Journalist Ralph Cipriano continues the fight for justice and the falsely accused
During a confidential deposition over two full days in May and June 2014, Dan Gallagher – the Philadelphia native whose varying and preposterous tales of abuse as an altar boy in the late 1990s landed three Catholic priests and a school teacher in prison – stated more than 130 times that he could not remember some very basic facts about his claims.
That is just one of the many eye-popping new details appearing in this week's issue of Newsweek uncovered by veteran journalist Ralph Cipriano, who continues to doggedly pursue the cause for justice for the wrongfully incarcerated men. (For those who are new to the Philly story, we suggest background here and here.)
Simply unreal
According to Cipriano, Gallagher stated in his deposition that he could not remember telling his doctors and drug counselors in the past that he had been:
- sexually abused by a friend at age 6;
- sexually abused by a neighbor at 6;
- sexually abused by a teacher at age 7;
- sexually molested at 6 (or 8) by an unknown assailant;
- sexually molested at 8 (or 9) by a friend; and
- sexually abused at 9 by a 14-year-old boy.
And Gallagher admitted at the deposition that none of these prior allegations were true.
[Note: Graphic descriptions of abuse accusations follow]
Dan Gallagher celebrating
with a stogie
In addition, when Gallagher was asked about whether he remembered telling a drug counselor that his hands were tied during an alleged sexual assault by a priest, Gallagher simply replied, "I really don't remember what I told him."
"Were your hands ever tied up during any of the sexual assaults?" the questioner asked.
"No," Gallagher replied.
Remember that these admissions are in addition to many other facts that Cipriano has already uncovered, which call into question Gallagher's claims, such as:
- Gallagher has admitted that he lied when he said he worked as a paramedic and a "professional surfer" (yes, a professional surfer from Philadelphia);
- Even members of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office itself did not believe Gallagher's wild claims and questioned whether they should even move forward with the case;
- An alternate juror even came forward after the trial in which Gallagher put two priests and a teacher in prison with the dramatic charge that the guilty verdicts were "insane," "incredible," and "a tragic miscarriage of justice."
Scientific evidence
Yet in his deposition, the one story that Gallagher did obstinately stick to was his wild drama of being raped by two priests and a schoolteacher.
Oh, and Gallagher did admit to being a drug dealer and being arrested a half dozen times for drugs and retail theft. [Check out a court summary of Gallagher's extensive arrest record.]
And as far as the oft-heard claim from victim advocates and Church-suing lawyers that "memory lapses" from Gallagher stem from the trauma of his sexual abuse, Cipriano quotes Dr. James I. Hudson, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the director of the biological psychiatry laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, who declares:
"There is no legitimate scientific evidence that psychological trauma can cause the massive amount of inconsistencies and contradictions that is exhibited by Mr. Gallagher's reports of the allegations of sexual abuse."
Q.E.D.
And the Philly Inky remains silent
After Cipriano's second article about the case appeared last week in Newsweek – his first article was in January – TheMediaReport.com wrote to Philadelphia Inquirer Editor-in-chief Bill Marimow and other editors at the Inky to ask if there were any plans to finally expose this fraud to its readers in Philadelphia.
It would seem to be the least they could do after running scores and scores of front-page articles promoting Gallagher's dubious claims and giving free publicity to publicity-hound D.A. Seth Williams, who organized the witch hunt against the three priests and Catholic school teacher.
Not surprisingly, we have received no response.
Yawn! I'm a real victim who post here. You don't want to believe me? That's swell! I could give a flying fuck. You want to pretend I'm not a victim for your propaganda purposes.
If I could drag your sorry ass into that office in 1963 I'd make you watch the abuse you say didn't happen. I'd take you as a 16 yr. old and put you in my place and rub your fucking nose in the horror I felt.
And proceeding with the most recent performance from JR:
On the 24th at 1105AM – moving past the adolescent epithet that opens the show – he tries to change the subject (but manipulatively, without actually saying so): he doth not “assume these prisoners were found guilty”. (Italics mine.) Nice, but that’s not the point at issue.
He here tries to sidestep the actual point: the cases of those convicted are now the subject of on-going higher-court review that has – as was noted at some length above – demonstrated serious and noteworthy deficiencies in the trial process that led to the Lynn conviction and quite possibly the other convictions as well.
As always, the Abuseniks only want to play musical chairs for as long as they get to have a chair; once that gambit fails … they don’t want to play anymore.
And thus his own pious bleat that points to the convictions “by our justice system” undermines him here: that very same system, upon higher review, is now casting noteworthy doubt on the conviction(s).
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1105AM:
And then he tries another of his usual gambits: it’s all a matter of “opinion” (and ‘belief’): if you choose to believe RC’s points, that’s just your “opinion”.
It’s not mere “opinion”. Not when we have the amount of factual and demonstrated information RC has provided, and the Superior Court’s own official published findings. Against which one must weigh … what? JR’s smarmy assurances that he cawn’t see any reason to doubt Doe. Which surely indicates more about JR’s capabilities and/or integrity then it does about any credibility Doe’s material might retain at this point.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1105AM:
But there’s a method to the madness here: on that basis, JR will – as so very very often – reach for the Wig of Victimization: RC isn’t “insulted” for his “effort to seek his view of justice” (a remarkably complicated and nuanced phrasing that isn’t JR’s style at all, as is also true of the entire format of this 1116AM comment of his). But poor JR – one is supposed to infer – is “insulted” for his “opinion”.
Questioning and noting problems with JR’s material is apparently not only a re-victimization but also an ‘insult’. Perhaps, along the lines of what Harry Truman said to Molotov, if JR wishes to not be ‘insulted’ then he should put up less problematic material.
As it is, he presents to us merely his “opinion”, which flies in the face of all the extant and demonstrated evidence that something was surely amiss with the original trial process. He doesn’t like the fact that his “opinion” requires such contortions if it is to be deemed credible? That’s his problem (and he can add it to the lengthening list).
And JR – he would like it recognized – doth not ‘insult’ people, or at least not “Ralph”. Ovvvv coursssse.
And the comment riffs on under the Wig of Hurt Decency for a while.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1105AM:
And to buttress all that, JR will then riff on a prior trope and doth give some advice to RC (as – are we supposed to infer – one ‘professional’ to another): why doesn’t RC just “branch out” and cover some other stories?
In other words, the Abuseniks are trying to say: ‘Nothing to see here and what sort of professional would keep beating a dead horse?’. But to repeat: this horse is alive and indeed kicking; it’s still a newsworthy and important story.
But, of course, to the Abuseniks, who now are in danger of finding themselves without a musical chair, they very much want to not-play anymore and would like to start some other game.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1105AM:
And then that bit is larded-over with more ‘victimization’ bits from the Wig of Hurt Victimization: JR just cawn’t think why RC has this “anger towards” JR. Again, to express disbelief at the quality of the Abuseniks’ material is to ‘victimize’ (or, if you wish,‘re-victimize’) them with “anger”.
And thus then – had you been waittttinggggg forrrr ittttt? – JR doth opine that RC cawn’t be a “real reporter” because RC has taken no interest in “the bigger scandal that [JR has] offered here as truth” (meaning, readers might recall, that SNAP and all the other victim-organizations (and writers and judges and torties and so on and so forth) participating in the Stampede are nothing but tools of the Church).
Readers may judge as they will.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1105AM:
And the comment riffs along on that line for a while, slyly congratulating JR for “major stories” (meaning that bit about the Church running all the elements in the Stampede).
Which then leads to the sniffly whine that “Ralph would rather insult [JR] than look at” JR’s Church-as-Puppet-master-of-the-Stampede proposal (presented, we recall, “as truth” … which, in the JR-verse, is supposed to make it “truth”).
And he drags in COINTELPRO not on the basis of any demonstrated evidence but merely as a typical Stampede-y rhetorical catchy phrase that will insinuate without actually producing any evidentiary light.
And yet this time around he doesn’t include himself among “Catholics who were really harmed as children” (as in the oh-so-familiar “our rapes” trope that we have so often seen from him).
I didn't realize you P were now speaking for Ralph. You must be his boss. Why since you are in hiding here; you very well might be Tom Doyle O.P. or his boss.
I have shown you, in particular, evidence in Doyle's (your) own words that this "Survivors" hero,( you?) wrote in his "heroic" paper to the American bishops how they should create secret committees to be secretly funded and controlled by 3 cardinals that victims and our families might be controlled. How does a hero of "survivors" become a hero to survivors when he writes he wants secret committees created to "control" us at church expense. Why did these committees need to be secret? What good would secret committees, funded by the church and controlled by hidden cardinals, be for victims? If benefical for victims why the need to hide who controls and funds them. And we are only to take the bishops' word that they ignored these plans? One can always rely on the word of Catholic bishops. They proved their "concern" and "trust worthiness" to victims, long ago, by transferring rapists to new children. They are so trust worthy.
I notice Ralph has clammed up. He's only interested in insulting. Not investigating. Such a hero!
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1105AM:
But JR’s self-congratulatory “claims of fraud” bit is too much of a muchness indeed: it is a fever-vision but not really much of a ‘claim’ since there is little evidence produced in support of even the probability of such a vision. But in the Stampede – we recall – a claim is a report is a fact is truth. And that’s the fraud in the Stampede.
And it would appear that RC’s investigation of the Doe “fraud” is something they don’t at all want him to “bust”. Why doesn’t RC just go with the Abusenik flow and go after the Church? Why indeed? It surely made a bundle for a lot of Abuseniks (and their torties).
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1105AM:
And the comment concludes with JR asking – marvelously – “Am I delusional?”. He doesn’t think so. I don’t think so either. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.
And the concluding “Just Look” (scream-caps omitted) recalls ‘Dan’s similar bit that one just has to read Scripture and all his stuff will make sense (so long, of course, as you read it the way he wants you to read it – it’s all on the level, if you just hold your head at the right angle when you “look”).
As to just who is and who isn’t what he doth “claim to be” … readers may consider as they will.
As for JR’s of the 24th at 1116AM: he will merely assert that he’s “a real victim”. Possibly or possibly not, but certainly not of “rape”, as his own admissions here have made clear.
Nor is it merely a matter of my ‘choosing’ not to “believe” him. Given the facts that he himself has proffered and the claim (of “rape”) that he has made, his material doesn’t support his claim either conclusively or probably. It’s a story supporting a ‘claim’, and readers may judge as they will.
Thus I do not “pretend” he’s not a ‘victim’; I have been forced to come to the conclusions I have reached based on his own material. I can’t follow the principles of rational inquiry and assessment and come to any other conclusion.
At which point the Victimist/Stampede Playbook would exhort one to forget one’s principles and just go with the flow and ‘believe the victim’. Principles don’t mean much to Abuseniks, especially if they get in the way. One recalls Groucho Marx’s superb line: “Those are my principles. If you don’t like them … I have others.”
Which describes the Abusenik approach perfectly: if your principles are getting in the way of the Stampede then get some other ones that won’t get in the way and then we can Keep The Ball Rolling.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 24th at 1116AM:
And the whole thing concludes with merely a repetition of a story we have no way of knowing is true or not.
But there’s that queasy molten adolescent guttural implication of theat. If you don’t believe them, and if they could get their hands on you … oooooh, then you’d be sorry.
JR has to go this route. Unlike ‘Dan’, he can’t console himself with the thought that “God” will do the dirty-work for him.
LOL! I'm not a victim? According to you P. You pathetic dolt. Playing a moralist while being the exact opposite. You will make yourself ill with cancer being in such contradiction. Could you send your lawyer a letter instructing that we be informed of your passing, when that great gettin' up morning occures? I'd love to attend your funeral. I haven't danced on a coffin in years.
I am sure he is already dead inside.
On the 24th, JR says of convicted priests…"they were found guilty by our justice system"… he means that's the last word, so no further debate. Well, let's look at that justice system…by making a telling comparison.
Former Bosnian- Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was recently found guilty by an international court. Convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. Sentenced to 40 years imprisonment. The compelling evidence?…thousands of bodies in mass graves.
About 1994, in New Hampshire, Judge Arthur Brennan found Fr. Gordon MacRae guilty of sexual abuse of a troubled teenage boy. Sentence imposed… 33.5 to 67 years imprisonment. The compelling evidence?…no tangible evidence, not any objective proof of guilt. The accuser was a criminal …fraud , theft, extortion. Basically the priest was convicted on the strident denunciations of his accuser. Gee…sounds very similar to those old Stalinist show trials.
So this is the justice system that JR has so much trust in?
Never have I been against any debate about Billy Doe's veracity.
What I am against is no new EVIDENCE being presented as news and, as of yet, no new trials
And in the most recent performance:
On the 26th at 1247PM JR – in a now familiar gambit – will create something more useful and congenial for himself, since the actuality of what I wrote isn’t something he wants to deal with: I didn’t write he was “not a victim”; I wrote “Possibly or possibly not, but certainly not of ‘rape’, as his own admissions here have made clear”.
And on that foundation of sand he will riff on epithetically, dragging in “cancer” and so on. And the bit about my “passing” and ‘dancing’ “on a coffin”.
This is the genuine JR.
You are like Trump telling his followers he will pay to defend them in court if they use violence against demonstrators at his rallies and then saying he's against violence.
What I said was the contradictions between the truth of my rape and your negative opinions about my rape when you really know what I've said is true, will only cause your body to react negatively against you. I don't want you to die over this; but should you die
Dancing on your coffin would be a sheer pleasure.
Who's the "genuine" P.? A priest? a nun? A smoke blowing turd? I know you need to hide your identity because the "genuine" P wouldn't pass muster for credibility if he came out.
Only evil needs to hide. Step into the sunlight and be seen. Come out! Come out; who ever you are.
On then to JR’s of the 26th at 110PM:
He tries a new distraction: I am “now speaking for Ralph”. No, RC is very very capable of speaking for himself. I’m just commenting on a site that allows comments. That’s ‘democracy’ – and JR, when you get right down to it, doesn’t like it at all. Despite all his bleats to the contrary.
And then he tries the old insinuation gambit: perhaps I – being “in hiding here” – am the still-Father Doyle himself, or maybe – the horror! – even “his boss”. Anything but the source of material that JR finds very irritating but can’t really deal with.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 26th at 110PM:
Readers may recall – yet again – that JR has “shown” us utterly no “evidence” of anything in the text of the 1985 Proposal to the Bishops. In fact, I clearly recall his saying, when questioned as to his putting “secret” in quotation marks, that it was simply to emphasize the word, but not to indicate that the term actually occurred in the text. Which is no evidence at all. Except of JR’s unreliability as a maker of assertions.
The rest of the comment is simply then a rehash of JR’s preferred fever-vision about what he would like everyone to believe about … everything.
And we’ve been over all that before, and more than once.
And – digging deeper, as it were, into his bag of bits – JR will “notice” that Ralph has “clammed up”. We are to infer that RC’s not taking the time to deal with all of the Abusenik stuff here can only be because the Abuseniks and especially JR have such powerful and persuasive and irrefutable material.
That must console him.
And now I "don't like democracy"? Wow. Do I eat children too? Oops sorry! that's a Catholic hierarch's proclivity. Do I have a tail?
You can not stop lying. You are a pathological liar. Thereby, imho, proving religion to be a lie regarding it being THE source of all morality.
On the 27th at 1151PM JR will try to extricate himself from the web he has been weaving about the Doe trial material: he has “never” “been against any debate about Billy Doe’s veracity”. That’s nice.
And does he consider Doe veracious, in light of all the material in the official record? He has mentioned that he doth always ‘believe victims’. Fine and dandy. Readers may judge his reliability as an assessor of truth as they may.
But he will try to create some ground to stand on in this swamp he has created for himself by stoutly donning the Wig of Competent Legal Inquiry: there is “no new evidence” (scream-caps omitted).
But this Wig – like all of his Wigs – cannot provide actual competence, only the mimicry and imitation of it.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 27th at 1151PM:
Thus, if the evidence of Doe’s material was involved in a trial in which the Superior Court has already noted serious problems with the conduct of the trial by the judge, then things are pretty much back to square-one.
And if the jury was influenced by the already-officially-impugned conduct of the trial judge, then so much the more.
And there have not yet been “any new trials”, he adds hopefully. We shall see how things work out as the legal process continues.
On the 27th at 1203PM JR will then try an epithetical riff in the service of distracting readers: I am “like Trump” and so on and so forth.
But there is a method in the madness of that bit here: he will then slyly try to manipulate things by claiming that there are “contradictions” between – had you been waitttttinggggg forrrr ittttttt? – “the truth of [his] rape” and my “negative opinions about [his] rape”.
The statute law of California is rather clear on the subject, so it is hardly a matter of “opinions”, “negative” or otherwise. Rape requires “sexual intercourse” and the story JR presents includes no “sexual intercourse” (and perhaps he was not even a ‘child’ under the statute).
And on top of that, we have no demonstrated “truth” about his “rape” in the first place. We have his claim or story and that’s about it.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 27th at 1203PM:
And he then tries to buttress his (rather weak) bit by some personal tea-leaf reading: I “really know what [he has] said is true”. I know no such thing. And, indeed, everything I’ve seen indicates to me something greatly otherwise.
And then again with the death stuff. There’s the genuine JR. A vengeful sort indeed, I would say. Which adds more food for thought when we consider that the teacher he accused was giving him bad grades.
And – as if on some level aware that he hasn’t actually put up much substantive – he will try another distracting gambit: this time, the old old chestnut that I am “hiding” here because of my screen-name.
My “credibility” is in the quality of my material, and it is for readers to judge as they will.
And on the 27th at 1212PM he tries to sidestep his rather undemocratic selectivity in just who is and who isn’t worthy of being heard: he goes for exaggeration: does he “eat children”?
But then he gets really carried away and loses control of his imagery: where but in the most perfervid fundamentalist crack-dreams has it ever been claimed that Catholic hierarchs “eat children”?
And how then to follow that incredibly revealing bit?
He selects ‘logic” – at least, what passes in his mind for logic: I am “lying” (about what?), I am “a pathological liar” (and again the obliviousness to the recoil potential of clinical projection), and “thereby” … tah dahhh! – “proving religion to be a lie regarding it being the source of all morality”.
Readers may consider it all as they will.
P, you living piece of dung, Your not believing the truth of my rape; and then asking if I believe Dan Gallagher's testimony?, is wacky. Personally, I don't know the man. But why ask what I think? When You call me a criminal fraud at worst and at best you say you don't know if I'm a criminal fraud but you kind of think I am.
What can be said to that? Other than you are wron
P, you living piece of dung, Your not believing the truth of my rape; and then asking if I believe Dan Gallagher's testimony?, is wacky. Personally, I don't know the man. But why ask what I think? When You call me a criminal fraud at worst and at best you say you don't know if I'm a criminal fraud but you kind of think I am.
What can be said to that? Other than you are wrong. And you have nothing that would prove you to be anything else but wrong. I have the truth. (I 'd lend you some but you'd never use it.)
Ralph sure got quiet.
All I ask of him is that he investigate my claims of fraud against SNAP and Doyle. The evidence is there to be seen.
If he were a neutral investigative reporter he'd do that. The idea of the child rape enablers creating false flagged "committees" to protect the church's wealth against legitimate victims and to influence public opinion about victims and governmental policy towards us , is a pretty big story in my opinion.
But where's Ralph?
Here's what happened JR; I became terrified at the prospect of tangling with you and Ecker on this blog so I had to run and hide.
I love how you frame a debate. A "neutral investigative reporter" would be out investigating fraud claims against SNAP and Doyle. So obviously, anyone who doesn't is a biased investigative reporter.
A neutral commentator on this site wouldn't always be trying to flip the debate to another issue that benefits you. The topic of discussion, if anyone can recall after more than 100 comments, is the continuing revelations about Billy Doe's shocking lack of credibility.
You and Ecker would much rather talk about something else or shriek about your own traumatic experiences. I have no idea whether your accusations about SNAP and Doyle are true. Is the church that cynical? From my own experience, I'd have to say yes. My problem is I don't work for you. I cover local trials in Philadelphia. Hence, my stories about Billy Doe.
If someone was to sue SNAP, I'd be first in line to cover it. If somebody has a cache of documents that proves your point, I'd love to see them. But right now I've got plenty to do, I'm finishing up a book as we speak, and I'm not going to get sidetracked going off on some wild goosechase that you and Ecker would love to see me doing, rather than continue to chip away at Billy Doe and his enablers in the legal system.
Seems to me a fraud propped up by a corrupt DA who sends four innocent men to jail and then that fraud steals $5 million from the church, that's a pretty good story to chase. So don't worry about dreaming up new assignments for me. Let's go on to your next diversionary tactic.
There you are!
Well! First Dennis doesn't share my position on the SNAP/Doyle fraud. So we aren't bound at the hip. As a matter of fact we disagree a lot here.
Secondly, I don't "shriek" about my abuse. (You're saying I do is very unnecessary. So why do it?)
I'm beginning to finally ge
Ralph I just laid out my list of evidence. And it disappeared and since I don't have a dog I know he didn't eat it.
Here's 3 major points:
1.Tom Doyles" Project" easily read about in his initial paper to Catholic bishops. Where he suggests secret committees be created .That were to be funded and headed by 3 Cardinals.
If virtuious why the need for secrecy? And why would SNAP see this paper in any way "Heroic"? which is what SNAP says all the time along with it's felloew traveler VOTF.
2. SNAP's incorporation as a non profit. It says SNAP's sponsered by a branch of the Catholic church and there for is a branch of the Catholic church. Nun's non profit Tax numbe used illegally by SNAP.
I'm going to try and post this.
3. That SNAP has never asked for reparations for victims from the church. Never.
But instead has only talked about protecting the children who are children now and unraped. (Something , a rape free enviornment, our parents assumed went with a Catholic education before; during; and after it happened those of us who were raped were children.)
Aside from the above. I don't understand why the focus on the victims who post here is so
a)individualistic on the one hand and yet projected onto all victims as if we represent them i.e. if I call this person a lunatic etc, long enough .It will make all victims who stand up for themselves seem crazy and thereby dismissable?
B) So abrasive. Why?
The bigger picture is, imo: All victims and our lack of help from a church who's harmed it's own children. Of course this Billy Doe case is major but only due to the fact, that suposition has replaced fact as somekind of truthiness by Newsweek.. That is big.
Though I've questioned your motives. I only questioned. I didn't insult you personally. A liittle badenage perhaps, but not completely dismissive. I don't know you Ralph.
And you don't know me. I know you and Dennis have a past. That's on the 2 of you.
It's the lack of respect for this side of the position here (from Publion from the jump) that amazes me.
A few further thoughts on JR’s of the 27th at 1203PM:
If there is one polarity that is even more in-play than Appearance vs. Substance, it is Status vs. Quality.
Among the Abuseniks and in the Stampede, as is true of all Victimist theater and agitprop, one simply claims the Status and keeps up the Appearance. Thus Abuseniks simply declare their status as ‘victims’ and carry-on from there. The plan is to surf the Status wave while also enjoying the immunity that Victimist dogma provides to protect the lack of Substance from being looked-at too closely, if at all.
Thus, as in Lucy’s “The Doctor Is In” business in the old Peanuts strip, to be a ‘victim’ one need only put up a sign (however incoherently scribbled) and – bingo! – one is a ‘victim’ and The Victim Is In.
Continuing with my further thoughts on JR’s of the 27th at 1203PM:
We see how this dynamic plays out, with JR’s always-revelatory help: avoiding the Substance of my points (after making a stab at eliminating them as being merely my “opinions”) while continuing to try to attack my Status (I have a screen-name, which confounds their Status-attack strategy).
He almost instinctively seeks to operate on the basis of Status rather than Substance and Content.
Thus if he can impugn my Status, then – to his mind and according to the Playbook – my Substance and Content can be ignored. Or at least he can raise enough dust over Status to distract people from the Substance and Content.
Continuing with my further thoughts on JR’s of the 27th at 1203PM:
That dynamic and strategy was clear to me even before I came onto this site. Hence the screen-name, to neutralize that (deceptive and manipulative) Status strategy and force Abuseniks and the Stampede to operate on the level of Substance and Content.
Where the Abuseniks and the Stampede don’t do well at all, as readers may consider from the record here.
And this also explains, I think, why we have not ever seen any Substantive Content from the pro-Stampede/Abusenik side ever being put up. Those of that category who are shrewd enough realize – and have always known – that their cause cannot possibly succeed on the basis of Substance and Content.
Continuing with my further thoughts on JR’s of the 27th at 1203PM:
There are more amenable sites (most mainstream media sites, so-called ‘liberal’ Catholic sites) where the ‘cause’ can be safely trumpeted, but what appears to be Substance or Content there is so often actually comprised of assertions using already-dubious ‘reports’ and ‘reporting’ and all the rest of the Victimist panoply of stories and claims and fever-visions.
The few Abuseniks who post here actually violate the standard operating procedure of the ‘cause’: they allow themselves to get entangled on the ground of Substance and Content, which the shrewder pro-cause types realize is only going to expose the whole game, make the Stampede look bad, and therefore must be avoided.
You're joking.
A catholic liberal is a lot like a Bill Clinton Democrat. In other words a Republican.
Do you really think that after 30 yrs of JP2's reign you have any nonconservative sites; around this issue?? Funny how theNCR believed SNAP from the get go but banned any critique of SNAP from the jump; thereby reenforcing SNAP's undeserved credability
This is a trick, a little bit of posturing on your part P.
You know I've been banned from the Catholic Reporter.(Catholic Liberal Central)
Therefor I can't be a liberal is that the implication?.
Unacceptable to both accepted "sides". Therefore nuts. The "fix" as in the 'fix is in" Is in, in otherwords .
Look says P: "Catholic liberals won't let him speak. So even they see how wrong he is?
HA Ha Ha!
Now that's what they "call" a 2 party system P. Even when both sides are controlled by the same dictator (for a lack of better words.)
On the 28th at 1130AM JR opens with an epithet – and there’s the genuine JR.
Moving beyond that, he again simply repeats the already discredited idea that I simply don’t ‘choose’ to be “believing” what he characterizes as “the truth of [his] rape”.
That “truth” would be – at very very best – merely his preferred and ‘personal truth’ (as the Victimists like to put it) and not any objective and demonstrable truth accessible to third-parties.
But there is a method to the madness here: this bit gets him off the hook for having to put himself on record as to believing or not-believing the Gallagher/Doe stories and testimony.
He then tries to buttress that bit further by claiming that “personally I don’t know the man”. But of what relevance is that? “The man” has delivered the (various) assertions and claims that he has, and what does JR think of those?
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 28th at 1130AM:
But the scam here is this: if you ‘personally know’ somebody … then … what? You can choose to ‘believe’ them? Even if the allegations and stories are so dubious?
The Stampede was built on this. We don’t know (demonstrably genuine) ‘victims’ personally but a) we ‘know’ that ‘victims’ never lie and b) we ‘know’ that all (or most or many) priests are abusers … so we sorta ‘know’ and that’s good enough for the Stampede.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 28th at 1130AM:
JR then slyly tries to work all this into an advertisement for himself: I haven’t called JR “a criminal fraud” but he needs to put that bit in here to make his plaint more vivid and distract from the problems with it.
I don’t “kind of think”. I have assessed his story and its assorted on-going revisions and bits, I have pointed out the difficulties they pose, I have considered his general material here, I have considered the cache of material released in his own case some years ago, I have considered relevant state law as it applies to his story, and I have considered the various dynamics and elements that operate in the Stampede. My assessment is not just ‘kinda thinking’, it’s based on all of the foregoing.
What has JR “said to that”? He just keeps repeating his initial story and the bits he had assembled to try to justify it.
And, much like ‘Dan’, he then tries to wave it all away with his own mere assertion that I am “wrong”.
Readers may consider as they will.
I don't know if you've noticed, but I have stayed out of this, because I don't know enough of the facts to make a comment. You always seem to add me into your negative comments about Jim. I wish I could "wave [you] away with" my "own mere assertion that [you] are wrong". Problem is that it would not be a "mere assertion that [you] are wrong", that would definitely be "Gospel truth", truth you definitely don't understand. You are absolutely wrong with your many false accusations against me and have no right to voice an opinion, backed up by your lying accusations.
Ralph, I see you claim you only cover local cases in Philly. Have you covered other valid cases in Philly, against the several accused or guilty child molesting priests or pedophile priests, with the vim and vigor in which you approach this story. If not, I'd be interested to know if you're a catholic and therefore would possibly show an unfair bias in your reporting.
On the 28th at 1158AM JR will then try to distract from all that by going on yet again about Ralph Cipriano not ‘investigating’ JR”s “claims of fraud against SNAP and Doyle”. (Readers will recall that there is only one way RC is supposed to investigate his “claims”, i.e. that SNAP and Doyle are all “false-flagged” tools of the Church, but not that they might be “false-flagged” tools of the torties, as Michael D’Amato revealed in his book a few years back).
And as I said, JR hasn’t put forth “claims” as much as he has put forth his personal fever-vision, unsupported by any but the most tendentious assortment of factoids, on the basis of which RC or any investigative reporter is supposed to presume that the fever-vision is actually on to something.
But, of course, JR considers that his tendentiously assembled factoids constitute “evidence” that is “there to be seen”. Not hardly. Except perhaps if you are looking at them from behind the pair of eyeballs attached to JR’s brain and its various motivations and issues.
Dan, I did have a bias. It was against the church and against these defendants. From the 2005 grand jury report on, I believed all accused priests were guilty. Until I sat through the trials and sifted through all the records in the case.
Sorry to dissapoint you.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 28th at 1158AM:
Thus the Wig of Exasperated Competence (“all I ask of him”).
But there’s a sly method to the madness here: if RC hasn’t started an investigation, then – JR will insinuate – he is not a “neutral investigative reporter”. Which, of course, presumes that JR has put forward any sort of persuasive “evidence” (beyond his fever-vision factoids).
Then that bit is rhetorically buttressed by – had you been waittttingggg forrrr itttttt? – the “child rape enablers” bit, always a sure-fire crowd-pleaser.
And – though carefully covering himself with qualification – he then opines (rather than asserts) that his fever-vision is “a pretty big story”.
If there’s “a pretty big story” here, then Michael D’Amato has already done quite a bit of the work.
And we know of at least one “child rape” story that – upon assessment – isn’t what it was claimed to be at all.
Where's JR in all this? He got pretty silent pretty fast.
Here are the facts. Ralph disappears and P smokes on.
Meanwhile, every day a plot goes on successfully that keeps real raped victims from any help.
The same people, who brought you Catholics this scandal, are still empowered. If they haven't died they are still with us. It's their decisions that created SNAP and the fake war scenario between victims and our Catholic brethren.
The myth of antagonism that is created by TMR and it's monologist,P.
There is no war. The priests ran to the few people left in the church and screamed, "You're all being persecuted because we fucked your kids." It's an attack on the church. When only individuals are responsible. The church is responsible for authenticating the child abusors, sure. But more majorly the church is responsible from the top, for giving Catholic kids up as sacrifices again and again and again. internationally. The guilty priests/Cardinals are hiding behind the faith and you Catholics. When child abuse and neglect has nothing to do with religious belief. Not one victim has ever said one word against your faith in any of our suits because your religion is not applicable to our cases.
Meantime the majority of your victim brothers and sisters are not left in the lurch by you and your church; but are, again, in fact, being made war on by you. Never is peace offered here only accusations of fraud with zero proof of it.
Above the last paragraph should read "are not only left in the lurch"
For some reason, only half my post is getting through. I've just worked for 2 solid hours and half of it is gone.
Ralph why the personal insults? i support you if you are right. I just personally don't know enough about the case to say. If my mentioning that the evidence you have found has yet to open a retrial. That doesn't mean I'm against you doing what you think right. More power to you!
Ralph, I'm not an "Abusenik". I don't support fraudsters and criminals; and liars. Never have! Never will.! Why you would use such a word without knowing me is strange.
I've only supported the fact that the justice system found your men guilty. I don't know Billy's case or the facts well enough to say I support them and him. The 3 men you support were found guilty and that's shorthand to the world that they did it. I support the justice system period. And I support you in trying to right a wrong you see as being clearly present.
Are we clear?
Well, something actually interesting: JR is reely reely reely excited because he’s getting some face time (as it were) with Ralph Cipriano.
We begin with JR’s of the 29th at 421PM:
“There you are!” he happily squeaks to RC.
I wouldn’t be quite so sanguine about the distance between himself and ‘Dennis’; JR has been known to put up some of ‘Dennis’s stuff under his own screen-name here, and – I would say – ‘Dennis’ has provided a lot of help to JR with style and content in those curiously well-formatted and structured extended comments that JR puts up from time to time.
As for JR’s claim that he doth not “’shriek’ about his abuse” – readers may go back in the record to those comments, heavily scream-capped and larded with exclamation points, wherein he doth go on rather angrily about not being ‘believed’. At one point, I clearly recall, ‘Dennis’ had to intervene to try to quiet him down.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 29th at 421PM:
With JR being so reely reely reely excited, one would expect some serious stuff.
But – oddly, indeed – the comment trails off just when one would expect him to strut his stuff for RC.
But the oddness is soon revealed: on the 29th at 612PM he had a real serious and substantive comment all written up and – had you been waittttinggggg forrrr itttttt? – “it just disappeared”.
As if realizing what that might look like to some, he quickly assures us that he doesn’t have a dog (that, of course, might have eaten his homework).
Perhaps he has a cat or a canary that pawed or pecked the ‘delete’ button, just at the right time.
But perhaps there was a method to the madness: having simultaneously made a play for a) the poor-innocent-hapless but truthy truth-teller who isn’t really familiar with computers b) who will yet heroically try it all over again, he will submit what we see on the 29th at 612PM.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 29th at 612PM:
And what do we see and what do we get?
Merely a repetition of all the hash he’s been slinging here.
First, there was nothing about “secret” committees; the word doesn’t even appear in the text of his Proposal of 1985 to the Bishops. So his “secrecy” point fails here. And there is no suggestion in the 1985 Proposal that any “3 Cardinals” would ‘fund’ such a committee(s).
Second, SNAP’s allegedly ‘illegal’ use of some Order of nuns’ tax ID number – if it is accurate – would certainly not indicate a well-planned operation run by so allegedly sinister yet competent an organization as the Church.
As I have said here several times (none of what JR is putting up here will be new to longtime readers of this site) SNAP may have begun thirty or so years ago as a well-intentioned reach-out organization to ‘victims’, but when that didn’t work out, and Jeff Anderson made that 1988 or 1989 offer to Barbara Blaine (as the D’Amato book reveals), then SNAP became the SNAP we know today.
And the comment at this point ends with a repetition of the play-for-sympathy: JR, poor computer illiterate thing, will “try and post this”.
What then was "the Project"? The entire report was secret until Fr. Tom Economus leaked the report. It was Economus who called the committees secret and he knew. It was Economus who describes these committees as being created to "controll victims and our families"You P said again and again that the bishops "rejected" Doyle's suggestions and therefore "the project" wasn't enacted.If the paper wasn't important why did you P decide to repeat it's rejection by the bishops as an important point. What were you afraid of that you had to underline the papers rejection by the bishops.?
You say the project wasn't enacted. I say it was. I say those committees are SNAP and VOTF.
You are such a liar, P. You invent what I say or rephrase it to suit your purposes of smoke blowing;and ignore what I have said. You do it all the time. You blow smoke and that's all you do. Why not let Ralph decide for himself if any part of what I say is accurate. The non profit incorporation papers described SNAP as a branch of the church belonging to the church. I don't need to make anything up nor do I need to be afraid of any facts.
I'm playing along that Ralph might look into what I've said, not P's interpretation of what I said.
I doubt Ralph will but I'd like it if he did. Jeffery Anderson is questionable right along with SNAP and VOTF. P I don't give a shit how you'll spin this but it takes you 5 posts after everyone of mine, to blow your smoke.
You bend; misquote; and ignore what doesn't suit your purpose here. And your purpose here is to blow smoke.
Which takes us to the 29th at 641PM.
Wherein JR proffers his third point: SNAP “has never asked for reparations for victims from the Church”.
To which I would respond – as I have a number of times before – that if D’Amato’s revelations are accurate, SNAP indentured itself as a front-organization for the torties, who were barred by professional regulations and by a desire to keep up sober appearances (i.e. they wouldn’t want to seem like ‘ambulance chasers’ such as we see in those extended late-night TV commercials). Thus SNAP would lure allegants in, passing them on to the torties.
And at some point, the original SNAP – which I think Doyle expected to use as his own vehicle (once the Bishops had declined his Proposal) – ceased to be a Church-sponsored activity and set up shop for itself as a front for the torties. There are two SNAPs, or two incarnations of SNAP: the first under the auspices, perhaps, of some Order of nuns and derivatively of the Church, and the second as a front for the torties (who ‘donated’ money to SNAP in what might be construed as a kick-back scheme).
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 29th at 641PM:
Let us pass over JR’s sly inclusion – yet again – of himself as having been among the “raped” (“those of us who were raped as children”). That balloon has been deflated here on this thread.
But now the Wig of Bemused Innocence: JR cawn’t “understand” at all “why the focus on the victims who post here is so individualistic”.
The grammar of the rest of that sentence is rather cloudy, thus the idea it is supposed to express appears rather cloudy.
But it appears that what he’s going for here is that all “victims” (and he slyly works in the presumption of genuineness here, does he not?) may seem “dismissable” if the few Abuseniks who post here don’t make the ‘victim’ position look all that credible.
If that’s his point, then the problem isn’t with the questioning and assessment of the Abuseniks’ material; it’s the Abuseniks’ material itself.
But that isn’t going to be useful to the Abuseniks, so JR slyly avoids the problem of the content of the material, and just bleats about this or that Abusenik being called “lunatic” – thus, of course, going for the victim-y high-ground.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 29th at 641PM:
And his second point is that he cawn’t at all for the life of him understand why Abuseniks are handled in so “abrasive” a manner. “Why?”, he piously bleats.
Readers may go back in JR’s comments to the very beginning of his time here, and even consult comments he has put up on other sites, and see that “abrasive” is very much his default mode as soon as he doesn’t get the response he wants.
And then – as if nobody would read or has read any prior commentary on this or previous recent threads – he once again tries to reduce the problems with the Doe material to “suppositions” which have “replaced fact”. And if anyone can suss out just what that bit means they are welcome to share it here.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 29th at 641PM:
And the whole bit concludes with smarm: he really “only questioned” RC (and – alas – only got personal insults in return). And then he dismisses his own vitriolic bits as merely “a little badinage”, doncha know?
And he cawn’t think why the response to his material is “completely dismissive”.
Followed by the odd bit “I don’t know you Ralph” (sic). But that leads into this gambit: And Ralph doesn’t know JR. Is it possible that JR cawn’t imagine anyone reading over his prior material in the record here, and getting to ‘know’ him from all that he’s put in the record here?
Then, apparently to gussy up his prospects for a rapprochement with “Ralph”, JR will work to separate himself from ‘Dennis’.
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 29th at 641PM:
And – had you been waitttttinggggg for itttttttttttt? – takes a swipe at me as well. Because – doncha see? – he would like it imagined that he started off here with all sweetness and light and then I came along and started swinging. Which reminds me of the old jibe about the Soviets (who so frequently and shamelessly rewrote history for their own purposes): ‘With the Soviets, you never know what’s going to happen yesterday’.
And the whole bit concludes with the further pious bleat – from the Wig of Hurt Innocence – that JR cawn’t see why there is such a “lack of respect for this side of the position [i.e. the Abusenik] here”. It “amazes” him.
Perhaps if he read more of his own material …
On then to JR’s of the 29th at 722PM:
Rather than address any point I made, he will unload some of his 3x5s on “catholic liberal” (sic).
If anyone can follow the point in the second paragraph they are welcome to share it here.
Ditto the third paragraph: what, precisely, is “a little bit of posturing on [my] part”?
His characterization of his material as “critique” is, surely, far too generous. It is closer to rant.
He has “been banned from” the National Catholic Reporter site. He consoles himself with the belief that he has been banned because he has uncovered the SNAP-Church connection. A reasonable person might think it is simply because of his abrasive and scatological manner and his unsupported allegations (which, I can easily see, would worry NCRep because it made ‘victims’ look bad, if not also “lunatic”).
Continuing with my comment on JR’s of the 29th at 722PM:
Based on his already-off-base and self-serving explanation for his being banned (he is too truthy) he then heads off into the trees with a riff on whether he can or can’t be a “liberal”. Which, in light of the present exchange, is neither here nor there.
And then tries to spin the web further: if he is – in his cartoon here – “unacceptable” to both “sides”, then he must be “nuts”. I certainly didn’t say anything like that; and speaking for myself, I don’t think all that waltzing around has to be done to reach some form of “nuts” as a conclusion.
On the 29th at 429PM JR continues with the bit to the effect that he had some reely reely good stuff to put up, but “only half my post is getting through”. And he worked on it all for “2 solid hours”.
And again the Wig of Hurt Innocence: JR just cawn’t think why “Ralph” is indulging in “personal insults” (something, are we to imagine, that JR never ever does?).
He then tries to run his evasion plan again in regard to the Doe case: he “just personally doesn’t know enough about the case to say”. Let us take him at his word (for purposes of the present exchange, anyway): having read all of RC’s material on the BigTrial site and here just what is it that isn’t sufficient for JR to form even a tentative conclusion?
But JR is reely reely hot to see if he can get RC to launch him into the big time by accepting JR’s “claims” and starting an investigation into SNAP (so long as it can be guaranteed to come out the way JR wants it to).
On the 29th at 654PM JR will try to make himself as attractively presentable to RC as possible: he’s “not an ‘Abusenik’” and “doesn’t support fraudsters and criminals and liars”. What, never? No never. Never ever.
And then – surely too much of a muchness – JR will don the Wig of Hurt Innocence: why would RC call him an “’Abusenik’ without knowing [him]”? To JR under this particular Wig, it is “strange”.
Apparently, JR doesn’t imagine that his material already in the record here is something that has revealed him, at least sufficiently for reasonable persons to form some strong impressions about him.