*****
By Kay Ebeling
City of Angels
"Well you've heard one now, about my sister and me." That's what I should have said to the current pastor of the church where we were raped, when he told me, "I’ve never heard any stories about Father Horne molesting children." Instead I just stared at him, like how many times do church hierarchy say those exact words to people: "This is the first I've heard any accusations"? Wish I had him on camera saying that.
“Father Lllllllupo.” When he said the name of one of the other two known pedophile priests to come out of St. Peter Damian Church, his tongue curled around the L with disdain. The pastor admitted he’d been sent to the parish in 2003, “to put all that behind us,” after the removal of Father L-l-l-l-lupo because of the the new zero tolerance policy in the Chicago Archdiocese. "We are putting all that behind us,” he emphasized, and glared at me saying, I had a lot of nerve bringing it up again.
Here's an idea for a guerrilla tactic. I just found out there's a period during Mass now where people call out requests for prayer. How about if thousands of survivors show up in churches every Sunday reminding calling out for prayer for pedophile priest rape victims, reminding parishioners there are still victims and other unresolved issues about the pedophile priests out there. If you "move forward" before cleaning up, the problem will fester and there will be another epidemic of pedophile priests in about 25 years.
Me, I'm not going back to any Catholic churches now for a while, not until the men get out of those robes and put some clothes on. I'm a bit despondent because when I see a parish like St. Peter Damian in suburban Chicago, where at least three pedophile priests were harbored in 50 years -- Thomas Barry Horne, James Ray, and William Lupo -- where even today the two priests running the parish seem sticky, secretive, protective something disgusting -- and yet the families and children file in mesmerized every Sunday, the church bells working like the Eewoks siren in the film The Time Machine.
My generation are really the forgotten survivors. Our perps are long dead, whole buildings have been torn down, there's no evidence, they can toss our cases aside, don't even have to count them. My case, even without a statute of limitations, would still be hard to prove. My memories of Father Horney, I mean Father Horne, are so foggy, thanks to the stuff he had me smoking, the curls of smoke I was inhaling, there in his rectory bedroom in 1952.
Hmm.
One thing I got out of my trip to Bartlett was a big list of names of people to call, and it’s easy to get numbers from ZABA name search online, etcetera. So the trip to Chicago and Bartlett was definitely fruitful for my pursuit of the priest and my stories.
If you have seen the film “I Am Legend,” think of the people who were infected, the way they just kept bouncing up against a window, and bouncing up against it, until they bludgeoned a hole in their heads, nothing was going to stop them from pushing forward and trying to get the thing on the other side of the window.
That's the way I was last week at the St. Peter Damian church property, when I was in the bushes trying to get a closer and closer look at the meeting room they've constructed where the door to the rectory used to be, where the entrance to the rectory was in 1954-55, where I kept banging and banging on Father Horney, I mean, oh forgive me, Father Horne’s door, because I wanted more, I wanted more.
That's the compulsion I ended up taking with me into life.
Since my Extended Stay studio in Bartlett was nicer than anything I could rent in LA for that price, I toyed with the idea of just living in Extended Stays. I dreamed I'd just hit the road and be a traveling pedophile priest organized crime network uprooter (got to work on that name).
But then reality struck- back to LA where banks and landlords are such criminals I am stuck here straightening out messes, and they have my money. I can't leave. The bank stole my money. . .
For some reason, though, I'm down, I'm really down. I have a pile of phone numbers to call to continue working on my case and I can’t pick up the phone. Literally I can't pick up the phone. Got so mad about the banks and landlords Monday I through the other phone across the room and broke it, now I'm left with nothing but a speaker element.
Why am I down about my case? Let me try and grasp what it is - it’s got to do with age. Not that I mind aging.
It’s knowing that because of years and time my case will probably never be resolved. No that's not it.
It was the crowds of happy wholesome families filing into St. Peter Damian Church last week, the overflow crowds at all three of their Sunday Masses, the acquisition of land around the church and its accompanied landscaping. The intimidating glare of the current pastor, almost a cookie cutter re-creation of the pastor who raped my sister and me, his obviously tres-femme gay colleague, one of a never ending stream of new recruit priests, now coming out of Third World countries.
BUT
First Massage I heard when I returned to LA was a strong convicted message of “Don’t Give Up.”
The Massage is linked at the bottom of City of Angels 4, it takes place at 1:15 PM Pacific Time at 102.3 KJLH Radio. The message in the Massage first day back in LA was "Don't Give Up."
"Don't give up along the way, you're almost there."
"I don't believe he's brought me this far just to leave me."
Both songs you’ll find in the music videos along the left hand side of City of Angels 4.
When I got back to LA I planned to write a line about the firmness of the ground beneath your feet in Illinois compared to the endless rumbling beneath the soil in quake-filled California. I calmed down in the Chicago suburbs, even with the roar of the trucks always in the background. I really could feel the earth there is more solid. In LA there are earthquakes all the time, three or four a week that are around 1 or 2 on the Richter scale. You are never on solid ground in LA. I felt, well, grounded in Illinois where the ground actually feels like ground, not always a potential shifting mass. I was planning to write a joke about that and then I got home and we had a real earthquake. . .you can't always go with your plans, sometimes you have to make an abrupt turn.
And I just called LA home, didn't I.
So just doing a little summertime regrouping.
Onward. . .
