
But it seems JR somehow seems to sense that this whole gambit is a bit dodgy. So he will reinforce it with more old bits from the 3×5 collection: he takes his ostensibly principled position – doncha see? – because – we can take his word for it – he has “dealt with SNAP” which he then (and not inaccurately) connects to “other fake helpers of victims” which he then (ludicrously inaccurately) connects to the Church. And, indeed, he then defines the Church as such, i.e. “fake helpers of victims”. Among whom, of course, he includes himself, in another of his signature self-advertisements.
I cannot imagine anyone fooling JR as well as he has fooled and continues to fool himself. Which is surely an achievement of no small proportions.
He is also far too generous in his concept of “theory” as it might be distinguished from simply a bunch of suspicions lacking any coherent explication that accounts persuasively for the dynamics and results of the scenario he proposes.
But in mimicking “adult” language and praxis by calling his stuff a “theory”, he can – supposedly – assure himself that he is the “equal” of any other theorizer, and thus to point out problems with his “theory” is to treat him ‘un-equally’, as it were. Neat. And, of course, one “theory” is just as good as another, in his rather cartoonish vision.
And one would have to have a heart of stone not to smile at the final posturing with the Wig of Mature and Sober Assessment: “We shall see”. Actually, we’ve seen a lot already.
On the 25th at 439PM ‘True Catholic’ – as Abuseniks so often do – proffers a bunch of bits with no links to any information that might allow another reader to assess the matters for him/herself.
About all that can be made out of the stuff in the comment is that defense attorneys proposed this or that in this or that case. Which is what defense attorneys do. (Just as tort attorneys will burnish whatever material their client provides in order to maximize the tortious nature of the alleged act in order to maximize their leverage in payout negotiations – it’s what torties do.)
Beyond that, there’s not much in the way of conclusions to be drawn, without further case material and so forth.
But, of course, that’s not how the plop-tossy Abusenik game works.
Rather, ‘True Catholic’ will quickly launch into the desired ‘conclusion’ with that “in other words” bit, from which ‘True Catholic’ will deliver the desired lesson to be learned.
Which desired lesson requires the presumption that every allegation is true and every ‘victim’ is genuine and thus there is utterly nothing to be done when confronted with such an allegation except to get out the checkbook and ask How Much. Neat.
Utter nonsense!
I'm fucking sick to death about being treated for paragraph after paragraph by P like you wouldn't talk about a dog. THIS IS CHRISTIAN? No this is bullshit. This jerk off talks this way about every victim who posts here. Why would anyone listen to a man who treats people this way.
Were you at MY RAPE, YOU piece of POND SCUM?
NO? I DIDN"T THINK I SAW YOU THERE.
THEN SHUT UP!
Shouldn't you be praying for your salvation? You are going to hell, you know, for every lie you've written here.
SNAP; VOTF; Bishop Accountability; fr. Tom Doyle O.P.; Jeff Anderson; and Jason Berry are all the catholic church in action and in effect. Those are just the facts. Fact as written by fr Tom Doyle O.P. to the U.S. Bishops in his "Project" paper on how to handle the then "coming" sex abuse crisis.
Jim,
Will you stop letting him piss you off.
Dennis I'll behave any fucking way I like. Live with it. Who are you to tell me what to do or say? Do I do that to you? Enough. I won't fight with another victim.
Hey Dumb bell, I got my entire conspiracy scenario from what fr. Tom Doyle wrote in 1982 to the U.S. bishops. He gave me my scenario when he wrote of secret committees to be funded by the church. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. Why would he ask for secret committees to be formed and funded? Because like clacks in the audience at Italian operas in the 1700's you can hire anybody to do anything. If you have enough money and god knows the church has tons of it. So you find needy young people looking for good jobs and convince them that what they will be doing is helping victims. Even if they aren't helping victims. The one problem is when intelligent adults figure out that they are being herded rather than empowered and rebel. And that's me and other victims.
Why some of us might even want to vote for our leaders. Shocking I know! Ever hear of voting? You know DEMOCRACY? It's not there with SNAP and crew.
And remember to clean his reactionary powerful past as THE TOP canon lawyer at the Vatican Embassy in Washington D.C.. He was transferred to the hyper conservative and hyper "Christian" U.S. Air Force Academy as chaplin. Where he "suffered so" as he waited for SNAP and VOTF (his hidden committees come to life) to make him a "Hero for Survivors". Which he still is as christened by SNAP and VOTF and Jason Berry and all the very usual suspects in this fuckin shindig.
I literally trust no one i've ever met through SNAP and VOTF and I'm usually not that way with the people I meet. Thankfully. But I'm talking to one of Doyle's crew now. Aren't I, P? You are here to do a job on victims; and that's what you're doing.
Why would I ever imagine such a contraption. I can't even think so convalutedly. I just have gone by what Doyle wrote that would be the "best" solution for the problem of sex abuse to the U.S. bishops. He wrote it. I only connected the all too obvious dots.
This is the whole truth.
Since the most recent crop pretty much speaks for itself, I will simply make a few general observations:
JR retreats to precisely the point which is at issue: the spectral evidence at the bottom of the whole thing.
He would have us accept his ‘personal truth’, a term which is opposed to actual and objective truth; the term ‘personal truth’ is simply today’s term for the old regressive ‘spectral evidence’.
There is a hefty deployment of scatological epithet, burnished by the (grossly inaccurate) hyperbole purporting that I am speaking to anybody as if they were “a dog”. But there is a method to that madness: on the basis of the hyperbole JR gives himself an excuse for declaring my material “all bullsxxit” and thus can be ignored. Neat.
And we also note that on top of being “bullsxxit” my material is – had you been waittttingggg forrr ittt? – not “Christian” (scream caps omitted). But there is a method to the madness here, too: on the basis of his bits here, JR can ask why anyone would “listen to a man who treats people this way”. Neat.
I was not at his “rape”; nobody here was. And that is precisely the point: it is necessary to provide something more than ‘spectral evidence’ if a) others are to be rationally persuaded and b) the sovereign coercive authority of the State (i.e. the legal system’s power, in either the civil or the criminal forum) is to be deployed.
But that is precisely why the Victimist Playbook always insists upon fireworks as a last resort if persons aren’t buying the stories and claims. It is a manipulative ploy to coerce acceptance of a claim or allegation that cannot be made reasonably persuasive.
I don't remember writting any thing about my "personal truth"? I wrote about my telling THE truth.
Continuing with my comments on the most recent crop:
And to ask yet again: what “lie” have I told here? (A question that might be asked of … fill in the blank).
And finally, the assertion – yet again and as if it were demonstrated “fact” – that some of the most significant historical proponents of the Stampede are all tools of the Church (“are all the catholic church in action”).
Did Doyle and his associates see how the elements of a perfect-storm (the “sex abuse crisis”, which I would call the Stampede) were forming that could be deployed against the Church? Yes, as I have often said here. But the fact that a “crisis” was constructed does not of itself demonstrate or establish in any way that the “crisis” was accurately grounded in reality (i.e. that the Church is and for centuries or millennia has been nothing more than a rape-club of abusive priests enabled by hierarchs who also controlled and control all the other major elements of civil society).
They are the Catholic church in a controlling action used to minimize damage to the church and to, if possible, maximize damage to victims. The rapes and coverups the whole world has seen have been done by the church. There's the damage.
What SNAP/ VOTF/ Anderson have done. Is talk about "survivors" only if absolutely necessary to validate themserlves as being on the side of "survivors" but seldolm if ever do they talk at length about the damages done to ALL the victims. And NEVER have they talked about how many and at what level, monetarilly, victims been compensated. Something you would think a real victims group would do over a 25 year period. Hmmmmmmm??
Particullarly when so few "survivors" are still barely surviving.
Maybe SNAP wants to keep secret how liitle it has done for victims. 2000 out of 11,000 is a pretty piss poor showing after 25 years of SNAP existence. That's if SNAP's working for "survivors".
This "Stampede" (by the Doyle committees) you've named ,would have to look like a horde of thieves desending on the church's money that the church might make it self "appear" to be a victim. No, THE victim in all this; Not it's raped children.
Your church is being "attacked" by it's self created committees to make it THE only "victim".
This, all too similarly, is exactly why ISIS was created. So the U.S. Military/industrial complex can have an "enemy" to fight that it's extraordinary rapacious budget be "justified" as "necessary".
The exact same way the War on Drugs justifies 2 things: the tax payers money being spent to "Stop Drugs" going to "support" police financially; and by keeping drugs "illegal" also keeps the price of drugs high for the drug lords who also fund the system. It's a show to keep the money rolling in. Create fear where none exists for the benefit of the few. The American /Roman way.
"ISIS/ISIL was created by the U.S.". General Wesley Clark and Lt. General Michael Flynn says.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojcoKnTGf4s
and http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/12/01/former-military-official-says-george-w-bush-created-isis
and http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881