*****
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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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 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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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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City of Angels Lady
15 comments:
McNiff is nothing more than another Hollywood-town (like Jonestown) Roger Mahony Kool-Aid drinker, and ENABLER, and nothing she says can be considered factual, moral, or accurate.
The LA Archdiocese still has a thriving ordained pedophile ring in it, and actively enabled by Roger Mahony, that dates back to at least the late and damned Benjamin Hawkes, Vicar General under Timonthy Manning (pre 1985), a known serial pedophile, and pedophile ring leader.
LA's clergy pedophile, and gay rings, remain as active as The Boy's Club, in the Chicago Archdiocese.
Mahony has been enabling pedophiles since the Diocese of Fresno, as well as the Diocese of Stockton, long before he ever won the active political campaign to get the position in LA, through LOTS of money (graft, bribery, extortion, blackmail), from John Paul II.
St, John's Seminary in Camarillo, CA, was specifically closed, not because of need of revenue and a real estate sale, or lack of seminarians or it's age; it was closed to destroy personnel records, and to try to hide sworn testimony by Robert Brom in the San Diego Diocese, that he, Brom, and Roger Mahony, were present at a GAY ORGY at this seminary (an did nothing about it, and many other felonies but cover them up).
Any representation by any LA Archdicoese hack, or attorney (all being paid with laity revenue), that children are any safer now than they were before, is a full reeking crock of excrement.
Check out daily vetted coverage of Mahony and the Church's onging billions of dollars spent of laity money, to try to defend decades of ongoing felonies at:
www.bishopaccountability.org/abusetracker and stop donating any monies to these criminals.
For FREE, view 'DELIVER US FROM EVIL', the 2006 US Academy Award Best Doucmentary Nominated Film at: www.youtube.com
No justice will be served until Mahony is forceably removed from office, by laity voting with their wallets.
Mahony continues to hush money, annuity, pension, retire, extort, blackmail, and salary, many pedophiles in active ministries in the LA Archdiocese, as well as Ireland, Mexico, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere he is hiding for fear they will testify agaisnt him.
To answer the famous New Testament quote, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
Most definitely would be the answer, HOWEVER when it comes to The Rog Mahal, and LA Archdiocese, think much more of the TEMPLE OF DOOM, in the Indy Jones second movie, instead.
Only when the laity stop donating, will the overtly EVIL man named Roger M. Mahony be driven from office, as well as clearly a totally morally bankrupt soul (if not already owned by The Devil) and no one's leader.
Benedict XVI th
Current Pontiff & Sinner
Posto Scripto: Read 'SACRILEGE' by Leon Podles, if you have time.
Flower child who rarely attacks anyone? Talk about big lies.
Dear 'Anonymous':
Welcome Back!
Every time you enter, you will be met by truth, light, and FACTS.
"Big Lies" originated with the multi decade racketeering and criminal cover up by the LA Archdiocese, directed by Roger M. Mahony, costing laity in declared monies $660 Million Dollars in settlements thus far, and several hundred to thousands of yet to be settled law suits still pending (again, in the hundreds of millions of dollars if settled or BILLION$ if they see the light of day in court, before any breathing Jury).
In additional Anonymous, this cost number does no account for the lawyers fees, court fees, PR Agencies fees and retainers, from the armies Mahony has hired to protect only his own soulles hide, along with accountants, squandered laity assets, sold laity assets, closed ministries, closed schools,closed convents, closed seminaries, closed shrines, closed parishes, hacked payrolls, insurance premium liability coverage costs and hiked new premiums, off the book hush monies, still occurring, and much yet to come...all at LAITY expense!
Any representation that the Clergy Abuse Crisis in LA, or anywhere in the Church, "is behind us", which has been the curia mantra since 2002 (it's now 2008, if you check a calendar, Anonymous) is another BIG LIE on your, or your handler's, part.
Cardinal (I hesitate to use that title because he is not a leader of any morality) Hummes, the other day spun and LIED that less than 1% of the active or retired Roman Catholic Clergy are pedophiles, sexual abusers, perpetrators or enablers. This statement is PATENTEDLY FALSE, by the NCCB's own JJ Criminal Justice Report, that places the number of clergy perpetrators (admittedly under reported) at 4.8% in North America.
This 4.8%, of approximately 460,000 global secular, vocationed, ordained, ordered, in The Roman Catholic Church, holds true, if not higher, in places like Rivera's Mexico, where the Legionnaires of Christ was founded by Marciel, a known and proven pedophile, and he was finally place under house arrest, and canonically censored by me, under direct promise of IRREVOCABLE EXCOMMUNICATION. I have recently resinded sworn oaths among that order also.
I am an old man, who has precious little time left, before I meet my Maker, or someone dispatches me early, like the 'Roman Prescrition' given (IN GOD'S NAME by Yallop, which is 100% FACTUAL) Albino Lucani, John Paul the First.
I must pick my battles, but as God as my witness, the likes of you, and your criminal handlers, and this continued FILTH, shall not stand.
Laity, I again urge you not to donate any monies to any causes or sources, EVIL men like Roger M. Mahony can divert, or lay their hands on.
Yours In Christ,
Benedict XVI th
Current Pontiff & Sinner
Actually, the church will be around a lot longer than you and your hatred of it. That is the truth, that is fact, and that is LIGHT!
Poor Anonymous, getting it all wrong yet again. His fury at the realization he's been snookered by the miters and red hats understandably clouds his reasoning.
We don't hate the church; just the opposite. But we do hate the despicable criminals now running it, and pity the sorry Kool-Aid drinkers like Anonymous, locked into their denial, lashing out in frustration.
Dear Anonymous:
We shall pray for your stupidity to be reversed. It will take a huge amount of prayer considering the lack of evidence you have provided thus far, as well as a considerable amount of time.
But all, as the Good Book says, among those souls willing, is possible, with and through Our Lord Jesus Christ, through sincerity and contriteness.
Benedict XVI th
Current Pontiff & Sinner
Posto Scripto: Those already having sold there souls to The Devil, like Roger M. Mahony, will not receive quarter or absolution now, the forseeable future, and perhaps never...that is TRUTH, LIGHT & FACT.
Nobody believes that either one of you fake-named church haters prays. Your cherished hatred of Catholicism cannot be disguised. Saying you love Catholicism is like saying Ebeling is a flower child who just loves everyone and everything and never gets angry. Sheesh. Give us all a break.
Hey, Anonymous, even Christ got angry. We are legitimately angry. You are here spewing hatred, not us.
You must be completey detached from reality.
There's a big difference between hatred and anger. Click on a video here and chill.
Have y'all noticed how Anonymous never addresses the subject here, the pervasive criminal element in the church, but indulges only in desperate, personal attacks? Sounds like he's in a lot of pain, and lacks the skills to come to terms with the monumental betrayal we're all experiencing.
Anonymous spins at faster Rotations Per Minute (RPM's) than the rotor blades, at full throttle, on the bribe paid for, by former LA Mayor Dick Riordan, for a quickie annulment, in Rome, after 23 years of marriage and several children, by & to Rog 'Tef' Mahal Mahony, in a new turbo jet helicopter(insurance, pilot, landing and take off fees, fuel, upkeep, hanger, etc., paid for by LA Archdiocese laity).
"HRH" is correct, Anonymous NEVER addresses any facts, because he, or she, has none to refute real TRUTH & LIGHT.
There is a comedian, in Boston, who's name escapes me at the moment (it's pushing 11 PM here in Italy on 1/10/08) who has a monologue (in the sardonic delivery, or stage presence, of the American comedian and accomplished actor Dennis Leary) on the Comedy Channel (yes, I get the Comedy Channel here across the Tiber in The Holy See, if my own Curia are not a big enough sick joke), that rips into the ongoing embezzlement of Boston Archdiocese pension funds of secular priests, by Bernie Law, and then the ongoing pedophile criminal cover up, under Shawn O'Malley.
At the end of a 20 minute monologue, with one zinger of truth after another, the comedian suddenly stopped, and began to apologize if he had offended anyone in the audience(90% Roman Catholics and of Irish Boston roots)and Our Church, or beliefs, (he himself is a practicing good Roman Catholic), and then delivered the ultimate closing line: "Now, if anyone here can come up on the stage, and explain to the rest of us, why protecting clergy pedophiles raping and sodomizing hundreds of thousands of children, over multiple decades, is a good thing, I will retract everything I have said?!"
The theater was silent for a moment, and then a spontaneous standing ovation, and loud applause.
So, Anonymous, you SEE, one indeed can be a GOOD Roman Catholic, and love the message of Our Lord, and condone the overt and ongoing criminality of the present clergy and Curia covering it up, like Roger M. Mahony has and continues to do, just like one has a moral obligation to thwart and oppose all EVIL.
Benedict XVI th
Current Pontiff & Sinner
Amazing is it not, how these bishops and cardinals love us so much...how they are so inspired by the survivors of pedophile priests, how they fervently pray for us and how they walk that dark lonely road side by side with us?
I say it's amazing because it's a bunch of hooey. I don't remember it that way, not at all.
Any review of the San Diego or LA diocese's actions over the last few years will show countless delay and cruel, hardball, scorched earth tactics, NOT admiration. If this is how they treat those they admire and pray for I would hate to see how they treat their enemies.
Sister Shelia is just another Tod Tamberg clone, a writer paid to praise the church and Mahony, no matter what. And neither of them is fooling very many people outside of a devoted and brainwashed relative few.
You rock Kay!
AZ
Anonymous....
Fake named haters?! Maybe your name is Tamberg, or Shelia, or maybe you are the anonymous invective writer on the LA Clergy cases site. It doesn't matter though.
You are just one of those who writes in various places on the net to defend the church, no matter what evil it has done, is doing or will do, and to attack those who tell the truth about the church and the sexual abuse of kids and vulnerable adults.
Tell me, do you do it for free, or for love of the church? Do you hate abuse victims? Or do you sympathize with the molester priests? Maybe you even are one, who knows.
It doesn't matter because the truth is prevailing and those who would hide the truth are losing, and there is little you can do about it, try as you might.
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