BOSTON VIGIL: There were almost as many protesters as people attending Mass

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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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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.”

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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. . .