Crime Victims: Add your names to Matter of Truth list for next reading. Names read into wind in New York last month was just the beginning

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By Kay Ebeling
At the vigil run by A Matter of Truth in New York while the pope was in town, Robert Costello read 326 names of victims of sex crimes in the Catholic Church outside an exhibit of Crosses. “Reading the names into the wind was the most dramatic part,” Costello said. “I don't know if these names have ever been spoken out loud before," he said.

So Costello is taking names and moving forward. If you are a victim of a sex crime in the Catholic Church, you can email your name to survivor.names@verizon.net and be added to the list of names to be read at the next A Matter of Truth event, probably in LA with another showing of Crosses. Send your name and city to that email address linked above, and if you prefer to just be John or Jane Doe or Roe from your city, that is fine, he will add your name in that manner to the list.

Paul Kendrick in Maine didn't get down to New York but pointed out an irony not reported anyplace else: “The pope met with three Birmingham victims and then went upstairs for dinner with McCormack who worked for Law and helped cover up the allegations against Birmingham.* Sure he met with five victims but what about the eight thousand members of SNAP?”

What about the other 499,995 victims? Paul Kellen from Boston has a formula that puts the number of victims at 500,000 nationwide. Since pedophiles have an average of 100 victims and there are close to 5,000 predator priests identified at bishop accountability dot org the number is half a million, says Kellen.

Whatever the number, please add your name to A Matter of Truth’s list so at the the next exhibition of Crosses, it may take hours to read the names and we will have to hire actors to do the reading, musicians to accompany. Stay tuned. (Crosses is a photojournalism book about pedophile priest crime victims’ lives, by Carmine Galasso )
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Report from the vigil
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Robert Costello and Paul Kellen talked to City of Angels Network about the vigil on Friday night of the weekend of the Pope’s visit.

Remember that?

The pope's visit and pedophile priests? For two weeks in April it occupied 20 percent of every front page. Now the pope and his pedophiles are barely in the news.

Back to New York: Robert Costello said that because of police barricades Friday night, a guy from Canadian television couldn't even mount a tripod to point up the street in front of Lott Gallery.

The Crosses exhibit drew about 350 people.

“The Gallery opened at 6:00 oclock and it was an open bar with beer and wine. By 6:30 the place was packed with about 350 people.”

They went outside and as the vigil began:

“The sun was setting over the Hudson and it was a beautiful orange sky,” Costello said. “And then this huge full moon rose over the city. We had about a hundred people on the sidewalk and street. We handed out long white candles and well, the candles didn't work because of the wind, we're going to have to work on that.

One incident stays in Costello’s mind: “These kids from the projects saw us from their windows and came over to see and then stayed,” he said. “One girl said did this happen to you? And I said yes, and she said, I'm so sorry. And they were so moved by the whole thing."

At 7 PM Bob Hoatson started the press conference and they read the names.

“Let me tell you how effective it was,” said Boston’s Paul Kellen. "Bob asked me would you read some and I said sure. It was the name and the city.

“He read a whole page and then I read the second page. Then Kris Ward from Ohio read a page and then someone else read a page and it kept going. There must have been 25 names on a page, a single spaced list.

"Then they read the names of survivors who committed suicide, and the room became silent."

Robert Costello explained, “Janet Patterson in Kansas is a woman who takes and collects all the suicide names.” He added:

“I don't know if these names have ever been spoken out loud before. So to speak those names it was like releasing them and honoring these people.

“It was so spiritual for me. Just the release,” Costello said. "I have about 326 names on the list already.”
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Again send your name or Jane or John Doe and your City to survivor.names@verizon.net
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“At one point during the reading, I did make a long pause and then read seven names from one family," Costello said. "I hammered home the last name each time. They were all from the same family.

"And then I named the suicide of an 11 year old boy and a 15 year old boy. These are things that just made you realize that they raped little boys and girls. Some went on to become adults, or little boys and girls who killed themselves.

“What they did to us was atrocious.”

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Meanwhile jury selection continues downtown LA for upcoming jury trial concerning victims of Fr. Jim Miani
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City of Angels Lady will not be there for jury selection. To be honest I don't belong there, so the judge putting me in a chair on the aisle was a good compromise for the moment.

See, I'm not just a reporter, I'm also one of the crime victims, not of a Salesian, of a parish priest in Bartlett Illinois from 1949 to 1953 -- before I was five years old. . .

As soon as I got to jury selection last week, I sat down and looked up and freaked!

I looked back and realized, what the F-- am I doing here? Up until that point I was so caught up in working as a reporter, actually adopting the persona of a reporter in true PTSD patient fashion, I forgot I'm also a crime victim. No way could I talk to any of the potential jurors. I was like covered with geeky grease, stay away from me.

So I'm not going to jury selection but I will do some document diving.

I truly believe in the mounds of documents filed in Superior Court, there is a Pulitzer.

My Pulitzer.

So I keep writing,

Even though no one has clicked my PayPal in a month and there are only about seven persons who do.

It makes me feel small, because I am doing this blog from a platform of total poverty, still, my income for this month is $1600. I know in the end I’ll be better off if I keep writing this even with a growling stomach, literally.

People, just once in a while, put five dollars on my PayPal Subscribe button in the top left column, to pay for “readership” or just to send me a high five. Believe me, I need the encouragement as well as the cash. If you are confused about how to use PayPal and want to send a payment for readership, please email me for my home address.

Meanwhile I keep looking for grants, or TV executives willing to tackle this subject matter. So far they do not return my calls. . .

*Joseph Birmingham, Bernard Law, John McCormack

Onward. . .

ADD ON: It makes me feel small to get no PayPal clicks, especially since someone just showed me that SNAP took in 600K and 900K in 2005 and 2006 and SNAP spent 600K and 900K in 2005 and 2006. I am waiting to see if this is a misinterpretation of financial documents. If it is true it's shocking and very questionable.

The information is here:
Go to http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/charities/disclaimer.html

and click on yes.

Enter EIN # 361454398 and click on search, and the SNAP financial documents come up.

Can someone please explain the expenditure of $600,000 to $900,000 per year the last three years by SNAP on "direct support"? (NOTE: Numbers for 2007, the year of the LA and San Diego settlements, are not yet in.)