Crux from The Boston Globe amps it up against the Catholic Church while crushing truth
It should be no surprise that the new web site operated by the Boston Globe – in this case Crux ("Covering all things Catholic") – has become the latest Internet forum for aging dissidents and other angry critics of the Catholic Church, with the decades-old clergy abuse story always receiving priority treatment. (A recent day on Crux, for example, featured a jaw-dropping 11 stories related to clergy abuse on its home page.)
And apparently Crux's animus against the Church is so fevered that it has resorted to publishing bogus headlines about abuse cases. Witness this headline from Crux on February 24:
From the headline, Crux leads its readers to believe that an abusive priest still has numerous victims roaming the public.
In truth, however, the headline and the actual story do not match at all. Chicago prosecutors actually dropped charges against the ex-priest Daniel McCormack because – and please note this – the accuser did not want to cooperate. There were no "new child sex abuse claims," as Crux's headline misleadingly blared.
And while Crux would likely claim that it was simply relaying a story from the Associated Press, that excuse won't fly. Illinois television station WREX posted the exact same story that Crux published but with the true and accurate headline:
In other words, truth and accuracy have now taken a back seat at the Boston Globe's Crux to reflexively flogging the Catholic Church whenever and wherever it can.
If you don't like the site then don't go near it.
Same to you I guess.
I guess that means you really like this site, Dennis. You are here.
But thanks for letting us know there is another site out there.
Wow, you are incredibly deceptive and dishonest without telling things that can’t be considered 100% lies.
A few fact that can be gleaned by a Catholic magazine called the National Catholic Reporter, entitled "Chicago archdiocese releases 15,000 pages on priest sex abuse", so people can Google it for the truth:
1) Father Daniel McCormick pleaded guilty in 2007 to sexually abusing 5 young men, so the guy is unknown, proven, documented, admitted child rapists
2) The Catholic Church released nearly 15,000 pages of documents related to 36 priests who had raped children. Those numbers are almost incomprehensible to me. And they documented it and hid it to protect the child rapists.
3) This was in addition to another 6000 pages of documents related to another 30 pedophile priests which had been released 9 months before.
NOW people can determine who is the real victim here:
1) this known pedophile priest
2) the Catholic Church, who hid 66 pedophile priests like him
3) or the hundreds and hundreds of victims of those pedophile priests.
I would love to see people vote below.
Det, you have my vote.
On the 8th at 245PM ‘Dennis’ will simply try to avoid the problem by brushing it off with his bit here about if you don’t like the Crux site then “don’t go near it”.
But that would leave that site’s (manipulative) inaccuracies un-noted and un-challenged. Which, in any instances where facts and reality are uncongenial to their preferred cartoons, is exactly what Abuseniks prefer.
On the 8th at 1051PM a ‘Det Roberts’ posts.
Readers might imagine that the ‘Det’ is an abbreviation for ‘Detective’, but the apparent looseness in the use of terms, even legal terms, and the selectivity of relevant information would make one hope that isn’t actually the case. I’ll use ‘DR’ to refer to the comment’s author.
Before that, I include here the link to one of the NCRep articles to which DR presumably referred:
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/chicago-archdiocese-releases-15000-pages-priest-sex-abuse
It is dated Nov. 7, 2014.
There are other articles in this batch; you will find them too under the ‘Accountability’ tab on the NCRep homepage.
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
The comment opens – a tad suspiciously, I would say – with an epithetical effort to spin or pre-spin the results sought by the comment before readers actually get to read the substance material of the comment.
This is a familiar gambit – certainly to readers of Abusenik material on this site – but it is itself a deceptive and manipulative ploy. And that bit is buttressed by the accusation that this site is “incredibly deceptive and dishonest”.
And – also familiarly – the author at this point also manages to squeeze in a reference to “lies”, while also stating that it will look at “a few facts” so readers can find “the truth”.
Let’s see.
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
The article notes that the files are those of 36 priests, none of whom are any longer in active ministry: 14 are already dead (giving an idea of how far back they might go), 9 have been laicized (reserved for the most serious cases). And 92 percent of the cases reach back beyond 1988.
These priests had “substantiated claims of sexual abuse of minors” against them.
I would note that both of the key terms in that sentence are broad and non-specific.
“Sexual abuse” – as we know – can cover anything, even the least act of touching or – in many instances – might not require ‘touching’ or physical contact at all. The fact that only 9 of the priests were laicized is not of itself dispositive of any conclusion, but it does raise the thought that the other 27, although allegations were substantiated (however the Archdiocese determines that), were not found to have committed an act or acts sufficient to justify laicization.
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
“Minors” is a legal term, usually defined as being under the age of 18 (although for purposes of sexual matters, the age may be 16). It is not the same as “child”, which in legal usage referring to bringing a charge of ‘statutory rape’ of a child usually lies anywhere between 12 and 15, depending on the jurisdiction. California, for example, requires “unlawful sexual intercourse” for the charge and a person over 21 to engage in “unlawful sexual intercourse” with a person under 16 is guilty of either a misdemeanor or a felony. Illinois, in all such cases, requires “sexual penetration”.
And ‘minor’ most surely does not equate to “child” as the term is commonly used in ordinary conversation, as describing more or less any person from the age of birth to somewhere around pubescence.
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
Thus there is some clear and serious question as to whether Father Daniel McCormick is actually characterizable as being a “child rapist[s]” by virtue of pleading guilty in 2007 to “sexually abusing 5 young men”.
The release of the 15,000 pages of documents “related to” the 36 priests would seem to indicate – depending on the scope of that “related to” – a great number of therapeutic records, among other things. It works out to an average of 416 pages per priest, although some files may have contained more and some fewer pages. And if anything was referred to Rome, then I would imagine the paperwork for that file would increase significantly. And if legal matters (civil or criminal) were also included in the file, then so much the more.
If DR finds a 416-page complete personnel file covering years or decades “incomprehensible”, then I don’t think the ‘Detective’ is familiar with large organizations operating over the long haul of time.
Nor – from anything in the NCRep article – can one draw the assertive conclusion that the Archdiocese “documented it and hid it to protect the child rapists” (a term already noted above for its inaccuracy).
Indeed, why “document” what you are intending to ‘hide’ at all?
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
DR then references a prior 6,000 pages relating to a further “30 pedophile priests”.
Using the same points I just made above, that works out to 200 pages per priest and my prior points also apply.
And I note that easy and un-grounded deployment of the familiar Stampede term “pedophile priests”, which is hardly a conclusion or characterization demonstrably applicable from anything in the NCRep article. And one would surely expect more care in usage from a police detective, if that’s what DR is.
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
Thus DR’s queasy scream-capped “Now” surely seems manipulative and un-grounded.
And DR’s further tick-off of those three points is equally so:
We do not ‘know’ that “this” priest (referring, it would seem, to McCormick) is a “pedophile” (especially since the NCRep article refers – rather carefully – to “young men”, whatever age that might imply).
It cannot be asserted – from any material DR or the NCRep article has discussed – that either a) the Church “hid” those with allegations or b) that all (or any) of those with allegations were “pedophile priests”.
It cannot be asserted – from any material DR has discussed – that there were “hundreds of victims”; let alone – presuming the accuracy and legitimacy of the Church’s findings in their individual cases – just what act or acts those with allegations perpetrated upon the victims (since ‘sexual abuse’ can cover a range of acts that do not even require physical contact).
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
None of my presentation here is intended to establish or imply that absolutely no malfeasance by some of the included priests was ever committed.
But the type of presentation proffered here by DR surely doesn’t shed light. And indeed may clearly be seen as simply another instance as the type of un-grounded and incomplete and muzzy ‘thinking’ that has fuelled the Stampede from the get-go.
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
The NCRep article also includes some bits about Jeff Anderson. He was apparently counsel in the lawsuit that led to the release of the first (6,000-page) document release and as such was legally entitled to participate in the matters pertaining to those documents.
He was not in any way formally involved in the later (15,000-page) release and gloms onto the Archdiocese’s refusal to simply allow him to be in on the preparations for the second release (which was a voluntary project by the Archdiocese).
Anderson spins his complaining as being somehow a failure of transparency. But he had no formal connection to the Archdiocesan project of the second release and no legal right to be involved. And surely any defense counsel or simply consulting attorney would object to any such blanket permission for him to participate since he might simply trawl for new material (and clients).
Continuing with my comment on the DR comment of the 8th at 1051PM:
And indeed the NCRep article does note that Anderson expected more clients out of all this (although no new allegations arose stemming from the first release).
Anderson then contrasts Chicago with the Twin Cities.
But the Twin Cities are his home base, where he is a high-stakes and well-supplied player on the local scene – which, as I have pointed out in prior comments on this site, can easily exert a deranging influence on various Twin Cities public agencies and institutions (such as that still-weird matter of a priest’s former hard-drive suddenly being discovered years later by a buyer in his garage / who opened it and allegedly discovered child porn / on which basis the local police launched an investigation / which investigation, once the that Archdiocese agreed to consult with the police (and Anderson), suddenly ‘went away’ / with none of the glaring questions as to the legitimacy of the garage-owner’s sudden and convenient discovery ever being resolved).
Det, you have my vote.
Wow, a 10 post response?
Det does not stand for "Detective", alhouth I assume "Publicon" stands for flilibuster, ballot stuffer (who didn't vote) or timewaster. Thankfully, you abbreviated the name to DR to save computer bits.
Some comments:
- Catholics always seem to say, "that happened 30-40 years ago", as if to dismiss it, yet they have no problem with things that happened 2,000 years agolse)
and now it won't take more posts
For you Det I'll vote twice.
Pub hates democracy. He's a monologist. Like a certain Rep. candidate.
Who can be surprised, really?
On the 9th at 923PM we get a post not from ‘Det Roberts’ – and that bit was dealt with above – but now from ‘Detnottective Roberts’.
Any commenters who might have generously imagined that “Det” might have been the short-form of somebody’s first name can put that thought aside.
Instead, now, we get a juvenile play on a word that can very plausibly be imagined to have been from the get-go just a sly Abusenik attempt to impress readers and bolster the (unimpressive) material with something just short of claiming a false authority (the title of ‘Detective’).
Once again we see with Abuseniks that appearances are so very often deceiving: they claim and assert and accuse and demand, insisting upon their credibility and authority, and then it turns out that it’s a game (and maybe has been all along).
Continuing with my comment on ‘Detnottective Roberts’ of the 9th at 923PM (and from here on I will refer to this commenter as DR):
With all the points I raised about DR’s prior comments, DR does … what?
Merely snarks about my “10 post response”. This is an old and familiar juvenile Abusenik response: when you can’t deal with the material, just try to make fun of it. We are back to the far end of the parking lot at high-school. And, really, with Abuseniks such as we have seen them here, are we ever far from it?
But this is the level of their commenting: a game (so, really, it doesn’t have to be bound by any ‘serious’ junk like coherence, accuracy, careful thought, careful use of language and concepts and terms or anything else like that; after all, this is a game – it isn’t ‘school’, and it’s supposed to be fun so you can get a few yuks).
They put up their material that way and I do what I can to draw out whatever useful or relevant points occur to me.
Continuing with my comment on DR’s of the 9th at 923PM:
And, of course, the ‘game’ bit provides a handy ‘out’ when whatever they put up that they think is ‘serious’ turns out to have some significant problems.
And then we get an epithetical bit based on my misspelled screen-name, with a hash of little bits including “filibuster” (correction supplied) as if they can’t put up any material because I am putting up so much material, “ballot stuffer” – whatever that may mean, “who didn’t vote” – whatever that may refer to, and “timewaster” – concepts and ideas always do seem a waste to these types.
They don’t expect their ‘game’ to be taken seriously in the sense of being assessed in a sustained manner (but they will puff up their pinfeathers if you don’t take their stuff seriously or if you raise questions).
Continuing with my comment on DR’s of the 9th at 923PM:
And under the rubric “Some comments” we get … a single bit.
It is inaccurate to say that “Catholics always seem to say, “that happened 30-40 years ago, as if to dismiss it”. Nobody I can think of on this site has ever spoken of clerical sex abuse dismissively.
But to try to make any sort of definitive or serious claims about a subject in which a) so much has changed in those 30-40 years and b) so many elements require careful assessment, and then to try to do that without taking into account (a) and (b), isn’t going to lead to much accuracy or to any effective thinking about the present state of the matter.
But then the Abuseniks aren’t really in it in order to achieve much accuracy or to do any effective thinking about the present state of the matter. Their game is plop-tossing and they do seem to enjoy it and they do seem to be rather practiced at it.
Continuing with my comment on DR’s of the 9th at 923PM:
And so, in the present state of the question and the matter, we have claims and assertions and stories and accusations / made in so many instances about events from decades ago / which events are dubiously described and characterized / about those events which are and were themselves dubiously characterized and demonstrated / and all of it under the aegis and dynamics of a Stampede that has been demonstrated to have seriously deranging and distorting elements built into it.
It takes a lot of careful assessment and serious thinking to work through all those aspects.
But that’s not how Abuseniks play their game and that’s not how the Stampede operates.
This "pericope" is for you and all the Catholic Abusers Stampede, the pedophiles, liars, excusers and enablers of your cult and it's groupies.
"For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil." Isaiah 59:3-4
My guess would be that the Almighty also has your cult's number, "666".
Just a quick comment on the Boston Globe's website 'Crux', and it's reporting of the Daniel McCormack case. Yes, they misled their audience, by only telling part of the story. But there may be another, more general deception, by the media.
Ex- priest McCormack pleaded guilty in 2007 to charges brought against him by 5 boys, and went to prison. He got five years. Before taking an interest in these things I previously assumed that only guilty men pleaded guilty???. Would not be alone in that assumption. But imagine his horror when one boy accused him, and four more grab the opportunity for a pile-on, and the big bucks. He sees little chance of winning aagainst this chorus of opportunists, so accepts a plea deal.
Better 5 years than the threatened 20 years if he pleads not guilty.So even those who have admitted guilt, may not be guilty at all???. But just trying to salvage as much of their life and freedom as possible.
And they call this justice???
Malcolm, did you even read the article from the Chicago Tribune. It ends, "As of last fall, the archdiocese had received 'at least 30 substantiated claims' against the former priest." So before making assumptions as to how "there may be another, more general deception, by the media" or "those who have admitted guilt, may not be guilty at all, you just might look at the facts before trying to bring doubt to something "substantiated".
His last post demonstrates yet again that the avatar called 'Malcolm Harris' is the Don Quixote of TMR comments. Good luck with your delusions. Keep on winning.
From a self-described attorney, in response to a ‘Malcolm Harris’ comment that raises some points surely of interest to a legally-trained mind, we get … what from ‘LDB’ (the 11th at 1009AM)?
Just a dismissive epithet or two. And no engagement with the material MH raised.
Wow! there's P and Malcolm against everybody else.
P hates everyone who disagrees with him.
He insults people as juvinile who have posted only once or twice. Meanwhile he, P, the run on monologist, posts 10 responses to Det's one post.
This is what TMR was created to do: BLOW SMOKE. Never allow any decent conversation to happen. TMR was built as the loading platform for P's denialist junk. It really was.
Dave ever wonder why no other media source believes anything you all say here? It's because you are in denial about what your church has done and is still doing to your own raped children.
Catholics must always be the victims and never the oppressors in order for the lies of divine creation of the "one true faith" to hold any "validity". The one true faith can never be wrong about anything "Doncha know?"
Our being raped as kids never happened. How could they have? It's the one true faith.
You are all stuck in your bull beliefs and you will attempt to destroy anyone who shines any light on your own too real corruption.
Now P will say no it's you JR and LDB and Det or Dennis who are trying to destroy the church. If it were only possible; sign me up. I hate liars.Particularly "religious" liars. (Redundant i know)
17 out of 29 posts in this thread are by Smokey the P..
Why in the world would this fool think he's interesting or intelligent enough to post nothing new but SOS 17 times?
This is a bright well adjusted well educated person?
Someone who knows how to spell words but doesn't care that the words he spells form sentences that are lies. This is moral leadership? No! This is fascism.
JR, on the 12th, is pouring scorn on anybody with opposing views. He winds up his comment with the words…"This is fascism".
Although I can't define fascism, it is pretty obvious that fascist goverments were a living nightmare. E.g. Hitler and his jackbooted fiends in Germany.
Among other things, through influence and control of the media, they were able to demonize Jews and other minorities. And having done that, the civil rights of the target group ceased to exist.
Today Catholic priests could be justified in feeling that their own civil rights have been taken away. Gone is the right to the presumption of innocence… gone is the right to a fair trial…, gone is the right to a good repuation. In short they have been demonized too.
So who exactly is the victim?. And does it resemble fascism? Sadly,it does have worrying echos.
Before there can be a presumption of innocence, there would have to be a case of innocence. No one is demonizing priests any more than they have, by their own actions, demonized themselves, by their own evil lusts. For you to question, "So who exactly is the victim?", is absolutely absurd, unjust and ridiculous. Condemn the guilty as they deserve, and truly free the innocent. To do anything less, is to be in agreement with their wickedness, and will not go unpunished. Your church shows absolutely nothing close to being the one true church or moral authority, anywhere on earth. Open your eyes.
And to compare demon pedophile priests to the Jews of the Holocaust, is even more absurd, unjust and ridiculous.
On the 12th at 1132AM JR will once again try to distract readers with whatever distractions he can whomp up.
In this case, that I ‘hate’ “everyone who disagrees with” me. He proffers no material of mine that would support that bit of plop-tossing, but of course that’s how plop-tossing is done.
Just who this “everyone else” is that I and ‘Malcolm Harris’ are supposed to be against … is anybody’s guess.
It takes a lot of responses to fully assess and grasp the stuff Abuseniks might put up. That’s not how it was supposed to go: they were supposed to just be able to toss up their stuff and have it remain unchallenged. And they don’t like it when that doesn’t happen and instead their stuff is discussed and assessed.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 12th at 1132AM:
If they don’t like having their material characterized as “juvenile”, then they can stop putting that type of thing up. But once again, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Having declared themselves ‘victims’, they were supposed to be given complete freedom to put up whatever they wanted to and they were supposed to be ‘believed’ with sympathetic clucks and bleats.
Then again the Wig of Decency as he bleats that TMR doesn’t “allow any decent conversation to happen”. Readers may go over the Abusenik material extending as far back as this site’s beginning, and judge for themselves just how committed to “decent conversation” the Abuseniks have ever been.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 12th at 1132AM:
And JR doesn’t – because he can’t – put up any material of mine (accurately quoted) that indicates I am a “denialist”. But what he avoids are all the elements that certainly lead to the probability that the Stampede is riddled with problems of accuracy and veracity.
Then, reaching further into his plop pile, JR shifts to the familiar bit that “no other media source believes anything at all you say”. How does he support that assertion? He doesn’t. He can’t. But plop is precisely designed not to be explained or supported; it’s just something to toss up.
And as we have seen from my comments and questions on the immediately prior thread here, the term “raped” certainly doesn’t apply to everyone who claims it. But it’s too good a rhetorical bit to pass up.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 12th at 1132AM:
Then some riffing on Catholics always having to “be the victims”. But – of course – not a bit about the problematic and dubious elements in the ‘victimhood’ claims of the Stampede.
And JR – who at best was ‘lewdly acted upon’, as I pointed out in comments on the immediately prior thread – is really not therefore in a position to be talking about “our being raped”.
And then the bit about questioning being an “attempt to destroy” anyone who “shines any light on your own too real corruption”. In this we hear the echo of the tortie pep-talk I had mentioned in an earlier comment: ‘Since you are taking part in the really good thing that will expose corruption, then it doesn’t matter if your own claim isn’t quite accurate or true – we all know the overall idea is true’.
But of course, once you start adding not-quite-true claim upon not-quite-true claim, what then do you wind up with? You wind up with a whole lot of not-quite-true claims.
On then to JR’s of the 12th at 1141AM:
Just more epithet trying to deal with the points I have raised by trying to make fun of them. But what else can he do? Try to refute or respond-to them?
And – had you been waitttttttinggggg forrrr ittttttt? – again with the accusation of my “lies”. But – again – no accurate quotation from my material as to just what “lies” I am supposed to have told.
But there’s a method to the madness here: it provides a lead-in for the Wig of Indignant Denunciation, about “moral leadership” and – in a clear bit of rhetorical over-acting – “fascism”.
This is distraction. This is – as JR inadvertently gives the game away – “blowing smoke”.
P, dear, if you are typing then you are lying. It's that simple.
On the 12th at 1053PM ‘Dan’ – marvelously – returns to form, even reminding us of just what type of issues we are dealing with here with his reference to – had you been waittttinggggg forrrrr ittttt? – a reference to “666”, thus recalling the many assorted satanic and apocalyptic bugbears that do so excite the hyper-excitable fundamentalist mind.
But this time – curiously – he delivers his stuff not as the directly-inspired (or dictated) god-gram-delivered Word of God but rather merely as his “guess”.
I would “mock” his “guess”, but readers may, of course, judge as they will.
That was a direct quote from the Bible, Isaiah 59:3-4, not any guess. Good try anyway, Mr. Mocker. And readers can judge a mocker when they hear one.
'Dan' on the 13th at 6.40 pm attempts to misrepresent my comment about fascism. His is a textbook example of how moral panic sometimes becomes hysterical, and jettisons reason for emotion. Any rational reader would have understood that I was saying that there are similarities in the dynamics at work.
I was not comparing the outcomes…because that would be absurd and unjust. In terms of the consequences there is no comparison between the witch-hunt against priests and the witch-hunt against Jews.
Malcolm, Read Joann Wypijewski's article about a "witch-hunt", and you'll find mention of a Fr. Paul Shanley, as a liar and untrustworthy, and as a young man having sex with teens and grown men. Not really a very good example of the poster child for witch-hunts against priests or your wonderful church hierarchy of perverts.
No witch-hunt against priests, period. Shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence with the witch-hunt if innocent Jews. Shame on your evil cult of liars and perverts. servant Dan
On the 13th at 548PM ‘Dan’ will again try his hand at non-god-gram commentary (hoping, no doubt, that readers will either forget his extraordinarily credibility-and-integrity-damaging performance of two threads back or else will “pretend” that it really didn’t happen).
How does that work out for him?
He opens by referring to an article from the Chicago Tribune that had not previously been identified in the discussion.
For readers so inclined, that article is here:
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-86009087/
First off, you're nobody to question someone's credibility or integrity, as I've alluded to previously. Secondly- the article was previously identified in the TMR "Crux" story, highlighted in red, with the words, "dropped charges". And then- had you been waittting forrrrr ittttt? Ovvvvv courssssse! Duhhhh!! "I am not up to speed on the Church's protocols for 'substantiating' allegations". Well, Mr. Know It All, gets a brain freeze when he prefers to ignore the obvious. "As of last fall, the archdiocese had received 'at least 30 substantiated' claims against the former priest. The key word is "substantiated", meaning to establish by proof or competent evidence. Don't you think we've had enough of your excuses, manipulations and lies by now. And thank you, Malcolm, for mentioning the demonization of Jews, so I could discuss "one of [my] favorite subjects". It just so happens that demons and catholicism, do fit so well together. servant to the Creator
P.S. Hey, I saw a good read for you the other day. Catholicism For Dummies. Perfect 4 U.
Continuing with my comment on the ‘Dan’ comment of the 13th at 548PM:
Before considering the specific concluding bit that ‘Dan’ personally selected from the text, readers may consider the preceding body of the article. The article is dated Feb. 24, 1016.
In this “final pending criminal case” against the priest, the article opens, “prosecutors said they were forced to drop all charges”.
The charges stem from a criminal case brought against him in 2014 regarding an allegation from 2005.
Why were the charges were dropped? The allegant, with the prospect of the case now set for trial, “was no longer cooperating”, which – for whatever reasons – means that the allegant was backing out.
Continuing with my comment on the ‘Dan’ comment of the 13th at 548PM:
Now, standard Victimist dogma has a number of ready excuses for this sort of thing (since it is a possibility almost built-into this type of sex-allegation cases): the allegant – now about 26 – had used up the available amount of ‘courage’ it took to ‘come forward’ in the first place and lodge the allegation; the allegant just wanted to ‘put it all behind him’ (yet he had brought the allegation to the authorities to begin with); the allegant didn’t want to subject himself to the ‘re-victimizing trauma’ of having to ‘re-live’ the horrors alleged.
Whatever … the Victimist dogma at this juncture would be that everyone just ‘believe the victim’, and pretend that the allegation was veracious. To which the Abuseniks would add: and that the thus-presumed or thus-pretended veracious allegations are true of all priests or at least all priests thus accused.
Continuing with my comment on the ‘Dan’ comment of the 13th at 548PM:
One, of course, might also consider the entirely rational possibility that the allegant had some fun making the allegation, but now that he was about to face adversarial examination under oath at trial he suddenly decided it wasn’t so much fun now that “the case [has] progressed” (to the incipient point of clear and careful and public examination).
Curiously, the prosecutor’s office included in its announcement the claim that “the State’s Attorney’s Office brought the charges in good faith” – in case any rational reader might suspect that the prosecutors were knowingly in on the game from the get-go.
Continuing with my comment on the ‘Dan’ comment of the 13th at 548PM:
The article quickly seeks to recoup losses by then asserting that the prosecutors’ “decision will not affect any of the other cases” – although the article had opened by claiming that this case was “the final pending criminal case” (against, presumably, McCormack). Stampede ‘reporting’ so often exhibits such incoherences and we are left with what we’ve got here.
Continuing with my comment on the ‘Dan’ comment of the 13th at 548PM:
We then get to ‘Dan’s personally-selected bit.
I don’t purport to know whether the thirty subsequent allegations by various persons are veracious or whether we are simply seeing another familiar case of Stampede pile-on whereby an already accused priest receives a welter of follow-on allegations since there is already blood-in-the-water.
At any rate, the criminal forum will not be the scene of those allegations being dealt-with. Rather, there will be – had you been waitttingggg forrrr ittttt? – lawsuits, thus removing the allegations to that lower-standard-of-evidence happy-hunting-ground of torties where the vast majority of all Stampede cases have wound up.
Continuing with my comment on the ‘Dan’ comment of the 13th at 548PM:
The State has apparently also sought to have McCormick declared some form of what is often known as SVP (sexually violent person or sexually violent predator). But, the article notes without noticing, that effort began in 2009 and has still not been decided, more than half a decade later.
Continuing with my comment on the ‘Dan’ comment of the 13th at 548PM:
I am not up to speed on the Church’s protocols for ‘substantiating’ allegations, if there even is a single set of evidentiary standards by which allegations are considered to be “substantiated” by the various levels of ecclesial tribunals or assessment committees. I recall from a decade and more ago that in some ecclesial venues it was enough that one could establish that an allegant had lived in the same ‘parish’ or perhaps even geographical ‘area’ as the accused.
Thus the Stampede saga goes on, with dubious reporting, dubious court cases, dubious allegations and all the rest of the Stampede panoply.
And then (the 13th at 603PM) ‘Dan’ tries the Wig of Legal Thinking: “Before there can be a presumption of innocence, there would have to be a case of innocence”, he doth pronounce and declare.
This is a ridiculous distortion of an axial Western legal principle. The presumption of innocence precedes any determination of guilt or innocence; it is not conditional upon a subsequent finding of innocence.
But ‘Dan’ is a basically a plop-tosser just like the rest, and he’s going for manipulative effect rather than substance and content.
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 13th at 603PM:
‘Dan’ then takes up what is surely one of his favorite subjects, “demonization”.
How easily he adapts it here indicates the shallowness of his theology (at least compared to Catholic theology): no human being can turn him/herself into a demon. Like it or not, the utterly foundational reality of the human being as created by God cannot be changed, nor should it be avoided or evaded.
Human beings can be sinners, and can yield to sin, but they can never change the status of their being created by God. Thus we shouldn’t even deploy this “demonization” bit even rhetorically or figuratively. That will take a lot of wind out of the sails of such as ‘Dan’ and the Abuseniks, but so what?
And it is precisely the “demonization” of an entire class of persons (priests, in this instance) that has helped fuel the Stampede.
And – as we have seen in so many ways on this site – that generalizing “demonization” is not accurately grounded.
What do you mean by the "shallowness of [my] theology, (at least compared to catholic theology)"? Matthew 8:28 reads, "two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way." Other gospels describe a man with unclean or evil spirits within.
What better examples of "demon-possessed" adult men could there be, than those of your cult who rape young children, predominately boys and sometimes even babies. How are we to know what possibly goes on in the darkness of their Catacombs, Capuchin Crypts and skeleton rooms of Rome, or any other secluded halls of your churches? Your catholic theology would most definitely be different than mine, because it's packed with creepy, pagan rituals, performed by even creepier men in dresses, worshipping in churches dedicated to the "Queen of Heaven". I thank God for the "shallowness of [my] theology", rather than the depths of yours, teachings directly from the depths of Hell. servant 'Dan'
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 13th at 603PM:
And the comment then wends its way to its conclusion, gussied up with far more rhetorical bits than we have ever seen come from ‘Dan’.
Although it all leads – unsurprisingly – to the same usual plop-tossy conclusion.
Thus ‘Dan’s mere assertion (the 13th at 640PM) dismissing the Holocaust reference also fails.
The dynamics of “demonization” deployed in the Stampede are the very same dynamics that were deployed against a class or group of persons back then.
And so we can leave ‘Dan’ to his unsupported and inaccurate denunciamento here as well.
All conversation ended thanks to P. AGAIN.
Crux won't allow me to comment on their website anymore and I don't know why. Yet they allowed that dispicable Patrick O'Malley to post insulting remarks under his John McCormack persona. I hope they ban him in time.