*****
By Kay Ebeling
No we can’t put this all behind us now, or find closure, whether with or without a settlement, dear bishops and cardinals, et al. The church has to take responsibility for what it did, not just to the 20 or 30 thousand people who are walking around the world damaged from sex abuse by pedophile priests in the Catholic church, but its responsibility to the entire American culture.
By allowing pedophiles to operate, protecting them and covering their crimes, the Catholic Church is in part responsible for the epidemic of sex crimes against children we have in this country today.
Pedophiles network. Even before the internet they found each other and compared notes. So when word got out that priests were getting away with it, pedophiles in other areas of life got enabled and empowered. Men who tended toward pedophilia entered the priesthood to gain free access to children.
Pedophiles everywhere watched and learned from the priests. And as research shows, often the victims of child molest grow up and act out the same crimes themselves. How many of those violent pedophiles roaming the United States raping and murdering children today got their initial spark from the diddling they got from a Catholic priest when they were children?
The church has to own up to its responsibility in so many more ways than it has so far.
There has been a rash of violent sex crimes against children in the United States in the last decades.
How much of that crime wave is a direct result of pedophiles seeing priests get away with it, second and third generation pedophiles who got their start from priests, now pushing the envelope of the crime, getting more and more violent, more and more fearless?
We know from the few documents that emerged in LA last year that pedophiles in Catholic seminaries recruited young boys to be their private sex toys while training in the seminary to be priests.
These young boys often grew up to be second generation pedophiles who also became parish priests all over Southern California, from the 1950s to this decade.
It’s still going on today.
These stories would all have come out in testimony, had the LA cases gone to trial.
The mandate the bishops gave each other in 2002 is not going to solve the problem. The Dallas Charter has no jurisdiction over religious order priests. So the thousands of Jesuits, Vincentians, Salesians, Franciscans, etc, in the US aren’t even covered by the church’s new pedophile screening and prevention policies.
We go hot and cold, all of us, as activists, pushing for justice re the pedophile priests. I sensed almost a plaintiff call, tears in the voice, of Tom Doyle in “VOTF and the Reform of the Governmental Structure of the Catholic Church” released earlier this month. Doyle wrote:
“I am not much interested in working for internal church reform anymore mainly because my experience within the structure over the past two decades has been so painfully revelatory for me. It is way too toxic. Life is short and being part of the Christian community is supposed to be joyful.”
*****
We all get impatient, but truth is justice is happening, but not in our time, in God’s time. We don’t even know for sure what the story will be in the end, or what our roles are. We just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and keep telling the truth, and digging up more truth.
It could be the story that the general public “gets” will be the legal battles, the criminal misuse of the justice system by archdiocese attorneys.
The church with its battery of lawyers cooked up legal strategies that beat down the plaintiffs and kept the lawsuits against the church from ever going to trial.
For now we're all a little bit in shock, and we need a few months, maybe years, to gain perspective over what happened, especially in Los Angeles, in the civil lawsuits against the church.
It wasn’t justice.
If we can’t prosecute the church for harboring pedophiles, maybe we can prosecute them for abuse of the courts.
Doyle summarized where we are so far:
“The U.S. bishops still live in their delusional world as far as clergy abuse is concerned. The Dallas Charter, the diocesan review boards, the National Review Board, the Office for Child Protection.....all are bureaucratic attempts to right the wrongs, make the bad memories go away, restore trust and faith in the bishops and above all, create the false image that it’s all over.”
*****
How Can It Be Over When They've Never Even Come Clean As To What It Was in the First Place?
I can’t shake this feeling. The way the church bent over backwards to prevent release of documents, even about crimes we already know took place, even about priests who were incarcerated and admitted their crimes.
It makes me think there’s more crimes that they're covering up.
Why else would they go to such great lengths to keep anyone from seeing their files, even an objective judge, whose only role is to see if there is evidence in the documents, why does the church still pay millions in attorneys fees to prevent documents from being released?
Unless they're hiding something more, something even more horrendous than aiding and abetting child molesters.
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END COMMERCIAL*****
Writing about pedophile priests, you have to take a pledge of honesty. I can’t let even a small untruth slip out here, as there are Opus Dei types who read every blog post, and as soon as they see a slight non-fact, they jump on it.
There’s a wonderful freedom you get when you don’t trust anybody at all. You don’t even have to think about it, just know that anyone you're dealing with could at any moment turn on you. You have total freedom within those confines.
I'm rambling. It’s middle of the night, and I’m only on a break from work. Doing all nighters these last few weeks.
Truth is I don't even write this blog. It’s hard to explain. The posts write themselves. I’ll get a nudge, and I’ll open a document, or make a phone call, and the story just plays out in front of me. I just happen to have studied journalism in college in the 1970s and this story is now in front of me.
Tonight's blog came from listening to the song in the video at the top of the page, Madonna's "Swim."
Maybe this blog is one last chance for me to have a career.
Funniest thing. I found this journal I started in February 2003, where after reaching out to SNAP and expecting them to solve all my problems, I wrote this:
“Betrayed.
“I’m all jazzed thinking I'm going to get help. Then it turns out they're just going to email me a few times a week with news articles. What did I expect?
“I wanted someone to come in here, pick me up, and put me in a penthouse. Tell me the Catholic Church agreed to pay for the rest of my life at a high comfort level.
“Because I would have been a successful accomplished person. I would have kept at least one of the jobs I had in the last 30 years. I’d at least be able to buy a new car every few years like about half of America.”
A woman survivor of pedophile priest rape came through LA recently and interviewed me for a book she’s doing, about survivors. She’s traveled the country interviewing us now for years, has interviewed maybe a hundred survivors.
She’s found this weird similarity in so many of our stories. Something happened around 1992-93.
I watched it happen as I went with her to interview another survivor. That woman told her story and there it was, something that happened in 1992-93 that made her wake up and see it wasn’t okay, change her perspective.
In my case 1992-93 was the year I remembered what Father Horne did to me when I was five. But it took a confluence of “coincidences.”
In 1993 I had been sober and clean for two years. (I’ll probably never be that clean again. I have to take things for pain today. I have to.)
In 1993 My daughter turned the age I was when the abuse happened.
In 1993 My daughter and I lived in a rural area near woods much like we did in the 1950s when the abuse happened.
In 1993 My A-A Home Group invited a priest from LA up to speak and I WOULD NOT GO, no matter what, and pained up with fibromyalgia to avoid his speech.
In 1992-93 my A-A sponsor told me that the way I was obsessing about sex experiences in my life, that she’d seen it before, when people obsess like that, it means there’s something that still has to come out.
She was right, a few weeks later I was remembering being sexually aroused by this Catholic priest in a rural town outside Chicago in 1953-55
He also taught me to talk dirty in the confessional. He made me create sexual fantasies and then repeat them back to him.
I'm still plagued by those fantasies today.
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger alive. Also we generate income from the Google ads, those little black links at the top and sides of this blog. Click on the ads and I make as much as 25 cents. Remember blogs are keeping freedom of speech alive in America, so support city of angels blog with a PayPal Click and by visiting the Ads By Google.
END COMMERCIAL*****
There have been a lot less posts here. This blog is not going to die, it’s just simmering.
We have video production equipment now, a camera and editing software. I just need to learn how to make it all work. As soon as I do, there will be video blogs posted here, little productions that tell our stories, and who knows where we’ll go from there.
Original Videos Here Starting In February
Meantime, as far as the bishops and cardinals saying it’s all in the past:
More from Tom Doyle:
“Archbishop Gregory said in Feb. 2004, the ‘the history of sexual abuse is today history.’ More inaccurate words have never been spoken!
“Bishops continue to force victims through incredibly painful and demeaning court processes in which they and their lawyers do all they can to revictimize them.
“In State legislatures throughout the country, State Catholic Conferences and the local bishops spend millions of the faithful’s dollars to defeat any legislation that would offer greater protection to child victims.
“In State after State, the only opposition to child protective legislation is the Catholic Church. How ironic! The world’s largest religious organization which is based on the mission of Christ and it opposes State laws that do what it not only could not do, but would not do...protect children from deranged predators and self-centered institutional enablers."
*****
One of those states is Illinois where my case would be, if the Illinois law would allow it.
I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to know that if my rape by a pedophile priest happened in California, I’d have a settlement right now. But it didn't, it happened to me in Illinois.
So, gotta go back to work.
It's best to be honest.
Onward.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
So Cal children in danger thanks to early release of pedophile priest Carlos Rodriguez from Norco Prison last Sunday
*****
By Kay Ebeling
Pedophile priest Carlos Rodriguez was released from Norco Prison east of Los Angeles Sunday January 20th, after serving 3 years and 8 months of an 8 year 8 month sentence for child molestation. Rodriguez was released to the Huntington Park parole office jurisdiction and is known to have extended family in nearby City of Commerce.
“I found out Friday and he was released on Sunday,” said Rodriguez crime victim Eric Barragan, who lives in Mexico City. “I got the call from California’s Victims office. They gave me these 800 numbers that I couldn't call from Mexico, so I called SNAP and they organized this event.”
The SNAP press conference took place Tuesday afternoon January 22, and was attended by 3 survivors, a survivor’s mom, and 4 news reporters, two with cameras. Across the street an ecology group bussed in more than a hundred protesters and a parking lot full of reporters covered their demonstration. They were protesting plastic bags. They had a six foot tall sculpture made from used plastic bags and signs with pictures of a dead seal, beached and strangled by plastic bags in the ocean. . .
Hundreds of protesters across the street because of seals in the ocean and plastic bags, a handful at the LA “cathedral” to protest the early release from prison of a pedophile priest turned loose once again on LA thanks to the lax tactics and blatant neglect of the catholic archdiocese and the criminal justice system in California.
The SNAP announcement read:
WHAT:
At a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will:
--Blast Gov. Schwarzenegger and state officials for the proposal to let criminals out of jail early,
--Prod them to keep child molesters locked up for their full terms, and,
--Urge Cardinal Roger Mahony to use his considerable resources to warn his flock about a newly-released predator priest and any other clergy who may be released from incarceration.
Joelle Casteix from SNAP said to City of Angels blog:
“The public needs to have information about where Carolos Rodriguez is living, what are the limitations of his parole, if he’s wearing a GPS bracelet.”
Someone pointed out to me Todd Tamberg, the LA archdiocese PR front man, standing on archdiocese grounds watching us, but a guy in a red jacket kept blocking my view of Tamberg’s face. . .
“We want Cardinal Mahony to do whatever is in his power, in his communications, in his radio spots, because all his flock need to be warned about this dangerous man,” said crime victim Eric Barragan.
I glanced over and Tamberg was laughing at some joke with Red Jacket, totally out of earshot, totally not caring what we were saying, totally preoccupied with protecting their grounds from we pedophile priest crime victims still seeking justice from the sidewalk outside.
Barragan continued: "We are not asking Cardinal Mahony, but demanding of Cardinal Mahony, that he announce to the communities, specifically the Latino community, and this county and this archdiocese, that this is a very dangerous man who worked with a lot of families, at the Office of Family Life in Santa Barbara.
“Carlos Rodriguez had access to a lot of families, so they all need to be warned that he has been released from prison and that he poses a threat to the community where he was released and where he used to work, which is Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara County.
“Mahony has to do whatever is in his power in his communications, in his radio spots, that all the flock need to be warned about this dangerous man.”
QUESTION FROM NEWS PERSON: How do you feel?
BARRAGAN: I’m very angry and I’m very upset because I was notified only two days before he was being released. And of course the community right now is at a greater risk because of these actions.
COFA: Do you have any idea where he went when he was released?
I understand that he was released from Norco but from what I understand his whole family moved out of the City of Commerce area where he lived. I don't know specifically where he’s going to go.
NOTE:
CITY OF ANGELS BLOG
Tracked down Rodriguez’ parole officer, at the Huntington Park area office
And will try to contact him by phone in the next day or two.
COFA: He had family in the City of Commerce area before?
BARRAGAN: Yes, that's actually where my family and I met him. I met his family, because they all lived in the City of Commerce. His family owned a home there and so he’s got little sisters and of course a lot of extended family.
“I know wherever he is,” Barragan said, “I know the tendency he had was to visit a lot of the families he worked, even after he was accused of sexually abusing their children. I found out that he was still visiting a lot of families in Santa Barbara County, Ventura County, and Los Angeles County, even though there was a legal process against him.
CofA: Wasn't he in prison before this, and released in 2003?
Barragan: Yes he was. Exactly, because of some of the victims here from Los Angeles.
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger alive. Also we generate income from the Google ads, those little black links at the top and sides of this blog. Click on the ads and I make as much as 25 cents. Remember blogs are keeping freedom of speech alive in America, so support city of angels blog with a PayPal Click and by visiting the Ads By Google.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
Carlos Rodriguez is one of the more prolific pedophiles who preyed in Southern California parishes in the eighties and nineties. Carlos Rodriguez’ case is yet another example of the church’s mishandling of pedophile priests -- with denial and disordered priorities
Rodriguez was ordained and came to St. Vincents Church in LA in the summer of 1986. By July of 1987 Father Rodriguez was in St. Luke Institute for “evaluation and treatment” after a report of “inappropriate conduct with a minor.” (see Assignments:
LA Archdiocesan Report Addendum 11.15.05; LA Times Database 4.20.06 )
When Rodriguez was released from St. Luke’s and went into after care --
The Catholic Church gave the known pedophile priest a job part time at the Office of Family Life in Santa Barbara. Until 1993 when he left the Vincentian community and “Archdiocese removes and denies request to renew faculties.”
Barragan began an impromptu press conference:
My name is Eric Barragan I’m a victim of Carlos Rodriquez who just yesterday was released from Norco Correctional Facility, after serving less than four years and less than 40 percent of his mandatory sentence of eight years and eight months as he was sentenced back in 2004.
And I’m very upset because I’m finding out that the governor, California Governor Schwarzenegger, in order to cut about $400 million dollars from his budget, is releasing a lot of inmates, and one of those happens to be a very dangerous pedophile that actually abused not only myself but my two brothers, and dozens of children here in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.
COFA: He had family in the City of Commerce area before?
Barragan: Yes, that's actually where my family and I met him. Well I met his family, because they all lived in the City of Commerce. From what I understand the family moved out of the area when he was incarcerated, so I don't know where specifically he moved to.
City of Angels Blog found out late this afternoon that Rodriguez was released to a parole officer in Huntington Park area, just blocks from City of Commerce.
Barragan continued: “Wherever he is, I know the tendency he had was to visit a lot of the families he worked with, even after he was accused of sexually abusing their children. I found out that he was still visiting a lot of families in Santa Barbara County, Ventura County, and Los Angeles County, even though there was a legal process against him.
COFA: WASN’T HE IN PRISON BEFORE AND THEN RELEASED?
Barragan: Yes he was. Some of the victims here from Los Angeles actually pressed criminal charges against him and he was incarcerated here in Los Angeles County. Because of the Stogner case in 2003, he was released.”
*****
From LA Daily News July 2003
By Michael Gougis
Los Angeles Daily News [California]
Downloaded to bishopaccountability July 1, 2003
“…Authorities freed more people facing decades-old charges of child molestation. . .
“…Victims of abuse by priests expressed their outrage at the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last week that overturned California's 1994 law retroactively lifting the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases….
“While prosecutors had used the law in high-profile investigations against priests accused of sex crimes decades ago, the ruling affected far more than clergy. ..
“In Los Angeles, a judge ordered former priest Carlos Rene Rodriguez, 46, who had been in custody for nine months, released on his own recognizance. Rodriguez is charged with eight felony counts stemming from alleged crimes that occurred between 1984 and 1986 when he was a priest assigned to St. Vincent's Church in Los Angeles.”
========
“A month after he was released in LA, there was a warrant out for his arrest,” Barragan said. “They couldn't find him he disappeared he was on the lam.”
“Luckily on my birthday in 2003 he was caught, incarcerated, and in April of 2004 he was sentenced to eight years eight months in prison.”
Barragan said that at that time “the judge ordered he had to serve a mandatory 80 percent sentence
“He wasn’t eligible for parole until after 80 percent of his time was served, but now under four years of him being in jail, he’s been released.”
“Rodriguez was released from Norco Correctional Facility, after serving less than four years and less than 40 percent of his mandatory sentence of eight years and eight months as he was sentenced back in 2004.
COFA: From what you remember, from your experience, do you feel there’s other crime victims of Father Carlos Rodriguez out there?
BARRAGAN: Definitely. He had access to a lot of families. He was working predominantly in the Latino Community in all three counties, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
*****
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then send any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger alive. Also we generate income from the Google ads, those little black links at the top and sides of this blog. Click on the ads and we make as much as 25 cents. Remember blogs are keeping freedom of speech alive in America, so support city of angels blog with a PayPal Click and by visiting the Ads By Google.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
I don't know if I am a reporter or survivor when I go to these SNAP events, since well I am both a reporter and a survivor. SNAP events give me a kind of identity crisis --
This time I beat down any weird feelings by getting there early and going inside the cathedral first. I saw other people going in, it’s open during the day.
For years I could not go into a church as it would
double me over in stomach pain.
Even First Baptist Church of Hollywood gave me trouble as the building is the same architecture as a Catholic Church with the high beam ceilings and stained glass windows. I kept jerking to the side thinking I saw a confessional when I was there and finally had to quit going.
Sometimes I miss Mass and I’d like to get past the doubled over stomach pains…
So today I went inside the cathedral and felt nothing.
This building, this structure downtown LA is so barren and empty that there’s nothing there evil or good. So it can’t make me double over in pain. I went inside and caught the last half of noon time daily Mass.
A smattering of people, a lot of them tourists, walked in and out as the Mass went on.
Up on the altar a guy in red tunic with very wide sleeves waved his arms around.
They have this bizarre crucifix on the altar of the LA cathedral. Jesus hangs there, all black and moderne, his body skewed in and twisted in such anguish
he could be doing a Bob Fosse dance.
The music at noon time Mass was okay, the soprano was off key, the art is great to look at.
I’d like to have the run of the place some day and at one point felt like I might sometime in the future. . .
Came back outside and the SNAP press conference was just beginning:
Barragan:
I opened up an office of SNAP in Mexico City.
What? Tell me more.
He told me so much that it will have to wait until:
More about SNAP Mexico City next post.
Also coming soon, the story of Kathy Shaw and Abuse Tracker
PLUS WE WILL HAVE OUR OWN VIDEOS PRODUCED BY CITY OF ANGELS PRODUCTIONS IN FEBRUARY 2008
NEXT MONTH!!
Original City of Angels Videos running on the blog next month!
Onward. . .
Related stories at bishop accountability dot org under R for Rodriguez, etcetera
By Kay Ebeling
Pedophile priest Carlos Rodriguez was released from Norco Prison east of Los Angeles Sunday January 20th, after serving 3 years and 8 months of an 8 year 8 month sentence for child molestation. Rodriguez was released to the Huntington Park parole office jurisdiction and is known to have extended family in nearby City of Commerce.
“I found out Friday and he was released on Sunday,” said Rodriguez crime victim Eric Barragan, who lives in Mexico City. “I got the call from California’s Victims office. They gave me these 800 numbers that I couldn't call from Mexico, so I called SNAP and they organized this event.”
The SNAP press conference took place Tuesday afternoon January 22, and was attended by 3 survivors, a survivor’s mom, and 4 news reporters, two with cameras. Across the street an ecology group bussed in more than a hundred protesters and a parking lot full of reporters covered their demonstration. They were protesting plastic bags. They had a six foot tall sculpture made from used plastic bags and signs with pictures of a dead seal, beached and strangled by plastic bags in the ocean. . .
Hundreds of protesters across the street because of seals in the ocean and plastic bags, a handful at the LA “cathedral” to protest the early release from prison of a pedophile priest turned loose once again on LA thanks to the lax tactics and blatant neglect of the catholic archdiocese and the criminal justice system in California.
The SNAP announcement read:
WHAT:
At a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will:
--Blast Gov. Schwarzenegger and state officials for the proposal to let criminals out of jail early,
--Prod them to keep child molesters locked up for their full terms, and,
--Urge Cardinal Roger Mahony to use his considerable resources to warn his flock about a newly-released predator priest and any other clergy who may be released from incarceration.
Joelle Casteix from SNAP said to City of Angels blog:
“The public needs to have information about where Carolos Rodriguez is living, what are the limitations of his parole, if he’s wearing a GPS bracelet.”
Someone pointed out to me Todd Tamberg, the LA archdiocese PR front man, standing on archdiocese grounds watching us, but a guy in a red jacket kept blocking my view of Tamberg’s face. . .
“We want Cardinal Mahony to do whatever is in his power, in his communications, in his radio spots, because all his flock need to be warned about this dangerous man,” said crime victim Eric Barragan.
I glanced over and Tamberg was laughing at some joke with Red Jacket, totally out of earshot, totally not caring what we were saying, totally preoccupied with protecting their grounds from we pedophile priest crime victims still seeking justice from the sidewalk outside.
Barragan continued: "We are not asking Cardinal Mahony, but demanding of Cardinal Mahony, that he announce to the communities, specifically the Latino community, and this county and this archdiocese, that this is a very dangerous man who worked with a lot of families, at the Office of Family Life in Santa Barbara.
“Carlos Rodriguez had access to a lot of families, so they all need to be warned that he has been released from prison and that he poses a threat to the community where he was released and where he used to work, which is Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara County.
“Mahony has to do whatever is in his power in his communications, in his radio spots, that all the flock need to be warned about this dangerous man.”
QUESTION FROM NEWS PERSON: How do you feel?
BARRAGAN: I’m very angry and I’m very upset because I was notified only two days before he was being released. And of course the community right now is at a greater risk because of these actions.
COFA: Do you have any idea where he went when he was released?
I understand that he was released from Norco but from what I understand his whole family moved out of the City of Commerce area where he lived. I don't know specifically where he’s going to go.
NOTE:
CITY OF ANGELS BLOG
Tracked down Rodriguez’ parole officer, at the Huntington Park area office
And will try to contact him by phone in the next day or two.
COFA: He had family in the City of Commerce area before?
BARRAGAN: Yes, that's actually where my family and I met him. I met his family, because they all lived in the City of Commerce. His family owned a home there and so he’s got little sisters and of course a lot of extended family.
“I know wherever he is,” Barragan said, “I know the tendency he had was to visit a lot of the families he worked, even after he was accused of sexually abusing their children. I found out that he was still visiting a lot of families in Santa Barbara County, Ventura County, and Los Angeles County, even though there was a legal process against him.
CofA: Wasn't he in prison before this, and released in 2003?
Barragan: Yes he was. Exactly, because of some of the victims here from Los Angeles.
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger alive. Also we generate income from the Google ads, those little black links at the top and sides of this blog. Click on the ads and I make as much as 25 cents. Remember blogs are keeping freedom of speech alive in America, so support city of angels blog with a PayPal Click and by visiting the Ads By Google.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
Carlos Rodriguez is one of the more prolific pedophiles who preyed in Southern California parishes in the eighties and nineties. Carlos Rodriguez’ case is yet another example of the church’s mishandling of pedophile priests -- with denial and disordered priorities
Rodriguez was ordained and came to St. Vincents Church in LA in the summer of 1986. By July of 1987 Father Rodriguez was in St. Luke Institute for “evaluation and treatment” after a report of “inappropriate conduct with a minor.” (see Assignments:
LA Archdiocesan Report Addendum 11.15.05; LA Times Database 4.20.06 )
When Rodriguez was released from St. Luke’s and went into after care --
The Catholic Church gave the known pedophile priest a job part time at the Office of Family Life in Santa Barbara. Until 1993 when he left the Vincentian community and “Archdiocese removes and denies request to renew faculties.”
Barragan began an impromptu press conference:
My name is Eric Barragan I’m a victim of Carlos Rodriquez who just yesterday was released from Norco Correctional Facility, after serving less than four years and less than 40 percent of his mandatory sentence of eight years and eight months as he was sentenced back in 2004.
And I’m very upset because I’m finding out that the governor, California Governor Schwarzenegger, in order to cut about $400 million dollars from his budget, is releasing a lot of inmates, and one of those happens to be a very dangerous pedophile that actually abused not only myself but my two brothers, and dozens of children here in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.
COFA: He had family in the City of Commerce area before?
Barragan: Yes, that's actually where my family and I met him. Well I met his family, because they all lived in the City of Commerce. From what I understand the family moved out of the area when he was incarcerated, so I don't know where specifically he moved to.
City of Angels Blog found out late this afternoon that Rodriguez was released to a parole officer in Huntington Park area, just blocks from City of Commerce.
Barragan continued: “Wherever he is, I know the tendency he had was to visit a lot of the families he worked with, even after he was accused of sexually abusing their children. I found out that he was still visiting a lot of families in Santa Barbara County, Ventura County, and Los Angeles County, even though there was a legal process against him.
COFA: WASN’T HE IN PRISON BEFORE AND THEN RELEASED?
Barragan: Yes he was. Some of the victims here from Los Angeles actually pressed criminal charges against him and he was incarcerated here in Los Angeles County. Because of the Stogner case in 2003, he was released.”
*****
From LA Daily News July 2003
By Michael Gougis
Los Angeles Daily News [California]
Downloaded to bishopaccountability July 1, 2003
“…Authorities freed more people facing decades-old charges of child molestation. . .
“…Victims of abuse by priests expressed their outrage at the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last week that overturned California's 1994 law retroactively lifting the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases….
“While prosecutors had used the law in high-profile investigations against priests accused of sex crimes decades ago, the ruling affected far more than clergy. ..
“In Los Angeles, a judge ordered former priest Carlos Rene Rodriguez, 46, who had been in custody for nine months, released on his own recognizance. Rodriguez is charged with eight felony counts stemming from alleged crimes that occurred between 1984 and 1986 when he was a priest assigned to St. Vincent's Church in Los Angeles.”
========
“A month after he was released in LA, there was a warrant out for his arrest,” Barragan said. “They couldn't find him he disappeared he was on the lam.”
“Luckily on my birthday in 2003 he was caught, incarcerated, and in April of 2004 he was sentenced to eight years eight months in prison.”
Barragan said that at that time “the judge ordered he had to serve a mandatory 80 percent sentence
“He wasn’t eligible for parole until after 80 percent of his time was served, but now under four years of him being in jail, he’s been released.”
“Rodriguez was released from Norco Correctional Facility, after serving less than four years and less than 40 percent of his mandatory sentence of eight years and eight months as he was sentenced back in 2004.
COFA: From what you remember, from your experience, do you feel there’s other crime victims of Father Carlos Rodriguez out there?
BARRAGAN: Definitely. He had access to a lot of families. He was working predominantly in the Latino Community in all three counties, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
*****
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I don't know if I am a reporter or survivor when I go to these SNAP events, since well I am both a reporter and a survivor. SNAP events give me a kind of identity crisis --
This time I beat down any weird feelings by getting there early and going inside the cathedral first. I saw other people going in, it’s open during the day.
For years I could not go into a church as it would
double me over in stomach pain.
Even First Baptist Church of Hollywood gave me trouble as the building is the same architecture as a Catholic Church with the high beam ceilings and stained glass windows. I kept jerking to the side thinking I saw a confessional when I was there and finally had to quit going.
Sometimes I miss Mass and I’d like to get past the doubled over stomach pains…
So today I went inside the cathedral and felt nothing.
This building, this structure downtown LA is so barren and empty that there’s nothing there evil or good. So it can’t make me double over in pain. I went inside and caught the last half of noon time daily Mass.
A smattering of people, a lot of them tourists, walked in and out as the Mass went on.
Up on the altar a guy in red tunic with very wide sleeves waved his arms around.
They have this bizarre crucifix on the altar of the LA cathedral. Jesus hangs there, all black and moderne, his body skewed in and twisted in such anguish
he could be doing a Bob Fosse dance.
The music at noon time Mass was okay, the soprano was off key, the art is great to look at.
I’d like to have the run of the place some day and at one point felt like I might sometime in the future. . .
Came back outside and the SNAP press conference was just beginning:
Barragan:
I opened up an office of SNAP in Mexico City.
What? Tell me more.
He told me so much that it will have to wait until:
More about SNAP Mexico City next post.
Also coming soon, the story of Kathy Shaw and Abuse Tracker
PLUS WE WILL HAVE OUR OWN VIDEOS PRODUCED BY CITY OF ANGELS PRODUCTIONS IN FEBRUARY 2008
NEXT MONTH!!
Original City of Angels Videos running on the blog next month!
Onward. . .
Related stories at bishop accountability dot org under R for Rodriguez, etcetera
Friday, January 18, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Don’t sue us, says the Church, we'll pay for your therapy. Then only pedophile data they count is from lawsuits.
*****
By Kay Ebeling
“They wouldn't have paid for my therapy if I had sued," said Ann Hagan Webb. "I had to sign a paper that they would not be liable in any other financial way."
Only an omnipotent organization operating outside the law like the Catholic Church can carry out a Catch 22 like this: Archdioceses offer victims help with therapy as a way to "heal" without lawsuits. Then when it cooks up its statistics on pedophile priests, the Church only counts successful lawsuits. Catch 22. (For example Sr. McNiff's chart in the LA Times, see January 8 post.)
In Ann Webb’s case, they paid for her therapy, but the church says hers is a false claim. A portrait of her perpetrator greets you when you walk into Sacred Heart Church in the Providence Archdiocese of Rhode Island.
Last time Webb’s husband saw that portrait he smashed his fist through the glass.
Yes, he smashed a fist through the glass. Mr. Webb is a straight arrow Massachusetts citizen, a scientist and businessman who for 20 years has sold his inventions to places like NASA. He has no criminal record. He and Ann raised three children to adulthood and are putting them through college. But last October when he saw Monsignor Anthony DeAngelis’ portrait still hanging in the entryway of Sacred Heart Church in West Warwick, Webb punched his fist through the glass.
The church had him arrested. However, police got him back in time to continue protesting at the second Mass.
Ann Webb, who co-directs the New England SNAP Regional Office - Boston, explains it:
"He had been there outside picketing, because the portrait was still hanging, walking back and forth and leafleting, and he was talking to a reporter. My mother’s friend comes out and says, oh they took that picture down.
"He and the reporter go let’s go in and see. They go inside and the picture was still there. All of a sudden I don't know he just punched it, it broke the glass but didn't hurt the picture.
He had a glove on. . .”
The church showed its compassion for the families of pedophile priest victims. They called the police.
“The cops were very-very nice and had him back to finish picketing for the second Mass.”
Later (Sacred Heart's) Fr. Bucci said as long as Webb paid for the damages, the church will drop the charges. He also wanted Webb to promise she and SNAP would stop demonstrating outside the church. They never agreed to that.
The Webbs paid the church $15.83 and cleared their name.
“We paid it and Fr. Bucci agreed not to file any charges.”
*******
They just don’t get it. There’s a sensitivity you expect from a church, they just don’t have it. More after this:
*******
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Ann continues, explaining why they were protesting outside Sacred Heart again Sunday January 13.
“Fr. Bucci writes this horrible letter a week later to the church, to all members of the church He calls me a liar saying my charges are uncorroborated. He claims they've found evidence of false memory in my case.”
******
Some quotes from the letter from Father Bucci to the parishioners about Webb:
"AFTER the deplorable events Sunday December 2nd when our parish church was desecrated. . .
"I want to clarify I have only spoken two occasions with Mrs. Webb. . .
WEBB: He calls me Mrs. Webb all through the letter. I have my doctorate.
(Webb is a psychologist now working primarily with priest rape victims.)
“The accuracy of recovered memory is beyond my competency and pay grade." writes Fr. Bucci. "The Diocese of Providence decided to assist Mrs. Webb with $12,500. . .
“This might be construed as an admission of guilt, or some reasonable doubt sufficient for civil action or merely a decision to avoid litigation, however --
(Sorry, readers, Ann emailed me the letter but my computer wouldn't open the attachment, city of angels blog will try to get a full copy of the letter soon.)
The letter referred to the “sacrilegious violence of Mr. Webb in the church.”
Webb and I on the phone both agreed:
We can tell you about some sacrilegious violence.
There’s another lie in Bucci’s letter to the parishioners, according to Ann Webb.
Bucci wrote: “Unless we receive a pledge of no further disruptions by SNAP VOTF ACLU, we will not drop the charges."
(All them pesky alphabet groups are the same!)
“He led parishioiners to believe we agreed to that,” she said. “All we had to do was pay the $15.83 we never promised anybody would not be outside again.”
It’s a public sidewalk.
However because Bucci wrote that in his treatise to the parishioners about her, when Webb and about 20 other protestors showed up again last Sunday, parishioners thought the group was breaking their new agreement with Fr. Bucci. Some were hostile to Webb and her group as they leafletted.
The church demanded detailed therapy files from Ann Hagan Webb in order to settle her claim. Then they apparently ignored those therapy files.
After this:
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“Bucci obviously never read the therapy files he demanded from me,” Webb says about his letter to parishioners that her memories are false.
“I went to the church in 1994 when they said in the news that they’d pay for people’s therapy and I went to the pastor there, Fr. Turillo. I went to the church asking for help with therapy. Two years later after fighting with me, they paid what the insurance hadn’t covered.
“They were advertising in the paper at the time, you know, we'll help survivors.
“Well all I got was letters from lawyers. Then they demanded all my therapy notes."
First she got letters from lawyers asking for phone numbers of witnesses. The Church Attorneys never called the witnesses.
“Then they sent me a letter saying my claim wasn’t corroborated.
“Finally two years later I took them the therapy notes they were demanding and then gave me a check which covered everything that I had paid out of pocket so far.”
A check for $12,500
Ann Hagan Webb felt violated turning over her therapy files:
“Those notes had everything. Years later I was horrified that I did that but I was at the end of my rope and I needed the validation.
“When the church was fighting me about it I felt -- like I wasn’t being validated -- so I gave them the therapy notes.”
Still the church sent a letter to all parishioners calling her a liar, questioning her sanity, saying her memories are false.
"It was like an extra thing they handed out with the bulletin My god mother passed it on to me, ‘Dear Parishioners.’
"I Felt Like I Had to Respond"
Ann was back in front of Sacred Heart in Rhode Island Sunday Jan. 10 with about 25 dedicated New England protestors, aka Sidewalk VOTF, handing out the letter Webb wrote in response, which is reprinted after this blog:
“We were going to put my letter on people’s windshields,” Webb said, “but that might be trespassing. I don't want to commit another crime against the church….”
THERE’S MORE:
Why was Sidewalk VOTF protesting at Sacred Heart Church in Providence last Fall in the first place? After this
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Loyal readers will remember this from the October 22 2007 post at City of Angels Blog:
Documents released (in fall 2007) by attorneys for the archdiocese in Rhode Island contradict numbers released by the Rhode Island Archdiocese in the John Jay Report. Paul Kellen described the situation:
“In the John Jay Report the Diocese of Providence reported from 1957 - 2002, there were 56 accused priests.
“The diocese of Providence is now being sued by somebody within the statute of limitations for failure to supervise and in that case the Judge ordered release of documents.
“The diocese is objecting due to undue hardship because we would have to prepare copies of documents on 125 accused pedophiles.
“So they just said 125 accused priests since 1971, in their own documents filed with Superior Court in Providence by their own attorneys.
“The number of names they released in Providence is 11. So that means there are 114 that nobody knows who they are.”
See:
Monday, October 22, 2007
Silent Victims: Neither church nor advocates have done enough. “You don’t patch over the rot, you expose it,” says Boston organizer Paul Kellen
*****
Link to Paul Kellen quotes and article: “silent Victims”
http://cityofangels3.blogspot.com/2007/10/silent-victims-neither-church-nor.html
How the Boston Globe reported the discrepancy in Rhode Island’s church pedophili priest perpetrator numbers last October
“BishopAccountability.org, a victim advocacy organization that maintains an electronic archive of abuse scandal documents, discovered the document ((that showed the discrepancy in Rhode Island numbers) in a court file and released it yesterday. The organization said it has calculated that more than 10 percent of Rhode Island priests have been accused of abuse since 1950, which could give the tiny state the highest rate of abuse allegations in the nation. By contrast, 4 percent of priests nationally and about 7 percent of priests in Boston were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2002.
“The exact rate of alleged abuse in Rhode Island, the most Catholic state in the nation, is not possible to determine, because the diocese has not said how many priests served there since 1971 and has not revised Mulvee's figure of 56 accused priests since 1950 to reflect the new data contained in the court document.
See:
Wellesley (MA) Townsman 7.4.02; SNAP: The Survivor's Voice 3.16.03; Boston Globe 10.20.07 (see picture); Kent County Times 11.30.07; Providence Journal 12.3.07
Assignments:
Detailed BA.org Assignment Record
DARN, I still can't figure out how to get links to work inside the blog. So just copy and paste those into your address, then GO:
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger's ability to keep posting alive.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
CONCLUSION for the day: Catholic public statistics only use lawsuits for data and ignore all the other cases, like those the church handles by help with therapy: quietly, privately, secretly. They put on a compassionate face to the victim, then tell the public the victim doesn't really exist, those allegations are false, how could they be true, the victim did not even file a lawsuit. Catch 22. . .
Onward
By Kay Ebeling
“They wouldn't have paid for my therapy if I had sued," said Ann Hagan Webb. "I had to sign a paper that they would not be liable in any other financial way."
Only an omnipotent organization operating outside the law like the Catholic Church can carry out a Catch 22 like this: Archdioceses offer victims help with therapy as a way to "heal" without lawsuits. Then when it cooks up its statistics on pedophile priests, the Church only counts successful lawsuits. Catch 22. (For example Sr. McNiff's chart in the LA Times, see January 8 post.)
In Ann Webb’s case, they paid for her therapy, but the church says hers is a false claim. A portrait of her perpetrator greets you when you walk into Sacred Heart Church in the Providence Archdiocese of Rhode Island.
Last time Webb’s husband saw that portrait he smashed his fist through the glass.
Yes, he smashed a fist through the glass. Mr. Webb is a straight arrow Massachusetts citizen, a scientist and businessman who for 20 years has sold his inventions to places like NASA. He has no criminal record. He and Ann raised three children to adulthood and are putting them through college. But last October when he saw Monsignor Anthony DeAngelis’ portrait still hanging in the entryway of Sacred Heart Church in West Warwick, Webb punched his fist through the glass.
The church had him arrested. However, police got him back in time to continue protesting at the second Mass.
Ann Webb, who co-directs the New England SNAP Regional Office - Boston, explains it:
"He had been there outside picketing, because the portrait was still hanging, walking back and forth and leafleting, and he was talking to a reporter. My mother’s friend comes out and says, oh they took that picture down.
"He and the reporter go let’s go in and see. They go inside and the picture was still there. All of a sudden I don't know he just punched it, it broke the glass but didn't hurt the picture.
He had a glove on. . .”
The church showed its compassion for the families of pedophile priest victims. They called the police.
“The cops were very-very nice and had him back to finish picketing for the second Mass.”
Later (Sacred Heart's) Fr. Bucci said as long as Webb paid for the damages, the church will drop the charges. He also wanted Webb to promise she and SNAP would stop demonstrating outside the church. They never agreed to that.
The Webbs paid the church $15.83 and cleared their name.
“We paid it and Fr. Bucci agreed not to file any charges.”
*******
They just don’t get it. There’s a sensitivity you expect from a church, they just don’t have it. More after this:
*******
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger alive.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
Ann continues, explaining why they were protesting outside Sacred Heart again Sunday January 13.
“Fr. Bucci writes this horrible letter a week later to the church, to all members of the church He calls me a liar saying my charges are uncorroborated. He claims they've found evidence of false memory in my case.”
******
Some quotes from the letter from Father Bucci to the parishioners about Webb:
"AFTER the deplorable events Sunday December 2nd when our parish church was desecrated. . .
"I want to clarify I have only spoken two occasions with Mrs. Webb. . .
WEBB: He calls me Mrs. Webb all through the letter. I have my doctorate.
(Webb is a psychologist now working primarily with priest rape victims.)
“The accuracy of recovered memory is beyond my competency and pay grade." writes Fr. Bucci. "The Diocese of Providence decided to assist Mrs. Webb with $12,500. . .
“This might be construed as an admission of guilt, or some reasonable doubt sufficient for civil action or merely a decision to avoid litigation, however --
(Sorry, readers, Ann emailed me the letter but my computer wouldn't open the attachment, city of angels blog will try to get a full copy of the letter soon.)
The letter referred to the “sacrilegious violence of Mr. Webb in the church.”
Webb and I on the phone both agreed:
We can tell you about some sacrilegious violence.
There’s another lie in Bucci’s letter to the parishioners, according to Ann Webb.
Bucci wrote: “Unless we receive a pledge of no further disruptions by SNAP VOTF ACLU, we will not drop the charges."
(All them pesky alphabet groups are the same!)
“He led parishioiners to believe we agreed to that,” she said. “All we had to do was pay the $15.83 we never promised anybody would not be outside again.”
It’s a public sidewalk.
However because Bucci wrote that in his treatise to the parishioners about her, when Webb and about 20 other protestors showed up again last Sunday, parishioners thought the group was breaking their new agreement with Fr. Bucci. Some were hostile to Webb and her group as they leafletted.
The church demanded detailed therapy files from Ann Hagan Webb in order to settle her claim. Then they apparently ignored those therapy files.
After this:
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger's teenage daughter alive.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
“Bucci obviously never read the therapy files he demanded from me,” Webb says about his letter to parishioners that her memories are false.
“I went to the church in 1994 when they said in the news that they’d pay for people’s therapy and I went to the pastor there, Fr. Turillo. I went to the church asking for help with therapy. Two years later after fighting with me, they paid what the insurance hadn’t covered.
“They were advertising in the paper at the time, you know, we'll help survivors.
“Well all I got was letters from lawyers. Then they demanded all my therapy notes."
First she got letters from lawyers asking for phone numbers of witnesses. The Church Attorneys never called the witnesses.
“Then they sent me a letter saying my claim wasn’t corroborated.
“Finally two years later I took them the therapy notes they were demanding and then gave me a check which covered everything that I had paid out of pocket so far.”
A check for $12,500
Ann Hagan Webb felt violated turning over her therapy files:
“Those notes had everything. Years later I was horrified that I did that but I was at the end of my rope and I needed the validation.
“When the church was fighting me about it I felt -- like I wasn’t being validated -- so I gave them the therapy notes.”
Still the church sent a letter to all parishioners calling her a liar, questioning her sanity, saying her memories are false.
"It was like an extra thing they handed out with the bulletin My god mother passed it on to me, ‘Dear Parishioners.’
"I Felt Like I Had to Respond"
Ann was back in front of Sacred Heart in Rhode Island Sunday Jan. 10 with about 25 dedicated New England protestors, aka Sidewalk VOTF, handing out the letter Webb wrote in response, which is reprinted after this blog:
“We were going to put my letter on people’s windshields,” Webb said, “but that might be trespassing. I don't want to commit another crime against the church….”
THERE’S MORE:
Why was Sidewalk VOTF protesting at Sacred Heart Church in Providence last Fall in the first place? After this
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger, and her teenage daughter who wants to go to college, alive.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
Loyal readers will remember this from the October 22 2007 post at City of Angels Blog:
Documents released (in fall 2007) by attorneys for the archdiocese in Rhode Island contradict numbers released by the Rhode Island Archdiocese in the John Jay Report. Paul Kellen described the situation:
“In the John Jay Report the Diocese of Providence reported from 1957 - 2002, there were 56 accused priests.
“The diocese of Providence is now being sued by somebody within the statute of limitations for failure to supervise and in that case the Judge ordered release of documents.
“The diocese is objecting due to undue hardship because we would have to prepare copies of documents on 125 accused pedophiles.
“So they just said 125 accused priests since 1971, in their own documents filed with Superior Court in Providence by their own attorneys.
“The number of names they released in Providence is 11. So that means there are 114 that nobody knows who they are.”
See:
Monday, October 22, 2007
Silent Victims: Neither church nor advocates have done enough. “You don’t patch over the rot, you expose it,” says Boston organizer Paul Kellen
*****
Link to Paul Kellen quotes and article: “silent Victims”
http://cityofangels3.blogspot.com/2007/10/silent-victims-neither-church-nor.html
How the Boston Globe reported the discrepancy in Rhode Island’s church pedophili priest perpetrator numbers last October
“BishopAccountability.org, a victim advocacy organization that maintains an electronic archive of abuse scandal documents, discovered the document ((that showed the discrepancy in Rhode Island numbers) in a court file and released it yesterday. The organization said it has calculated that more than 10 percent of Rhode Island priests have been accused of abuse since 1950, which could give the tiny state the highest rate of abuse allegations in the nation. By contrast, 4 percent of priests nationally and about 7 percent of priests in Boston were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2002.
“The exact rate of alleged abuse in Rhode Island, the most Catholic state in the nation, is not possible to determine, because the diocese has not said how many priests served there since 1971 and has not revised Mulvee's figure of 56 accused priests since 1950 to reflect the new data contained in the court document.
See:
Wellesley (MA) Townsman 7.4.02; SNAP: The Survivor's Voice 3.16.03; Boston Globe 10.20.07 (see picture); Kent County Times 11.30.07; Providence Journal 12.3.07
Assignments:
Detailed BA.org Assignment Record
DARN, I still can't figure out how to get links to work inside the blog. So just copy and paste those into your address, then GO:
COMMERCIAL
For an ethereal experience, click the PayPal button in the top left column. Then pay any amount of money you want for Readership of City of Angels blog. You'll be helping to keep the blog and the blogger's ability to keep posting alive.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
CONCLUSION for the day: Catholic public statistics only use lawsuits for data and ignore all the other cases, like those the church handles by help with therapy: quietly, privately, secretly. They put on a compassionate face to the victim, then tell the public the victim doesn't really exist, those allegations are false, how could they be true, the victim did not even file a lawsuit. Catch 22. . .
Onward
Ann Webb's response to Fr. Bucci's letter to parishioners
Dear Sacred Heart Parishioners, January 12, 2008
A few weeks ago you received a letter from your pastor about our leafleting outside the church. I felt compelled to reply, but have waited until now in respect for the Christmas Season.
I cannot be silent. My history of abuse is true.
In 1957, when I was a kindergartener at Sacred Heart School (kindergarten was still held in the convent then), Msgr. Anthony DeAngelis began taking me out of school to “help” at the rectory – a little at first, then more and more. The sexual abuse escalated over the years. By 3rd or 4th grade one of the lay teachers complained to my mother that I was taken out of class a lot. No one questioned that I was given favored status. My parents were proud that DeAngelis called on me by name at the children’s mass, often picked me to crown the Blessed Mother in May, and had me represent the school at his elevation to Monsignor at the cathedral. They didn’t know the horrible truth of what was happening to me. I was a little girl who believed in Santa Claus, whose feet didn’t reach the floor when I sat in the grown up chairs at the rectory. He called me “bella Anna”. Sexual abuse by a priest simply could not compute in my 5-year-old, or 8-year-old, or 11-year-old mind. I dissociated and put what was too horrible to remember away in my memory. It stayed locked away until 1992, when I was strong enough to remember, and when my children were about the same age I was when it began.
In 1994, I reported the abuse by Msgr. DeAngelis to the Providence Diocese and to Fr. Turillo. The Diocese agreed to help pay for my therapy. I never attempted to sue the church.
In 2002, ten years after I remembered the abuse, I publicly spoke about being abused by a priest for the first time. Please understand that public speaking is something most abuse survivors never do, and it is a decision fraught with anxiety, embarrassment, and shame. But I needed to do just that - speak the truth, privately first, then publicly.
Being “public” came at considerable cost to me and my family. It forced me to face countless fears about telling what I was never supposed to tell. Often my hand would shake so much I could barely read my statement, and my throat was so dry I didn’t think the words could be spoken. There were hundreds of sleepless nights as I struggled with yet another nightmare, second-guessed what would be taken out of context by a reporter, or wondered where I would get the fortitude and stamina to keep fighting this battle for the truth. But always it was worth it, as one more clergy abuse survivor pulled together the courage to pick up the phone or email me and began with “I called you because I haven’t told anyone and it’s time I told…..,” or “I thought it was only boys, and no one would believe me, I was a girl of 10….” They are calling simply to be heard, to finally share their secrets.
Since our leafleting in December I have heard from two priest abuse survivors who’ve never told anyone outside their family about the abuse. One is a man who was abused at Sacred Heart as a child by one of the other known abusers who’ve worked at this parish.
This alone made standing outside Sacred Heart worth it. It was an extremely difficult thing to do and I had avoided it like the plague for 5 years, out of simple fear. I was shocked to hear that my husband became emotional and punched the picture of Msgr. DeAngelis. He has paid for the damages, and the charges have been dropped. I would never have suggested he do such a thing, but can’t help but feel loved and supported by him, even in this uncharacteristic act.
Sacred Heart was the home to at least four priests who molested children - Msgr. Anthony DeAngelis, Fr. Robert Marcantonio, Fr. Edmund Micarelli, and Fr. Richard Meglio. Their victims almost certainly include people in your parish or in your West Warwick neighborhoods – people who have kept their abuse secret, for fear that they would not be believed. Most victims keep their secrets, never sue, and never speak to a reporter. They silently wince when someone tells a priest abuse joke, and deal with their memories and nightmares alone.
You can help these victims come forward. A welcoming attitude from the parish community could encourage them. I would be happy to arrange an open dialog between clergy abuse survivors and parishioners if it would help bring understanding.
Peace,
Ann Hagan Webb. Ed.D.
former parishioner
A few weeks ago you received a letter from your pastor about our leafleting outside the church. I felt compelled to reply, but have waited until now in respect for the Christmas Season.
I cannot be silent. My history of abuse is true.
In 1957, when I was a kindergartener at Sacred Heart School (kindergarten was still held in the convent then), Msgr. Anthony DeAngelis began taking me out of school to “help” at the rectory – a little at first, then more and more. The sexual abuse escalated over the years. By 3rd or 4th grade one of the lay teachers complained to my mother that I was taken out of class a lot. No one questioned that I was given favored status. My parents were proud that DeAngelis called on me by name at the children’s mass, often picked me to crown the Blessed Mother in May, and had me represent the school at his elevation to Monsignor at the cathedral. They didn’t know the horrible truth of what was happening to me. I was a little girl who believed in Santa Claus, whose feet didn’t reach the floor when I sat in the grown up chairs at the rectory. He called me “bella Anna”. Sexual abuse by a priest simply could not compute in my 5-year-old, or 8-year-old, or 11-year-old mind. I dissociated and put what was too horrible to remember away in my memory. It stayed locked away until 1992, when I was strong enough to remember, and when my children were about the same age I was when it began.
In 1994, I reported the abuse by Msgr. DeAngelis to the Providence Diocese and to Fr. Turillo. The Diocese agreed to help pay for my therapy. I never attempted to sue the church.
In 2002, ten years after I remembered the abuse, I publicly spoke about being abused by a priest for the first time. Please understand that public speaking is something most abuse survivors never do, and it is a decision fraught with anxiety, embarrassment, and shame. But I needed to do just that - speak the truth, privately first, then publicly.
Being “public” came at considerable cost to me and my family. It forced me to face countless fears about telling what I was never supposed to tell. Often my hand would shake so much I could barely read my statement, and my throat was so dry I didn’t think the words could be spoken. There were hundreds of sleepless nights as I struggled with yet another nightmare, second-guessed what would be taken out of context by a reporter, or wondered where I would get the fortitude and stamina to keep fighting this battle for the truth. But always it was worth it, as one more clergy abuse survivor pulled together the courage to pick up the phone or email me and began with “I called you because I haven’t told anyone and it’s time I told…..,” or “I thought it was only boys, and no one would believe me, I was a girl of 10….” They are calling simply to be heard, to finally share their secrets.
Since our leafleting in December I have heard from two priest abuse survivors who’ve never told anyone outside their family about the abuse. One is a man who was abused at Sacred Heart as a child by one of the other known abusers who’ve worked at this parish.
This alone made standing outside Sacred Heart worth it. It was an extremely difficult thing to do and I had avoided it like the plague for 5 years, out of simple fear. I was shocked to hear that my husband became emotional and punched the picture of Msgr. DeAngelis. He has paid for the damages, and the charges have been dropped. I would never have suggested he do such a thing, but can’t help but feel loved and supported by him, even in this uncharacteristic act.
Sacred Heart was the home to at least four priests who molested children - Msgr. Anthony DeAngelis, Fr. Robert Marcantonio, Fr. Edmund Micarelli, and Fr. Richard Meglio. Their victims almost certainly include people in your parish or in your West Warwick neighborhoods – people who have kept their abuse secret, for fear that they would not be believed. Most victims keep their secrets, never sue, and never speak to a reporter. They silently wince when someone tells a priest abuse joke, and deal with their memories and nightmares alone.
You can help these victims come forward. A welcoming attitude from the parish community could encourage them. I would be happy to arrange an open dialog between clergy abuse survivors and parishioners if it would help bring understanding.
Peace,
Ann Hagan Webb. Ed.D.
former parishioner
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Blatant lies in LA Times opinion piece by Archdiocese Victims' coordinator. I know, because they involve my case.
*****
Plus Archdiocese lead law firm runs anonymous clergy case website. What are they ashamed of?
By Kay Ebeling
I HAVE TO SAY THIS. Sister Sheila McNiff was directly involved in my case for a few hours in 2003, the same Sister Sheila McNiff who wrote an opinion piece published in the LA Times December 18th praising the church for having obviously solved its pedophile priest problems way back in the 1980s and here’s a chart to prove it.
There is an active comment area at the Times for persons to respond online to McNiff’s piece linked at left. The “Blowback” was supposed to be open for 2 weeks, but mysteriously the Times is running only a small selection of comments since the first three days.
I have to say this. There’s blatant lies and coercive truth bending in Sister Sheila McNiff’s op-ed piece (surprise, surprise). I know because of the way Sister Sheila McNiff handled my own case back in December 2003.
She writes for the Times: “As coordinator of the Victims Assistance Ministry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, I have been privileged to walk with many of these victims, to listen to their stories... to offer support and counseling and to be available to them when needed.”
Whoa, wait a minute stop right there in paragraph one: When my daughter and I were homeless Sister Sheila showed up at the motel where we were staying, paying weekly rent. We were rapidly running out of money.
Sure she walked around the block with me and listened to my story. Then every time I called her the next few weeks, she became less and less available. In our first conversation she had intimated she could help us connect with one of the archdiocese’s numerous homeless programs -- then over the weeks she stopped returning phone calls.
Once I called desperately asking help as my daughter had, in order to to avoid being raped, had to give up her laptop to a guy --
I called Sister Sheila McNiff, Coordinator of Victims Assistance Ministry in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles begging
BEGGING!!!
for help. She stopped returning our calls. This woman is a NUN!! January 1, 2004, we drove off from that motel and lived in our car until April when we finally got into a shelter -- a shelter run by evangelical Christians.
Mary Grant from SNAP did try to get us into a Santa Ama shelter, but I had promised my daughter years ago we'd never go back to Orange County.
Sister Sheila may have listened to my story, but she sure never offered “support” she never mentioned “counseling” and she was never “available.” There’s three lies right there, not to mention what those acts say about her character, and about the Office of Victims Assistance Ministry in LA.
McNiff in her LA Times piece offers up a nifty chart with blue green and orange spikes and accompanies it with MORE BLATANT OBFUSCATION OF TRUTH.
She writes:
"The graph below, put together by the archdiocese, charts the years during which 254 perpetrators were alleged to have victimized the 553 people involved in the civil cases in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Most of these incidents were reported for the first time as a result of lawsuits filed in 2003."
553 victims are only a fraction.
More After this
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The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: City of Angels Produced Videos.
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Sister Sheila bases her PowerPoint graphic on the 553 civil lawsuits that were settled in the last two years in LA.
Those cases represent only a fraction of the total number of crime victims of pedophile priests in Los Angeles. Hardly anyone even heard that a window opened to file civil cases for one year in 2003 regardless of the Statute of Limitations. I’m a journalist and a news junkie and I never saw a story about it.
Civil attorneys say they had to turn down cases in 2003 because there was not enough evidence or because witnesses were no longer alive. Those same attorneys have told me that today they still take calls from people who wonder if there is any way they can still file a lawsuit. They can’t.
Plus, I wonder if there are other people like me who were re-victimized more or less by
Sister Sheila McNiff, Coordinator of the Victims Assistance Ministry. Sure, Sister Sheila took notes and reported my case to the Chicago Archdiocese.
But guess what
Since she offered NO HELP AT ALL to me and my daughter, we ended up in the chaos of homelessness for almost two more years. It was November 2005 when I finally got into an apartment with my own computer, an internet connection, and the ability to follow up on my case.
One of the first things I did as soon as I got online was contact people in Chicago.
And guess what?
When I had the conversation with Sister Sheila McNiff the timer started according to Illinois law and their statute of limitations. The Archdiocese had a the report filed by Sister Sheila McNiff on their computers.
So in November 2005 when I was finally able to follow up, to file a civil lawsuit, my time had run out. It was now too late, two years later was too late, and legally I didn't have a case.
Sister Sheila McNiff, “Coordinator of the Victims Assistance Ministry,” did her job for the LA Archdiocese which was to obstruct progress and action in my case.
Plus her total lack of concern for me with a then 15 year old daughter in our situation still astounds me today.
The only way Sister Sheila’s actions make sense is if her job was to beat us down and prevent me from coming forward with my case.
Sister Sheila McNiff blatantly avoided doing ANYTHING for me other than file her little statistical report with Chicago, thus in her own little covert way, assuring that I didn't follow up on my case, for a long time, maybe she figured I’d never make it back.
What about the “Blowback” in the LA Times? After this:
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The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report it as income to the IRS, with deductions) Soon to Come: City of Angels Produced Videos
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The LA Times has this little section called Blowback, where people can post comments about opinion pieces. They only open it up now and then, as the LA Times doesn't allow comments on just any article.
They opened up a Blowback on Pedophile Priests on January 1st.
There were
18 comments on January 1
13 on January 2
10 on January 3
7 on January 4th
Hmm I wrote one on January 4th and it never ran.
I posted another one on the 5th.
Late in the morning on January 7th the Times published
4 comments that were sent in on on the 5th
1 sent in on the 6th, mine.
4 from January 7th
and next day
1 from January 8th
From January 4 on I was getting emails from people saying they submitted comments to the Blowback and they never made it to the page.
Someone from the archdiocese posted this:
5. Go to la-clergycases.com to read what's really going on.
Submitted by: Kay
11:11 AM PST, January 7, 2008
(That "Kay" is not me)
Hennigan Bennett & Dorman, the Archdiocese lead law firm, for defense in the clergy cases runs the website: la-clergycases.
I KNOW THIS BECAUSE:
The first or second time I went to court to cover pre-trial hearings, about February 2006, one of the lawyers from Hennigan asked me who I was. I said I wrote a blog called Clergy Cases Los Angeles and he said,
“Oh we have a website with that same name,”
And he wrote down that website. La-clergycases.com
When you go there you can read articles such as:
"Times Story Was Wrong From The Beginning"
Where they put forward the old argument that since Mahony didn't become archbishop until 1985 he would know nothing about pedophile priests in Southern California, as if Mahony worked his way up to Archbishop without ever talking about pedophiles in the priesthood with other hierarchy -- ?
None of the articles on this la-clergycases.com website has a by-line --
There is no identification of a name or organization that runs the website.
“Contact Us” takes you to a blank form, no identifying name of a person or organization.
But I know it's run by the Hennigan Bennett & Dorman law firm, as one of their main attorneys told me they run that website at a February clergy case hearing,
Before anyone knew that deep inside those first "Clergy Cases LA" postings here lurked the City of Angels Blog.
More about Blowback after this:
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The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: Videos.
End Commercial Break.
A friend up north who keeps track of these things emailed me yesterday about the Blowback:”
“The Times Blowback is up to 53 comments posted, yet we KNOW at least 126 have been submitted.”
For some reason the Times felt it had to hold back about 150 comments --
(oops, Math has never been my best subject) --
The Times held back numerous comments in the Blowback section, when all across the Internet --
New York Daily News
New Orleans Times - Picayune
Daily Variety
To name a few -- Most major papers with Comments sections keep it dynamic. You hit post and your post goes up. It becomes a lively active dialogue in the community.
The LA Times waits, sometimes days, before it puts up your comment.
Blowback is supposed to be open for two weeks. I’d take a few hours to track down and call the opinion editors to get their own comments about their decision to edit comments, but they’d just feed me corporate blather anyway. The Times is so accessible...
The only true free speech in America today is on BLOGS!!!
The “Blowback,” where people can comment online on articles the Times deems worthy of comment, was started Jan. 1, after Tony DeMarco of KBLA clergy case plaintiffs’ law firm wrote an op-ed piece pointing out another hole in Sister Sheila’s piece:
She wrote:
"“The graph shows that most of the abuse was clustered from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, however, the graph shows that incidents drop off dramatically. For instance, while there were 49 offenders who abused victims in 1981, that number dropped to 11 in 1991, and there were none in 2001”. (SIC)
Anyone who's worked on clergy cases knows most pedophile priest victims don’t come forward until 20 to 40 years after the incidents.
Some never come forward at all.
As DeMarco put it:
Last graph of DeMarco’s editorial:
“Victims of childhood sexual abuse typically do not come forward until they are adults, and have children, nieces and nephews who are the age they were when they were abused. It is only then that victims of childhood sexual abuse finally realize on a visceral level that the adult truly was in control, and the abuse was not the child's fault. Because of this, many of the children abused in the late 1980s, 1990s and in this decade have yet to come forward.”
That's what happened in my case. My daughter turned five, the age I was, and I became first over-protective like a mania, and then realized what had happened to me -- at age 45 -- 40 years later.
Why Am I ragging on Sister Sheila?
Readers of this blog know I’m a flower child
I don’t often go off on individuals,
I don't like name calling,
(Only when they deserve it.)
and I actually ended up liking almost everyone in the clergy cases, even the church attorneys.
Although I can’t resist pointing out that J. Michael Hennigan looks like The Cat In The Hat --
But Sister Sheila McNiff, Victim Assistance Coordinator for the LA Archdiocese, deserves singling out.
I remember her voice on the phone as she evaded helping us. She was smiling. Taking almost a salacious glee in our anguish, this nun told me--
one of the victims she’s supposed to be assisting
-- that there was no room in any of their shelters, any of their condos, apartment buildings, or even flop houses on Skid Row --
You could tell she wasn’t going to give it a moment’s effort --
She runs the LA Archdiocese Victims Assistance Ministry.
And she wanted me to fall and never return.
I’m ba-a-a-ack.
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The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: City of Angels Produced Videos.
End Commercial Break.
Onward
Plus Archdiocese lead law firm runs anonymous clergy case website. What are they ashamed of?
By Kay Ebeling
I HAVE TO SAY THIS. Sister Sheila McNiff was directly involved in my case for a few hours in 2003, the same Sister Sheila McNiff who wrote an opinion piece published in the LA Times December 18th praising the church for having obviously solved its pedophile priest problems way back in the 1980s and here’s a chart to prove it.
There is an active comment area at the Times for persons to respond online to McNiff’s piece linked at left. The “Blowback” was supposed to be open for 2 weeks, but mysteriously the Times is running only a small selection of comments since the first three days.
I have to say this. There’s blatant lies and coercive truth bending in Sister Sheila McNiff’s op-ed piece (surprise, surprise). I know because of the way Sister Sheila McNiff handled my own case back in December 2003.
She writes for the Times: “As coordinator of the Victims Assistance Ministry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, I have been privileged to walk with many of these victims, to listen to their stories... to offer support and counseling and to be available to them when needed.”
Whoa, wait a minute stop right there in paragraph one: When my daughter and I were homeless Sister Sheila showed up at the motel where we were staying, paying weekly rent. We were rapidly running out of money.
Sure she walked around the block with me and listened to my story. Then every time I called her the next few weeks, she became less and less available. In our first conversation she had intimated she could help us connect with one of the archdiocese’s numerous homeless programs -- then over the weeks she stopped returning phone calls.
Once I called desperately asking help as my daughter had, in order to to avoid being raped, had to give up her laptop to a guy --
I called Sister Sheila McNiff, Coordinator of Victims Assistance Ministry in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles begging
BEGGING!!!
for help. She stopped returning our calls. This woman is a NUN!! January 1, 2004, we drove off from that motel and lived in our car until April when we finally got into a shelter -- a shelter run by evangelical Christians.
Mary Grant from SNAP did try to get us into a Santa Ama shelter, but I had promised my daughter years ago we'd never go back to Orange County.
Sister Sheila may have listened to my story, but she sure never offered “support” she never mentioned “counseling” and she was never “available.” There’s three lies right there, not to mention what those acts say about her character, and about the Office of Victims Assistance Ministry in LA.
McNiff in her LA Times piece offers up a nifty chart with blue green and orange spikes and accompanies it with MORE BLATANT OBFUSCATION OF TRUTH.
She writes:
"The graph below, put together by the archdiocese, charts the years during which 254 perpetrators were alleged to have victimized the 553 people involved in the civil cases in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Most of these incidents were reported for the first time as a result of lawsuits filed in 2003."
553 victims are only a fraction.
More After this
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The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: City of Angels Produced Videos.
End Commercial Break.
Sister Sheila bases her PowerPoint graphic on the 553 civil lawsuits that were settled in the last two years in LA.
Those cases represent only a fraction of the total number of crime victims of pedophile priests in Los Angeles. Hardly anyone even heard that a window opened to file civil cases for one year in 2003 regardless of the Statute of Limitations. I’m a journalist and a news junkie and I never saw a story about it.
Civil attorneys say they had to turn down cases in 2003 because there was not enough evidence or because witnesses were no longer alive. Those same attorneys have told me that today they still take calls from people who wonder if there is any way they can still file a lawsuit. They can’t.
Plus, I wonder if there are other people like me who were re-victimized more or less by
Sister Sheila McNiff, Coordinator of the Victims Assistance Ministry. Sure, Sister Sheila took notes and reported my case to the Chicago Archdiocese.
But guess what
Since she offered NO HELP AT ALL to me and my daughter, we ended up in the chaos of homelessness for almost two more years. It was November 2005 when I finally got into an apartment with my own computer, an internet connection, and the ability to follow up on my case.
One of the first things I did as soon as I got online was contact people in Chicago.
And guess what?
When I had the conversation with Sister Sheila McNiff the timer started according to Illinois law and their statute of limitations. The Archdiocese had a the report filed by Sister Sheila McNiff on their computers.
So in November 2005 when I was finally able to follow up, to file a civil lawsuit, my time had run out. It was now too late, two years later was too late, and legally I didn't have a case.
Sister Sheila McNiff, “Coordinator of the Victims Assistance Ministry,” did her job for the LA Archdiocese which was to obstruct progress and action in my case.
Plus her total lack of concern for me with a then 15 year old daughter in our situation still astounds me today.
The only way Sister Sheila’s actions make sense is if her job was to beat us down and prevent me from coming forward with my case.
Sister Sheila McNiff blatantly avoided doing ANYTHING for me other than file her little statistical report with Chicago, thus in her own little covert way, assuring that I didn't follow up on my case, for a long time, maybe she figured I’d never make it back.
What about the “Blowback” in the LA Times? After this:
Commercial Break
The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report it as income to the IRS, with deductions) Soon to Come: City of Angels Produced Videos
End Commercial Break.
The LA Times has this little section called Blowback, where people can post comments about opinion pieces. They only open it up now and then, as the LA Times doesn't allow comments on just any article.
They opened up a Blowback on Pedophile Priests on January 1st.
There were
18 comments on January 1
13 on January 2
10 on January 3
7 on January 4th
Hmm I wrote one on January 4th and it never ran.
I posted another one on the 5th.
Late in the morning on January 7th the Times published
4 comments that were sent in on on the 5th
1 sent in on the 6th, mine.
4 from January 7th
and next day
1 from January 8th
From January 4 on I was getting emails from people saying they submitted comments to the Blowback and they never made it to the page.
Someone from the archdiocese posted this:
5. Go to la-clergycases.com to read what's really going on.
Submitted by: Kay
11:11 AM PST, January 7, 2008
(That "Kay" is not me)
Hennigan Bennett & Dorman, the Archdiocese lead law firm, for defense in the clergy cases runs the website: la-clergycases.
I KNOW THIS BECAUSE:
The first or second time I went to court to cover pre-trial hearings, about February 2006, one of the lawyers from Hennigan asked me who I was. I said I wrote a blog called Clergy Cases Los Angeles and he said,
“Oh we have a website with that same name,”
And he wrote down that website. La-clergycases.com
When you go there you can read articles such as:
"Times Story Was Wrong From The Beginning"
Where they put forward the old argument that since Mahony didn't become archbishop until 1985 he would know nothing about pedophile priests in Southern California, as if Mahony worked his way up to Archbishop without ever talking about pedophiles in the priesthood with other hierarchy -- ?
None of the articles on this la-clergycases.com website has a by-line --
There is no identification of a name or organization that runs the website.
“Contact Us” takes you to a blank form, no identifying name of a person or organization.
But I know it's run by the Hennigan Bennett & Dorman law firm, as one of their main attorneys told me they run that website at a February clergy case hearing,
Before anyone knew that deep inside those first "Clergy Cases LA" postings here lurked the City of Angels Blog.
More about Blowback after this:
Commercial Break
The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: Videos.
End Commercial Break.
A friend up north who keeps track of these things emailed me yesterday about the Blowback:”
“The Times Blowback is up to 53 comments posted, yet we KNOW at least 126 have been submitted.”
For some reason the Times felt it had to hold back about 150 comments --
(oops, Math has never been my best subject) --
The Times held back numerous comments in the Blowback section, when all across the Internet --
New York Daily News
New Orleans Times - Picayune
Daily Variety
To name a few -- Most major papers with Comments sections keep it dynamic. You hit post and your post goes up. It becomes a lively active dialogue in the community.
The LA Times waits, sometimes days, before it puts up your comment.
Blowback is supposed to be open for two weeks. I’d take a few hours to track down and call the opinion editors to get their own comments about their decision to edit comments, but they’d just feed me corporate blather anyway. The Times is so accessible...
The only true free speech in America today is on BLOGS!!!
The “Blowback,” where people can comment online on articles the Times deems worthy of comment, was started Jan. 1, after Tony DeMarco of KBLA clergy case plaintiffs’ law firm wrote an op-ed piece pointing out another hole in Sister Sheila’s piece:
She wrote:
"“The graph shows that most of the abuse was clustered from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, however, the graph shows that incidents drop off dramatically. For instance, while there were 49 offenders who abused victims in 1981, that number dropped to 11 in 1991, and there were none in 2001”. (SIC)
Anyone who's worked on clergy cases knows most pedophile priest victims don’t come forward until 20 to 40 years after the incidents.
Some never come forward at all.
As DeMarco put it:
Last graph of DeMarco’s editorial:
“Victims of childhood sexual abuse typically do not come forward until they are adults, and have children, nieces and nephews who are the age they were when they were abused. It is only then that victims of childhood sexual abuse finally realize on a visceral level that the adult truly was in control, and the abuse was not the child's fault. Because of this, many of the children abused in the late 1980s, 1990s and in this decade have yet to come forward.”
That's what happened in my case. My daughter turned five, the age I was, and I became first over-protective like a mania, and then realized what had happened to me -- at age 45 -- 40 years later.
Why Am I ragging on Sister Sheila?
Readers of this blog know I’m a flower child
I don’t often go off on individuals,
I don't like name calling,
(Only when they deserve it.)
and I actually ended up liking almost everyone in the clergy cases, even the church attorneys.
Although I can’t resist pointing out that J. Michael Hennigan looks like The Cat In The Hat --
But Sister Sheila McNiff, Victim Assistance Coordinator for the LA Archdiocese, deserves singling out.
I remember her voice on the phone as she evaded helping us. She was smiling. Taking almost a salacious glee in our anguish, this nun told me--
one of the victims she’s supposed to be assisting
-- that there was no room in any of their shelters, any of their condos, apartment buildings, or even flop houses on Skid Row --
You could tell she wasn’t going to give it a moment’s effort --
She runs the LA Archdiocese Victims Assistance Ministry.
And she wanted me to fall and never return.
I’m ba-a-a-ack.
Commercial Break
The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: City of Angels Produced Videos.
End Commercial Break.
Onward
Sunday, January 6, 2008
New videos at this blog regularly
***
WATCH City of Angels Blog daily for a new video clip.
WE GET BACK UP: For Monday Donnie McClurkin sings "We Fall Down and we get up, for a saint is just a sinner who fell down, and got up." For some reason first two Donnie M clips won't play but the third and fourth do fine. . .
Tuesday's video is "Waiting for You" by Kirk Franklin.
Video clips of the song "Epiphany" from Sweeney Todd were here at City of Angels Blog in honor of Epiphany. Crime victims couldl take some time to entertain thoughts of vengeance watching clips from the play and the movie -- especially Johnny Depp singing -- as Jan. 6 in the church is Epiphany.
More to come. . .
Kay Ebeling
Hollywood CA
WATCH City of Angels Blog daily for a new video clip.
WE GET BACK UP: For Monday Donnie McClurkin sings "We Fall Down and we get up, for a saint is just a sinner who fell down, and got up." For some reason first two Donnie M clips won't play but the third and fourth do fine. . .
Tuesday's video is "Waiting for You" by Kirk Franklin.
Video clips of the song "Epiphany" from Sweeney Todd were here at City of Angels Blog in honor of Epiphany. Crime victims couldl take some time to entertain thoughts of vengeance watching clips from the play and the movie -- especially Johnny Depp singing -- as Jan. 6 in the church is Epiphany.
More to come. . .
Kay Ebeling
Hollywood CA
BOSTON VIGIL, part 2: "You Can't Honk for Justice"
*****
By Kay Ebeling
In Boston this morning Bob Sidorowicz said: “We used to have a sign that said honk if you're for justice. The church called the police because of all the honking. The next week our sign said You Can’t Honk for Justice.”
Sidorowicz was at the cathedral in downtown Boston this morning at a vigil honoring the sixth anniversary of Boston Globe articles which brought the pedophile priest issue into national view. However, the group, aka Sidewalk VOTF, has continued to hold vigils on Sundays in front of the cathedral in Boston since 2002. (A link to the first article in the Globe is in the left column of this blog.)
Sidorowicz: I’ve been doing this about five years now. I read about it in the Globe when it first broke and I was really angry and wanted to do something. I came down here and asked these people if I could stand with them and I haven’t left.
“About 40 or 50 people showed up for Mass today in a cathedral that holds about 1700. They have one major mass and this is it.
“I’ve been here not every week, but about 46 Sundays out of each year. We used to have cookies and coffee on tables, but police stopped us from blocking sidewalks with tables. Now have signs and posters with pictures of victims.
“My sign says:
Men Of God Do Not Rape Children
So who are these men who call themselves bishops and priests?
CITY: What do you think Bernard Law is doing this Sunday in January?
Sidorowicz: He’s in a basilica. His reward for being silent was to be given a large basilica all his own in the Vatican.
CITY: Describe the scene downtown Boston today.
Sidorowicz: People come by. People honk horns and wave and say we support you. Other people walk by and call us losers and say to get a life. One or two every couple weeks do that, but mostly people are supportive.
Most of the people who come to Mass here are tourists. I recognize the regulars, there are only about 20 of them. The rest are tourists who want to see the cathedral while they're visiting."
Now what the tourists see are Sidewalk VOTF.
VOTF is Voice of the Faithful, an organization within the church working for reform.
Sidewalk VOTF are the members who stay on the sidewalk
Sidorowicz is a printer in the Boston area.
Interviews were conducted by phone this morning.
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Then RUTH MOORE took the phone and said:
“We've got a good gathering here. We've got to be 25-30 now.
"It's the 6th anniversary of the Globe articles about the church’s widespread cover up. Those articles started a wave across the country.”
CITY: Describe the scene there.
Ruth Moore: We have yellow crime scene tape stretched across the light poles and people are holding crime tape.
“We have hundreds of pictures -- we don’t have them all out -- We have three large posters of the quilt, the SNAP quilts.
CITY: What brings you here this morning?
MOORE: We came 6 years ago to the cathedral and we were stunned at the response we got shocked at the whole thing
“We stood here hoping something would change
“Nothing has changed,
“We'll continue to come here until there’s change
“We have someone here every week If I’m off someone else picks up and stands here for me.
“Even if there are only two persons, there’s always someone here on Sunday. And sometimes more than once a week.
“We have a good four survivors who come, the rest of us are supporters.
“We stand here for them knowing that they can’t always come.”
“We were so stunned, we've stayed together as a community we're a very close family type group.”
------------
Ann Hagan Webb then got on the phone:
"I’m a survivor and the New England coordinator of SNAP. We're here this morning with crime scene tape, there’s posters, 15-20 people, we're passing out flyers. It’s 38 degrees but that isn’t cold for Boston.
“There’s hardly anyone walking into the church in terms of parishioners. Hardly anybody goes to the cathedral anymore.
“When we first used to come in 2002 Cardinal Law would have busloads of people and every week it would be somebody different Plus a lot of Boston Catholics would come.
“Could be our weekly picketing all these years has worked.
“The point is this is still going on,” said Ann Hagan Webb. “I was abused from kindergarten through 7th grade at Sacred Heart in Rhode Island.
“We were at my old church in December to get his picture taken down-- there’s a big picture of my perpetrator in the entry way it’s still there, that's why we were picketing.
BULLETIN ARTICLE
"The priest wrote a disparaging letter to all the parishioners -- I think it was in the bulletin -- he sent a letter to parishioners insinuating my case is possibly false memory--
Then up came Rosemary Morgan wearing a fir hat.
*****$$$???!!!
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END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
ROSEMARY MORGAN: I’ll be age 80 in May and I’ve been coming since the beginning.
CITY: Why?
ROSEMARY: I was a victim of physical and mental abuse by marriage and it holds over. Then you think what they might be going through. The reasons I’m here is because I have compassion for people who have been hurt.
“I’ve been coming for going on seven years. In all kinds, rain storms, snow, sleet, hot-hot days and days like today where it’s nice but it’s damp.
CITY: Anybody say nasty things to you?
ROSEMARY: They say I ought to be ashamed and I say I am ashamed for what's going on there, in the church. And then one time I was over at a church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and we were going to have a rally a woman said And how much are you getting paid for this?
“And my answer was not enough.
Rosemary says she’ll only go to a Catholic Church today for First Communions and weddings.
“I realized Catholic Church had manmade rules and I was following them. If I got married again I’d be excommunicated so it discouraged me. Then having this happen and other things in my life.
“As you know I’m called the Lady of the Lawn Chair. I’m here in my lawn chair this morning, holding a crime scene tape in my hand.
“The police have actually waved to us, which is very-very good.
“In the beginning they did not like us, they did not like us at all. They’d scowl and look at us like we were dirt in other words. Then they came to realize what we were doing, what we were actually doing.
"It’s different now. I suppose you have a few that think we're a little bit odd, but we're doing this for the children and for the survivors."
==============
City of angels lady is now off to church in this coffee house where we meet Sunday evenings. The pastor is single and practices serial monogamy, so there's no questions asked. The music and prayer there is oh so genuine. Kairos on Sundays and the Daily Massage weekdays (linked at bottom of this blog) -- that is my religion, so to speak.
And neighborhood Bible studies where we plan to do Guerrila Christianity.
You don't need religion to pray.
I may not be able to go near a church without doubling over in pain.
They didn't murder my soul.
By Kay Ebeling
In Boston this morning Bob Sidorowicz said: “We used to have a sign that said honk if you're for justice. The church called the police because of all the honking. The next week our sign said You Can’t Honk for Justice.”
Sidorowicz was at the cathedral in downtown Boston this morning at a vigil honoring the sixth anniversary of Boston Globe articles which brought the pedophile priest issue into national view. However, the group, aka Sidewalk VOTF, has continued to hold vigils on Sundays in front of the cathedral in Boston since 2002. (A link to the first article in the Globe is in the left column of this blog.)
Sidorowicz: I’ve been doing this about five years now. I read about it in the Globe when it first broke and I was really angry and wanted to do something. I came down here and asked these people if I could stand with them and I haven’t left.
“About 40 or 50 people showed up for Mass today in a cathedral that holds about 1700. They have one major mass and this is it.
“I’ve been here not every week, but about 46 Sundays out of each year. We used to have cookies and coffee on tables, but police stopped us from blocking sidewalks with tables. Now have signs and posters with pictures of victims.
“My sign says:
Men Of God Do Not Rape Children
So who are these men who call themselves bishops and priests?
CITY: What do you think Bernard Law is doing this Sunday in January?
Sidorowicz: He’s in a basilica. His reward for being silent was to be given a large basilica all his own in the Vatican.
CITY: Describe the scene downtown Boston today.
Sidorowicz: People come by. People honk horns and wave and say we support you. Other people walk by and call us losers and say to get a life. One or two every couple weeks do that, but mostly people are supportive.
Most of the people who come to Mass here are tourists. I recognize the regulars, there are only about 20 of them. The rest are tourists who want to see the cathedral while they're visiting."
Now what the tourists see are Sidewalk VOTF.
VOTF is Voice of the Faithful, an organization within the church working for reform.
Sidewalk VOTF are the members who stay on the sidewalk
Sidorowicz is a printer in the Boston area.
Interviews were conducted by phone this morning.
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Then RUTH MOORE took the phone and said:
“We've got a good gathering here. We've got to be 25-30 now.
"It's the 6th anniversary of the Globe articles about the church’s widespread cover up. Those articles started a wave across the country.”
CITY: Describe the scene there.
Ruth Moore: We have yellow crime scene tape stretched across the light poles and people are holding crime tape.
“We have hundreds of pictures -- we don’t have them all out -- We have three large posters of the quilt, the SNAP quilts.
CITY: What brings you here this morning?
MOORE: We came 6 years ago to the cathedral and we were stunned at the response we got shocked at the whole thing
“We stood here hoping something would change
“Nothing has changed,
“We'll continue to come here until there’s change
“We have someone here every week If I’m off someone else picks up and stands here for me.
“Even if there are only two persons, there’s always someone here on Sunday. And sometimes more than once a week.
“We have a good four survivors who come, the rest of us are supporters.
“We stand here for them knowing that they can’t always come.”
“We were so stunned, we've stayed together as a community we're a very close family type group.”
------------
Ann Hagan Webb then got on the phone:
"I’m a survivor and the New England coordinator of SNAP. We're here this morning with crime scene tape, there’s posters, 15-20 people, we're passing out flyers. It’s 38 degrees but that isn’t cold for Boston.
“There’s hardly anyone walking into the church in terms of parishioners. Hardly anybody goes to the cathedral anymore.
“When we first used to come in 2002 Cardinal Law would have busloads of people and every week it would be somebody different Plus a lot of Boston Catholics would come.
“Could be our weekly picketing all these years has worked.
“The point is this is still going on,” said Ann Hagan Webb. “I was abused from kindergarten through 7th grade at Sacred Heart in Rhode Island.
“We were at my old church in December to get his picture taken down-- there’s a big picture of my perpetrator in the entry way it’s still there, that's why we were picketing.
BULLETIN ARTICLE
"The priest wrote a disparaging letter to all the parishioners -- I think it was in the bulletin -- he sent a letter to parishioners insinuating my case is possibly false memory--
Then up came Rosemary Morgan wearing a fir hat.
*****$$$???!!!
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END COMMERCIAL BREAK*****
ROSEMARY MORGAN: I’ll be age 80 in May and I’ve been coming since the beginning.
CITY: Why?
ROSEMARY: I was a victim of physical and mental abuse by marriage and it holds over. Then you think what they might be going through. The reasons I’m here is because I have compassion for people who have been hurt.
“I’ve been coming for going on seven years. In all kinds, rain storms, snow, sleet, hot-hot days and days like today where it’s nice but it’s damp.
CITY: Anybody say nasty things to you?
ROSEMARY: They say I ought to be ashamed and I say I am ashamed for what's going on there, in the church. And then one time I was over at a church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and we were going to have a rally a woman said And how much are you getting paid for this?
“And my answer was not enough.
Rosemary says she’ll only go to a Catholic Church today for First Communions and weddings.
“I realized Catholic Church had manmade rules and I was following them. If I got married again I’d be excommunicated so it discouraged me. Then having this happen and other things in my life.
“As you know I’m called the Lady of the Lawn Chair. I’m here in my lawn chair this morning, holding a crime scene tape in my hand.
“The police have actually waved to us, which is very-very good.
“In the beginning they did not like us, they did not like us at all. They’d scowl and look at us like we were dirt in other words. Then they came to realize what we were doing, what we were actually doing.
"It’s different now. I suppose you have a few that think we're a little bit odd, but we're doing this for the children and for the survivors."
==============
City of angels lady is now off to church in this coffee house where we meet Sunday evenings. The pastor is single and practices serial monogamy, so there's no questions asked. The music and prayer there is oh so genuine. Kairos on Sundays and the Daily Massage weekdays (linked at bottom of this blog) -- that is my religion, so to speak.
And neighborhood Bible studies where we plan to do Guerrila Christianity.
You don't need religion to pray.
I may not be able to go near a church without doubling over in pain.
They didn't murder my soul.
BOSTON VIGIL: There were almost as many protesters as people attending Mass
*****
By Kay Ebeling
(First report on vigil outside Boston Cathedral today honoring sixth anniversary of Boston Globe 2002 reports on pedophile priests.)
“I realized the Catholic Church had manmade rules and I was following them,” said Rosemary Morgan explaining why at age 80 she still shows up almost every Sunday to protest on the sidewalk outside Boston Cathedral. “I was mentally abused in my marriage," she said. “If I got married again I’d be excommunicated so it discouraged me. Then having this happen and other things in my life.”
She’s known as Our Lady of the Lawn Chair, one of a group of 25-30 who keep the fires burning in Boston while accusations of sex abuse by priests continue across the country. They show up every week, even as those in the news business see pedophile priests as old news.
Most who come to the vigils are not "survivors" or family members of crime victims. These are just plain outraged people who aren’t going to go back home now and let the church get away with years of covering up and aiding and abetting pedophiles. Perhaps three of the 25 persons outside Boston cathedral this morning are reportedly survivors. Those three left early.
“We came 6 years ago to the cathedral and we were stunned at the response we got shocked at the whole thing,” said Ruth Moore.
“We stood here hoping something would change. Well nothing has changed, and we will be here until it does.”
Attendance at the cathedral is one thing that actually has changed. The building holds 1700 to 2400 but there were only about 80 in attendance today.
“Could be our weekly picketing all these years has worked,” said Ann Hagan Webb who’s a survivor and also a SNAP leader in Boston. “When we first used to come in 2002 Cardinal Law used to have busloads of people and every week it would be somebody different.”
“The point is this is still going on,” Ann said. “There are still people coming forward. Just in the last week I talked to survivors here in Massachusetts who are in dire straits while their perpetrators are living in comfortable homes."
One survivor described working at a low paying job where he’d see his perpetrator sail by in a sailboat almost daily -- that survivor doesn't have that job anymore.
City of Angels Blog also spoke with Bob Sidorowicz, Richard Orario, and Ruth Moore, who are part of sidewalk VOTF.
I asked Richard Orario why the weekly vigils continue in Boston and not every city across America?
“Because this was the focal point, this is where it all started with the newspapers. Once newspapers latched onto it people became aware.”
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The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: Videos.
End Commercial Break.
More from RICHARD ORARIO outside Boston Cathedral this morning:
“For me it started after a VOTF conference in Boston, with a march from conference to cathedral as a protest. There has been someone at this corner every Sunday over five years now.
“Two weeks ago we were here in the middle of a blizzard. It was a Thursday, the anniversary of Law’s going to Rome and there were about 10 of us here, included David Clohessy (SNAP exec director) from St. Louis.
“It’s been that way for five years. People have been here all winter, all summer, and we're not a very hearty group. People like myself in their seventies, a couple in their eighties. Here every week.
“I’m not a survivor or any family member a survivor, I’m a supporter.
“I WAS AT THE CHICAGO PROTEST 3-4 years ago when Cardinal George had covered up a another priest’s accusations. It was around Easter, a Good Friday protest.
“The day before, they were doing Holy Thursday service and I was the only protester. They were processing into the church, altar boys, priests, the cardinal. I started yelling at them, screaming at top of voice, ‘You should be indicted, you're criminals, this is nothing but a cover up. The procession slowed down or even stopped.
“He (the Cardinal) lifted his skirts and quickly high-tailed it into the cathedral. The processions ended after that --
Orario gets in their face:
“We just learned of another case here that's just coming to light a boy who was assaulted in the cathedral and rectory by a priest assigned here, right here to this cathedral.
“I went to the priest’s funeral. Here he’d been accused and defrocked, but they praised him to the hilt.
“After he gave the eulogy I asked him, father, I didn't hear you pray for the children. He stopped and said, huh? I said, The ones raped by Father Loreno.
“He said that case was thrown out because the kid relented. And I said, well then why was he defrocked.”
============
Orario said there is room in the cathedral for 2200 and there are less than 100 at today’s main mass.
“Sometimes there’s more people on the altar than at church," Orario said.
Boston cathedral is at the intersection Washington and Union Park. A pretty noisy place, yet the heirarchy complained about the Sidewalk VOTF’s noise.
In Boston this morning Bob Sidorowic said:
“We used to have a sign that said honk if you're for justice. But church complained to the police that all the honking was disrupting their service --
"The next week the sign said You Can’t Honk for Justice.”
More from Bob Sidorowicz and others at the vigil this morning in a post this afternoon.
Friends:
Before commenting that my headline is inaccurate please keep in mind, the Internet allows little people access to the same manipulation and covert control of information held only by the powerful elite for decades.
Of course I know 25 protesters is not almost as many as 80 people attending Mass, and I think the corporate church would put exactly the same spin on its headline. That's why I do it.
It's a BLOG not the New York Times Official Record of History.
I encourage others to start stretching the truth and bending the news in their favor as well, as that's the way it's done in corporate America in 2008-- kay, ranting.
Onward. . .
By Kay Ebeling
(First report on vigil outside Boston Cathedral today honoring sixth anniversary of Boston Globe 2002 reports on pedophile priests.)
“I realized the Catholic Church had manmade rules and I was following them,” said Rosemary Morgan explaining why at age 80 she still shows up almost every Sunday to protest on the sidewalk outside Boston Cathedral. “I was mentally abused in my marriage," she said. “If I got married again I’d be excommunicated so it discouraged me. Then having this happen and other things in my life.”
She’s known as Our Lady of the Lawn Chair, one of a group of 25-30 who keep the fires burning in Boston while accusations of sex abuse by priests continue across the country. They show up every week, even as those in the news business see pedophile priests as old news.
Most who come to the vigils are not "survivors" or family members of crime victims. These are just plain outraged people who aren’t going to go back home now and let the church get away with years of covering up and aiding and abetting pedophiles. Perhaps three of the 25 persons outside Boston cathedral this morning are reportedly survivors. Those three left early.
“We came 6 years ago to the cathedral and we were stunned at the response we got shocked at the whole thing,” said Ruth Moore.
“We stood here hoping something would change. Well nothing has changed, and we will be here until it does.”
Attendance at the cathedral is one thing that actually has changed. The building holds 1700 to 2400 but there were only about 80 in attendance today.
“Could be our weekly picketing all these years has worked,” said Ann Hagan Webb who’s a survivor and also a SNAP leader in Boston. “When we first used to come in 2002 Cardinal Law used to have busloads of people and every week it would be somebody different.”
“The point is this is still going on,” Ann said. “There are still people coming forward. Just in the last week I talked to survivors here in Massachusetts who are in dire straits while their perpetrators are living in comfortable homes."
One survivor described working at a low paying job where he’d see his perpetrator sail by in a sailboat almost daily -- that survivor doesn't have that job anymore.
City of Angels Blog also spoke with Bob Sidorowicz, Richard Orario, and Ruth Moore, who are part of sidewalk VOTF.
I asked Richard Orario why the weekly vigils continue in Boston and not every city across America?
“Because this was the focal point, this is where it all started with the newspapers. Once newspapers latched onto it people became aware.”
Commercial Break
The PayPal project is still here in 2008. We need money for cameras, editing equipment, and a travel budget here at City of Angels Blog. Please click the PayPal button and put on whatever cash you can to keep this blog alive and thriving. (I report this as income to IRS) Soon to come: Videos.
End Commercial Break.
More from RICHARD ORARIO outside Boston Cathedral this morning:
“For me it started after a VOTF conference in Boston, with a march from conference to cathedral as a protest. There has been someone at this corner every Sunday over five years now.
“Two weeks ago we were here in the middle of a blizzard. It was a Thursday, the anniversary of Law’s going to Rome and there were about 10 of us here, included David Clohessy (SNAP exec director) from St. Louis.
“It’s been that way for five years. People have been here all winter, all summer, and we're not a very hearty group. People like myself in their seventies, a couple in their eighties. Here every week.
“I’m not a survivor or any family member a survivor, I’m a supporter.
“I WAS AT THE CHICAGO PROTEST 3-4 years ago when Cardinal George had covered up a another priest’s accusations. It was around Easter, a Good Friday protest.
“The day before, they were doing Holy Thursday service and I was the only protester. They were processing into the church, altar boys, priests, the cardinal. I started yelling at them, screaming at top of voice, ‘You should be indicted, you're criminals, this is nothing but a cover up. The procession slowed down or even stopped.
“He (the Cardinal) lifted his skirts and quickly high-tailed it into the cathedral. The processions ended after that --
Orario gets in their face:
“We just learned of another case here that's just coming to light a boy who was assaulted in the cathedral and rectory by a priest assigned here, right here to this cathedral.
“I went to the priest’s funeral. Here he’d been accused and defrocked, but they praised him to the hilt.
“After he gave the eulogy I asked him, father, I didn't hear you pray for the children. He stopped and said, huh? I said, The ones raped by Father Loreno.
“He said that case was thrown out because the kid relented. And I said, well then why was he defrocked.”
============
Orario said there is room in the cathedral for 2200 and there are less than 100 at today’s main mass.
“Sometimes there’s more people on the altar than at church," Orario said.
Boston cathedral is at the intersection Washington and Union Park. A pretty noisy place, yet the heirarchy complained about the Sidewalk VOTF’s noise.
In Boston this morning Bob Sidorowic said:
“We used to have a sign that said honk if you're for justice. But church complained to the police that all the honking was disrupting their service --
"The next week the sign said You Can’t Honk for Justice.”
More from Bob Sidorowicz and others at the vigil this morning in a post this afternoon.
Friends:
Before commenting that my headline is inaccurate please keep in mind, the Internet allows little people access to the same manipulation and covert control of information held only by the powerful elite for decades.
Of course I know 25 protesters is not almost as many as 80 people attending Mass, and I think the corporate church would put exactly the same spin on its headline. That's why I do it.
It's a BLOG not the New York Times Official Record of History.
I encourage others to start stretching the truth and bending the news in their favor as well, as that's the way it's done in corporate America in 2008-- kay, ranting.
Onward. . .
Saturday, January 5, 2008
LIVE from Boston, 6th anniversary of Globe breakthrough stories, reports from vigil throughout the day at City of Angels Blog tomorrow
*****
Sixth Anniversary of first Boston Globe articles that broke the story, Sunday Jan. 6, 2002
City of Angels blog will post reports and updates on the vigil outside Boston Cathedral starting at 10 AM Pacific Time tomorrow, Sunday Jan. 6. STTOP activists have stood outside Boston Cathedral on Sundays since the story broke, especially a loosely organized group called Sidewalk VOTF.
Tomorrow's vigil honors the sixth anniversay of the Boston Globe articles which broke January 6, 2002, and sparked national interest in the pedophile priest issue.
A link in the left column of this blog takes you to the Jan 6 2002 Boston Globe article at bishop accountability, which was first in a two-part series.
City of Angels blog will interview vigil participants by phone and post regular updates throughout the day Sunday January 6.
STTOP stands for Speak Truth To Power.
VOTF is Voice of the Faithful
Sidewalk VOTF is the ones on the sidewalk
Happy New Year
Kay Ebeling
Onward
Sixth Anniversary of first Boston Globe articles that broke the story, Sunday Jan. 6, 2002
City of Angels blog will post reports and updates on the vigil outside Boston Cathedral starting at 10 AM Pacific Time tomorrow, Sunday Jan. 6. STTOP activists have stood outside Boston Cathedral on Sundays since the story broke, especially a loosely organized group called Sidewalk VOTF.
Tomorrow's vigil honors the sixth anniversay of the Boston Globe articles which broke January 6, 2002, and sparked national interest in the pedophile priest issue.
A link in the left column of this blog takes you to the Jan 6 2002 Boston Globe article at bishop accountability, which was first in a two-part series.
City of Angels blog will interview vigil participants by phone and post regular updates throughout the day Sunday January 6.
STTOP stands for Speak Truth To Power.
VOTF is Voice of the Faithful
Sidewalk VOTF is the ones on the sidewalk
Happy New Year
Kay Ebeling
Onward
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