Manifestations, weird interpretations, a priest with ties to predator pedophiles all over LA: Salesian pretrial motions next 2 weeks, trial April 14th

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By Kay Ebeling
Document diving begins again at City of Angels Blog with the Salesian cases going to jury trial April 14th in LA Superior Court. The same group of lawyers who battled plaintiffs in San Francisco in 2006 are in LA filing heaps of pretrial motions. On April 10th defendants try to exclude the entire testimony of Tom Doyle, as “The First amendment bars Fr. Doyle’s testimony on Canon Law.”

City of Angels alarms went off reading the names of priests Salesian lawyers don’t want mentioned during the upcoming trial. Number 16 on a list of 20 is George Neville Rucker. This ambisexual predator’s name comes up in a lot of predator priest case files. Rucker got around. He was part of the madness at Mary Star of the Sea Parish in San Pedro, in the fifties and sixties. Rucker is connected to the crimes of Salesian Titian Miani in the April 14th trial.

A trial about the crimes of George Neville Rucker would be going on this spring if the LA cases hadn’t settled out of court last July, leaving only 17 Salesian cases to be argued in court this month.

More on Motions in Limine in next week's hearings: Salesians want to exclude witnesses who were also victims of Salesian priests.

The 1947 documents from Italy about Titian Miani have to be translated all over again if they do get entered as evidence, because the translation done by plaintiffs had "interpretation of words rather than direct literal translations.” The church attorney who wrote that motion, Leila Nourani, practices law in three languages herself.

I wonder if Leila Nourani could translate the Titian Miani document from Italian into “literal Farsi.”

On April 11th plaintiffs ask Judge Emilie Elias to exclude their own list evidence and testimony, saying defendants may “insinuate that plaintiffs either consented to the sexual abuse or suffered little or no damage as a result.”

The Salesian cases and documents are in the Superior Court bldg on Commonwealth, across from Lafayette Park. No courtrooms in this sloping moderne structure have a scanner, apparently, so motions are filed 20th century style only. In a courtroom down the hall from Department 308 documents are starting to take up more than a quarter of the space, with case files stacked in boxes and piles.

At one point when I was document diving, the clerk handed me a stack of plaintiffs’ motions in limine, which means evidence and testimony plaintiffs do not want heard in the courtroom and this metallic vice gripped my hands and shoulders holding them down. I couldn't look at the papers.

Earlier, to get to the courthouse, I made a wrong turn and ended up having to go three blocks uphill to get to the Metro transfer. I was really tired, and this cool breeze started and picked me up by the elbows, literally carried me, my feet barely touched the sidewalk, all the way to the Metro bench. The bus came, I got on, and proceeded to get off again at the wrong stop. . .

This new medicine Lyrica that I'm on makes me spacier than medical marijuana.

But I digress.

The Lyrica does do miracles for the Fibromyalgia which it turns out IS neuropathic damage just like I tried to tell doctors back in the 1990s.

But I digress.

I digress a lot since I got on the Lyrica. . .

Re Tom Doyle’s testimony in the Salesians Cases Jury Trial Coming April 14th:

Defendants argue that Doyle can’t provide his opinion about prior notice involving Fathers Lorenzoni or Marguia’s “because that's an ultimate conclusion that the jury could readily determine on its own.”

The First amendment bars Fr. Doyle’s testimony on Canon Law,” reads the defendants’ argument and that is not an April Fool’s joke. “The First amendment “also bars evidence of practices and procedures that exist solely because of canon law,” defendants claim.

Let me get this straight.

They want to write crimes into their laws then make it illegal to read their laws.

Salesians want to keep Tom Doyle from testifying about anything but a 1962 papal instruction.
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Plaintiffs want to exclude “mention of sexual behavior outside the scope of sexual abuse by Fr. Titian Miani, Father Larry Lorenzoni and Brother Ralph Marguia,” their motion reads.

Plaintiffs “believe defendant will offer evidence in an attempt to minimize liability, blame, and plaintiffs damages on other alleged causes, or possibly to insinuate that plaintiffs either consented to the sexual abuse or suffered little or no damage as a result of the sexual abuse.”

Hearing on defendants motions in Limine is April 10th and plaintiffs’ motions in Limine will be heard April 11th. Then the trial goes on April 14th.

The discovery plaintiffs weren’t able to get from defendants in pretrial will just have to come out in court.

Defendants want to exclude evidence of Gerald M’s confession and manifestation.

WHAT THE HECK IS A MANIFESTATION?

Oh right, the defendants are a mystical organization that claims a direct connection to God.

I had a connection like that last time I clicked on a Gospel song here at City of Angels Blog.

But I digress again.

“Defendants anticipate plaintiff will attempt to introduce evidence at trial concerning Gerald M who was allegedly abused by Lorenzoni and then spoke about that abuse first during the sacrament of confession and then several years later during a confidential conversation known as a ‘manifestation’ with the Salesian provincial.”

Get out your garlic, guys, it’s going to be a weird trial.

20 priests the Salesians don't want mentioned in the upcoming jury trial:

ERNEST MARTINEZ
RICHARD PRESENTI
BENJAMIN DABBENE
STEVE WHELAN
MARK EPPERSON
JOHN VOS
MANUEL JIMINEZ
JOHN TKELICK
ROY VETARI
FATHER SIMISCH
HAROLD DANIELSON
SAL BILLANTE
JUAN SANCHEZ
TEACHER MARK DEJARDINS
JESSIE DOMINGUEZ
GEORGE NEVILLE RUCKER
JOSEPH RYAN
CLEVE CAREY
ROBERT MANNING
JOHN DAWSON

Onward. . .

He got to them at Arrow Bear Camp, in his car, in hotel rooms, in his office at St. John Bosco School, in family homes, now Motion to Strike April 1st

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By Kay Ebeling
Catholic Church Attorneys try again to have civil cases against them thrown out of court next week in a hearing that was first on calendar April 7th then moved up to March 19th, then slipped to March 21st. Now the Motion to Strike hearing takes place on April Fools’ Day. First jury trial in LA regarding a Salesian pedophile priest is still on calendar April 14th.

Re Father Titian Miani: “The first documented incident of child molestation took place in 1947," reads a plaintiff motion from June 2007. "On a retreat with other clerics Miani ‘attempted a dishonest act’ with a 13 year old boy who ‘knew how to resist.’ (Salesians try again to have the 1947 exhibit dismissed in hearings on motions in limine April 10th.)

In Miani’s personnel file translated into English are several documents from the 1940s from reverends and others with very Italian names that City of Angels unfortunately did not copy into notes last June.

“Still he was ordained in 1955 into the Salesian order."

Once Titian (Jim) Miani came to St. John Bosco in 1958 he immediately began molesting children

His file includes a case of Father Jim “having his hand on a boy’s crotch. . ."

At the Bellflower high school, "Miani immediately began molesting children and tartgeted 8th grader Plaintiff (Ron H). Despite the so-called Salesian “mantra” of “no two alone,” Miani repeatedly isolated Ron, abusing him in his “off limits” bedroom in the priests’ quarters, as well as on a trip to the Salesian campsite at Arrow Bear. (as exhibited in Declarations and depositions attached)

Ron reported the abuse to a priest.

“No one stepped in to save Ron,” continues the plaintiffs’ motion.

Salesian Clergymen “are quite possibly the most dangerous and despicable child molesters in the Catholic clergy.”

Today’s Salesian Society has made a mockery of Giovanni Melchior Bosco’s “dedication to guide and protect vulnerable youth in 19th Century Italy” by knowingly permitting its priests to engage in egregious and outrageous practices towards children in their parishes.

Father Titan Miani.
Brother John Verhart.
Brother Anthony Juarez.
Brother Mark Epperson.
and Fr Larry Lorenzoni
As well as every Salesian Priest and Brother who knew of their habitual molestation of children --

-- used and manipulated the respect and reverence given to Catholic clergy in order to prey on innocent young boys and girls.

II:: THE NUMEROUS REPEATED, EGREGIOUS ACTS OF SALESIAN CLERGY CLEARLY ESTABLISH A PRIMA FACIE CASE

Quotes from earlier plaintiff documents in upcoming Salesians trial continue:

Miani worked at Salesian High School in Richmond until 1968 and then came back to St. John Bosco to “once again to work under his friend and Director, Father John Malloy.”

Miani was promoted to Prefect as well as Latin teacher.

Miani molested at least one more boy and two females who are all plaintiffs here now in this case. Plus other victims who are witnesses.

He got to them at Arrow Bear Camp, in hotel rooms on overnight stays, in his car on trips to Sebastopol, in Miani’s office during the school day, behind closed doors at St. John Bosco School. And in the family homes.

Malloy obviously knew about Miani’s proclivities in 1967, as shown by his letters, argue the plaintiffs.

“Despite 20 years of knowledge that Miani was a dangerous pedophile, the Salesian Order allowed Miani to leave the Salesians “for personal reasons.”

He then went to the Stockton Diocese in 1974 and nobody warned anybody in advance.

Titian Miani was finally arrested in 2003 and released weeks later due to the Stogner Decision.

“To this day, Father John Malloy states that since Miani was such a ‘model priest’ that he never had any reason to read his personnel file.”

City of Angels Blog will be there to cover the motion to strike April 1st -- if it happens -- pretrial motions April 10 and 11, and the jury trial April 14th.

Onward. . .

One church in Vermont loses 27 years of a pedophile priest personnel files. Who can believe anything the Catholic Church says today?

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By Kay Ebeling
“The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington has found 27 years' worth of files on a priest accused of child sexual abuse, documents the church had previously said didn't exist.” One sentence in a 2006 news article in a Vermont newspaper reveals everything that's wrong with the Catholic Church's handling of pedophiles in their midst. If the bishops had just been forthcoming and honest from the start, we wouldn’t today suspect that everything they do is a criminal act.

“We asked for discovery. They sent what they had and it had a large gap in his personnel file,” explained Mary Lou Marsh of attorney Jerome O'Neill’s office. “We questioned it. Then they came up with subsequent records, and explained they found them in the parish files.” The 27 years missing from an accused priest's records, miraculously found -- with nothing incriminating, by the way.

That's the official story. There was a change in chancellors right after plaintiffs noticed the gap. Cleaning out his desk, the new chancellor found the papers that were missing from George A. Paulin’s personnel file, all 27 years worth of it filed in the wrong place. Miracles do happen.

Out of the heavens they appeared, a pedophile priest's records that were missing when the church turned documents over to the court for discovery.

Mary Lou Marsh said there was nothing condemning in the files, just routine papers.

Imagine the scene. Priests slither around dark diocese hallways in the night, unlock an office. They pull out a file, the older priest crumbles a wad of papers into the pockets of his robe. They shove the file into the chancellor’s desk to make it look like maybe a senile old priest just made an error placing it there.

Maybe the Diocese of Burlington committed no collusion. But why is the church that claims corporate nonprofit and church status able to keep such shabby personnel records in the first place? Why hasn’t the American government swarmed down on them demanding accountability on about a hundred different levels?

I don't believe the Diocese of Vermont’s version of the story. I think they stashed incriminating documents from Paulin's files, probably destroyed any useful evidence. I totally believe the church is capable of destroying evidence after it's been ordered to turn it over by the courts. I totally believe this church is capable of breaking any laws it wants to breatk.

No matter what the Catholic Church does for the next 50 years they're going to look like crooks, even if they're totally innocent.

They established themselves as liars rapists and organized criminals. I don't know how anybody can believe anything they say after the last 50 years.

It’s a plain manila folder, loose papers can fall out as a person pulls it from a drawer. In any other structure in America personnel files have steel staples, tight binding, laws as to which documents need to be where. But the Catholic Church can pull a manila folder out of the wrong place and oh, look at this, it’s the personnel file on the pederast priest we used to have playing the organ here for 27 years, the same documents those pesky attorneys have been asking for.

Where is George Paulin today?
“They just kind of let these guys off in the world. It’s scary, I think.,” Marsh said. “Paulin is fairly young, in his sixties. He was let go from his organist job as far as I know. He had faculties as a priest removed in January 2003. We don’t have any pending cases. There’s no criminal convictions so no monitoring.”

CLARIFICATION
City of Angels reported that in Joey Piscitelli’s trial in San Francisco the judge ruled that Sal Billante did not have a duty to report. “After I won in 2006, the judge ruled Sal Billante did have a duty to report,” Joey explained.
‘
TRIVIA:
There are 105 priests perpetrators listed in bishopaccountability dot org whose last names begin with Mc alone.

There are more priests in bishopaccountability dot org’s data base (4400) of perpetrators than there are priests in the entire nation of Ireland (4000).

From Bishopaccountability Dot Org:

One More Note
Please Call Back
Joey also said: “You wouldn't believe the calls I get as Northern California director of SNAP. I’d say 90 percent of the victims don’t follow up with lawsuits or contacting the archdiocese. A lot of them don’t make it past the first phone call.”

I know what he means. Since starting this blog several people have spent time with me and told me horrendous stories about their rapes by priests. Then they never come back. I try to call them to find out more, or just to talk.

They've put their nightmare story in my head and now I need to do SOMETHING with it, but instead these persons disappear. They stop answering emails, they don’t return phone calls. This keeps happening to me.

Joey says it happens to him all the time too. Victims come forward and tell a small part of their story, then FREAK, and disappear.

I say, please call back.

Onward. . .

Videos at City of Angels Blog

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(Click cartoon to enlarge.) Watch "Breaking the Silence in Tennessee" a montage of SNAP demonstrators in Nashville, November 2005, plus a report from an Oregon TV news station on a survivor of Michael Harris. The account sounds eerily like Ryan DiMaria's story of abuse by Michael Harris at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, CA, reported here at City of Angels 3 last year.

We also feature a report from Nug News Network, the last half of which is a clip from Amy Berg's documentary from 2006, "Deliver Us From Evil."

At the end of each video YouTube leads you to other videos of a similar bent. You can spend the entire day at City of Angels Blog watching different media about Sex Crimes in the Catholic Church. Just click the video boxes and sit back.

Don't forget the stand up comedy routines running down the left column. We add more regularly.

Throughout the day today we will add more videos and other media as we find them. If you have a video to link at the blog, or want to produce an installment of Sex Crimes in the Catholic Churh, let us know.

ke

Salesian attorneys toasted their victory before the verdict in a bar near the courthouse, but their million dollar defense did not persuade the jury

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“At my trial they put Brother Sal Billante on the stand to testify against me. My attorney Richard Simons says, have you ever been arrested and Valenti says yes. Simons says what for. Child molestation, says Brother Sal. They lost the case.”

In 2002 the one-year window in the statute of limitations resulted in 170 cases against the San Francisco Archdiocese, all of which settled in 2006 except those with the Salesians Religious Order. Their website claims the Salesians “stand in solidarity with the victims of sexual abuse.” Joey Piscitelli talks about his trial and battles with the Salesians up north in this interview (continued from March 18 post) in Joey’s own words.

Brother Sal Billante was watching and masturbating while Father Steve Whelan jerked off in front of me. I was 13 years old and they made me watch. Fr. Steve invited me to play pool at the Boys Club. I was an 80 pound kid, I turn around and there’s Father Steve masturbating on a bench. I put the cue stick down and he said, no don’t leave. So I had to stand there, I'm sweating, the hair on my neck is standing up.

I thought, God is jerking off in front of me and making me watch. Because at that time the priest was like God to me. Then Brother Sal walked in I thought oh my god finally, someone will stop this, and Brother Sal he stood there and watched. He’s a voyeur. He’s standing in the doorway with his arms crossed leaning against the wall drooling, watching. I found out later Valenti used to take nude pictures of boys

What I didn't know was Brother Sal and Father Steve had grown up together in the North Beach area of San Francisco and went to Salesian seminary together in the 40s and 50s, which then became the Salesian high school in Richmond. They're an absolute nest of pedophiles. I told Fr. Steve one time I’m going to tell on you. He looked at me and laughed and said, Do you think anybody is going to believe you over a priest.

(Fr. Bernard) Dabbenne. the principal told me the exact same words when I went to him. “Who’s going to believe you over a priest?” It was a ring, it’s incredible there were so many pedophiles all sleeping in the Salesian residence, all covering for each other and lying.

Then when I went to court I could only mention Whelan, the Salesians got mention of all the other perpetrators thrown out before trial. Also the Salesians petitioned to dismiss my case claiming if one priest watches another priest masturbating in front of a child, that is not sexually abusive. Do you see what that means? The Salesians don’t think it’s abuse if a man masturbates in front of a child. So if a Salesian brother is masturbating in front of a child today, the Salesians don’t think that's sexual abuse.

In my court case I was able to say they had prior notice because Brother Sal watched and then had the duty to report. Whelan got to me 25 times after that. He did it to me on the stairway, in the office, the attic all over the school.

In July 2003 the Salesians offered me zero. Since then court costs alone for the Salesians are more than 2 million dollars. They’d rather spend millions fighting plaintiffs than give them a settlement. They are appealing the July 2006 settlement.

Before and during my trial the Salesians released lies to the press and lied often to the press on camera.

Titian Miani was at my high school in Richmond when we had all those pedophiles here in the 1960s. Then the Salesians sent the same guys down to LA. They had complaints on all of them from San Francisco before sending them to LA.

Fr. Larry Lorenzoni and . Bernard Dabbenne both ended up getting promoted in San Francisco. After Fr. Richard Presenti admitted being a pedophile, he became principal of Don Bosco High School in Bellflower. Richard Gross complained against Presenti in 1968, and Presenti admitted the abuse. After that they made Presenti Administrator of Salesians, then principal in Bellflower.

Joey Piscitelli continues:

Right before my trial the Salesians hired a PR man, Sam Singer, to bad mouth me during and before my trial to poison the jury pool. Again these people claim they don’t have any money.

Singer is the same PR man who today represents the San Francisco Zoo re the tiger attack last Christmas. Now he’s bad mouthing the tiger victims in the press. He’s a very expensive spokesperson

During my trial Singer released a statement that I wasn’t credible and I was thinking, who’s he?

My trial lasted two weeks, the Salesian Provincial Father Purdy and Fr. Steve Whelan the perp who molested me got on the stand and called me a liar.

In closing arguments, the Salesians compared me to the guy on Oprah who lied about his book. They produced a video that showed a book cover “My Story of Abuse by Joey Piscitelli,” and then flashed across the screen Fiction, Fiction, blinking.

Our closing arguments were minimal. All we did was show Father Whelan in court testifying, answering one question Are You the Same Man as you were when you were molesting Joey. And he said no, I'm not.

The only witnesses we put on were my therapist, my wife, my brothers and sisters. We presented a personal case with just my family and my therapist.

The Salesians claimed my therapist was lying.

There were dozens of attorneys, from at least three law firms defending the Salesians.

Before the verdict, I went to have a sandwich, I saw the dozen or so Salesians attorneys drinking and partying, high-fiving each other that they won before the trial was over.

My wife was there for the verdict. I couldn't be there, I -- the trauma -- She told me in court the Salesian attorneys were all smiling and sure they were going to win.

Their attorneys said outside court in front of several people, “We're not going to give you one dime, we’d rather spend the money fighting.”

Joey Piscitelli continues:

With the Salesians it is not about money, it’s about hate and vindictiveness. Because in my case, rather than give me even a dime or ten dollars they spent millions fighting me.

Their goal with this million dollar defense is to discourage any more victims

You have to remember that Cardinal William Levada lived right across the street from the Salesian Mansion. The largest cathedral in San Francisco St. Peter and Paul is all run by Salesian priests who work for Levada.

I don't know if the Salesians are going to ask for another extension on taking my verdict to the Supreme Court. I don't know what they're going to do next. I just know their next move, whatever it is, will be spiteful hateful and vindictive.

The thing about the Salesians is they do not settle. Richard Gross filed suit when I filed, in 2003.

Salesians fought him knowing he was molested but they said, you don’t have proof that Presenti was a molester before he molested you.

I had 11 documents from my school.

The day before trial they argued, if Piscitelli is allowed to introduce this evidence, it will prejudice the jury against the Salesians. The jury pool will hate the Salesians.

The judge who went to a Salesian school himself, agreed and wouldn't allow the evidence.

The technicality they used was that Brother Sal watching Fr. Whelan masturbate in front of me doesn't constitute prior knowledge even though Whelan molested me 25 more times after that.

The judge ruled that Brother Sal didn't have a duty to report.

ME: It’s almost like the Salesians want to continue to let pedophiles have access to children.

JOEY: It’s true, their income is from schools, boys clubs, and camps for low-income children.

Onward. . .

Salesian press release contradicts current Salesian court arguments and apologizes on behalf of worldwide congregation for sexual abuse, however. . .

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By Kay Ebeling
Doing research for an upcoming post I came across this press release at donboscowest dot org. It's dated 2004, still it is the featured press release when you click News at the Western Province website. Re the trial coming up April 14, the Salesians currently say, when it comes to financial discovery, they are not part of Salesian Rome headquarters. Their own press release says otherwise. Here is the "Statement of US Salesian Provincials Re Dallas Morning News Articles" from June 20, 2004. Sorry, Church Attorneys, but you can't have it both ways. Maybe you should stop and read this apology to the crime victims yourselves.

"The Salesians of Don Bosco are deeply sorry. We are sorry for the sexual misconduct of some of our members, for the unspeakable violation of the young whom we have harmed rather than served. We express our profound apologies to the victims and their families. They put their trust in us, and we have failed them grievously.

We are sorry also for any of our failures to adequately respond to allegations against some of our members. While we have generally sought to shield other young people from misconduct at the hands of accused Salesians, we have not always done so effectively."

In a press release dated November 18, 2003, the further statement was made:

"Should any young person have been abused while in our care, we profoundly apologize to them and their families. We offer to assist them in any way we can and to make amends for our failures."

Today, as the Provincials of the Eastern and Western Provinces of the Salesians of Don Bosco in the United States, we repeat again these two statements.

However, some recent media attention has focused on the worldwide Congregation of Salesians of Don Bosco to which we belong. In particular, it has been alleged that our Congregation has a "systematic practice" to move abusive priests from country to country without regard for the safety of children or for the statues of criminal law. While one can find a few instances of failure in this regard among a Congregation numbering over 16,000 members, such a general characterization of the Salesians of Don Bosco is patently false and misleading.

Each Salesian province is an autonomous juridical entity, similar to a diocese. Cases of sexual misconduct by individual Salesians are handled by the respective province to which the Salesian belongs. The province has the competency to set and enforce its own policies, in accordance with the legal requirements of the country within which it operates.

Nevertheless, with due regard to necessary differences from province to province, the general lines along which the worldwide Congregation of Salesians of Don Bosco proceeds in this matter are as follows:

We examine with promptness every accusation of sexual abuse of minors to verify its credibility.

We stand in solidarity with the victims of sexual abuse, considering it "one of the worst manifestations of the mystery of iniquity at work in the world" (John Paul II), and we provide for psychological accompaniment of the victims and, when necessary, their families.

When a member of the Salesian Congregation is found to have committed sexual abuse, he is removed at once from every pastoral and educative responsibility so that he has no further contact with minors. He is also exhorted to own his responsibility and to cooperate fully with all civil, criminal and ecclesial investigations.

We practice a preventive system of education in our work with young people to ensure, as far as possible, safe environments for those entrusted to our care.

Sigh, I guess we can expect lies and more lies at the upcoming jury trial. Can't wait to write it all down.

Onward. . .

Predator Priest crime victims HAVE TO read between the lines, and often those lines are redacted. It takes a kind of fiction to tell the true story

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By Kay Ebeling
Okay I admit the headline on last Thursday’s post was too tabloid. In the 1950 letter you have to read between the lines to know the Salesian President in Rome talked with the American consul about pedophile priest Titian Miani coming to America. However, sometimes reading between the lines is all a pedophile priest crime victim can do. Plaintiffs from the LA settlement last July tell me they've yet to see any personnel files on their perpetrators, although release of documents was part of the settlements with the LA Archdiocese. What documents do come out have maybe three words at the beginning of a paragraph then marker lines and lines through whole paragraphs at a time, almost everything is redacted. What can victims of Sex Crimes in the Catholic Church do but read between the lines and create a kind of fiction based truth, spiced with gut and instinct?

Roger Mahony stated last January “Everyone agreed we had to get this scandal behind us,” and I said, huh? I didn't agree to that. The scandal has yet to happen. But listening to the Cardinal you understand why the documents he did release are full of Sharpie lines, as each page probably holds clues to further Sex Crimes in the Catholic Church. I'm amazed plaintiffs in LA believed anything the Archdiocese told them while settling. Did Mahony have a record of cooperating with the courts before last July?

The 1950 letter is an exhibit in plaintiffs’ motion for discovery on the total Salesians, not just the Western Province, for the trial coming up in April. The letter says: “Rev. Brother Miani is coming to this country solely and entirely to continue his studies in view of ordination to the Salesians Priesthood, and for no other purpose whatsoever.” Complaints about Miani and a child at a camping trip in Italy in 1947 were thrown out as evidence last year (See September 19, 2007 post at City of Angels 3).

The 1950 letter posted here Thursday reveals between the lines that the Salesians in Rome dumped a pedophile on the United States.

From 1957 to 1967 Fr. Titian Miani was assistant principal at St. John Bosco high school in Bellflower resulting in four lawsuits out of the 550 in the LA settlement, God knows how many more kids he got to who have yet to come forward. Some of his victims are pursuing final justice with Miani and the Salesians in the jury trial coming April 14th and City of Angels Blog will be there to cover the proceedings.

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You DO have to read between the lines

This is unnerving

Go to BishopAccountability Dot Org for background information on a priest and the only articles you will find are blog posts by me in the last year. Where are the mainstream journalists? When reporters do write a story, they all say the same thing in a spurt of articles based on a press conference. Mainstream media NEVER ask the deeper questions.

LA journalists dropped the ball on the story. Coverage stopped just as the civil cases began to produce documents for the trials that were scheduled last year. There were articles all over the LA Times and LA Weekly, and national news wires in 2002-2003 when the LA lawsuits were filed. By the time pretrial hearings began all those reporters had moved on to new locations, the main investigative reporter from the LA Times is writing about one way street conversions.

So I AM THE ONLY ONE who is actually covering the thousands of crimes in the Catholic Church in LA alone, and I have barely started. I want to go dig around in New Mexico around the Paracles land.

Please click my PayPal button to help me get the resources I need to continue this blog. I need a travel budget, to go to Chicago and research my own story from the 1950s. I’m convinced there are other victims from Chicago of Father Thomas Barry Horne and I need to go to Bartlett. I believe if I track down other children whose mothers were in the Ladies’ Sodality at St. Peter Damian Parish, I'll find other victims. The PayPal button is in the top left column under Send Me To Chicago.

If everyone who reads the blog sent five dollars to my PayPal I’d have the cash I need to go to Chicago in July.

Here in LA I know from conversations I’ve had with survivors that much more happened than what plaintiff attneys wrote in civil lawsuit documents.

The real crimes were stultified -- left unmentioned

You have to read between the lines

With legal documents filed in civil lawsuits all over the United States, you have to read between the lines as well. The real story is between the lines, especially with documents filed in the courts.

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DEAR POPE: READ THIS:
September 2006 I was finding my voice at the SNAP message board and wrote this under the topic Dear Pope, Read This:

Dear Pope Benedict,

In the United States your church is a haven for pedophiles and perverts who operate under the guise of being priests. As a result thousands of children going to Catholic churches have lived damaged lives, our view of the sex act permanently destroyed, from being forced to have sex at a young age with these sick criminal priests.

YOU Are the head of the church. You may criticize American culture, our soft porn on daily TV. The Catholic church has to take responsibility. The depravity in Catholic leadership has reverberent effects all over our culture.

DO something about it. Survivors of rape by priests need specialized therapy and treatment. We need our own recovery centers. We should have financial restitution throughout the church, not just to the few who have a legal case that can stand up against the powers of Catholic attorneys.

DO YOU KNOW the archdioceses are spending millions on attorneys to fight us, the survivors who survived long enough to file claims against the church? Where did they get the money to hire all these attorneys and fight their own parishioners?

How corrupt can you get?

The Catholic church in America spends millions to hide and pamper pedophile priests and then goes to great lengths to fight the sheep who were destroyed by the shepherd. What does that tell the world about Catholics?

Kay Ebeling
Los Angeles

If you go to snapnetwork dot org, under Online Support you can link to the Discussion Board. A few of us still troll there looking for other survivors who want to interact online. I posted daily on the message board for one whole year and my January 2006 posts show I'm scared and timid. By January 2007 I burst out of the message boards onto this blog. But I still go there and wish more people would be active at the Snap Message Board. It’s a vast unused resource.

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Document Diving on Dry Ground
For Salesians Jury Trial Research
The Salesians pretrial documents are not available in a public viewing area, as were the civil cases last year at LA Superior Court. In order to view them, a journalist has to make an appointment with Judge Emilie Elias’ court clerk to view the motions for the cases on a computer screen in the judge’s offices.

In order to document dive for the Salesian jury trial, City of Angels Lady has to brave the city’s rapids and transfers on heavy trafficked streets, then track down a Court Clerk who is also a floater. . .

What Are They Hiding?
From Cardinal Roger Mahony’s January 2008 statement:

“Everyone agreed we had to get this scandal behind us for the good of the church and of our archdiocese."

Huh? He didn't ask me.

Onward. . .

Happy Easter, here's to a prostrate Pope. . .

Leonard Cohen and K.D. Lang sing "Hallelujah" at City of Angels Blog this weekend. For diversion, spend time perusing our videos on top of the page and down the left column. The second video bar on top will change throughout the holiday. Showing now: Gospel choirs singing variations on "Hosanna," including Kirk Franklin.

FYI: Cardinal Roger Mahony is among his own today. According to About Dot Com his eminence will be blessing animals downtown at 2 PM:

"Merchants of Olvera Street and a cow decorated with flowers lead a procession of gaily decorated animals past a priest delivering the blessing. The procession with Cardinal Roger Mahony begins at 2 pm. Animals and their owners assemble on the north side of the Plaza."

I'm hoping the Cardinal will take this moment to tear off his collar in front of everyone and say it's all a scam. Just read the New Testament to follow Jesus. Then he'll pawn his golden crosses and other jewels and give the money to the people trying to keep businesses running on Olvera Street, and never will he return to the cheated wealth in which he lives.

But he won't.

If you can't get downtown on time, here at City of Angels Blog you can gaze at our featured photo above, a prostrate Pope Benedict, prostrating, as well he should be. Hope you enjoy your Easter.

For me it's just a quiet day.

**What: Blessing of the Animals. When: Saturday March 22, 2008, noon to 5 pm, Where: El Pueblo Historic Park at Olvera Street, Cost Free.


See ya
Kay Ebeling

Exhibit: Salesian President warned US consul about Titian Miani in 1950. Scanned here, click to enlarge. . .

At left (Click to enlarge) is an exhibit acquired by City of Angels Blog from the Titian Miani cases going to trial April 14th. The letter written by Ernest Giovannini, President Salesian Society and sent to the American Consul in Genoa, Italy, has the tone of a warning. Read between the lines and you know a lot was discussed about pedophile priest Titian Miani before this letter was written. It reads: "I can assure you, (Miani) is not being brought to this country at his own request. He has a vow of obedience and is only assigned where his superiors desire him," and it continues:

"His assignment to our Seminary here in the United States for studies has not been at his request but at the decision of his superiors here and abroad.

"He is coming to this country solely and entirely to continue with his studies in view of ordination to the Salesian Priesthood, and for no other purpose whatsoever."

How did Titian Miani end up at St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower 20 years later? How can the Western Province claim the Salesian Solciety headquarters in Rome has nothing to do with the Western Province in California?

The document above is one of many exhibits in the upcoming Salesian cases jury trial, acquired by City of Angels Blog and here for you to read and absorb. This letter is attached to plaintiffs' request for discovery of financial records for the Entire Salesian Society. Defendants argue the Western Province is totally separate from the entity in Rome, but with evidence like this, it's hard to understand why the Salesians just don't give in.

If Plaintiffs win this motion, the Salesians will have to supply financial records for the entire Salesians Society, as the Rector Major in Rome is just as libel as the Western Province. We can see by reading this letter, there's no disconnect between the two.

Keep reading City of Angels Blog for coverage of the trial getting ready for April 14 jury selection.

For Continued Freedom of Speech and Expression, Please Click My PayPal Button at the top left column to support the producer and keep this blog alive.

-- Kay Ebeling

Salesians hold world record for pedophile priests -- guest writer Joey Piscitelli lists their names and connections to William Levada

*****
The Salesians go on trial in LA April 14. Plaintiffs say the Order let pedophile priest Titian Miani have access to children at St. John Bosco High in Bellflower. Piscitelli sued the Salesians in 2006. -- ke

By Joey Piscitelli
The Salesians Clergy of California have shattered the World Record for the most accused child molesters in one area, by a landslide. There is no religious order in the world that we know of that is even remotely close in the number of accused molesters. And the list is growing. At latest count, there are 21 local (California) Salesians accused and/or convicted pedophiles, 19 of them named as child molesters in lawsuits! This tally is so far off the charts.

The following Salesians have been accused of sex crimes in California, including abuse, molestation, rape, sodomy, lewd and lascivious conduct, felony child abuse, copulation, and sexual deviation: Fr. Larry Lorenzoni, Fr. Richard Presenti, Fr. Bernard Dabbenne, Fr. Steve Whelan, Bro. Sal Billante, Bro. Jesse Dominguez, Fr. Jim Miani, Fr. Harold Danielson, Bro. Mark Epperson, Fr. Mario Blanco, Bro. Anthony Juarez, Bro. Ernie Martinez, Fr. Emanual Palayo, Fr. Juan Sanchez, Bro. John Verhart, Fr. Fleming, Fr. Al Mengon, Bro. John Vas, Bro. Ralph Murguia, Bro. Dan Pacheco, and Mr. Sam Vitone.

Cardinal William Levada shielded and covered for so many Salesian accused molesters that victims of the Salesians have nicknamed the Salesian pedophiles -"Levada’s Boys". Still, Levada has shown no shame or remorse, nor has he apologized.

Several of the Salesian criminal record holders were shielded in San Francisco by Cardinal Levada himself. According to court testimony, Levada promoted Salesian molester, Fr. Bernard Dabbenne, to a top position for the West Coast, after a witness complained that Dabbenne had molested him. Dabbenne was later convicted when he was caught in the act of molestation by the SF Police.

Fr. Steve Whelan, was kept in ministry, with children, after Levada was told Whelan was being sued for child abuse. Whelan was found guilty by court trial, while he was still in active ministry with children.

Another Salesian friend of Cardinal Levada, Fr. Larry Lorenzoni, is an accused serial molester, and is scheduled to go on trial next month.

Fr. Larry Lorenzoni is known as a famous writer, and has penned a well known phrase that the Salesians are proud of:

"The average person, thinks he isn’t". (As in, the average person thinks he isn’t average. . . . clever)

Now, to this famous accused Salesian serial abuser, Fr. Lorenzoni, I dedicate this new phrase:

"The average Salesian molester, claims he isn’t".

Many of these Salesians are accused serial molesters, and even when convicted and found guilty by courts and jury trials, they continue to deny wrongdoing. Many of the confirmed Salesian molesters were transferred after reports of abuse against them were made.

Maybe it is the disgrace of being the World Record Holder accused clergy molesters that has made the Salesians of California the angry, unremorseful group they are today, or perhaps the lawsuits with countless victims.

In any case, many of these men are still around locally. The bottom line is, California Beware!

I would definitely recommend keeping your children away from this World Record Holder serial sexual predator group, the Salesian Religious Order. The list does not need to expand any more than it is already.

Joey Piscitelli
Salesians Victim
Northern California SNAP

Onward. . .

If Salesians lose April 14 Jury Trial in LA, Cardinal Mahony will probably want his $21.5 million back. Will he send someone to break their legs?

*****
By Kay Ebeling
The first jury trial regarding 17 plaintiffs raped by pedophile clergy in the Salesian Religious Order comes up April 14th in LA , and I'm trying to get smart in preparation. About ten pages into the 1.5-inch thick "Plaintiffs’ Motion to Allow Discovery Relating to the Salesian Society” you can’t help but go -- “What?” In January plaintiffs won the right to pursue punitive damages against the Salesians, so now Salesian attorneys claim the Western Province has nothing at all to do with the Salesian Society in Rome, so there’s no reason to look at financial records from anything other than the California branch of the order.

City of Angels Blog readers may remember last fall when the Salesians claimed they had nothing to do with the Los Angeles Archdiocese. (See October 14, 2007 Post, "Extra: Salesian Religious Order Not Part of Catholic Church." at City of Angels 3.) Last fall Salesians attorneys filed Motion in Limine #5 asking the judge to “exclude reference to The Catholic Church, the Vatican, the Pope, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and/or Cardinal Mahony,” in the trial then scheduled for Nov. 5, as those Catholic entities have nothing at all to do with the Salesians. Soon after that post, all the Salesian Motions in Limine from October went off calendar.

In December the LA Archdiocese paid $21.5 million to the 17 Salesian plaintiffs as part of the global settlement of the LA Clergy Cases. So now if the Salesians lose this trial in April, Roger Mahony is going to want his money back.

I think this is astounding.

We could have LA Archdiocese attorneys and Roger Mahony pitted against Salesian attorneys in court later this spring, fighting it out over who gets the $21.5 million. The Salesians never let go of their cash, no matter how many times they lose civil cases. They keep appealing and appealing and asking for extensions on their appeals.

I wonder if the Salesians will be stupid enough to not pay back Cardinal Roger Mahony.

And if they don't pay back the Cardinal, who gets their legs broken, the Rector Major in Italy or some lowly accountant brother in San Francisco?

Joey Piscitelli, Northwest Director of SNAP, still hasn’t gotten paid his settlement from the July 2006 trial in San Francisco where a jury returned a verdict against the Salesians in his favor. Instead the Salesians filed an appeal, then they filed an extension on filing the appeal, apparently spending millions altogether and continuing to spend millions, all to fight payment of Piscitelli’s $600,000 settlement.

I was in court earlier this month and saw Church Attorney Steve McFeely try to prove the Salesians in California have nothing to do with the Salesians in Rome.

His Pillsbury Doughboy face beet red, McFeely stood up in front of the judge and said, “It’s just impossible (to produce financial records on the Salesians in Rome) I don't represent them. You’d be ordering the Salesians to produce something they don’t have."

McFeely’s voice is shrill and whiny, a trait he’s developed to make judges and attorneys have no choice but to stop and listen to him as he shrieks.

McFeely: “This motion is for plaintiffs in this case to get information about finances for somebody who’s not here. I don't represent them, I don't have their documents and I'm sure my client doesn't.”

I love watching Church Attorneys conjure up new concepts to protect the Bosses in the Vatican; here claiming that since they represent the California Salesians, it somehow proves there’s no connection between their clients and Rome.

How convenient.

So in a divorce a husband can claim his wife has nothing to do with him just because she’s got a different attorney. Nice logic, Salesians attorneys from the lawfirm of Foley & Lardner in LA. A concept obviously cooked up behind very thick doors, probably by a PR guy.

The Western Province of the Salesians in San Francisco did incorporate as a nonprofit back in the 1980s, undoubtedly to cash in on state and federal tax advantages of this unique American construct that is supposed to encourage philanthropy.

Hah.

Salesians accountants must have caught on in the eighties that it’s better to be a nonprofit than a church when it comes to running Boys Clubs and such in California.

Still it’s specious to say the Salesians are in any way hurting for cash, considering the mansion that is the Salesians Western Province Headquarters in San Francisco at 1100 Franklin St. an address that is close enough to Pacific Heights to mingle with the incredibly wealthy.

The Salesians Mansion in San Francisco is also close enough to the Tenderloin District to dip in and find vulnerable children who live in poverty, the target demographic of young boys and girls the Salesian brothers love oh so much....

“In San Francisco the Salesian mansion covers almost a whole block in a district that's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a foot,” said Joey Piscatelli, SNAP’s Northern California contact. “The Salesian Mansion is this giant provincial building, 15 thousand square feet. That building alone is worth five to ten million. Then they own the Salesian High school grounds in Richmond, that's probably worth five million.” Joey went on, “In California they probably have 25 million in real estate, just in California and then they turn around and call themselves poor.”

“They have a mansion in Richmond, called the Salesian Residence and it’s new. Boys Club Center in Richmond, that's where I was molested the first time. Since I was there they've built a brand new building,” Joey continued.

“Then there’s everything they get from donations.

“They have all that property in California and don’t pay taxes on it and then they turn around and call themselves poor.”

If the Western Province of the Salesians is totally separate from the Italian Salesian headquarters, as Church Attorneys are claiming in LA courts now, then how does the Western Province pay the utility bills on that Franklin Street mansion?

*****
So I showed up at department 308 at 600 South Commonwealth, the new location for Clergy Cases trials, for a pre-trial hearing earlier this month, on Plaintiffs’ Motion to Allow Discovery.

Oh cool, I thought, when I saw the new judge Emilie Elias. She is femme like me, sort of my age but better tended so she looks younger. She seems to have the same no bullshit attitude my generation of American women bring to everything we do from raising our teenagers to handling scalawag defense and plaintiff attorneys like Emilie Elias apparently does.

Then it hits me as I watch the judge: She’s the person I could have been if my life hadn’t been skewed by compulsions from rape by a pedophile priest.

Sitting in the courtroom I remember when I was in college in Texas in the late 1970s, and I told my new ex I’d decided to become a judge. Going to go onto law school after I get my Journalism bachelor’s and go on to become a judge,

This man my ex who would soon successfully get total custody of our children because I was so--o-o-o-o-o screwed up, just looked at me in total amazement and sneered. I was clueless. “You want to be a judge?” His tone was sarcastic.

God this is weird, I’m thinking. Judge Emilie Elias could be my sister. She has a face shaped like mine, same lines forming around her mouth that are forming on mine, same concentrated intensity as she listens.

She’s the person I could have been.

She turns her head a certain angle and looks exactly like my cousin Theresa in Chicago minus about 300 pounds. My cousin Theresa in Chicago who hates me too as do all the relatives remaining alive in my family

People don’t realize the residual effects these rapes sex crimes in the Catholic Church have on Catholic families.

Just then in the courtroom was the first time I remembered, and I could have been a damn good judge, if I hadn’t had all those compulsions that got me fired from every job I ever had. I’d forgotten.

Just like now sitting in the courtroom I realize I’ve forgotten some of the attorneys’ names since last December. Got to get bury my nose in this 1.5 inch thick document about the Salesians. . . .

Onward. . .

Baker could be paroled Aug 2011, another early release, one of many patterns we see over and over in Sex Crimes in the Catholic Church

*****
By Kay Ebeling
Michael Stephen Baker will be eligible for parole August 18, 2011. He’s at California Correctional Institution, Tahachapee, but is subject to transfer at any time, or he could stay there for the next three and a half years. Baker’s sentence December 3, 2007, was 8 and a half years. In California there is no parole hearing where victims can speak unless the convict had a life sentence but you can send Victim Impact Statements to Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services, PO 942883, Sacramento, California, 94283-0001. Refer to his CDC # F96146, and his birth date, which is 12/26/1947.

Like most convicted predator priests, Baker will serve half his term because every day that he shows “good behavior” in prison is a day taken away from his sentence. Baker as an LA priest managed to assault dozens of boys while convincing parents, other priests, and hierarchy that he was innocent. Who is more equipped to work the system to get the maximum time off for “good behavior” than a predator Catholic priest? Once again the pedophile manipulates the justice system in its favor and DA’s, judges, attorneys, everyone just shrugs.

I’m starting to take note of patterns we've seen in sex predator priest crimes as the stories come out through documents. One is Church Attorney techniques: Postpone, avoid and do whatever you can to keep the plaintiffs from getting discovery. Usually this goes on right up to the week before a trial. Then days before the trial they settle. So depositions of hierarchy never take place although they are subpoenaed over and over again.

There are also patterns in techniques priests used to gain the target’s (usually a child) trust. As soon as the child starts to pull away, the perpetrator says, “What's the matter don’t you trust me?” Since he’s a priest he has the child trumped there, plus the parents and all the boy’s relatives think it’s wonderful to have a priest in the boy’s life. Another technique many priests have used -- Lavigne, Vas, Horne -- They insinuate themselves into families who are so happy to have a priest coming to visit so often, and he just spends hours and hours with the children. . .

Richard R. Lavigne “blackmailed” his targets, in one case letting the underage boy drive his car. Then later when the boy tried to push Lavigne away, the priest would say “If you tell your parents what we did, I’ll tell them you were driving and you don’t have a license yet.” The child would be cornered, no way out.

Lavigne debilitated his targets. He would come into the bathroom when one boy was bathing and say, “You don’t know how to clean your rectum, I have to do it for you.”

Another pattern: The predator priests often take boys on trips, stay in motels, campgrounds. A number of these priests have money from mysterious sources which they use to buy luxurious vacation homes. Parents for some reason think it’s great that a priest would take their boy on such a vacation.

We see patterns in the crimes, same thing over and over again, in the documents, at bishop accountability dot org. The Lavigne documents are linked at snap network dot org as well.

Doesn't it all smell a little bit too organized and similar from one archdiocese to the next?
======

Father Michael Kelly of Stockton used to babysit his targets. Now what's a grown man doing babysitting in the 1980s unless it’s to insinuate himself into a family and diddle the children? Kelly was reinstated to his Central California church last week, as the investigation carried out by the local bishop and the PI he hired did not uncover evidence. The victim is a John Manly client. Manly says he’ll sue soon.

====
Franklyn Becker used to tell his victims, go ahead and try to tell someone what I'm doing to you. No one would believe you. “You can tell someone, but no one will believe you, who will believe you over a priest?”

How many other priests said that to their targets? What a scam these pedophiles pulled off. Protected by bishops for reasons we've yet to find out. When these priests were transferred, it would inevitably be to a new place where they have access to children.

City of Angels Blog is only beginning to find out what happened at Mary Star parish in San Pedro at the carnivals.

Stay tuned, keep reading, keep coming back, it will all be reported here someday soon.

One letter in one tiny exhibit attached to one document in the Franklyn Becker cases, shows the continued manipulation of a victim even after Becker had been reported. Nothing seems to stop these guys, the bishops gave them free reign, here, take these kids. . . This is one letter from one person:

“In our last conversation you were concerned about Lyn Becker’s continued involvement with the boy from Fox Point. . . .I decided to drop you a note to give you an update. Over the weekend I talked to the mother and she informed me that her son had received another letter from Lyn last week, ostensibly to congratulate him on his graduation. If it had stopped at that I'm sure the mother would not have objected.

What irritated her was the fact that the letter was mostly a recitation of the “good life” he (Franklyn Becker) is leading -- LeClub, a trip to Chicago to see 42nd street, dinner invitations, etc.

What most upset her, however was that he expressed a real desire to get this boy together with his roommate and himself as they all (to quote Lyn) share common interests. This mother, a widow, is trying desperately to get this son’s value system straightened out through the help of the priests at Marquette High and through professional counseling. She does not feel that she, her son, or the rest of her family need any further contact with Lyn and/or Phil, his roommate at this point.

Please, parents, stop turning from one criminal to another to get help. Don't go to the church for counseling or any other kind of justice, it doesn't happen. PAY ATTENTION. They are all in this together, it’s collusion, organized crime.

You don’t go to the Don Corleone to complain about Michael.

You can read the Franklyn Becker documents at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel online (JS online), get there by googling Franklyn Becker documents. I would put a link on the left but I haven’t been able to access Blogger Layout anywhere below the first screen now for weeks. A lot of blogspot blogs are having the same problem. Google which owns Blogspot is working on the platform it designed to make these blogs seamless with YouTube. That's why none of the videos on this blog have changed in weeks as well. Hope they fix it soon.

COMMENTS
THAT MAKE IT TO THE BIG TIME
AND GET PUBLISHED
AT CITY OF ANGELS BLOG:

There have been some really good comments after posts here, and just so they go on the record I’m copy and pasting them here:

Keep Commenting. Because of SPAM I am monitoring comments, and sometimes it takes me an hour or so to get to it, but PLEASE keep commenting. Arguments for and against the blog will be posted, only SPAM is not wanted.

On March 1, Pissed in Pasadena tore into the Church’s spin that the number of priests who were predators reflects the amount of predators there are in mainstream society with this comment.

Argumentation, by laity paid for PR or lawyer firms, for Roger Mahony, that the Roman Catholic Insitutional pedophile and sexual assault of over 1,200 California children (that's the known ones, and the unknown or never reported child rapes and sodomies is much higher), over the past 30 years, under the direct administration and criminal cover-up of Roger Mahony, yet unconvicted felon enabler, only came to light 5 years ago, is a flat out LIE.

Deflection by these propagandists that what has happened in the Roman Catholic Church, and the LA Archdiocese, is but a tiny example of much more in our American society, in general, is also a flat out LIE.

The JJ Criminal Justice Report, commissioned by the US NCCB, places America Criminal Roman Catholic sexual rape, oral copulation, sodomy of children, etc., in the US, at the ultra conservative number of 12,000+ victims from over 4,000 ordained.

That places the sexual assault felons standard, out of approximately 44,000 or so Roman Catholic religious ordered, or secular ordained, just under 10% of the current clerics in the American Roman Catholic Church.

But let's just say for argument sake it's half that, or 5% (though I personally really doubt it, and suspect it's more than 10%)?

Is society in general (about 310 million Americans) running a reported convicted, or unconvicted, percentage of 5% of the population being pedophiles and assaulters of children? The answer is a resounding NO! It's not even 1% of the general population!!!

Delusional curia spin artist and office holder, Hummes of Brazil, is still out there claiming the number of sexual assaulters of children in the Roman Catholic Church is gloablly "under 1% and this is an American problem", a mantra so blatently false, and sick, as to make even the least able thinker to laugh in disbelief.

The curia are still covering-up where even the defrocked pedophiles were released to, and still harming more children, and fighting such disclosures, tooth and nail, in the courts, with our (laity) money!

Fellow Laity, I agree with the previous comments above, in NOT trusting ANYTHING the LA Archdiocese, it's employees, and certainly it's office holder Roger Mahony, have to say!

I for one plan not to donate any money until this Sick-Crooked-To-The-Core-Son-Of-A-Bitch-Mahony is gone, and hopefully behind bars to rot for life.

I am a South Pasadena resident and Roman Catholic of 34 years.

Pissed In Pasadena

ON March 8th: A Small Whispering Sound said...

It seems that canon, civil, criminal, politicians, and the mainstream media, as means of redress, or honest disclosure, have all failed victims and paying laity, repeatedly.

One glimmer of hope appears to be the disclosure of ongoing henious clerical misconduct, via the internet blog sites.

It is not by accident, but rather design, that many Roman Catholic Church officials will exort any means of supression, to prevent full disclosure of the ongoing and pervasive atrocities, that they are directly responsbile for, and guilty of, to continue to deflect personal accountabillity.

But one must ask themselves, why supress that which has occurred, or continues to occur?

Essentially, the felonious culpability, as exsemplified by megalomaniacs, like Los Angeles Archdiocese's Roger Mahony, will (and are) triggering a mass exodus of laity revenue, and participation.

The Laity GET IT, while the curia pretend not to.

This is all about money and power.

Rome is indeed spiritually and financially burning; and deserves every bit of it.

What Napolean Bonaparte promised to destroy, the clergy have finally managed to accomplish on their own.

Also, there is a wide spread internal blackmailing conduct, that continues to occur, because at least 30% of the Roman Catholic Church bishops, are in the closet, practicing homosexuals.

Who wants to belong to a religion run by blackmailed officer holders, and pedophile enablers, with known and affirmed pedophile clerics consisting of at least 10% (not the clear lie of "less than 1%") of about 448,000 ordained, in the global Roman Catholic Church?

Will you be among the duped?

Will you take a stand for truth by voting with your wallets and legs?

Will you 'wash your hands', like Pilate, and the current officer holders of the Roman Catholic Church, and quip, in the correct Latin translation, not found in the revised Passion text: "Who's Truth?!"

Will you make a difference for yourselves, your families, you friends, and the generations of faithful, to come?

Will you?

A Small Whispering Sound

Lots of people comment about Roger Mahony:

There were a series (at least 6) all ruled as "suicides" in 2002, in Washington State, Oregon, and California, of Roman Catholic Church sexual assault victims (from Fresno, Stockton & LA), within months of each other, with two of the "suicides" having been ready to swear criminal grand jury depositions, under cross examination, in regard to the (ongoing to this very day) criminal conduct of Roger M. Mahony in a RICO (Racketeering In Criminal Organizations) Indictment.

If you talk to neutral criminal investigators of these cases, with decades of experience in these matters, at least 4 of the 6 "suicides", all had the clear marketings of professional "hits".

Who gained by these suicides? Roger M. Mahony

What is the statute of limitations of murder for hire? There is NONE.

www.bishop-accountability.org/abusetracker for daily verified stories on the ongoing criminal conduct and cover-up of the Roman Catholic Curia as exsemplified by Roger. M. Mahony.

Laity, Stop Your Donating, Until Roger M. Mahony, EVIL Office Holder, Is GONE In LA As Well As Hundreds Of Other Guilty Red Hat & Miter Pedophile Enablers!

North Hollywood Insider

AND FINALLY THE DEAR POPE BENEDICT ALWAYS MAKES HIS APPEARANCE TO STRAIGHTEN EVERYONE OUT:

I, Your Pontiff, formerly Joseph Ratzinger, CDF Prelate, must strongly suggest that Ms. Ebling, and whomever 'HRH' may be, are both correct.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese, under office holder Roger Mahony, since 1985, is indeed a criminal enterprise, that is still aiding and abetting known child rapists, oral copulators, physical maimers, kidnappers, murderers, mental torturers, extortionists, racketeers, embezzlers, perjurers, and sodomizers, costing the LA Roman Catholic Laity multiple BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, with no end in sight.

The LA Archdiocese remains a place of clear and present child endangerment and no laity memeber should ever trust a word from the likes of Roger Mahony or those working for him.

I, Your Pontiff, would sooner trust The Devil Himself; at least I suspect I know where the Prince Of Darkness stands in the scheme of things.

The 'North Hollywood Insider' is also a truthful person.

Yes, there where planned 'suicides' made, by independent third parties, on behalf of getting Roger Mahony off, on RICO indictments in 2002. Mahony was fully aware of these 'hits', and is indeed an accessory to several murders.

The many ministries destroyed, vocations in the sewer, slashed payrolls, closed seminaries & monasteries & convents & schools & orders, massive legal costs irrespective of settlements, hugely increased insurance liability premiums, and many multi-generational laity paid for assets, totally squandered under Roger Mahony, are indeed a modern record of incompetency and evil, rivaled by no other single global cleric, in modern Roman Catholic Church history.

I, formerly Joseph Ratzinger, was unable to go after Arch Enabler and Pedophile Ring Leader Roger Mahony, when running CDF, because he was an appointee of John Paul II, and a major revenue source for The Holy See at the time(Marion Davies estate's Santa Barbara oil rig lease revenue, left to the LA Archdiocese, is in the many hundreds of millions of dollars per year to the LA Archdiocese).

These Davies estate's monies have to been squandered on the OLA "Mahal" Cathedral, Rog's cabins, turbo choppers, private real estate deals, investment portfolios, lavish vacations, and personal expenses, personal legal costs, in the many millions of dollars per year, etc.).

What then is the solution?

LA LAITY, YOU MUST STOP DONATING ANY MONIES FOR ANY REASON UNTIL ROGER MAHONY IS DRIVEN FROM OFFICE!

I, Your Pontiff, need the excuse of lack of laity revenue coming in, to rid LA of this Arch Enabler!

God With God, But Please Do Not Donate!

Benedict XVI th
Pontiff & Sinner

NOTE:
Since I started monitoring the person who was copy and pasting articles from The Tidings has disappeared as well.

WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
I will post any comments that are not SPAM. Anything.

Journalists know that public expression is the key to maintaining freedom.

Onward. . .

Are the bishops a bunch of nuts? Do they really think predator pedophile priest rape survivors want to go on a retreat with a bunch of priests?

*****
By Kay Ebeling
Two items today on Abuse Tracker really got my craw to the point that I’ve got to sneak away from work to write a post about them.

All those people watching their churches and parochial schools close while the archdioceses sell the real estate need to step in and stop them. Those churches belong to the people who go to them and families that have been tithing to them for generations.

How preposterous that the church can say we're closing these churches and schools due to the sexual predator clergy crisis, and then sell all the real estate (prime $$$$) and keep the profits.

Doesn't anyone else see something a little bit wrong with that?

Then we have the report released March 7 by the US Conference of Bishops bragging that “Counseling, retreats, support groups and spiritual direction are among the types of assistance U.S. dioceses have offered to victims of sexual abuse, notes a new,” as the Tidings wrote about it.

ARE YOU KIDDING? Do you think I trust my psyche to anybody in the Catholic Church right now? You think I want to go off on a retreat run by a bunch of priests and people who act like priests????????

ARE YOU NUTS???

Spiritual direction? From you?????

Sorry, Church, what I want is my life changed. I feel sorry for people in the LA settlement who ended up with far less than a million after everything got deducted from their settlements.

Because anything less than several million is not enough. Face it, church, you RUINED OUR LIVES. I don't want to go on a spiritual retreat with people I think are straight from SATAN, do you think I'm nuts?

I grasp onto what's left of my spirit by staying as far away from anything Catholic as possible. I had to quit going to Kairos Church because they promoted Lent too much and sang songs I recognize from Catholic Church. I almost vomited last time I was there.

Sorry, guys, but that's where you stand right now. How dare you call running retreats for us progress when as far as I know, most of us won't come near your church anymore.

The only way to recompense is to CHANGE OUR LIVES, and I don't mean give me the down payment on a condo and therapy done by someone you recommend.

ENOUGH!
Kay Ebeling

April 18 Vigil in New York, anyone want to do same in LA and other cities to send message to visiting pope re what predator priests did to us?

*****
By Kay Ebeling
Just heard that A Matter of Truth is holding a vigil next April in New York City at the same time the Pope is tromping 'round the town, and I thought what a good idea. I want to be outside the LA cathedral at the same time that day. We can bring cell phones and send videos back and forth between the vigil in New York and in LA and maybe other cities as well. So if anyone wants to join me and A Matter of Truth in LA and thinks this is a good idea, please email me through the link on the left.

On April 18th, I want to be holding candles and singing gospel songs very loud, (not Catholic ones, the other ones) outside the architectural mess at 555 W. Temple Street downtown. I want to hold a sign that says, “Dear Pope, The Bishops Let Pedophile Priests Rape Children” and “How could you guys think this was okay?” Signs like that.

In New York City on Friday April 18 there will be a candlelight vigil at 7PM Eastern at Lott Gallery, 443 W. 18th St. with live readings. They will also have open books where you can leave a personal message for the Pope and an exhibit of portraits from the Crosses project, in the gallery from 6 to 9 PM.

New York photojournalist Carmine Galasso crossed the country to produce “Crosses” where he took pictures of clergy abuse survivors, as adults, often standing in locations that connected to the abuse. It’s almost eerie.

A Matter of Truth is timing the vigil to coincide with the hours the pope will hold Mass at a cathedral and speak at the United Nations.

You can buy the book “Crosses” at amatteroftruth dot org.

Robert Costello of A Matter of Truth Boston who is organizing the April vigil said he met with Carmine Galasso around 2004. “He turned to us as another group of survivors. It was around 2004 he started the interview process, and he criss crossed the country, networked through people.”

The book “Crosses: Portraits of Clergy Abuse” is a collection of photographs taken over the course of three years in the Boston area and in small towns and big cities across the country. It tells the "very personal stories" of men and women who were among the first survivors to come forward, when the nationwide clergy abuse scandals were just beginning.

A review of Crosses at Spencer Lofts Gallery described the book:

The images, shown as large scale prints, are delicate and haunting. Some of the survivors are photographed in environments that hold meaning to their stories. Others are photographed in a more abstract manner, but ultimately all the portraits share a common feeling of human loss and betrayal.Carmine Galasso has been a photographer for 30 years and the recipient of numerous photojournalist honors. “Crosses” is his first book.

I really wish I could be in New York on April 18 to throw tomatoes at the Pope (if I could get close enough, at least to hit one of the guys who serve him, as they are probably worse criminals than the Pope is), and then go to the Lott Gallery that evening to join the vigil.

But it's 2008 so we can all be together in the ether, by sending videos and photos to each other with cell phones, showing that unlike the Catholic Church, the movement of priest rape survivors is based on total openness and honesty. No Secrets. We are willing to stand in the street and shout out what happened to us.

My travel budget right now can be read at the top left column of this blog. I'm trying to raise money to go to Chicago and work on my story there, research the real history of St. Peter Damian Parish and perhaps find more victims of Father Thomas Barry Horne.

Please, dear readers, click my PayPal button and put even just five dollars on there to go towards my trip to Chicago. It will all add up. I’ll be honest and report all income and expenses here, so no one will get ripped off. I need to go to Chicago and don’t have the cash raised yet but we are getting there.

April 18th hopefully a few other people will want to join me in front of the Cathedral in LA that day. Please email me and let me know. I'm a little FMS'd out and have to rest, so can’t write more today or next few days.

SALESIANS TRIAL COMING APRIL 14
I am slowly consuming a document on the Salesians that is at least an inch thick, with single spacing and no margins, the Motion to Allow Discovery Relating to the Salesians Society.

The plaintiffs' motion was filed in February 2008 and argued in court last week.

City of Angels Blog is getting smart on the Salesians in preparation for the jury trial which begins April 14 in LA. Judge Emilie Elias has apparently decided to go forward with the trial even if the Salesians don’t cooperate with Discovery.

Perhaps Judge Elias feels we can do Discovery on the stand if the Salesians won't cooperate pretrial. It promises to be very interesting and City of Angels Blog will be there reporting.

Onward. . .

Lott Gallery where the April 18 exhibition and vigil will take place in New York is at:

443 W18th STREET
NEW YORK, NY
Between 9th and 10th

Like waves on the ocean, priest rape survivor memories ebb and flow, and sometimes it takes 50 years to file charges and a lawsuit.

*****
By Kay Ebeling
Spent last weekend at the sea and at one point ended up beating down ugly flashbacks, this damn story follows me everywhere I go. If anyone wonders why a 71 year old woman would file a lawsuit like Kay Goodnow did last Friday, about rape by a priest when she was 15 years old, more than 50 years ago, try going on a trip like I did last week and I'm 59 raped by a priest 54 years ago. I'm in Ensenada and I see a hotel where a horrible thing happened to me when I was still "in the life" so of course all of a sudden I remember the whole experience in one flash. Yes, priest rape as a child can still taint your life and your vacation, even 50 plus years later.

Kay Goodnow of Kansas City was already my hero because only last year at age 70 she filed a police report regarding Predator Priest Jack Baskett and his sexual assaults on her 50 years ago, and as a result his name went up on Bishop Accountability. Jack Baskett entered Goodnow’s life when she was 15 years old and raped her. Then he would drop back in as she became an adult, just long enough to confuse her and mess with her life again. She filed suit against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph last week.

The Kansas City Star put the story up around 12:01 AM, “Lawsuit accuses priest of sexual abuse in 1952” and by 4:24 AM there were four vicious comments after the article, the first by someone who called themself, “sue the dead.” However, by the time they closed the comments, there were five screens, and in the end supporters outnumbered the stalkers. One of the last comments, posted by Vatican2Catholic copy and pasted an article by Sister Maureen Paul Turlish from National Catholic Reporter, October 28, 2005. (All 47 comments are copy and pasted at the end of this post for your reading pleasure.)

Serendipity took me to Ensenada, Mexico, last week and as I'm wandering the streets looking for the best pharmacy, I look up and there’s another trigger right in my face, the Ramshackle Hotel it could be called. You'd think it would be gentrified by now, but no, it’s the same run down slimy place it was in 1967, doors so crooked they could have been drawn by a child. Maybe that's the hotel’s marketing edge, slimy rundown rooms in Mexican beach town where you can get away with anything.

A guy brought me to that hotel on a date in 1967, I was 19, and it is one of the times that was so bad even I can’t remember details of what he did. I do remember lying in that hotel room among smells of semen and other, well, things. I had to stay behind while he went back out to the bars, as I was aching in strange places. So I stayed there in the hotel room with the fleas looking out the window at what is now a row of pharmacies where you can buy morphine pills for seven dollars a pop.

I was 19 in 1967 and my daughter is 19 now. Arggh the synchronicity, it doesn't stop, like the waves on the ocean, you always move forward and then a little bit back, a little bit forward, a little bit back.

At 19 with a brain like mine I should have been in college, or considering the times, with a soul like mine I should have been starting a family with a husband. Yet here I was flopping around Pasadena going on a date with someone with wrinkles who batters me. Looking back at it today, it was sexual assault, and I just took it, because of the compulsion.

The compulsion didn't come from God, it came from Father Horny. I’ve decided out of respect for his being dead since 1985 to drop the E at the end of his name and replace it with a Y. So my perp Father Thomas Barry Horne is now officially Father Horny.

People doubt if a rape by a Catholic priest in childhood can still have negative effects on a person at age 60, yeah it can.

MORE KAY GOODNOW STUFF

Kay Goodnow is a 71 year old lady who was raped by her Catholic priest at age 15, then he raped her repeatedly at different times during her life, into adulthood, a bizarre case of criminal manipulation. Today Kay works part time in retail and also spends hours forwarding news stories by email to her list of fellow priest rape survivors dealing with Sex Crimes in the Catholic Church.

Last week her lawyer got everything lined up and announced Kay Goodnow’s civil lawsuit.

Kay Goodnow made this statement:

So, why is a grandmother filing a suit? One reason is to dispel the notion that my claim (and the claims of countless others in this community) is precluded by the statute of limitations. That simply isn’t true for many reasons which include culpability because of the decades of cover up, and because of the issue of repressed memory and the length of time it takes for a victim to comprehend the damage done.

Kay Goodnow wants to use her lawsuit to bring out the truth. She stated:

The Bishops’ child protection act of 2002 is not being enforced. Sure, the diocese does Virtus, they do background checks on their staff and they suggest that children be trained to protect themselves.

How are the priests vetted? Who trains them in abuse issues? That, after all, is the reason the church is in crisis and the reason that the scandal has been covered up. They created the problem and they are responsible for resolving it.

The diocese would have the public believe that they are cooperating with local authorities, yet; none of the priests who have been accused have been prosecuted. It’s all window dressing. This diocese has never accepted accountability.

Sometimes it takes little old ladies coming forward, Kay Goodnow continues:

So, if it takes little old ladies coming forward, so it is. There are probably hundreds of other victims from my generation and it’s never too late for them to seek truth, justice, comfort and healing.

Kay took a lot of abuse in the Kansas City Star Comments section for “waiting 50 years” to file her suit. In her statement, Kay Goodnow said:

I will admit that I was slow to catch on to what happened to me; I was very slow to accept that I had actually been a victim. I believed for a very long time that that man loved me, and no one likes being played for a fool.

I know personally that it may take a lifetime for an individual to realize the extent of the damage done and to do something about it. I know, because I was slow. That’s why I’m here, to do something about it.

We need time to realize the extent of the damage done, sometimes it takes 40 or more years.

Now she feels free - Kay Goodnow continues:

I am now so glad that it happened to me. It took a long time, but I am free of the restrictions, threats and brainwashing that were used on me in that era. I further believe that age helps with this process called “healing,” because as I face my own future and time grows shorter, it becomes apparent that I have the right to think for myself, as do all human beings. I have accepted responsibility for my own spirituality. I am proud that I protected my children and grandchildren in my own way. I simply could not allow this to happen to them.

I was taught to believe that a priest or a nun is next to God and can do no wrong. Sexual abuse by persons who supposedly represent God results in rape of the soul. The tactics used by these predators is always linked to God in one form or another, even by those who tell their victims that “no one will ever believe you” or “if you tell, I will injure you and other members of your family.”

People are either for or against child abuse. I have never met anyone who said “I think abuse of children is a good thing.” Those who are for the protection of children and do nothing about it are enablers.

Until those who pretend to be the final arbiters of right and wrong accept responsibility, children remain imperiled. The authority of the church enables predators to walk amongst us freely. That must end. Enabling, aiding or abetting the abuse of children borders on the criminal. Catholics have the right to demand that their children are protected.

Enabling bishops have built and worship at the “Church of the Almighty Dollar.” They have placed greater importance on protecting known sex offenders than on protecting the children trusted to their care. They have chosen golden chalices and pieces of silver.

As a result, schools and churches are being closed and properties sold off. From their pulpits, they would have Catholics believe that their own victims caused the problem.

In my opinion, all Roman Catholics are being abused in one form or another.

********************

WE ALL HAVE TO DO SOMETHING
to make this happen for us:

Today in my email from three different major news groups I got this:

Scandal-Plagued Spitzer Stepping Down
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will resign effective
Monday over a prostitution scandal.

What the bishops did was ions worse than a New York governor going to a prostitute.

The media will respond this way to our story someday, when the criminal bishops are forced to step down.

The story of bishops forced to step down will show up in people’s emails three or four times from national news organizations like this one did about the Governor of New York, when the criminal bishops finally step down.

It can happen.

Onward . . .

HERE ARE THE COMMENTS FROM KANSAS CITY STAR READERS TO THE NEWS OF KAY GOODNOW'S LAWSUIT

These morons have gone completely off the deep end now.
• Posted by: sue the dead
• 3/7/2008 2:22 AM

This can't be proven or disproven since the priest died several years ago...if it happened, she waited too long to speak up. I certainly don't want part of my tithe going to this woman.
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 3:45 AM

Oh, come on now... "Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests." SNAP? Is it April Fool's already?
• Posted by: Reggie
• 3/7/2008 4:02 AM

What a crock! I'm beginnig to see it clearly now .... I think I was abused 50 years ago as an infant .... yes I see that evil face coming into view .... it's... it's ...it's ....Mickey Mouse! Damm that evil rodent - I'll sue him for every penny he owns!
• Posted by: LOL
• 3/7/2008 4:24 AM

I fully support Ms. Goodnow's attempt at some form of justice for the crimes committed against her. Hopefully the lawsuit will bring her some resolution, and she will be able to fully heal. I applaud your courage and am proud of you!!
• Posted by: Irene
• 3/7/2008 7:52 AM

My goodness. Here we have a woman who has finally had the courage to come forward and tell her painful story in a socially acceptable manner using the US court system to hear her case for better or worse, and all these negative comments spew forth, blaming and insinuating she is making things up. This is evidence that some people have their heads in the sand about the cruelty and lifelong devastation that a priest and its hierarchy can do to another human being when power is abused. So what is it that people have against her having her day in court? It seems to imply that those against it are unpatriotic to our justice system at best, and severely limited in one's scope in empathizing with a rape victim. It is this very attitude portrayed above that has allowed these criminal priests and bishops to continue to hurt innocent children and vulnerable adults, and will continue to allow them to hurt people. This attitude thrives when ignorance is the prevailing fog and dissipates when light and knowledge allows the evidence to come forth. Let the court system do what it is supposed to do, and may the negative commenters set aside their prejudices and allow some light to dissipate their fog.
• Posted by: ATman
• 3/7/2008 8:15 AM

What ever happened to the Statute of Limitations? This sort of stuff is total Bulls***. If someone has to wait this long, it appears not to have been that big a problemn to start with. Let it go. Someone is just out for money and a lame excuse to start with.
• Posted by: Squatee2663
• 3/7/2008 8:26 AM

Have to give Ms. Goodnow a lot of credit. The hurt never goes away. Walk in the victims shoes before you cast the first stone. Go to it Kay!!!!!I'm on your side.
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 8:50 AM

Katherine Goodnow is a courageous woman. The cruel comments of some in this forum are illustrative of why it takes sometimes an entire lifetime for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to come forward, if they ever come forward at all. Katherine has suffered enough, and she deserves our compassion and support.
• Posted by: Suzy Nauman
• 3/7/2008 8:54 AM

There should be a balance to the system for rape cases and there is not and people are abusing it. This whole attitude that everyone should have their say no matter how long it's been and even if they have absolutely no evidence whatsoever is ridiculous. The system has become completely skewed in the victim's favor. They can say whatever they want, whenever they want, and a defendent can do nothing. It's wrong & should be corrected. There are to many innocent people who's lives have been ruined, that are in prison, were in prison, or took plea deals to avoid prison but are marked for life because of these witch hunts, and to many "victims" getting rich at their expense.
• Posted by: fedup
• 3/7/2008 9:00 AM

Need evidence? That is what the court system is for. Either you are a patriot and have faith in the system or you don't. Isn't presupposing that someone is filing a claim without evidence indicates a rush to judgement and prejudicial? Katherine will have her day in court. This article is only reporting a portion of the whole story. The judge will have to see what's there. Sometimes the evidence is the wretched scar that no-one else can see, feel or have to live with. Even if there is a statute of limitations that will discard this case on legal issues, it still does not dismiss the truth of the matter.
• Posted by: ATman
• 3/7/2008 9:19 AM

Before 2002 when the Boston stories broke no one would have believed Ms. Goodnow's story. Since 2002 more than 4400 priests have been cited as pedophilies and ephebophiles, with convictions and credible accusations. They raped children and adolescents. To those naysayers, I say pay attention and expect more people to come forward with bizarre unbelievable stories. It's been gradual as the public finally begins to see THIS ALL REALLY HAPPENED, there was an edpidemic of sex crimes for 50 plus years as these deviants thrived by hiding behind their religious robes. I know it's hard to believe, but no one would come forward with a story like this, knowing there would be troglodytes posting hateful comments and slinging arrows at her, if it were not true. Go to bishopaccountability dot org and start from A to Z reading about one priest after another and the crimes. Then see if you don't believe Goodnow's story.
• Posted by: Kay Ebeling, Los Angeles
• 3/7/2008 9:20 AM

boy: ... no, no, no
priest: " . . . its that satanic p e n i s in your pants that i want to touch, little boy."
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 9:34 AM

As a Catholic priest who is also a victim of clergy sexual abuse, I applaud Katherine Goodnow for her courage in filing a lawsuit against her abuser. I was born in 1952, the year Kay was sexually abused by the priest. If I had known then what I know now...and all Catholics should be thinking the same thing!
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 10:21 AM

What a crock, how convenient the suspect is dead, so you can't prove one way or the other what this stinking liar is saying. Another money grubber want a few free bucks.
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 10:35 AM

Those that use words like "witch hunt" are only covering up the crimes of pedophiles. More power to those that speak out against child abuse and child molesters.
• Posted by: stop child abuse
• 3/7/2008 10:39 AM

I love all of these people who are pre-supposing that Ms. Goodnow is telling the truth. She's presented no evidence for any of them to base their statements on. I would say Ms. Goodnow is pretty smart, she knows that with the accused dead, the Diocese will be unable to defend their case, since they can't investigate the allegations by questinoning the supposed violator. So Ms. Goodnow and her attorney's know very well that the Diocese will have no choice but to try and settle this out of court and guaratee her and her attorney some money.
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 10:41 AM

Goodnow said Thursday that she didn?t come forward earlier partly because she was embarrassed
However,now that she hasn't saved enough money for retirement and needs a few bucks to get by on, it's okay to talk about it.
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 10:57 AM

"hard times flush the chumps"
So, why is it that a law suit of this nature is allowed? She's 71 years old. If I were attorney I'd take this one on without even blinking.
• Posted by: EEMcGill
• 3/7/2008 11:16 AM

If this truely happened, I am sorry for her, however, I also feel the that the pain that it inflects upon the Church, is also unfairly centered on the Deceased, since he can not defend himself. Also the fact that the accused is a Catholic Priest is why this whole article even maks the Paper, if it had been a Baptise Preacher or a Jewish Rabbi it would not be printed. I sick that we (Catholics) are the only ones that seem to get printed when a leader make a terriable mistake. I am not defending these crimes, I just want it to be fairly presented and not blown out of proportion because it was a Priest.
But also think it is unfair to the this particular priest since the gentleman passed away 13 years ago, but the Church will have to defend this latest charge anyway, which is money that could be spent on its intention or mission which is serving God's people.
• Posted by: Patrick
• 3/7/2008 12:04 PM

The person that said they did not want their tithes to go to the victim, you are SO right, quit giving to the catholic church! Let them sell their property to pay the MANY victims they have ignored. I believe and back Kay all the way. It took me 35 years to come forward because of the extreme guilt and shame involved. When I did come forward, I lost my entire family! They feel the same way a lot of people feel, priests don't lie. priests are celibate....HA! When are the sheeple going to wake up and see that priests are human, not some godly figure that does not do what other humans do. What would you do if this happened to your sister? Mother? Would you still call her a lier? Would you still turn your back on her? Would you? Kay, you GO GIRL!!!!!!!! I am with you all the way!!!!!
• Posted by: Nicki
• 3/7/2008 12:09 PM

I'm proud to say I have known Katherine Goodnow for a few years. She has spent a number of her adult years as an advocate for clergy abuse victims and is well-known and well-respected by leaders of the movement. Her reputation can stand on its own and my comments are not needed to try and persuade others of her good intentions. For those who have elected to make negative comments about Ms. Goodnow, I can say for certain, that none of you could walk in the shoes of this fiesty 71- year-old champion of clergy abuse victims. It's easy to condemn and criticize but it takes a tremendous amount of courage to take on dysfunctional, enabling Catholic Church hierarchy who still can not admit that sexual crimes against innocent children are wrong.
Mike Ference
• Posted by: Mike Ference
• 3/7/2008 12:10 PM

I will not judge this woman, that is to await her when she gets to the Pearly Gates and stands before Christ and must answer for her own Sins.
But I do question her intention of filing such a lawsuit 13years after the death of the Man accused.
I am not saying things within the Church have never happened, all Priest are just men, which makes them human and subject to the same human errors in judgement as the rest of the population. But thanks to the press he, along with several others, is no longer Innocient until proven gulity, but rather Guilty until he could beyond unsurmountable evidence prove himself Innocient. Thanks to all media this Priest/Man will now for ever be labled as Molestor/Monster and another slam against all Priest who have Faithfully served God and never once harmed another individual but sacrified and tried to serve their lives like Christ. God Bless our Priests and all who dedicate their lives to Christ and the Church.
• Posted by: 4th Degree Knight
• 3/7/2008 12:15 PM

As a practicing Catholic Priest for over 30 years, I've never molested any child, unless they've specifically asked me to.
• Posted by:
• 3/7/2008 12:31 PM

Patrick comments that this issue is only being published because it has to do with a Catholic priest. I suggest he do some homework and find out the exetent of this issue. A good place to start is at ####www.bishopaccountability.org/
Read a few of the grand jury reports to find out about the systematic criminal behavior of the bishops. Patric may then realize why so little is actually being reported, instead.
• Posted by: ATman
• 3/7/2008 1:10 PM

The diocesan spokesperson referred to Goodnow's alleged abuse as a "sin"; let me remind that spokesperson the sexual abuse is a very serious felony under state law, calling for prison sentences of upto 20 years. In Illinois Baskett would have been charged with aggravated sexual assault; ie. RAPE of a minor.
The reason this problem continues is the Church views this abuse as a moral problem rather than a crime,
• Posted by: Mike Fenske
• 3/7/2008 1:43 PM

Is there a problem with hearing the truth? The law allows this action to seek out the truth and the truth is; it happened in 1956, that fact no way diminishes the truth? I question the motives of those who criticize this womens brave effort at justice, without first having some knowledge as to the extent and prevalence of this type of behavior within the confines of Catholic doctrine and cannon law.
• Posted by: teddy
• 3/7/2008 3:01 PM

Kay Goodnow is one of the most courageous women I've ever met. The scars of sexual abuse last a life time. The repurcussions of the abuse are insidious. They manifest themselves in just about all aspects of an abused persons life. Ignorance of these facts is evident in the negativism expressed in many of the comments posted.
I don't and I hope Kay won't either, put any stock in the comments made by blowhards who rant, rave, speculate and ASSume they understand either Kay's pain or motivation. At 71 or 101 there comes a time when the truth must be spoken to set you free.
Rash judgement is the easy way out. It is all too easy to write a few words of criticism when you speak from ignorance. The more prudent thing to do would be to investigate the after affects of sexual abuse before casting aspersions. A better thing to do is to ask the impious hypocrites who sit under red hats why they let the abuse of children coninue unabated for so many years.
• Posted by: Vinnie
• 3/7/2008 3:29 PM

Vinnie wrote: Rash judgement is the easy way out.
You mean like you and all the other Goodnow supporters are doing. Rushing to judgement based soley on the word of one person, without any form of documented proof or even the ability to question the supposed abuser.
It's a two way street folks.
• Posted by: VinnieIsABlowHard
• 3/7/2008 3:46 PM

After all that's come out over the last decade, I'm amazed by the stupid, cynical, and downright mean comments, especially from so-called Christians. Bloody hypocrites!
It's idiots like them who've allowed these monsters to get away with it this long that will enable the next generation to repeat. What will they say when their own grandchildren come forward years from now? "Yeah, honey, we could've cleaned up the Church, but we were too busy mocking victims." For the kid's sake -- not yours -- I hope you never have to find out.
Anyway, you've done your jobs well. This fine woman had to wait till she was a grandmother herself before she came forward because of shameful jerks like you.
• Posted by: Jay
• 3/7/2008 4:05 PM

Posted by BlowHard:
"Rushing to judgement based soley on the word of one person, without any form of documented proof or even the ability to question the supposed abuser."
The question here is WHO is doing the ASSuming? How do you know that Vinnie has never questioned Mrs. Goodnow or the abuser, for that matter?
Mr. Blowhard, have you even looked at any of the hard data? Have you ever investigated the many settlements in your diocese, let alone in this globe? Have you read any of the grand jury reports that detail how many bishops knew that criminal actions were going on, yet chose to ignore he pleas of the children and their parents? Do you know how often pedophile priests were transfered by your bishop? Have you spoken with Mrs Goodnow? Have you spoken with any survivor, for that matter? Do you know how many priests and bishops have been accused in your diocese? Do you know where to get that data if anyone were to ask you? Would you be even willing to investigate the extent of this problem in your diocese, or anywhere else by seeking data from other than the Roman Catholic Church? Would you be willing to have Mrs. Goodnow or any survivor representative come and speak at your next church function?
If you answered no to any of the above questions, then I suggest you are living up to the fullest extent of your name.
• Posted by: ATman
• 3/7/2008 4:57 PM

www.bishop-accountability.org/abusetracker for daily verified coverage of the ongoing criminal cover up, and ongoing pedophile enabling, by the miters and red hats, costing the laity BILLIONS of DOLLARS, with no end in sight.
LAITY! WAKE UP! STOP DONATING UNTIL THE CURIA ENABLERS ARE REMOVED FROM THEIR OFFICES!
• Posted by: Benedict XVI th
• 3/7/2008 6:28 PM

I have had contact with Kay Goodnow. I salute her strength and courage in confronting an institution that has done much good and a great deal of harm. Coverups of abuse by priests, other clergy, and other professionals apparently serving others has occurred at the highest levels. Those who don't believe that are naive. No, I wasn't there in 1952 so I cannot say with certainty what happened but there are many common sense reaons to believe Kay. Filing that suit must have been one of the most hellish experiences of her life. Giving up the fantasy that she was truly loved by the priest surely broke her heart. Her account is coherent, consistent, and accompanied by the feelings that go along with such victimization. How awful to carry such a wound for so long. I hope others will stop attacking her and adding cruel insult to deep injury.
• Posted by: Suzanne
• 3/7/2008 7:07 PM

There was a lady named Kay
Who lived a way far away.
But she became a great friend
We both had souls to mend.
It was the scandal, Clergy Abuse
That had put our necks in a noose.
We helped each other to cut loose
And lessen the pain of that abuse.
• Posted by: vinnie
• 3/7/2008 7:42 PM

Those in leadership positions (priests, teachers, others) have long had immunity to social standards. It has taken great courage for Mrs. Gooodnow to come forward with this story, and I applaud her for doing so, and I implore the Catholic leadership to accept responsibility and to make amends -- even at this late date!!
• Posted by: Ron Komatz
• 3/7/2008 8:13 PM

Katherine Goodenow, I salute you. I can see no reason that a 71 year old women would complicate her life by making false allegations of sexual abuse. The idea of a priest being an abuser makes your situation even more understandable. I survived sexual abuse by a family member and kept it secret for decades. The first time that I did disclose the truth it was turned against me, which made me keep the dirty secret for more decades. Funnily enough, the family member has been preacher for years now, when he chooses to be, and is highly respected among family and community. When my mother dies, I will no longer have to associate with family members who know the truth but still choose to pretend it never happened. I wish I had your courage. Maybe when I reach the age of 71 I will. Stand proud and stand strong Ms. Goodenow. You have done a courageous thing.
• Posted by: Linda Pushor
• 3/7/2008 8:47 PM

I know Kay Goodnow as a woman of integrity and courage. I can assure you that she is not in it for the money as some imply. She is going to the trouble of a lawsuit for the same reason that most victims do. They want the abuse of children to stop and they want the institutional church to start caring about the harm caused to vulnerable children by clerics that misuse their power. Kay, like others wants the Bishops to stop the cover up and she wants the average Catholic to wake up and ensure that their bishops follow the teachings of Christ. She has earned a peaceful old age, but chooses to devote her life to protecting children. She deserves our admiration and respect. She certainly has mine!!!
• Posted by: Nancy from Toronto
• 3/7/2008 9:32 PM

www.bishop-accountability.org/abusetracker for daily verifed global coverage of the ongoing criminal cover up and pedophile enabling, buy the curia (less than 3,500) at 100% laity (more than 1.1 billion) expense (14 billion dollars globally and counting with no end in sight).
Laity! DO NO DONATE!
Benedict XVI th
Pontiff, Sinner & Surrounded By Ret Hat & Miter CROOKS!
• Posted by: Benedict XVI th
• 3/7/2008 11:16 PM

As both a Christian man and a survivor of sexual assault at the hands of a Catholic priest, I salute Ms. Goodnow for her courage - both in coming forward AND for her desire to keep other young people - within and outside the Catholic community - safe from the ravages of sexual assault. I challenge the Catholic community of her hometown - parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters - to DEMAND safety for the younger members of the community. I challenge them to demand that the Catholic hierarchy serve notice to every parish where her perpetrator has served in an attempt
to both survey the extent of the damage done by this sexual offender, and also to invite other victim/survivors to come forward for the healing they both need and deserve.
The demands of Christian community make this mandatory. The demands of Christian conscience can ask for no less.
If the good people of her hometown forsake this challenge, they will undoubtedly find themselves in the very same boat when they come to discover that one of their young loved-ones has suffered the same fate. That is, like many of us, they will find themselves alone, with no one in the Catholic community to support them for fear of "upsetting" a bunch of men who, time and again, prove unwilling to muster the faith needed to live out their own vocation to follow Jesus by protecting innocent children from rape and sodomy at the hands of one of their priests.
Thanks, Ms. Goodnow, for your willingness to speak out on behalf of children everywhere. You are a woman after Jesus' own heart!
• Posted by: Pete Saracino
• 3/8/2008 9:52 AM

Brave, brave, brave !!! Good luck !!!!
• Posted by: Claude H. Phlegm
• 3/8/2008 10:49 AM

Yes, it does take many years to come forward when you have been sexually abused by a catholic priest.Wishing Katherine all my best.
• Posted by: Lionel
• 3/8/2008 10:56 AM

I know from experience that standing up for truth, justice and YOURSELF against a powerful united front is dangerous and can be more traumatizing than the original abuse. Without courageous leaders like Kay who are willing to reveal nasty secrets and private horrors to help save others from similar abuse, nothing will change. She is one of most courageous woman I know. May she prevail!
• Posted by: Wendy from Toronto
• 3/8/2008 1:23 PM

Having now read the too-frequent, judgemental, bloody-minded comments that litter this feedback form, allow me to change my name from Wendy to...
• Posted by: Disgusted in Toronto
• 3/8/2008 1:32 PM

The Fourth Degree Knight, not posting under his real name, who equates the alleged rape of a young woman (or apparently any kind of pedophilic practice) with the normal behavior of priests as "just being human" or "making bad judgements" is apparently thinking like a clueless priest groupie (the bane of those who, in good faith, resort to the court system to get the justice that supposed exemplars of gospel living cannot model in the Catholic Church). I have known Katherine for several years. She is a mature, down-to-earth, responsible citizen, as opposed to some of the anonymous religious fanatics posting against her who are apparently child abuse enablers, and shame on them for it! Does anyone doubt for a moment the stories of Holocaust survivors or denigrate their truth-telling on the grounds that Nazi perpetrators are not about "to defend themselves"? Those criticizing Katherine Goodnow's decision to come forward for justice are no different from rabid supporters of Adolf Hitler, before or after the Second World War, and give the lie to their Christianity. The fact is that billions have been paid out by the Church, and that tells us a good deal about what really has occured and continues to be unearthed by those who have suffered.
• Posted by: D. Lewandowski Guerra
• 3/8/2008 1:43 PM

There are going to be a lot more cases coming forward like this one, thanks be to God, as Sister Maureen Paul Turlish predicted in her 2005 National Catholic Reporter article that appeared after the Philadelphia Grand Jury Report was published;
Issue Date: October 28, 2005
The crisis of credibility in Philadelphia

CLERGY SEX ABUSE SCANDAL IS LIKELY TO DEEPEN
By MAUREEN PAUL TURLISH
What happens now in Philadelphia given the archdiocese?s disingenuous response to the grand jury on clergy sexual abuse?

Two things will happen.

First, even further alienation of the Catholic community as a result of the archdiocese?s position.
Second, significant additional victims of clergy sexual abuse, particularly female and minority, will be empowered to come forward.

Because of entrenched clericalism in the conservative Philadelphia archdiocese, it considered no alternative but to respond as it did in its 76-page report just as, historically, it considered no alternative to protecting an institution at the expense of its children. If there were more reasoned voices around, they certainly were not listened to in Philadelphia before the archdiocese released its response to the grand jury report, any more than they had been listened to for decades.

We all know of sisters and priests who were transferred or fired from their ministries, removed from the ?clerical fast track,? as some would call it, or disciplined in some manner because they attempted to alert leadership to serious problems.
While it is true that the archdiocese has made strides since 2002 in creating programs in the areas mentioned by Cardinal Justin Rigali in the archdiocese?s response, that was a mandate about which the archdiocese had little choice. Evaluating the effectiveness of these programs, though, will take time but that is hardly the point.

I remember Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua being quoted on a CNN ?Newsnight? report covering some of the cardinals who returned from Rome and attended the annual Catholic University fundraiser in Philadelphia on April 26, 2002. He answered a reporter?s question by saying, ?We all are agreed that no priest guilty of even one act of sexual abuse of a minor will function in any ecclesial ministry or any capacity in our diocese.?
Various groups picketing outside the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul never saw any of the cardinals because they came on a bus and went in through the back. I know because I was among those picketing out front.

That was 2002.

We who were born, raised and educated in Philadelphia are aware of the recent removal of two priests from ministry, but not, apparently, because of the alleged abuse charges leveled against them for egregious behavior. No, according to Donna Farrell, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, the two ?have been the focus of extraordinary attention,? so they were removed.
Formal, documented warnings came to all the bishops in the United States as early as 1985, and in particular to Cardinal Bevilacqua. If the bishops chose not to address the issues up to that time, the Mouton-Doyle-Peterson Report, ?The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy,? that each one received that year spelled out exactly what would happen if they did not act responsibly.

They didn?t. It happened. And here we are.

The archdiocese released its list of credibly accused priests only when the grand jury released its report on Sept. 21. Does the archdiocese still decide what constitutes ?credible? before it alerts law enforcement authorities or do they leave that to the lay professionals as required by its own mandates?

Men who should have been removed from ministry and the priesthood have not been laicized and will never be criminally charged as they might have been in other jurisdictions. Would that Pennsylvania had, at the very least, the laws on felony sexual abuse that Maine and Alaska have on their books.

Instead, credibly accused priests were permitted to retire from active ministry while remaining priests to live a ?life of prayer and penance? in a retirement home.

Neither the Philadelphia archdiocese nor the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference has clearly stated its support for substantive changes in statutes of limitation for felony sexual abuse. Other dioceses and their state Catholic conferences have campaigned against extensions of time limits on statutes of limitations and fought to the death amendments to the statute of limitations that would permit victims to file civil suits against the institution that caused them so much pain.

In Philadelphia, sexual abuse crimes against children have statutes of limitation but parking tickets do not.
Go figure.

Until church leaders admit to the pervasive hubris, personal and systemic, which allowed sexually abusive priests to continue in their perfidy long after their crimes were known by church authorities, it will be difficult if not impossible to reestablish either the institution?s credibility or their own. Absent that, reconciliation and healing will not happen.

In the Jewish calendar we are now in the season of repentance and forgiveness. But before God can be invoked, sinners must ask forgiveness of those sinned against.

District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham?
She should be beatified, not vilified.

Maureen Paul Turlish is a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur and a member of Voice of the Faithful.
National Catholic Reporter, October 28, 2005

• Posted by: VATICAN2CATHOLIC
• 3/8/2008 2:17 PM

More power to those that fight to stop child abuse in all its forms. Shame on those that protect child molesters.
• Posted by: stop child abuse
• 3/8/2008 3:36 PM

Kay Goodnow is a pioneer and a beautiful woman who speaks truth..I believe it was Christ who was also persecuted by the "authorities" of his day for speaking truth.. he also was a pioneer..
Kay walks in the light!!
• Posted by: christine johnson, Maui, Hawaii
• 3/10/2008 2:45 PM

Hurrah for, Katherine! If people only knew what a psycological break through this is for her as an abuse victim!!! To stand up and speak out publicly against an autocratic organization like the Roman Catholic Church who controled and abused all its members through cruel fear tactics, took IMMENSE courage on her part. She has shown others it's possible to finally have enough self respect to say NO to a once powerful Church/Diocese/Bishop. The pope, and bishops can no longer aid and abet child preditors without the likelyhood of more exposure. When I look at my innocent little grandson and think of someone ruining his life for their sexual pleasure makes it difficult for this grand-ma to remember, "vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord"!!
Thanks again to Katherine and may she know a peace and a genuine power that she has never known before.
• Posted by: Peggy McCarthy
• 3/11/2008 11:33 AM

Onward through the fog, -- ke