Irish Examiner,
By Ryle Dwyer, Saturday, December 05, 2009
IRELAND -- ELSEWHERE in today’s paper (News Analysis, page 17) I have reviewed Michael Clemenger’s book Holy Terrors, dealing with life in the industrial school in Tralee in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It evoked many memories for me, having grown up within a mile of the school.
Did we know what was going on there? No. But we did have a fairly good idea and local protestations of total ignorance ring about as true as claims by religious superiors that they had no understanding of paedophile abuse.
Michael Clemenger managed to secure a position of some trust at the school. He was sent into town to collect the morning paper.
"As I carried out my chores in the town my mind was continually asking questions about the people I saw," he writes. "Did their children have to put up with being pawed and slobbered on by old men?"
[2009]
"The State in the dock for horror of the Church's gulag"
- Irish State and Roman Catholic Church (RCC).
Irish Independent,
http://www. independent.ie/ entertainment/ books/the- state-in-the- dock-for-horror- of-the-churchs- gulag- 1930363.html ;
By Ronan Farren, Sunday November 01, 2009
The Irish Gulag. How the State Betrayed its Innocent Children. Bruce Arnold.
Gill and Macmillan, €16.99 IRELAND -- Bruce Arnold's book The Irish Gulag, 10 years in the writing, is an insistent, outraged, disgusted condemnation of the agencies of the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish State. It is a compilation and in some cases an extension of Arnold's articles in the Irish Independent over the 10-year period of the investigation into institutional child abuse in Ireland.
The title springs from the infamous Soviet Gulags, because, the author claims, (and it is hard to disagree) the structure of "industrial schools" operated by the religious orders in Ireland on behalf of the State since independence (and in some cases prior to that) is equivalent to the Soviet penal system: a vast network of prisons to which people were committed without cause, trial, due process, and in most cases without justification.
Except that in Ireland, the inhabitants of the gulags were children often committed for periods in excess of 10 or 15 years. And contrary to public perception, they were not guilty of any offence (other than poverty) nor were they usually orphans.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 6:57 AM, November 01, 2009] [Copied from ethcont166.htm]
[2009]
- RCC. Jay Nelson campaigned in the 1990s.
City of Angels,
http:// cityofangels5. blogspot.com/ 2009/09/ linkup-1998- newsletter- scanned-here- to.html ;
By Kay Ebeling, ~ September 09, 2009
UNITED STATES – Before there was an Abuse Tracker or Bishop Accountability, Jay Nelson was producing The Missing Link newsletter for Linkup, an early clergy abuse survivor organization. Every three months The Missing Link arrived in postal mailboxes with up to the quarter news 1990s style, reporting on the crimes and scandals of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church.
Jay Nelson has now written a new book, Sons of Perdition, about "New Mexico in the Secret History of the Sex Scandals." Sons of Perdition emerged on Amazon for sale last month, and here at City of Angels we are developing a story about the book and Jay's journey as an adult victim of a pedophile priest, for an upcoming post.
To whet your appetites, read through these pages of The Missing Link, winter 1998 edition, which we have scanned in below, click to enlarge and read on your full screen.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 3:46 PM, September 09, 2009]
[Copied from ethcont164.htm .]
[2009]
- RCC.
UNITED STATES: Since exposure of clerical sex abuse reached critical mass in 2002, Catholic leaders have sometimes defended their mishandling of the problem by claiming insufficient knowledge. Publicly, some bishops said they didn't understand that pedophilia is incurable; thus the attempts to "rehabilitate" abusive clerics, then shift them from assignment to assignment.
The book asks, "What did [the Catholic hierarchy] know, and when did they know it?" The answer, the authors emphatically proclaim, is "in a nutshell … all about it and all along." […]
In fact, from that 12th-century period when church doctrine began to be codified into canon law, the authors find specific references regarding the abuse of young boys, a practice known by the telling Latin term stuprum. (Put stuprum into its verb form and you get the more familiar infinitive "to stup.")
Perhaps of greater value is the book's explication of how canon law encourages -- and even requires -- church leaders to engage in secrecy so as to prevent scandal. If a bishop suspects a cleric has committed sexual abuse, for instance, canon law requires the bishop to conduct an investigation (or delegate the investigation) and then place the results into a secret archive. Those privy to such investigations swear secrecy and risk excommunication for violating that secrecy, note the authors.
Then there's the technique of "mental reservation," which, say the authors, is "used by a person who is caught between an obligation to keep a secret and a duty to tell the truth." Furthermore, "Catholic moral theology allows a person caught in such a dilemma to use misleading words to deceive another so long as a deliberate lie is not told. This is commonly employed in order to avoid a greater harm." Justification for mental reservation is built into the oath cardinals take to "never reveal to anyone whatsoever has been confided in me to keep secret and the revelation of which could cause damage or dishonor to the Holy Church." This might go a long way toward explaining why church officials lie about scandal when, as the authors contend, honesty is the best policy.
(Pub. Date: May 2006)
-- National Catholic Reporter, "Sex, lies, secrecy and abuse,"
http://ncron line.org/NCR_ Online/archives 2/2006b/ 050506/ 050506n.htm ,
Reviewed by BILL FROGAMENI, ~ May 02, 2006
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ENDS.]
[2006]
• FERRITER, Diarmaid; 2009; Occasions of Sin; Sex and Society in Modern Ireland.
"Occasions of Sin by Diarmaid Ferriter"
- RCC. Book.
The Guardian,
http://www. guardian.co. uk/books/ 2009/sep/12/ occasions-of- sin-review ,
by David Dwan, Saturday, September 12, 2009
IRELAND -- "Sex – my introduction to sex was in the back kitchen of Letterfrack, jammed up against a boiler, getting my leg burnt and getting raped by Brother Dax." Testimony such as this has racked Ireland since the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse published its report in May this year. The 2,600-page Ryan report exposed "endemic" physical and sexual abuse in church-run schools and orphanages in Ireland – 800 alleged abusers in more than 200 institutions during a period of 35 years. This grim litany reveals obvious failings in the Catholic church, the negligence of the state and an alarming capacity for collective bad faith, which no amount of public handwringing now can mitigate or disguise. Diarmaid Ferriter's Occasions of Sin is thus an important and timely book: it is a richly textured history of modern Ireland's complicated attitude to sex.
Throughout the 19th century, Ireland's sexual mores reflected broader British trends, but on some fronts the country remained stubbornly different. The famine of the 1840s, which led to a million deaths and an exodus of two million within a decade, reconfigured Irish reproductive habits. People married less and did so later in their lives. In 1907 the Farmer's Journal complained that women "are no longer attractive", but the reasons for the mass bachelordom were clearly economic. Until the 1950s Ireland had the highest rate of postponed marriage and permanent celibacy of any western state that kept such records.
The state that secured its independence from Britain in 1922 legislated busily about sex. Ferriter investigates its laws against divorce, the importation of contraception, unlicensed public dances and its censorship of literature and film (the censor's invective against Hollywood – "the sort of drunken debauched hen-run 'society' rubbish that almost justifies communism" – makes lively reading). The repressiveness of these measures is easily exaggerated; judged by international standards, as Ferriter illustrates, its laws on censorship and birth control were unremarkable. Illiberal laws could also claim democratic legitimacy. By the 50s, more than 94% of Irish people were Catholic and minority views were easily over-ridden. Some worried that prohibitions on divorce and contraception would alienate Protestants and entrench the division with the North.
But, as Ferriter compellingly argues, attitudes to sex in Northern Ireland were often equally censorious. Family planning may have been legal, but it was often taboo. The British Abortion Act of 1967 was not extended to Northern Ireland, and measures to legalise homosexuality the same year were vigorously resisted. The DUP's "Save Ulster from Sodomy" campaign attracted 70,000 signatures. Those who wished to save Ulster from the DUP were often no more enlightened. One Sinn Féin spokesman asserted that there "has never been a homosexual republican".
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:23 PM, September 11, 2009]
Buy at The Guardian bookshop.
[2009]
•
BROWN, Christa; 2009; This Little Light; Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and his Gang. "This Little Light of hers outshines the abusers"
- Baptists. Book.
Baptist Planet,
http:// baptistplanet. wordpress.com/ 2009/09/08/ this-little- light-of-hers- outshines- the-abusers ;
September 08, 2009
UNITED STATES -- The Rev. William Thornton offers a concise, powerful review of Christa Brown’s book, This Little Light: Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and His Gang. Thornton’s summary of what follows Ms. Brown’s decision to seek justice after having been emotionally and sexually molested by a Baptist minister, is searing [links added]:
What you get is: a lot of people wishing you would go away, a lot of people just ignoring you, some people in the BGCT making promises and then silently letting them slide by; you get hardball tactics from church and BGCT attorneys, mellifluous words from some Baptist leaders in private but never in public; encouraging words from SBC Executive Committee members in private, but followed by “you can’t ever tell anyone I said that”; you get a lecture from the clergy sex abuse expert in the denomination; you get snubbed by some denominational leaders and rudeness from others.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 8:53 AM, September 09, 2009]
[Copied from ethcont164.htm]
[2009]
- Book The Memory Bird by survivors of sex abuse.
Facing Abuse,
http://eft. fabglitter. org/blog/? p=221 ,
~ April 26, 2009
The Memory Bird: Survivors of Sexual Abuse
Edited by Caroline Malone, Linda Farthing, & Lorraine Marce
Temple University Press, 1997
Like Dangerous Families, The Memory Bird is an amazing anthology of writing by abuse survivors, free from intervention or direction by psychological "experts."
Its rareness (at least to me) comes not only in presenting the voices of sexual abuse survivors, but in the particular community involved: survivors of all sorts from New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
The authors range from utterly unknown to nearly famous activists, pouring their hearts out sometimes for the first time; and the anthology's editors are no slackers themselves.
[Copied from ethcont159.htm]
- Book Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse, 2009, by Richard B. GARTNER.
Newsday,
http://www. newsday.com/ news/opinion/ oped/ny-opgar 2312679312 apr22,0,254 9040.story ,
BY RICHARD B. GARTNER, April 22, 2009
Richard B. Gartner, a psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York City, is the author of "Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse." NEW YORK -- As the New York State Assembly considers two competing bills to extend the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse crimes, astonishingly little has been said about the prevalence, effects or economic and social costs of such crimes. These factors demonstrate the urgent need for a lengthened window for justice, which will help enable victims to heal.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about one in five American children is sexually abused. So in a classroom of 25 children, five will be victimized before adulthood.
Abusers prey on the most susceptible, often choosing children already at risk: isolated, weaker, smaller, nonathletic, disabled or from a disadvantaged minority. Victims may have troubled, addicted or physically abusive families, or be separated from their parents. They look to other adults for healing, advice and emotional support. Abusers profess to offer solace while laying the groundwork for victimization.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on April 23, 2009
8:35 AM]
- Two Centuries of Faith: The Influence of Catholicism on Boston, 1808-2008, 2009, by Thomas H. O'Connor. RCC. Seductions long-term impact unknown.
The Boston Globe,
http://www. boston.com/ news/local/ articles_of_ faith/ 2009/04/ rethinking_ cath.html ,
~ April 23, 2009
BOSTON (MA) -- Boston College's Church in the 21st Century Center has pulled together a series of thematic essays reflecting on Catholicism in Boston over the two centuries since the Archdiocese of Boston was established. The essays are collected in a new book, "Two Centuries of Faith: The Influence of Catholicism on Boston, 1808-2008," edited by university historian Thomas H. O'Connor. The book is not a comprehensive history of the archdiocese, but rather takes a look at several aspects of the development of the archdiocese, from the French influences on its beginnings, to the role of women and minorities in its ranks, to the role of Catholicism in Boston politics, social services, education and literature.
BC held an event Tuesday to present a copy of the book to Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston; the authors and a variety of faculty and students gathered in the Irish Room at BC's Gasson Hall, under a giant stained glass window of St. Patrick, the patron saint of the archdiocese. …
In the book, one of the contributors, the Rev. William T. Schmidt, pastor of St. Patrick Church in Stoneham, offers a sober look at the history of parish life in the archdiocese, observing that the sexual abuse scandal caused a "crisis of confidence and trust in the leadership of the Catholic Church" and saying "the long-term impact of this crisis is still unknown."
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on April 23, 2009
6:13 PM]
- BOOK on Canada's London Diocese, 2009, by Power and Brock.
The Windsor Star,
~ April 13, 2009
CANADA -- It's not a pretty picture.
So says Windsor-born historian Michael Power about the history of the London diocese of the Catholic Church that he co-authored with Daniel J. Brock.
He said the scandalous revelations in the 1980s of sexual abuse by its clergy, in particular those of Rev. Charles Sylvestre, stand out as "a great shame, and a great hurt."
Power maintained the infamous behaviour of such priests was "sickening and revolting, and it has left a black mark on all the good loyal priests in the diocese, and has certainly harmed the moral authority of the church itself, and left parishes bewildered and upset."
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on April 13, 2009 9:45 PM]
- BOOK. RCC. Nuns in unheard of punishments.
Kunati,
http://www. kunati.com/ news/ 2009/3/10/ starred-review- for-kim-michele- richardsons- the-unbreakable- c.html ;
March 10, 2009
KENTUCKY -- "While the abuses of Catholic priests have been making headlines in recent years, little has been heard about mistreatment at the hands of nuns. Here Richardson, who was raised in a Catholic orphanage in Kentucky in the 1960s, recounts the horrors that she and countless other children endured there and takes readers on her journey to rid herself of the awful memories.
Her catharsis comes with a lawsuit, which she and 44 other survivors brought against the order that ran the orphanage. Richardson tells two simultaneous stories. In one, she recalls episodes from her childhood where her misbehavior (such as leaving soil on her panties) led to unheard-of punishments.
[≤ 2006 Haggard*] - DOCUMOVIE 2009-09 - request by "New Life Church" to delay its release. 2nd male "lover".
Rocky Mountain News,
By Mark Barna, The Gazette, January 24, 2009
COLORADO -- New Life Church tried to head off the fallout that has embroiled the congregation in its second sex scandal involving Ted Haggard, the Rev. Brady Boyd said Saturday.
Boyd asked the church's disgraced former pastor in December to postpone the release of the HBO documentary "The Trials of Ted Haggard," telling him that it could lead to a second gay sex partner coming forward with allegations against him.
Three weeks ago, Boyd told the New Life volunteer not to go public about his sexual relationship with Haggard during the evangelical leader's reign as pastor that ended in 2006.
• Cleaning Up Our Own Backyard
- Regarding Judaists. Book Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals, by Dr. Amy Neustein.
The Jewish Voice,
http:// jewishvoice andopinion. com/a/JVO 20090302.html ,
By Susan Rosenbluth, March 2009
NEW YORK -- For more than 20 years, Dr. Amy Neustein has been tackling the sticky issue of child-molestation, especially in the Jewish community. For years, it has been a lonely struggle, with many people in the community castigating her for even suggesting there might be a problem.
But there is evidence now that an increasing number of Jews are willing to look at the issue honestly, usually concluding that while it may not be a crisis of epidemic proportions, as some polemicists have proclaimed, it is a challenge, and one case is one too many.
The author of numerous articles on the subject as well the co-author with Michael Lesher of the book, From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts–and What Can Be Done about It, Dr. Neustein has just edited a new book, entitled Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals, published by Brandeis University Press.
[CSAT March 3, 2009] [2009]
[Decades - Card. Bernard Law*] - RCC. Docudrama play "A Cardinal Deposed."
Theater Mania,
http://www.theatermania.com/los-angeles/news/02-2009/bruce-davison-dan-lauria-hamish-linklater-and-more_17580.html ;
By Dan Bacalzo, Feb 12, 2009
LOS ANGELES (CA) -- Bruce Davison, Gary Cole, Dan Lauria, Wendie Mallick, Hamish Linklater, and James Handy will star in Michael Murphy's Sin, A Cardinal Deposed, to play Thursday night performances at the Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles, February 26-April 2. Paul Mazursky will direct.
The docudrama centers on lawyer Orson Krieger as he relentlessly pursues answers from Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, for his failure to protect the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests in his archdiocese. The entire text of the play was taken from two hearings and one trial, and all the characters are real.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on February 12, 2009
6:54 PM]
[THE WORD "deposed" in the USA is often used to mean "gives a deposition," i.e., undergoes a legal proceeding to elicit facts. In that usage, it does not mean "removed from office." ENDS.]
[2009]
• McLERNON, Terence J.; 2007;The Fifth Estate, The Sequel; If the Hat Fits, Wear It.
The Fifth Estate
The Sequel If the Hat Fits, Wear It
This book covers some aspects of the twistings and turnings of Western Australian politics. …
[…]
In chapter 7 WA Attorney-General Jim McGinty (Labor) is said to have been sent a copy of the previous book, by a contact of Mr Ray Mickelberg, one of the family that it is said had been wrongly convicted over the Perth Mint Swindle.
Mr McGinty allegedly returned the book in a plain envelope. Requests for a response finally were rewarded.
[…]
THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS' ORPHANAGES Read … why Scaley hanged himself at a Christian Brothers' orphanage.
Then there's the story of Tommy Trantrum being sent from Clontarf Boys' Town, freeing him from a paedophile Christian Brother, to a farm where he shot the farmer's wife and as a result went to prison.
Then follows page after page about the four Christian Brothers' orphanages in WA – Clontarf, Castledare (both in Perth), Bindoon, and Tardun.
Fifteen Brothers allegedly either had sex or quasi-sex, and/or gave cruel beltings to a boy called Fred Smith. Urinating on him and bare-bottom beltings are described, with the names of the paedophile-sadistic offenders.
The exposé of the Christian Brothers by Barry Coldrey, and the campaigning and publications of the late Bruce Blyth are covered.
McGINTY, McVEIGH, McMAHON Jim McGinty (Labor) had spent time at a Roman Catholic seminary. His sister Susan became a nun. Father Anthony McMahon was sent to Kwinana parish.
"Now, Jim is a cousin of mine but it could not be alleged that we are close. No, not close at all." (p 130)
Leo McVeigh at the age of five was being babysat by the priest and the nun, and while with the priest only was allegedly sexually abused.
(The priest and the nun fell in love and married.)
He told Church authorities in 1998. He tried to get the police's sexual abuse unit to investigate, but it didn't. The author thinks that the relationship with highflyers is why no apology was made, nor justice served.
"Holy Double Cross" is the story of the widow Mrs Catherine Musk who in 1947 left £47,000 in trust (worth millions now) so that suitable Bindoon boys would be helped to be set up on their own farms. (p 157) None of the money went to the boys. The Church went to court to ask it to allow the balance, $167,000 in 2006, to be used for scholarships for deserving students to attend at Bindoon a commercial agricultural college – run by the Brothers. Paying themselves again. See Gary Adshead's report, The West Australian, January 24, 2006.
(p 159)
Senator Andrew Murray (Australian Democrats, retired June 30, 2008) tried to help justice. […]
- Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America – and Found Unexpected Peace - 2009, William Lobdell.
National Catholic Reporter,
http:// ncronline3. org/drupal/? q=node/3329 ,
By TOM ROBERTS, Published: February 17, 2009
COSTA MESA, CALIF.--. William Lobdell sat in an outdoor café in Costa Mesa just days after it was revealed that a federal prosecutor was now taking his turn at investigating the sex-abuse scandal in the Los Angeles archdiocese.
Lobdell, a lean man in his late 40s with a shaved head, smiled an I-understand-this grin. He had covered the scandal for the Los Angeles Times and paid a price for it. His tale is told in his newly released Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America – and Found Unexpected Peace (Collins, 2009).
The book is a complex and compelling account of his loss of faith while he was delving deeply into religion in America as a journalist. His encounter with the sex-abuse story and especially the hierarchical cover-up of abuse, at the same time he was taking classes to enter the Catholic church, played a significant role in his eventual loss of faith. What he understands now, however, as an ex-believer and an ex-Los Angeles Times reporter, is that the story of the Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal in Los Angeles is far from over.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on February 17, 2009
10:07 AM]
FRAWLEY-O'DEA, Mary Gail, 2007, Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church UNITED STATES -- Clinical psychologist Frawley-O'Dea offers a detailed look at the church sex-abuse scandal.
[Picture] Perversion of Power book cover From a 1983 case in the Louisiana bayou to the Boston Archdiocese's headline-fueled implosion in 2002, clinical psychologist Frawley-O'Dea offers a detailed look at the church sex-abuse scandal.
-- Boston Magazine,
http://boston magazine.com/ arts_entertain ment/articles/ city_journal_ perversion_ of_power ,
By J. L. Johnson, ~ March 08, 2007
AND "Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church" Chosen as an Outstanding Book of 2007 UNITED STATES -- I have praised Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church by Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea previously on this blog. I am pleased to report that CHOICE Magazine, the magazine of the American Library Association, has chosen Perversion of Power as one of its outstanding books of 2007.
-- Voice from the Desert,
http://reform-network.net/?p=1274,
~ December 27, 2007
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on December 27, 2007 8:28 AM]
[2007]
• HILL, David, 2007, The Forgotten Children; Fairbridge Farm School and its betrayal of Australia's child migrants.
- Unofficially Anglican.
AUSTRALIA and BRITAIN: The author, Mr David Hill, a British child migrant who went on to become head of NSW railways, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and Soccer Australia, called on the Fairbridge Foundation to confront the evidence in its files and abandon its policy of refusing compensation to people who say they were traumatised by their experiences at the Kingsley Fairbridge Farm Schools.
Brutality is reported in several pages of the book, and sexual abuse on 16 different pages.
With the help of his wife Ruby, in 1912 Kingsley Fairbridge opened the first Child Emigration Society Farm School in Pinjarra, 80km south of Perth, Western Australia. …
Mr Fairbridge had envisaged that each boy would leave the farm school with a sum of money and a land grant from the dominion government. (p. 30) (Just like the Bindoon legacy story, not one boy was set up on a farm.)
Mr A.O.Neville, a Western Australian official, reported around 1913 that the conditions were primitive and the Pinjarra set-up was overcrowded and … it was not training children for farm work.
In 1922 a former matron, Miss Williams Freeman, alleged maltreatment of the children at Pinjarra. (p 33) Kingsley Fairbridge sailed to London, where he successfully … secured more funding. …
Fairbridge Farm School near Molong NSW, … established in 1938.
Approximately 1000 children passed through the school until it closed in 1974 (p 290), …
Mr Hill said reports of violent punishments (e.g., with a cut-down hockey stick), sexual abuse, neglect, substandard hygiene or inadequate food were made over several decades, …
Another similar but differently-oriented farm school was opened in Rhodesia, the first children arriving in 1946. (p 38)
…
THIS REVIEW in full is at Ethcont135 # forgotten_children .
MORE DETAILS: Random House Australia, North Sydney; ISBN 978 1 74166 684 7;
362pp, soft covers, 15·5 x 23·5cm (6 x 9¼in), contents, index, endnotes, bibliography and further reading, photographs. (AUS$19.95)
SEE ALSO "Abuse of migrant kids 'covered up'," and "Abuse was their single lesson," The Weekend Australian, April 28-29, 2007
[2007]
PODLES, Leon, 2007 (September 1), Sacrilege.
- RCC.
A few chapters in and I began to see obvious patterns in pedophile priest rape crime across the country.
The more I read the more I realized, in city after city for the last half century kids in Catholic churches were raped, perpetrators were enabled to continue raping, victims and victims' families were shut up. And most astonishing, bishops and other hierarchy lied many times under oath, or conveniently forgot, and documents disappeared.
The way the pattern of crime is laid out in "Sacrilege" the logical next step from here should be federal indictments and Senate hearings to expose the reasons these crimes were able to continue for more than 50 years in the United States.
"When he was auxiliary bishop of Fresno, Mahony was also a licensed social worker and was therefore required by law to report child abuse. When he became bishop of Stockton, California in 1980, Mahony surrendered this license and removed himself from the reporting requirements."
-- See City of Angels, "Where do we go from here? Just keep telling the stories. A good place to start is "Sacrilege" by Leon Podles", Review by Kay Ebeling, ~ September 11, 2007
[2007]
- RCC. Book.
EADT, < http://www. eadt.co.uk/ content/eadt/ features/story. aspx?brand= EADOnline& category= Features& tBrand= EADOnline& tCategory= features& itemid= IPED13% 20Jan%202009% 2010%3A17%3 A46%3A773 >;
By STEVEN RUSSELL, ~ January 14, 2009
UNITED KINGDOM -- At the age of two, Frances Reilly was abandoned by her mother and brought up in a convent where relentless mental and physical abuse drove her to the brink of despair. Now living in Essex, she's written a book about how her childhood innocence was destroyed. Steven Russell met her. These are her allegations and this is her story
"WE have a pagan in the convent!" screams Sister X - not her real name - as she sweeps into the dormitory, waving a stick. "Where is she?" She points at a small girl. "Reilly! You are a heathen, a child of the Devil! Nobody is to come anywhere near you!" Frances Reilly's knees give way and she begins to tremble from head to toe. She doesn't know what "heathen" means and she doesn't know what she's done wrong, but she knows what's coming. "Please, Sister .." she starts to say.
"Silence!" yells the nun, running towards her, face crimson with fury. "The Devil's in you, Reilly! We'll beat him out of you now!"
She leaps at the child, bringing the stick down on her head and then chasing her down a corridor, shouting "Demon child! Devil spawn!" Sister X drives Frances into a room in the nuns' section of the convent, where she begins to beat her even more viciously. Two other nuns arrive and join in, raining blows. The girl lies hunched on the floor, while Sister X slaps her across the face and the others hit her all over her body. Soon, mercifully, Frances passes out.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on January 14, 2009
8:42 AM]
- RCC.
New Oxford Review,
~ January 07, 2009
Our Father, Who Art in Bed: A Naïve and Sentimental Dubliner in the Legion of Christ. By J. Paul Lennon. Book Surge Publishing. 379 pages. $15.
Irishman J. Paul Lennon, author of this autobiographical work, was a priest of the now much-embattled Legion of Christ for 23 years. Having left it behind in 1984, he went on to found the ReGAIN Network (www.regainnetwork.org), which provides documentation about the Legion and Regnum Christi, its lay branch.
The Mexican founder of the Legion, Fr. Marcial Maciel (1920-2008), was "invited" to retire to a life of prayer and penance by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 after years of being investigated for sexual abuse. Until that time, Fr. Maciel was convinced that he would one day be canonized.
Through the aid of James Cardinal Hickey, former Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Lennon was able to function as a diocesan priest until 1989 when, a broken man, he left the priesthood to seek recovery from the wounds of his Legionary experience. He credits Cardinal Hickey with showing him kindness and understanding, in contrast to Fr. Maciel, who was known within the order as Nuestro Padre ("Our Father").
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on January 7, 2009
2:32 PM]
- RCC exposed, again. Book.
Restoration II,
http:// restoration. blogspot.com/ 2008/12/ vatican-ii- homosexuality- and- pedophilia.html ;
~ December 29, 2008
Title: Vatican II, Homosexuality, & Pedophilia.
Author: Atila Sinke Guimaraes;
Publisher: Tradition in Action.
Excellence: 4 stars;
Why? Much needed hard evidence of destruction in the Church.
Summary in a sentence: A devastating dossier of deviancy.
The last book I reviewed by TIA was Previews of the New Papacy. I gave it only 2 stars because I thought it was not responsible to give such an extensive grouping of photographs with so little (con)textual commentary to guide the reader. But I will say that generally TIA, and Guimaraes in particular, are relentless when it comes to documentation. This was no exception, with 573 footnotes in just over 300 pages.
I certainly don't agree with TIA on everything, and they would certainly say the same about me, but I don't let that get in the way of endorsing and heartily agreeing with good work that they do.
Many of us don't remember where we were when we first heard of the sexual scandals plaguing the Church. There was no liminal event. We just started hearing bits and pieces on the news, punctuated with the names of Weakland or Bernadin or Law. It seemed at first a slow trickle that became a torrent. What Guimaraes does, with a flood of horrifying information, is show that the crisis is much, much worse than our worst nightmares.
- Fiction.
Athens Banner-Herald,
December 14, 2008
ATHENS (GA) -- Athens author Eugene Bianchi will sign his latest religious-thriller "The Children's Crusade: Scandal at the Vatican" 7 p.m. Wednesday at Borders.
The fictional story revolves around scandals within the Catholic church, including controversies related to sex, abuse and cover-ups scaling the hierarchy of the church.
Bianchi is a former priest and professor of religion at Emory. For more information, go to www.bianchibooks.com/crusade.
[Posted by Terry McKiernan on December 14, 2008 7:00 AM]
- A play review.
Globe and Mail,
http://www. theglobeandmail. com/servlet/ story/LAC. 20081212. POLITE12/ TPStory/ Entertainment ;
December 12, 2008
Review by J. Kelly Nestruck of A Very Polite Genocide, written by Melanie J. Murray, directed by Yvette Nolan; a Native Earth Performing Arts production TORONTO (ON) – In A Very Polite Genocide, Winnipeg playwright Melanie J. Murray examines the lingering effects of the residential-school system on a fractured family of aboriginal Canadians.
The pain from the abuse and dislocation echoes down the generations in the form of alcoholism, AIDS, suicide, sexual abuse, prostitution, violence, self-mutilation and panic attacks.
[…]
- Fictional book.
The McGurk,
~ December 22, 2008
PHILADELPHIA (PA) -- The McGurk is a novel about the many cultural facets of Catholicism within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries. We read about a small aspect of that very large story as it plays out primarily in the lives of bishops, priests and nuns who are struggling with their Faith, their loyalties and their sense of 'church'. Many aspects of historical Jesus research are integral to the storyline. The Irish in Philadelphia and Irish Catholicism as it existed there is the nucleus of the story. …
Topics portrayed include clerical sexual abuse of children, Satanism within the Church, the loss of Faith and its eventual return and the overall influence of Irish Catholicism and its paradigms on the formation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 4:38 PM]
- RCC. Film. Fiction.
Galatta,
~ December 01, 2008
INDIA -- Ace Malayalam director Vinayan, famous for his ability to take risks by presenting a variety of differences in every film, will soon direct Pious Tenth Garden, based on the controvercial Sister Abhaya murder case about a Catholic nun who was found dead in a well in St Pious X convent in Kottayam nearly 16 years back.
Vinayan said that the theme is not exactly the murder case of Sister Abhaya, but the relationship between a priest and nun who fall in love and the pressure of that situation. The script is also handled by the director. He revealed that he would try to get Suresh Gopi in the lead role. Two producers have showed interest in making the film. Shooting will start in January 2009.
Sister Abhaya (21), a pre-degree student and inmate of the St Pius Convent, Kottayam, was found dead under mysterious circumstances on March 27, 1992 in a well. Initially, the local police and the state Crime Branch which investigated the case concluded that the nun had committed suicide. Later, the case was handed over to the CBI by the High Court on a petition by Abhaya's father. The case is that Sr. Abhaya happened to witness sexual congress between priests and nuns and was murdered to keep the illegitimate relationship concealed.
Book: Church as a Safe Place Society & Religion (India)
Written 10:35 am, on December 19, 2008
What does abuse in the church look like? Authors Peter Holmes and Susan Williams contend that “abuse” includes the many different ways people mistreat each other and create an environment that makes people feel unsafe and uncomfortable. It can happen when church leaders become “Messiah figures” and misuse their power or when a church member lashes out at someone else in anger–even when portions of Scripture or the use of the phrase
“It's God's will” are used to inflict additional pain on someone who is already suffering.
As a background and resource to their book Church as a Safe Place, Holmes and Williams have incorporated the experiences of many who were “former Christians”–people who had a history in the church but for various (and sometimes shocking) reasons had left congregational life. They were able to identify harm and abuse in the church in five major areas: verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual. The abuse is happening more often than many would believe or recognize.
- RCC. Poetry book "Where Angels Weep".
The Windsor Review,
By WJ Hull, December 4, 2008
CANADA -- You can tell that a book of poetry is important when the hall in which it's launched is packed to capacity ten minutes before the reading is even scheduled to start. On Thursday, April 10th, as many people as could fit in Katzman Lounge, the largest reading venue on the University of Windsor campus, were crammed together to witness the launch of ex-nun Mary Ann Mulhern's groundbreaking anthology, "When Angels Weep". Most listeners were forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder for want of space–but every single one came away glad that they did.
"When Angels Weep" is a collection of poems that outline the abuses of Father Charles Sylvestre, a priest who had been bounced around Southwestern Ontario, abusing little girls at every stop, moving whenever the local authorities became suspicious. He had been victimizing children for decades before finally being turned over to police. He was found guilty of 47 counts of sexual assault, spending his last few days in a jail cell, dying alone in prison.
- 4 Churches, and Government.
Peterborough Examiner,
By LAURA MUELLER, ~ December 08, 2008
CANADA – A Trent University professor will lead an extensive study to reveal what happened to aboriginal children who died in Canada's residential school system.
John Milloy, who wrote the book "A National Crime" about residential schools, has been tapped to compile extensive lists of the children who died and their gravesites.
- PLAY
NorthJersey.com ,
BY JOHN CHADWICK, ~ December 04, 2008
NEW JERSEY -- For 20 years, Joe Capozzi kept a dark secret about his parish priest.
Capozzi, a Ridgefield native, said Monsignor Peter Cheplic molested him multiple times as a teenager and young adult.
"You say to yourself, 'I can handle it, it's not a big deal,' " said Capozzi, now a 38-year-old resident of Manhattan and a professional actor.
But the self-imposed silence poisoned his relationships and filled him with self-loathing.
Now, several years after he and two other North Jersey men broke their silence and accused Cheplic of abuse, Capozzi has written a play that explores how his secretiveness exerted a paralyzing pall over his life.
- RC priest publishes book.
Gazette,
By TED SULLIVAN, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2008
JANESVILLE (WI) – The Rev. Gerald Vosen was accused of sexually assaulting a Janesville boy at a time when pedophile priests made headlines, but he said he's innocent. …
Vosen, 74, has written a book, "Pick a Number: Stories of Faith," and he tells his side of the story in a chapter that rips into the Janesville boy's accusations and the Catholic Church. He'll be in Janesville this weekend for a book signing.
[A new book]
Society & Religion (India),
2:32 am, October 1, 2008
While stories of sexual abuse by priests or others in authority make headlines, many instances of abusive behavior in the church occur unnoticed, and the abused rarely feel free to speak out about their suffering. In their new book, Church as a Safe Place, authors Peter R. Holmes and Susan B. Williams expose the truth about abuse in the church, challenging churches to be the safe places God has created them to be. People come to church looking for a haven from this abuse. Unfortunately, they often discover that the church isn't so different from the rest of the world, after all.
"Most abuse is not as brazen as sexual assault. It is much more subtle, hidden, and subversive. Often it cloaks itself in the ordinary," Holmes states. "Unless we proactively choose to find ways of making churches safer places, they will naturally take on the character of the surrounding environment, in which abuse is just a part of life," adds Williams.
- Book by Senator Bobby Kennedy's daughter.
The New York Observer,
by Charles Taylor | October 31, 2008
This article was published in the November 3, 2008, edition of The New York Observer.
Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans
Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning; By Kerry Kennedy;
Crown, 247 pages, $24.95
UNITED STATES – Kerry Kennedy's book may be called Being Catholic Now, but her opening is pure chutzpah. Given an audience with Pope Benedict a few years back, she asked him, "In view of the tragedy unfolding in Africa, for the sake of the sanctity of life, would you consider changing the Church's position on the use of condoms?" It's a great, inescapable moment, one of those times the powerful are called on their own hypocrisy and given the chance to rise above it. At Ms. Kennedy's audience, His Evasiveness merely "gazed beneficently, imparting 'God bless you' as he passed." …
That scandal is implicit in Ms. Kennedy's scathing treatment of Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop whisked to a job in the Vatican beyond the reach of investigators just as his involvement in covering up the Boston child rape scandals were leading some to speculate that he'd be indicted. Ms. Kennedy, who is Bobby Kennedy's daughter, recalls the archbishop as a publicity-hungry martinet barging into the spotlight after the suicide of her brother David.
LIKE MANY OF THOSE she interviewed, Ms. Kennedy seems to think it imperative for Catholics to stay in the church because she believes that the presence of such Catholics will finally compel change. But while I respect the work she's done here–the honest attempt to grapple with the reconciliation of spiritual calling and social progressivism–I can't help but feel that she and her interviewees are deluding themselves.
- Fr Vosen's version.
Baraboo News Republic,
By Brian Bridgeford and George Althoff, ~ October 18, 2008
BARABOO (WI) -- The Rev. Gerald Vosen has vivid recollection of that September day in 2003. It was a "bright and glorious fall day" and he had just conducted a funeral Mass for Chappie Fox, one of the founding fathers of Circus World Museum. A procession of horse-drawn circus wagons carrying Fox's remains had left St. Joseph's Catholic Church headed to the cemetery, while the strains of "Amazing Grace" emanated from a calliope.
- RCC.
Adelaide Independent Weekly (Australia)
http://www. independent weekly.com. au/news/ local/news/ entertainment/ book-review- nobody-heard- me-cry-john- devane/ 1335500.aspx ;
By STEPHEN DAVENPORT,
12:23:00 PM,
October/16/2008
IRELAND – Nobody Heard Me Cry lifts the lid on the sordid underworld of paedophilia in Ireland. This is a shocking memoir that palpates the wounds of growing up abused and raped by neighbours, family friends and a paedophile ring that included lawyers, police and the clergy.
That John Devane survived his early life is wonder enough but as an adult he became a lawyer and altruistically represented one of the men who abused him. His exposé reveals how vulnerable some children are and just how terrible the cost of an unstable childhood can be. He was only eight years old when a neighbour molested him and a chain of sexual abuse began, and would sadly continue throughout his youth.
[A new book]
Society & Religion (India),
2:32 am, October 1, 2008
While stories of sexual abuse by priests or others in authority make headlines, many instances of abusive behavior in the church occur unnoticed, and the abused rarely feel free to speak out about their suffering. In their new book, Church as a Safe Place, authors Peter R. Holmes and Susan B. Williams expose the truth about abuse in the church, challenging churches to be the safe places God has created them to be.
• Cardinal Francis George criticized in book over honesty on involvement with accused priests
[Card. George] - RCC.
Chicago Tribune,
http://www. chicagotribune. com/news/local/ chi-cardinal- george-websep 09,0,487844. story ;
By Margaret Ramirez | 1:56 PM CDT, September 8, 2008
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, who headed an advisory board for the nation's Catholic bishops on clergy sexual abuse, sharply criticized Cardinal Francis George and accused him of being dishonest in a new book being released Tuesday.
In Kerry Kennedy's new book, "Being Catholic Now," Burke said the Chicago-based cardinal withheld from her the fact that he was housing in his residence a priest accused of abuse in Delaware. She says she was "furious at his casual attitude" and that "the cardinal wasn't honest with me. Perhaps he was not honest with himself."
"I found the cardinal's lack of honesty really difficult to deal with. How do I go on to trust what he says to me? This continues to the present day. He and his brother bishops have been in denial all along," Burke said.
Asked by the Boston Globe about Burke's comment, George said in an e-mail that he allowed the Delaware priest to stay in his residence during a visit to Chicago, and that "to the best of my knowledge, I have been honest in every public and private statement I have made about the sexual abuse issue." [Posted by Kathy Shaw at 4:43 PM]
- RCC keeps to secrecy path. Book.
The Washington Times,
by Julia Duin, Thursday, August 28, 2008
UNITED STATES --
His new book, "Nothing to Hide: Secrecy, Communication and the Communion in the Catholic Church,"
- Religions. Justice Denied book.
Voice from the Desert,
~ June 22, 2008
UNITED STATES -- It's impossible for me to recommend more highly Marci Hamilton's new book, Justice Denied. Along with her previous work, God v the Gavel, and her many columns at Findlaw.com and numerous op ed pieces and essays published across the United States, Professor Hamilton has set the agenda for urgently needed legal reform of child sex abuse laws in the United States.
Marci has virtually become a Wisconsin resident over the past several years, three times arguing for clergy abuse victims before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. You know she's persuasive because even Justice Prosser (and Crooks and Wilcox) agreed with her to open WI courts to clergy abuse victims to file fraud case against religious leaders who covered up child sex crimes. That was a landmark, unanimous decision and as Churchill would say, not the end or even the beginning of the end, but maybe, for Wisconsin's long suffering survivors, the end of the beginning.
AND
- RCC. BOOK Justice Denied. Behind-the-scenes?
City of Angels
By Kay Ebeling, ~ June 30, 2008
UNITED STATES -- Reading JUSTICE DENIED, I have to stop and copy this here with permission of Author Marci Hamilton.
It's in Chapter Six, page 80, "The Ohio Sleight-Of-Hand." Someone in a position of authority over Ohio Republican lawmakers as well as Roman Catholic hierarchy needs to investigate. Who else can we go to but our federal legislators?
What happened in Ohio when legislators were about to pass a law opening a window to eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex crimes in the fall of 2005? What happened overnight in closed door meetings that caused the bill to turn into something entirely different?
Behind closed doors, in secret meetings? This is America, not Louisiana under Huey Long.
As described in Hamilton's book quotes below, Catholic lobbyists at least crossed lines of ethics, if not into criminal activity, in Ohio in 2005, and considering the offender is a tax exempt church, the level of amorality and influence peddling is astounding. When people work hard to get to their state capital and testify, they expect the democratic process.
- "Older than America" FILMS and "Honour Thy Father"
Edmonton Journal,
Mari Sasano, Freelance, Published: 1:33 am, ~ June 04, 2008
OLDER THAN AMERICA, Rating 4;
Director: Georgina Lightning
Starring: Adam Beach, Georgina Lightning, Tantoo Cardinal
When: Canadian premiere tonight at 7, with Lightning in attendance
With: World premiere of short film, Honour Thy Father
Where: Ziedler Hall at the Citadel Theatre
EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada -- The horror of the treatment of students at native residential schools has been in the headlines for years. The extent of psychological damage on generations of aboriginal children, taken away from their families to be raised in Christian boarding schools, is almost unimaginable. But even though the last survivors of that system are now growing old, the repercussions of the physical, psychological and sexual abuse are still being felt by the descendants of those who were first victimized.
That is the background to Older Than America, the directorial debut of actor/writer Georgina Lightning. But rather than merely dwell on the past, the film makes a strong case for hope and healing by focusing on the children of the last generation of survivors who are now understanding the issue as adults.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 8:12 AM]
- BOOK traces priest-sex problem back to Ireland.
Star Tribune,
~ July 05, 2008
MINNESOTA -- Local authors are prolific producers of religious books. Here are some of the new books with Minnesota roots: …
"An Irish Tragedy: How Sex Abuse by Irish Priests Helped Cripple the Catholic Church"
Joe Rigert (Crossland Press, $10.99). Rigert, a veteran investigative journalist, is retired from the Star Tribune. His search for the roots of the Roman Catholic church's sex-abuse scandal led him to Ireland and a society, he argues, that fostered criminal sexual activity.
BOOKS [Industrial schools: Sexually abused, flogged naked.] - RCC mainly. Children.
Irish Independent,
By Kim Bielenberg, Monday June 30 2008
IRELAND -- The cruelty inflicted on boys in industrial schools is perhaps the darkest stain on our history since independence. Boys, who were frequently incarcerated at the schools simply because they were orphans, were routinely flogged naked, and many were sexually abused by Christian Brothers.
Those in powerful positions in the Catholic church and in government turned a blind eye to the evils inflicted in institutions that have been aptly described as the "Irish gulags".
Back in the early 1990s, Patrick Touher helped to expose this scandalous abuse with his account of life in Artane Industrial School, Fear of the Collar. The book became a bestseller in Britain, with Patrick characterised as "the boy they couldn't break".
Now Patrick has written a follow-up, revealing the full story of his life. Scars that Run Deep tells how Patrick struggled to adjust to life after Artane, and also explores some of the terrifying episodes in his boyhood, including how he was seized and taken away from his foster family to become a virtual prisoner in the industrial school.
• MARTINI CALLS FOR CHURCH REFORM
Rentapriest,
http:// rentapriest. blogspot. com ,
by Juan G. Bedoya, El País, http://www. elpais.com/ articulo/ sociedad/ Martini/pide/ reforma/ Iglesia/ elpepisoc/ 20080525 elpepisoc_ 3/Tes ;
May/25/2008
Web Editor's Note: Translation from the Spanish by Phoebe, formerly known as Rebel Girl. "The Church must have the courage to reform itself." This is the main idea of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (Turin, 1927), one of the great contemporary church leaders. With praise for the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, the Cardinal asks the Catholic Church to consider the possibility of ordaining viri probati (married men, but of proven faith), and women. It also calls for an encyclical to end the prohibitions of Humanae Vitae, issued by Paul VI in 1968 with severe censorship in matters of sex.
Cardinal Martini has been rector of the Gregorian University of Rome, archbishop of the largest diocese in the world (Milan) and papabile. He is a Jesuit, has published books, written for newspapers and debated with intellectuals. At the Synod of European Bishops in 1999, he called for the convocation of a new council to finalize the reforms put on the back burner by the Second Vatican Council, held in Rome between 1962 and 1965. Now he is back in the news because his book, Jerusalemer Nachtgespräche (Nocturnal Talks in Jerusalem), has been published in Germany (by the Herder publishing house) -- the spiritual testament of a great thinker. Georg Sporschill, also a Jesuit, is co-author.
Book cover: Click http://bp3. blogger. com/_RNLerqo K2lo/ SEqlamRtPgI/ AAAAAAAAAww/ 378KSbmKkmY/ s1600-h/ martini- cover.jpg
- RCC. Book Nothing to Hide, by Russell Shaw
InsideCatholic,
May 27, 2008
Inside Catholic contributor Russell Shaw's 20th book, Nothing To Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press), takes a candid and sometimes surprising look at the abuse of secrecy in an ecclesiastical context. In this interview, Shaw, former information director of the Catholic bishops' conference and the Knights of Columbus, explains the book's genesis and the nature of the problem it examines. Nothing To Hide is available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other outlets. UNITED STATES -- Inside Catholic: What moved you to write a book about secrecy in the Church?
Russell Shaw: I guess I first became conscious of the problem in 1969, when I went to work for the bishops' conference as director of information. At the time, the bishops' relations with the press were in terrible shape, and much of the tension focused on the bishops' general meetings. They were entirely in executive session, with no reporters and observers allowed in. Yet the bishops invited reporters to come to the meeting and cover it -- which they did, partly by means of briefings and partly by means of leaks. Needless to say, there was no good reason for all that secrecy. The situation was a mess and very harmful to the bishops' own best interests.
I was one of those who helped get them to open the meetings, starting in 1972. That arrangement worked well for the next 20 years, but starting in the mid-1990s, when I was no longer with the bishops' conference but was covering the bishops as a journalist, I realized that, without any announcement or explanation, they were spending more and more of their meeting time in secret session behind closed doors. Once again, there was no good reason for so much secrecy. So I started writing about that and about secrecy in the Church in general.
Then came 2002 and the sex-abuse scandal. The cover-ups were a big part of it. Now it was clear that the abuse of secrecy wasn't just counterproductive -- it was capable of doing very serious harm in a very serious matter. I concluded that to do justice to the problem would take a book. Nothing To Hide is the result. …
But ever since Vatican II haven't we had structures and processes of consultation to prevent what you're talking about -- pastoral councils, finance councils, things like that?
On paper, yes. But in many places, if not most, they don't seem to be working very well. What did diocesan and parish councils do to detect and prevent sex abuse? Nothing -- evidently they were frozen out, kept in the dark. In lots of parishes and dioceses, nobody knows who the council members are or when they meet or what their agenda is or what they do. There's a common impression that very often -- there are exceptions, of course -- the main role of these bodies is to be a sounding-board and rubber-stamp decisions by the authorities.
- RCC.
Priests, Celibacy, and Sexuality,
Review by Richard Sipe, ~ June 01, 2008
Holding Bishops Accountable: How Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy Sexual Abuse
Author: Timothy Lytton. Harvard University Press, 2008.
[See also the webpage for Holding Bishops Accountable.]
LA JOLLA (CA) -- Just when I think I have read the final word on the clergy child abuse crisis an important book pops up that focuses on a new facet of the whole ordeal. What a great job law professor Tim Lytton has done to explain part–an important part–of the response to the crisis that confuses many lay folk (and some lawyers); the persuasive value of the tort system.
In 1988 I reviewed 1,800 letters and reports from men and women who alleged that they had been sexually abused by a Catholic priest, bishop, or member of a Catholic religious order. Not one–not a single person–was asking for money. What they were seeking was recognition of their suffering, validation of the facts in their case, and belief in their word against a powerful person and structure that denied, defied, and at times humiliated and abused them further. An apology would have been comforting and healing. Their pleas were not heard.
Timothy Lytton's title says it all–how lawsuits helped the Catholic Church. What some people think is only a money-driven effort is rightly exposed in the sex abuse crisis as fundamentally a reform-driven tool. I was a consultant on a number of cases where the victim asked for modest sums to finish their education only to be denied. When the case was litigated the plaintiff was awarded several millions of dollars. The victim then was in a position to demand conditions to assist other victims.
Murder at Holy Cross
http://orthodoxreform.org/opinion/pope-and-orthodox-on-reform
With criminal charges of murder and sexual abuse still unresolved, a monastery in Florida left the Eastern Catholic Byzantine Eparchy and in 2003 was accepted into the Orthodox Church in America by Metropolitan Herman (Swaiko).
Click on the image above to buy this book by a veteran true-crime journalist who reveals this story with never-before-disclosed details.
- RCC.
Winston-Salem Journal,
By Nicole Neroulias, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE, Published: May 31, 2008
UNITED STATES -- During his recent trip to America, Pope Benedict XVI attended a youth rally at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. -- the same school where enrollment has dwindled to the point that no new prospective priests are enrolled next fall.
As the U.S. church ordains its crop of about 400 new priests in the coming weeks, church leaders hope that Benedict's words of encouragement will inspire more men to consider the priesthood.
The Rev. Donald Cozzens of John Carroll University, however, says that it will take a major change in Vatican policy on celibacy to revitalize the priesthood.
Cozzens, 69, has tracked the decline in vocations for more than 10 years, including as rector of Cleveland's St. Mary Seminary from 1995 to 2000. In his 2006 book, Freeing Celibacy, and in lectures all over the country, he argues that celibacy should be optional for Catholic priests.
- RCC. Salesians.
Proceso,
by Rodrigo Vera, March 16, 2008.
Los salesianos: pederastia solapada (Proceso 1637/16 de marzo de 2008)
Casos documentados de abuso sexual contra menores de edad implican a los salesianos, la congregación religiosa fundada a mediados del siglo XIX por San Juan Bosco. En su libro La explotación de la fe, que acaba de ser puesto en circulación por Ediciones B, el investigador Jorge Erdely afirma que el sacerdote Juan Manzo Cárdenas abusó de 50 menores en una escuela-orfanato que los salesianos tienen en León, Guanajuato, con la protección, nada menos, que del rector mayor de la orden.
… This is a review of a recently published Spanish-language book called "The Exploitation of Faith" by Jorge Erdely (reviewed in Proceso by Rodrigo Vera) March 16, 2008.
Mr. Erdely discusses cases of sexual abuse against minors by Salesians, a religious congregation founded in the mid-19th century by St. John Bosco. One priest, Juan Manzo Cardenas, is said to have abused 50 children in a school-orphanage and the crimes were concealed for years by the rector of the global order, Pascual Chavez Villaneuva, a Mexican.
- Cafardi book.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
By Ann Rodgers, Monday, April 07, 2008
UNITED STATES -- To help ensure that the Catholic sexual abuse scandal never repeats itself, a local civil and canon lawyer has written a book on how the U.S. bishops handled cases of child molestation by clergy before they pledged themselves to zero tolerance at a 2002 meeting in Dallas.
In "Before Dallas," Nicholas P. Cafardi, dean emeritus of Duquesne University School of Law and a past chairman of the committee the bishops created to oversee their efforts to end the abuse, says that changes to church law under Pope John Paul II inadvertently tied the bishops' hands. The book, based on his recent doctoral thesis in canon law, was published last month by Paulist Press.
- Book review.
Bloomberg,
Review by Susan Antilla, April 1, 2008
WASHINGTON (DC), (Bloomberg) -- Robert S. Bennett was at his desk on April 1, 1998, when word reached him that Paula Corbin Jones's sexual harassment suit against his client, then-President Bill Clinton, had been thrown out.
Bennett instantly dialed the White House to share the news with the president, but while on hold he glanced at his calendar and noticed the date: April Fools' Day. Frantic that the news could be a prank, he balanced a second phone on his free ear to verify the information before Clinton came on the line. He got the confirmation just seconds before the president greeted him from Senegal. …
He also faced emotional battles. His father moved out when Bennett was 7, and he describes watching him pack to leave -- a heartbreaking scene. Further chinks are made in his emotional armor by the Catholic Church: When his father remarried and asked Bennett to be best man, a priest told him it could "bring scandal to the church." He did it anyway.
Yet Bennett remains a devout Catholic and was even chosen to lead a review board that examined sexual abuse of minors by priests. The boxer from Brooklyn pulls few punches when he writes about the scandal, which includes some of the most intimate insights in the book.
Breaking The Silence
[Greene]
Ocean fm ,
~ April 04, 2008
IRELAND -- The co-author of a new book that looks at the Garda investigation that brought two Donegal serial abusers to justice, has said he feels it is vital that the harrowing story of the victims is told.
Gerard Cunnigham was speaking ahead of the launch of the book 'Breaking The Silence' in Letterkenny tonight, which he wrote alongside former Garda Martin Ridge
The book examines a series of events in West Donegal that led to a Garda investigation which revealed local priest Fr Eugene Greene as a serial child sex abuser for decades.
- FLDS.
Toronto Star,
by Kim Hughes, 04:30 AM, Mar 30, 2008
The Secret Lives of Saints:
Child Brides and Lost Boys
in Canada's Polygamous
Mormon Sect
by Daphne Bramham,
Random House Canada,
464 pages, $32.95
CANADA -- Suggesting a North American religious group is like the dreaded Taliban is a grave accusation. Fighting words, you might say, and sure to spin heads.
But Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham has plenty of strong language for the polygamous Mormons of Bountiful, B.C., Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz. – members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS for short.
Sun-Sentinel,
~ March 29, 2008
CORAL GABLES (FL) -- Charles L. Bailey, author and sexual abuse survivor, 6 p.m. Sunday at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables. Bailey is the author of In the Shadow of the Cross, about his abuse as a boy at the hands of a priest. Admission free.
[Do not confuse with book of same name, by the late Bruce Blyth, 1997, Western Australia]
- ? Fiction.
Daily Press,
February 09, 2008
NORFOLK (VA) -- Author Kimberla Lawson Roby, whose books have been on the Essence magazine and New York Times best-sellers lists, is making an appearance in Norfolk today as part of her book tour for her latest work, "Sin No More."
Roby's book revisits the character the Rev. Curtis Black, who is caught up in all kinds of behavior unbecoming of a reverend. She's been interviewed as a source for her opinion on church corruption, preachers falling from grace, infidelity, domestic violence, sexual abuse, social status and discrimination.
City of Angels,
February 09, 2008
MASSACHUSETTS -- Click the video square at the top of this blog to watch nine minutes of "Catholic Surviving Abuse," a theatrical memoir of original art and poetry as performed by Skip Shea of Uxbridge. In the segment at the top of this page, Shea discusses his rape by a Worcester priest and his later discovery as a teenager that "you can communicate through art."
Shea conducts this one-man show with art and music in venues around Boston.
- RC Bp Bruskewitz praises book.
FIRST THINGS,
By Richard John Neuhaus, February 02, 2008
[See also an excerpt from The Faithful Departed.]
NEW YORK (NY) -- That's a grim metaphor, maybe too grim. It's from an endorsement of Philip F. Lawler's book, to be published next week, The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture (Encounter).
The endorsement is by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, who says: "Lawler's masterful analysis is sobering and provides an urgent incentive for authentic renewal.
- United Church. Indigenous children.
THE BRANTFORD EXPOSITOR, ONTARIO (CANADA),
By Susan Gamble, ~ February 06, 2008
The well-treed yard of the Woodland Cultural Centre is as good a place as any to look for evidence of Canada's "genocide" against natives, says former United Church minister Kevin Annett.
Speaking at Laurier Brantford at the beginning of an Ontario tour, the B.C. man said Tuesday the former residential school, called the Mohawk Institute, was the oldest in the country and certain to contain evidence of what he calls the systematic culling of native children.
Annett has spent 12 years researching and documenting a litany of horrors perpetrated against native children in Canada's 100-plus residential schools. He wrote a book called Hidden From History and created a documentary called Unrepentant, screening a portion of it at Laurier Tuesday.
- RCC. 20 detectives investigated. 450 court actions in one diocese.
Irish Independent,
By Dearbhail McDonald, Legal Editor, ~ February 02, 2008
DUBLIN, IRELAND -- Six years ago, anger at the Catholic Church's handling of clerical sex abuse reached a zenith when a damning documentary, 'Cardinal Secrets', was screened.
'Cardinal Secrets', which followed swiftly on the heels of 'Suing the Pope' -- an expose of sickening abuse in the Diocese of Ferns -- chronicled how priests in the Dublin diocese were granted a virtual licence to abuse children even after Church authorities received complaints from parents.
The scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world to its foundations broke in Dublin with an almighty vengeance.
The public, incensed by the scandal in Ferns {see the Ferns Report}, clamoured for the resignation of Archbishop Desmond Connell, whose tenure was devastated by revelations of paedophiles among his clergy.
The scale of the problem in the country's largest diocese, where 450 legal actions had been initiated against clerics, was staggering.
Within days of the broadcast, a 20-man team of detectives, dubbed the "God Squad," was assigned to examine existing and historic allegations of clerical sex abuse.
- RCC.
NJ VOICES,
By Raymond A. Schroth, ~ January 06, 2008
NEWARK (NJ) -- […]
I'd like to say that I thought of that analogy myself. But the Shakespeare-God is the creation of George Dennis O'Brien, whose new book, Finding the Voice of the Church (Notre Dame University Press), is an imaginative and challenging attempt to get the Catholic Church, which he acknowledges has recently lost much of its moral authority, to speak with a different voice by first learning how to listen.
I first encountered Dennis O'Brien, philosopher and president emeritus of the University of Rochester, in the 1970s when he wrote in Commonweal magazine that philosophy should be taught not by philosophers but by English teachers.
[Writing about faithless clergy saps a second writer's faith.] - Nearly every Eskimo boy was seduced.
Reuters,
http://blogs. reuters.com/ faithworld/ 2007/11/15/ burnout-on- the-god-beat- second-top- religion- writer-calls- it-quits ;
filed by Tom Heneghan, November 15th, 2007,
Covering religion may be harmful to your faith. Two leading religion journalists – one in Britain, one in the United States – have quit the beat in recent months, saying they had acquired such a close look at such scandalous behaviour by Christians that they lost their faith and had to leave.
Stephen Bates, who recently stepped down as religious affairs writer for the London Guardian, has just published an account of his seven years on the beat in an article entitled "Demob Happy" for the New Humanist magazine. Bates followed the crisis in the Anglican Communion for several years and even wrote a book on it,
A Church At War: Anglicans and Homosexuality.
"Now I am moving on," his article concludes. "It was time to go. What faith I had, I've lost, I am afraid - I've seen too much, too close. A young Methodist press officer once asked me earnestly whether I saw it as my job to spread the Good News of Jesus. No, I said, that's the last thing I am here to do."
Bates announced his move back in September in another interesting article, this time for the website Religious Intelligence. Writing from New Orleans, where he was covering the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops meeting with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, […]
Shortly before Bates called it quits, William Lobdell, who gave the Los Angeles Times first-class coverage of the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal in California, threw in the towel with a wrenching story of his own struggle with organised religion.
His farewell story in July, "Religion beat became a test of faith" was a moving testimony of a journalist who started off as a Presbyterian, was active with evangelicals and seriously considered becoming a Catholic.
But, during his eight years on the beat, the Catholic clerical sex abuse scandal put him off religion so badly that he lost his faith altogether. For an example of what he came across, take a look at Missionary's Dark Legacy, a powerful story from 2005 about the trail of sexual abuse a Catholic missionary left behind after seven years among the Eskimos. Nearly every boy in the settlement was abused. […]
[RECAPITULATION: Nearly every boy in the settlement was abused.
ENDS.]
- Orthodox Judaism.
Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out,
~ November 04, 2007
UNITED STATES -- It's amazing to watch the changes that have been happening in the orthodox world.
Back in 1994's the documentary "Unorthodox Conduct" was created. Then there was silence until Israel Moskovits film "Narrow Bridge" was released earlier this year.
Some time this year or the early part of 2008, the documentary "Without A Voice" created by Moshe Schulman will be released.
- RCC.
NorthJersey.com ,
By LESLIE BRODY, STAFF WRITER, Tuesday, October 30, 2007
NEW JERSEY -- A new book by Carmine Galasso, an award-winning photographer at The Record, focuses on the scars of hidden wounds inflicted long ago by predatory priests and nuns.
"Crosses: Portraits of Clergy Abuse" contains black-and-white photos of 30 adults who endured excruciating ordeals as children. In detailed interviews, they share graphic memories of sexual abuse, brutal rapes and intimidation by the authority figures their families trusted most.
Patricia Anne Cahill, for example, recalls how the priest who pursued her would take off all his clothes, except for his white collar. If she tried to flee, he locked her naked inside a cold, dark closet. She was only 5 or 6.
Galasso calls his subjects victim/survivors, and spent three years traveling the country to record their faces and memories. For many, the abuse had relentless consequences, including depression, drug abuse and sexual confusion. Some were shunned by their families. A few attempted suicide.
- RCC. VOTF. New chairperson.
Voice of the Faithful
~ October 29, 2007
PROVIDENCE (RI) -- Carolyn Disco, winner of the Catherine of Sienna Award, is the New Hampshire VOTF Survivor Support Chairperson.
I am both deeply moved and humbled even to be nominated, for this is an extraordinary honor. I just assumed someone of the national prominence of Justice Anne Burke would be selected. To follow in her footsteps as the second recipient of this Award was a stunning surprise. I thank the committee for naming me.
I am here because I have come to know survivors of clergy sexual abuse, both personally and through the documents from diocesan secret archives. Like many who joined Voice of the Faithful, I am repulsed by the betrayal of bishops who protected the institutional church at the expense of vulnerable children. So many survivors do not know God's love, how precious they are in His eyes. That is what was stolen from them. The destruction of a child's trusting relationship with God, his spiritual heritage, is especially cutting.
William D'Antonio and Anthony Pogorelc conclude accurately in their new book, Voices of the Faithful: Loyal Catholics Striving for Change that "revelations of the underbelly of the church were a surprise to (VOTF members, who) were not in possession of the 'cynical knowledge' of insiders who knew the church bureaucracy and of what it was capable."
- RCC.
Illinois Review,
Book Review by George Kocan, October 24, 2007
"The Rite of Sodomy: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church," by Randy Engel, New Engel Publishing (2006), Export Pennsylvania, 1283 pages; www.riteofsodomy.com
UNITED STATES -- TV cameras recently caught the Archbishop of San Francisco giving Holy Communion to men dressed up like what can best be described as blasphemous clowns. They wore heavy make-up to hide their sex and costumes to make them look like nuns. No one could miss the fact that homosexuals staged this hateful stunt to mock the Catholic Church.
Yet, Archbishop George Niederauer dutifully presented the sacred hosts as if nothing was wrong. Later on, he apologized, pleading ignorance. […]
• The shameful tale of our child migrants Australian Reader's Digest,
editors au § readersdigest com , pp 52-58, issue of October 1996
READER'S DIGEST • OCTOBER 1996 | THE SHAMEFUL TALE OF OUR CHILD MIGRANTS | 52 In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, about 10,000 British children, some less than five years old, were sent to Australia under a government-backed child migrant scheme. Many were told they were orphans. Most of the parents believed they were still in Britain, adopted or in the care of charities. It was a wicked lie. One woman made it her business to expose it.
THE SHAMEFUL TALE OF OUR CHILD MIGRANTS
BY ANDRO LINKLATER
I T WAS A COLD winter morning when two women got out of a taxi in a quiet street in Hastings, southern England. Social worker Margaret Humphreys noticed that her companion was trembling.
Pamela Smedley had flown from Adelaide in the height of the Australian summer. But it was not the unaccustomed raw weather that was making her shiver. All her life she had believed she was an orphan. Now, in her fifties, Pamela was about to meet her mother. All she had to do that day in 1989 was to walk up to the neat bungalow in front of her and ring the doorbell.
"Margaret," she said urgently, "you'll have to hold me up. I can't get to the door." Margaret took Pamela's arm. Her painstaking detective work had brought mother and daughter together, but her pleasure at the coming reunion was mixed with sorrow and anger. At the age of 11, Pamela had been sent to Australia under a British-government backed migration scheme. Her mother, forced by family pressure to place her with the Catholic Church for adoption, knew nothing of the girl's fate.
The front door opened, and Margaret saw the joy on the elegant elderly woman's face as she held out
her arms to greet her daughter. They have lost more than 40 years when they might have known each other, Margaret
thought. What a waste! Margaret Humphreys' autobiography, Empty Cradles, is published by Transworld Publishers at $14.95.
- Book.
National Post,
September 26, 2007
CANADA -- At the age of 26, 10 years before earning his first million dollars as cofounder of the Second Cup coffee empire, Frank O'Dea was a homeless alcoholic panhandler. Almost 40 years on, the reason for his life of desperate squalor -- three rapes during his boyhood -- is revealed in O'Dea's new book, When All You Have is Hope.
Broken Trust: Stories of Pain, Hope and Healing from Clerical Abuse Survivors and Abusers, by Patrick Fleming, Sue Lauber-Fleming and Mark T. Matousek. Crossroad (New York, 2007). 228 pp., $19.96
-- Catholic Online
'Broken Trust' offers new approach to sex-abuse scandal, focusing on healing after betrayal,
www.catholic. org/ae/books/ review.php? id=25455 ,
By Kaitlynn Riely,
Catholic News Service ( www.catholicnews.com )
Sep/24/2007
[Decades - Bishop Ziemann] - RCC.
City of Angels,
By Kay Ebeling, ~ August 21, 2007
LOS ANGELES (CA) -- "When he was auxiliary bishop of Fresno, Mahony was also a licensed social worker and was therefore required by law to report child abuse. When he became bishop of Stockton, California in 1980, Mahony surrendered this license and removed himself from the reporting requirements."
That's from "Sacrilege" by Leon Podles due out from Crossland Press September 1st.
AND
- New BOOK.
City of Angels,
By Kay Ebeling, ~ September 11, 2007
Around mid-July the tone of this blog changed as I began reading a new book "Sacrilege" by former federal investigator Leon Podles. A few chapters in and I began to see obvious patterns in pedophile priest rape crime across the country.
The more I read the more I realized, in city after city for the last half century kids in Catholic churches were raped, perpetrators were enabled to continue raping, victims and victims' families were shut up. And most astonishing, bishops and other hierarchy lied many times under oath, or conveniently forgot, and documents disappeared.
Father Lasch,
by Paul Lakeland,
Continuum ISBN 978-0-8264-2810-3,
164 pages $19.95 (U.S.) 2007
A Book Review by Regina Schulte, Ph.D.,
rschulte8 § execpc com ,
for CORPUS REPORTS, A Bi-monthly Newsletter of the CORPUS COMMUNITY,
July / August 2007
Posted with permission of Regina Schulte and CORPUS REPORTS.
UNITED STATES -- The Catholic Church is in
crisis–certainly not "breaking news" to the clergy and laity, although it might be to some of the hierarchy. Scandalous sex crimes and their cover-ups are not the source of the crisis (nor what this book is about), although they have made us acutely aware of the shadow side of perpetuating an exclusivist clergy. Thus, even though it is a good thing to do, creating mechanisms to insure the safety of children from sexual exploitation will not address the root problem.
"The real scandal is clericalism," says Paul Lakeland, author of this little gem of a book.
Los Angeles Times,
By Marci A. Hamilton, hamilton02 § aol com , July 19, 2007
LOS ANGELES (CA) -- MARCI A. HAMILTON is a law professor at Yeshiva University and author of the forthcoming book "How to Deliver Us From Evil: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children."
- Play, "The Highbury Hilton".
The London Free Press,
By JOE BELANGER, SUN MEDIA, July 07, 2007
CANADA -- Robert Berube knows first-hand the impact on a child of being abused by a priest.
And on July 28, Londoners will get a chance to hear about the lifelong, life-changing pain of child sexual abuse survivors when Berube's play, "The Highbury Hilton," …
[Sylvestre]
John McGiggen's Abuse Claims Blog,
Published July 5th, 2007
CANADA -- I just watched the CBC's documentary "The Good Father" about one of the worst pedophile priests in Canadian history, Charles Sylvestre.
• Ladies & gentlemen, the Commonweal podcast. DotCommonweal,
Posted by Grant Gallicho, June 28, 2007
UNITED STATES -- A few weeks back, dotCommonweal contributor Paul Lauritzen generously offered to helm an experiment in podcasting for the site. His first effort is an interview with Fr. Donald Cozzens, author of Freeing Celibacy.
- RCC. Book review; fiction.
San Francisco Chronicle
Reviewed by Dan Zigmond, Sunday, June 3, 2007
Be Near Me, By Andrew O'Hagan,
HARCOURT; 305 PAGES; $24
===
The Herald,
By ANNE SIMPSON, May 26 2007
ROME -- When David Yallop …
It has taken Yallop more than eight years to write The Power and the Glory, the goal of which is to de-sanctify a man on the road to sainthood: the late Pope John Paul II. Yallop, who describes himself as a Catholic agnostic, is aware that many will regard this work as heretical.
• Narrow Bridge
- Judaism. Film.
June 12, 2007
A trailer to a new film by Izzy Moskovitz called "Narrow Bridge" can be seen at this link.
Vicki Polin, executive director of The Awareness Center, said she has read one of the original scripts and believes the film is well done.
The story is about a young Jewish college student who was sexually abused by his rabbi as a child and the numerous struggles he encounters as he attempts to heal himself and seek closure.
"All in the Name of God" documovie.
br /> EURWeb,
By Mona Austin / mona § lachurchscene com , May 30, 2007
UNITED STATES -- No one expects to visit a doctor and be issued a prescription that would intentionally worsen their condition. Many entrust their very lives to medical practitioners. Likewise, no one would expect to have their trust violated by a pastor.
FILM. Fiction.
Variety,
By DAVE MCNARY, ~ April 17, 2007
HOLLYWOOD (CA) -- Isaiah Washington ("Grey's Anatomy") will topline indie thriller "The Least of These," written and directed by Nathan Scoggins.
Project is produced by James Duke and Number 3 Films in conjunction with producers Allison Calleri and Christina K.Y. Lee. "The Least of These" will begin production in Los Angeles in June.
Washington will portray a priest with a troubled past who's transferred to a Catholic boarding school after the mysterious disappearance of one of the priests. Thesp's feature credits include "Clockers," "Get on the Bus" and "Bulworth."
- RCC.
Catholic World News,
special to CWNews.com , Apr. 10, 2007
UNITED STATES (CWNews.com) -- The sex-abuse crisis within the Catholic Church was brought on in large part by a collapse in the traditions of ascetical discipline, especially among the clergy. That is the argument of an important book about the crisis, and after years of research on the topic, I find that argument persuasive.
Just over one year ago, the Linacre Institute released After Ascetism: Sex, Prayer, and Deviant Priests. Regrettably, the book has received little public attention -- certainly nowhere near the attention it deserves.
[Bishop Brom + 24 other hierarchs] - RCC. Homosexual allegations.
Christian Newswire,
Mar. 20, 2007
PITTSBURGH (PA) -- The recent filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Bishop Robert H. Brom of the Diocese of San Diego is an excellent example of how homosexual prelates in the Catholic hierarchy place their dioceses at extra risk for clerical sexual abuse lawsuits, abuse cover-ups and potential bankruptcy, says Randy Engel, an expert on pederasty and clerical sex abuse and author of the controversial new book The Rite of Sodomy - Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church.
Engel, a pro-life activist and investigative reporter for over 30 years, noted that the Catholic laity of the San Diego Diocese, who will ultimately foot the bill for the bankruptcy filing of February 27, 2007 and subsequent settlements for victims of clerical sexual abuse in the diocese, have been forced to face some painful truths about their wayward shepherd. The first is that private vice has public consequences. The second is that cover-ups connected with the crime of clerical pederasty are closely connected to the rise of the Homosexual Collective both within and without the Church.
Bishop Brom is one of more than 25 Catholic bishops and cardinals whose homosexual history is documented in The Rite of Sodomy, released in July 2006.
• Perversion of Power
- RCC. Book notice.
Boston Magazine,
http://boston magazine.com/ arts_entertain ment/articles/ city_journal_ perversion_ of_power ,
By J. L. Johnson, ~ March 08, 2007
UNITED STATES -- Clinical psychologist Frawley-O'Dea offers a detailed look at the church sex-abuse scandal.
[Picture] Perversion of Power book cover From a 1983 case in the Louisiana bayou to the Boston Archdiocese's headline-fueled implosion in 2002, clinical psychologist Frawley-O'Dea offers a detailed look at the church sex-abuse scandal.
- RCC. Book.
Radio Netherlands,
by Marta Durán de Huerta, in Mexico*,
Mar-09-2007
MEXICO -- Journalist Sanjuana Martínez has broken a taboo with revelations about sexual abuse in the Mexican Catholic Church. Her book Purple Cloak is about Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, a priest known to be responsible for 90 cases of child sexual abuse. It's also about the people who against their better judgement have always protected him.
- Fiction.
The Messenger,
By SANDY MICKELSON, ~ March 04, 2007
FORT DODGE (IA) -- Fort Dodge author Janet Clark has published her first novel, "Blind Faith," and will have a book signing at the Fort Dodge Public Library on Saturday.
Memories don't always bring soft smiles and sighs. Sometimes they hurt.
Sometimes when they're gathered, they take on the feeling of fiction. They can't be real -- or so it seems.
Fort Dodge author Janet Clark has used her memories to create a novel called "Blind Faith," the story of a Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy.
But this made-up 12-year-old boy, Jack O'Donnell, is made up of many memories from Clark's life.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:38 AM]
[Clergy] - RCC. High statistics of clergy HIV-AIDS and paedophilia.
PR Web,
February 3, 2007
PHOENIX, AZ, UNITED STATES, (PRWEB) -- In Vatican Conspiracy Theory author Eric Bepots reveals alarming information about the high rate of HIV and Pedophilia found within the Catholic Clergy and shares statistics that lend credibility to the various claims of abuse that have come into the limelight.
- Autobiographical novel.
PR.com ,
www.pr.com/ press-release/ 27970 , January 25, 2007
Detroit author and school teacher announces the release of her autobiographical novel, Confessions of a Catholic Schoolgirl. Zeroing in on the Catholic Church controversy, author Michelle Kane reveals the kind of secrets the Catholic Church has been sweeping under the rug for years. DETROIT (MI), (PR.COM) -- "Most people are too afraid to take on the Catholic Church, but not narrator Valerie Bernowski," author Michelle Kane notes in reference to her latest book. "This is one protagonist who tells it like it is. Nothing and no one is off limits; including Valerie's dead-beat dad, Ivan, and school pastor, 'Father Fingers.' "
Coshocton Tribune,
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer, January 08, 2007
~ January 15, 2007
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio - A former seminary president who drew national attention to the number of gay Roman Catholic priests tackles mandatory celibacy in a new book, calling it burdensome and unnecessary.
The Rev. Donald Cozzens says the requirement is hurting the church at a time of priest shortages.
"Many, if not most, of the inactive priests would be serving in our parishes if it were not for the law of celibacy," Cozzens writes in "Freeing Celibacy." …
- VOTF; New group; New book.
Woburn Advocate,
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
WINCHESTER (MA) - Kathleen Dwyer, a survivor of incest and priest ritual, sexual and spiritual abuse as a child, will speak to Winchester Area Voice of the Faithful's weekly meeting on Monday, Dec. 4. The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at St. Eulalia's Parish, 50 Ridge St., Winchester. Admission is free, and all are welcome.
Dwyer is co-director of the Truth and Recognition Coalition and is a member of several of several other survivors of sexual abuse support groups. Ms. Dwyer is also an artist, poet and writer, and is a contributing author in the forthcoming book, "Predatory Priests: The Sexual-Abuse Crisis and the Catholic Church."
The Truth and Recognition Coalition is a nonprofit organization that was formed to create a process for truth telling and to create a permanent verbal and visual historical record of the widespread crimes of sexual abuse by clergy.
This will be the first formal introduction to The Truth and Recognition Coalition project. A videotape of Dwyer giving her testimony about her abuse will be shown as an example of the work that the coalition is in the process of recording. Ms. Dwyer will then speak about the TRC Project and she and other members of the coalition will be available to answer questions.
– IMPURE ACTS: THOSE ABUSES IN THE WORLD OF THE CHURCH.
- RCC.
La Repubblica,
http://ricerca. repubblica.it/ repubblica/ archivio/ repubblica/ 2009/01/24/ atti-impuri- quegli-abusi- nel-mondo- della.html ;
pagina 39, sezione: CULTURA,
24 gennaio 2009 (= January 24, 2009)
[…] The book Atti Impuri. La piaga dellabuso sessuale nella Chiesa cattolica, editor Raffaelo Cortina, 294 pages, 20,00 euros (In English the book is titled: Predatory Priests, Silenced Victims: The Sexual Abuse Crisis and the Catholic Church by Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea and Virginia Goldner) is not only a description of a catastrophe which has shaken the American Catholics and led to the bankruptcy of more than one diocese for compensation money, but it's above all an analysis of that institution in which all that has
happened and a reflection upon the individuals who were the victims, mainly males in the prepuberal or postpubelar age between 11 and 17, when the psyche is more fragile. Reflections and denunciations coming from within the same Catholic Church.
COLEMAN, Gerald D., S.S.; Formation and Human Development,
Liguori. 141pp, $19.95 (paperback)
-- Answering the 'Call' -- America R.C. Magazine,
~ October 20, 2006
The Sulpician priest Gerald D. Coleman is to be commended for this volume. In it he shares with the Catholic community at large not only his long-term experiences as a rector, professor and guide for seminary life, but also his keen insights into the practical needs of priestly formation.
Sin, Shame & Secrets. By David Yonke. Continuum. 240 pages. $26.95.
by David Yonke (Blade religion editor). Subtitled: "The Murder of a Nun, the Arrest of a Priest and Cover-up in the Catholic Church."
Sin, Shame & Secrets chronicles the events leading up to the 2006 imprisonment of the Rev. Gerald Robinson, 68, a Toledo Roman Catholic priest currently serving 15 years to life for the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl.
-- "Fascinating path to a conviction,"Toledo Blade,
By JAVAN KIENZLE, October 15, 2006
• Not recommended -- Kathy's
Story a.k.a. Don't ever tell. Seems to be a dishonest fraud.
•The Rev. Donald Osgood of New Hampshire:
A Shallow, Likeable Guy with a Taste for Young Men, By Lee Podles
-- The scandal of Father Donald Osgood Renew America,
by Matt C. Abbott, August 27, 2006
• Sex In The Church.
My good friend, Winston 'Bello' Bell has taken a bold move by penning a book titled Sex In The Church
-- The Jamaica Observer, by Tony Robinson,
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Catholic Online,
Catholic News Service ( www.catholic news.com ), By Simon Caldwell, July/25/2006
LONDON, United Kingdom - A former altar boy who says he was abused by a priest has written a comic book to help to educate churchgoers about clerical sexual misconduct.
The man says that as a child he suffered a series of indecent assaults at the hands of John Lloyd, a former parish priest in Treforest, who was sentenced to eight years in jail in 1998 for a series of sexual offenses.
Writing under the pseudonym Martin O'Shea, the author uses his own experiences to unveil a "perception of scenarios" likely to occur following a complaint of abuse.
In the comic book, "The Least Among Us," O'Shea and illustrator Tony Wright tell a story of how a fictional bishop tries to deal with a clerical abuse scandal.
The comic, which will be published by Ascendant Press Aug. 21, follows the classic comic strip genre. Some of the cartoons show priests breaking the news to the bishop that a priest has been accused, and others show the bishop taking hostile questions from journalists at a press conference.
"Hand of God" Thanks to the Cultreras' second son, a filmmaker named Joe, the family is working through Paul's recovery together. This week Joe will present his new documentary for the first time in his hometown. "Hand of God," which screens at 7 p.m. Thursday at Cinema Salem and 6 p.m. Saturday at AMC/ Loews Boston (as part of the Boston International Film Festival), is a frank examination of Paul and his arduous journey.
-- Showing faith in his family
- 'Deliver Us From Evil' FILM
Los Angeles Times,
By Kevin Crust, June 22, 2006
LOS ANGELES (CA) -- IT'S not unusual for documentaries to dominate a festival. And this year's Los Angeles Film Festival is no exception, with a strong group of nonfiction works largely connected by a search for justice and redemption. …
'Deliver Us From Evil'
The concept of the infallibility of priests receives a stinging critique in writer-director Amy Berg's understandably angry documentary, the story of a remorseless pedophile Catholic priest.
A deceptive figure - a Barry Fitzgerald façade with a Peter Lorre lurking beneath - Oliver O'Grady served as a priest in Central California for nearly 20 years, quietly terrorizing the region before being arrested.
Focusing on a handful of O'Grady's victims, now adults, the film assays the suffering of their families while it cogently builds an argument implicating the complicity of Cardinal Roger Mahony, once O'Grady's bishop, in covering up the crimes.
John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland. Referred to a passage in Cooney's book John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland. It claimed that in 1944, Dr McQuaid, archbishop of Dublin, made representations to the then minister for justice Gerard Boland to have a Garda investigation into allegations of abuse at Artane stopped.
-- "Solicitor apologises to journalist,"
One in Four, Irish Times, ~ June 22, 2006
- RCC. Book. "The Principal's Office". Fiction.
Catholic Online,
By Matt Abbott, Op/Ed, ~ June 11, 2006
"The Principal's Office"
UNITED STATES -- "Sister Rosemary was around 35 years old. She paid much attention to her appearance, wearing her hair up, a touch of lipstick and large, gold hoop earrings.
A victim of the church in Mexico. NorthJersey.com ,
www.bergen. com/page.php? qstr=eXJpcnk3 ZjczN2Y3dnFl ZUVFeXk0MDAm ZmdiZWw3Zjd2c WVlRUV5eTY5ND A5NTQmeXJpcn k3ZjcxN2Y3dn FlZUVFeXkxNA== ;
By MARIA ELENA SALINAS, Tuesday, May 30, 2006
As I recount in my book, "I Am My Father's Daughter," Athie once held highly respected positions within the Catholic Church in Mexico. He was an international coordinator for the Vatican's charity, Caritas. He also served as a leader in the church's commission for peace and reconciliation in the insurgent Chiapas region. But the confession of a dying man and Athie's search for justice led to the downfall of his promising career in the church.
• Top-notch acting keeps 'Agnes' afloat
- RCC. Play critique.
Courier-Post,
www.courier postonline. com/apps/pbcs. dll/article? AID=/20060509/ LIVING/6050 90304/1004/ LIVING ;
By KEVIN RIORDAN, Tuesday, May 9, 2006
NEW JERSEY -- The conflicts in "Agnes of God" -- religion vs. science, faith vs. reason, head vs. heart -- are timeless.
But John Pielmeier's 1982 play, now onstage in a stark new production by the Woodbury-based Luna Theater Company, has not aged well.
- RCC. Book review.
Catholic Online,
~ May 3, 2006
NEW YORK -- Today's seminary is a spiritual boot camp that forces seminarians to face external and internal challenges, including obedience and celibacy, and a proving ground to test their vocation, said the author of a book published in April about five men who give up careers to study for the priesthood.
Jonathan Englert interviewed more than 50 seminarians as well as spiritual directors, faculty members and officials of several seminaries and researched seminary life over a five-year period in writing The Collar: A Year of Striving and Faith Inside a Catholic Seminary (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006, 300 pp., $25.95). …
- RCC.
[Unnamed priest] - Altar boy.
[Philadelphia Archdiocese] - > 100 victims testified.
Philadelphia Inquirer,
By Martha Raffaele, Associated Press, ~ April 25, 2006
HARRISBURG (PA) -- Brian Guarino's, 42, said in a 15-minute DVD recording
The DVD, which includes accounts from alleged victims and their family members, will be sent to state lawmakers
UNITED STATES: The Wanderer's news editor Paul Likoudis has written what we believe to be the most definitive and comprehensive analysis of the present crisis of the Catholic Church in America. The book reflects Paul's fifteen years of intensive reporting on the disastrous effects of modernist, dissident bishops, priests, theologians, and Church bureaucrats on the integrity of the Catholic Church in America.
Nothing has been spared by these arrogant, homosexual-friendly hijackers: Sacred Scripture, the Sacred Liturgy, the sacraments, every aspect of Catholic doctrine including the Church's moral teaching, catechesis, Catholic education, seminary formation, and priestly life.
Chapter 10 has about ten pages summarising part of Dr Barry Coldrey's findings in his book Religious Life Without Integrity: The Sexual Abuse Crisis Within the Catholic Church. It states his book stemmed from a detailed report he had been asked to write for the Congregation for Religious Orders and Secular Institutes in Rome.
The book began circulating privately in April 2000; his then superiors in the Christian Brothers asked him to withdraw it, but copies began circulating on the internet. In late March 2001, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Vatican had "banned" Dr Coldrey's book. (pp 215-224). [It can be bought from P & B Press in Australia, and is on the internet (see elsewhere on this page).]
Paul Likoudis's book ends with quoting the Fr Paul Shaughnessy, S.J., article of November 2000, stating that the Catholic Church had become corrupt and needed strong actions by the laypeople and the Vatican, including a policy of removing corrupt bishops, refusing to allow homosexuals into the seminaries, and restoring simplicity, that is, removing luxury from the clergy's life.
Available for $US 24.95 postpaid from www.thewandererpress.com/ amchurch.htm (checked June 2003) .
Also available in hardcover from John XXIII Co-op Ltd, www.j23.com.au/ ,
shop § j23 com au , PO Box 22, Ormond (Melbourne) Vic, 3204, Australia, for $45.90 in June 2003; 260pp, 15 x 23 cm (6in x 9in), hard covers, index, bibliography (partial list of newspaper headlines).
ISBN 0-9719558-0-8
[2002]
GILHOOLEY, Steve, 2001, The Pyjama Parade.
IRELAND - At his junior seminary in Cumbria, the outwardly pious enforced a regime of physical and sexual abuse. For Gilhooley, now 42, the sexual abuse was less serious than for some other students, but it was there and the repercussions were intense. Several of his contemporaries would later attempt, or actually commit, suicide. For Gilhooley, the issue would erupt volcanically, the molten lava of suppressed childhood memories suddenly cascading into adulthood with devastating consequences. He underwent therapy, was advised to write down his experiences, and the result was the publication in 2001 of a searing memoir called The Pyjama Parade. The title was a reference to the weekly caning of young boys in their pyjamas. […]
"… I was listening to all these poor people saying they had been abused and then been called gold-diggers. One of the reasons I came out was to stand beside these people and say, 'No, they are telling the truth.' And then they went for me too." Gilhooley is an RCC priest.
-- The Scotsman, "Act of Faith," by CATHERINE DEVENEY, ~ July 17, 2005
For the book's details, visit http://uk-shop.aest. org.uk/cgi-bin/ama. cgi?mode=books_uk& search_type=Author Search&input_ string=Steve+ Gilhooley&locale=uk .
[2001]
KENNEDY, Eugene Cullen, The Unhealed Wound:
The Church and Human Sexuality, 2001, St. Martin's Press, USA,
ISBN: 0312266375, Hardcover, $US 19.95 ($13.97 discounted).
UNITED STATES: Kennedy is emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago.
See www.christianity- books.com/The_ Unhealed_ Wound__ The_Church_ and_ Human_ Sexuality_ 0312266375.html .
Found Jun 3, 2004, at http://natcath. org/ NCR_ Online/ archives2/ 2004b/052804/ 052804x.htm
[2001]
LIVINGSTONE, Tess, 2002, George Pell, Duffy & Snellgrove, Sydney.
AUSTRALIA:
"This is a fine biography of one of Australia's most controversial figures [Sydney Roman Catholic Archbishop, Dr George Pell, formerly R.C. Archbishop of Melbourne]. Meticulously researched and clearly written, it also raises the crucial matter of how unsubstantiated allegations of sexual abuse can be used as a weapon against those who are perceived as ideological and political opponents." -- Professor Ross Fitzgerald.
In recent decades a war has been waged within the Catholic Church between traditionalists and those who want to drain its teachings and institutions of much of their meaning. This is the story of that struggle, told through the life of a leading combatant, George Pell, who has spent much of his adult life battling attempts to, in his words, "trivialise Jesus Christ".
[COMMENT: Dr Pell's part in the famous "60 Minutes" programme of June 2 2002 in which he admitted that the Catholic Church paid "silence money", and his 10-day denial of this is told in a way that avoids his contradictory and incorrect statements. No attempt is made to explain his four-fold denial when he was asked if young Ridsdale had contacted him to report that his uncle, Father Ridsdale, had sexually abused him. COMMENT ENDS.]
Tess Livingstone is the editor of the opinion page at the Courier
Mail in Brisbane.
-- www.duffyandsnell grove.com. au/titles/ george_pell.htm . 484pp, 13 x 19.8cm (5 1/8 x 7 3/4 in), soft covers, index, endnotes, ISBN 1 876631 52 X, $22.00.
Also see comment at www.cathnews.com/ news/301/167.php
[2002]
DE BECKER, Gavin, 1999, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children And Teenagers Safe (And Parents Sane),
The Dial Press, Random House, Inc., New York, NY, USA.
UNITED STATES: Useful book to read for parents who are interested in learning how to better protect their children.
(by courtesy of Pokrov Book Recommendations www.pokrov. org/Pokrov/ resourc.html , sighted Mar 9, 2005
[1999]
BERRY, Jason. Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children; 1992. Won a Religious Public Relations Council Wilbur Award and a Catholic Press Association Book Award;
1992, Foreword by Professor Father Andrew M. Greely. Doubleday, New York.
University of Illinois Press:
2000 edition, 440 pages, 6 x 9 1/4 inches (15 x 23.5 cm), Paper, ISBN 0-252-06812-2, $US19.95 (checked 07 Feb 03, Paperback $US19.95).
UNITED STATES: The Catholic Church's history of monarchical rule, grounded in celibacy, stands at a painful crossroads. The book gives mini-biographies of some abuse victims and their families, fallen priests and their bishops, lawyers for both sides, prosecutors, admirable priests and Vatican diplomats, therapists, insurers, nuns, homosexual activists, seminarians, theologians, journalists and editors, who took part as the sex abuse crimes were exposed and publicised.
Jason Berry, a journalist, stumbled onto the clergy sex-abuse problem, little dreaming it was as big as it was and would involve him for years.
The first part of this book follows the child molestation scandal from Father Gilbert Gauthe in Louisana, 1983, to Washington, as abuse cases and cover-ups began breaking nationwide.
Mr Berry found that when he wrote up a $US 405,000 sex-abuse settlement by the Catholic Church on ONE FAMILY, the Campbells, around 1985, the following important news media refused to publish it: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The Nation, and Mother Jones. Finally a progressive editor, Linda Matys, of Times of Acadiana, Lafayette, put him on the staff for a month, thus allowing Berry to publish in national news media after his newsitems appeared in that local paper. (page 32. For background research look at the issue of May 23, 1985.)
Part two studies the political dynamics of celibacy and homosexual-heterosexual tensions in clerical culture.
The final section chronicles the bishops' reaction to escalating abuse cases, and also reports a countermovement by women and men challenging them.
Also, the 1992 edition of 408 pp, ISBN 0-385-47305-2, was available from John XXIII Co-op Ltd, www.j23.com.au/ ,
shop § j23 com au ,
PO Box 22, Ormond (Melbourne) Vic, 3204, Australia, for $26 (Australian) in June 2003.
[1992]
• HARRIS, Michael, 1991, Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel.CANADA - Local headlines claim that more Catholic churches are closing their doors, this time in Cape Breton. Growing up Catholic, I sometimes wondered about the dogma. The Michael Harris book … turned innocent doubt into sickened outrage. I didn't want to believe that priests could be that deviant and the church that devious, but Harris's book was a slap in the face. …
For decades, the church had kept a clean house by simply moving the dirt around from school to school and parish to parish.
-- CBC News, "Mass exodus,"
www.cbc.ca/ news/viewpoint/ vp_robertson/ 20051109.html ,
CBC News Viewpoint | More from Vicki Robertson | November 9, 2005
• CROSBY, Michael H., 1991, The Dysfunctional Church; Addiction and codependency in the family of Catholicism; Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame (Indiana, USA).
UNITED STATES: In this book the Rev. Michael Crosby argues that the Roman Catholic Church is dysfunctional because it is addicted to power and control plus the unmarried clergy method of working. Using modern writers' theories as a framework, he then uses parts of St Matthew's Gospel as a corrective.
Clergy celibacy and the power structure led to the clergy child sex abuse in Newfoundland, a 1990 report states. This inquiry found that the St John's "Archdiocesan leadership did, in fact, have knowledge, since the mid-1970s, of deviant or sexually inappropriate behaviour" by clergy, but because of the clerical celibate climate of the institutional Church let it go on.
A celibate Capuchin Franciscan himself, he has opposed the addiction to celibacy, power and money that is exhibited by the RC leaders. He says that like the other followers he was a co-dependent, striving to leave his co-dependency arising from the addiction of RC leaders. He uses modern thinking allied with the collegiate co-operative thinking of the early Christians as shown in The Acts and Galatians.
256 pp, 15 x 22.5 cm (6 x 9 inches), soft covers, no index, endnotes (chapter by chapter), International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-87793-455-x (pbk.), Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 91-71250; 1991 (to this website 24-25 Jan 2004)
[1991]
BARTON, Ronald G. and LEBACQZ, Karen; 1991, Sex in the Parish;
Westminister/John Knox Press, Louisville.
BOSTON GLOBE book Betrayal, about the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal,
www.boston.com $US 23.95 (inserted 26 Jul 02)
[1991]
HUNTER, Mic, Abused Boys: The Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse, 1990, Ballantine Books, NY, NY, USA.
UNITED STATES: This book addresses the spiritual dimensions of abuse.
(By courtesy of Pokrov Book Recommendations www.pokrov. org/Pokrov/ resourc. html , sighted Mar 9, 2005
[1990]
HODGES, Mark (Father), Forgiving, 1990, 1994;
Elijah Publications, Grove City, OH, USA.
UNITED STATES: Orthodox priest discusses forgiveness on a deeper level than a superficial forgive-and-forget mentality.
[Note:Forgiving is available through St. Ignatius of Antioch Press, 442 South Charles St., Lima, OH 45805-3365, (419) 222-2029, Click here to go to the St. Ignatius Press Web site.]
(By courtesy of Pokrov Book Recommendations www.pokrov. org/Pokrov/ resourc.html , sighted Mar 9, 2005
[1990, 1994]
RUEDA, Enrique T. (Father), The Homosexual Network, 1981, 700 pages, details with extensive documentation some of the inroads made by homosexuals into the Catholic clergy 25 years ago. -- York Daily Record,
http://ydr.com/ story/op-ed/19895 ,
by DAVID M. DREW, Sunday, March 14, 2004; listed here after that date
[1981]
BLYTH, Bruce, 1997, In the Shadow of the Cross;
This is the story of VOICES (Victims of Institutionalised Cruelty, Exploitation and Supporters); how the victims of the Irish Christian Brothers' Western Australian orphanages and the United Kingdom and Malta child migrant schemes fought for justice; the scandal that ought to have cleaned up the Roman Catholic Church in Western Australia; lecherous brothers let loose on orphans and others, a police and legal system that turned its back, the brothers' names plus some facts also about priests caught for sex abuse.
238 pages, 15.5 x 22 centimetres (6 1/8 x
8 5/8 inches), soft covers, index, references and endnotes, bibliography. ISBN 0646337742
__ $24.95 The author, Bruce Blyth (~ 80) of P & B Press, died on July 25th, 2006.
[1997]
BLYTH, Bruce, 1999, Counting the Cost.
This includes the Text of the VOICES submission to the British House of Commons Health Committee inquiry in 1998 about the ill-fated British children who
were sent to Australia up to 1967 and who were physically, sexually and
psychologically abused and ruthlessly exploited in the R.C. Christian Brother's
orphanages. The evidence shows how the Western Australian Government ignored and brushed aside reports they received from the civil service and others; 64pp, 15.2 x 22 cm (6 x 8 5/8 in), soft covers, footnotes, no index. ISBN 0-9586413-0-7 (postage and packing free) -- $15.95
[1999]
COLDREY, Barry M., 2001, Religious Life Without
Integrity; (he was ordered to take it off the Internet, but it appears at www.thelinkup.com/integrity-toc.html); addressing the sexual abuse crisis
throughout the Catholic Church, including material from countries other than
Australia; sexual problems in the seminary, gay priests and the sexual
underworld, the problems of celibacy, the "Inquisition" alive and
well, priests who "spill the beans" marginalised, "hush
money" and the art of covering up.
(This book represents a maturing and widening of
study by Dr Coldrey, who had previously been an official historian for the
Christian Brothers in W.A., and who inter alia wrote The Scheme, the
Christian Brothers and Childcare in Western Australia, 1993, Argyle Pacific
Publishing, O'Connor, and the much franker secret report Reaping the
Whirlwind which surfaced about 1995. He has researched far wider now into
the worldwide Catholic Church, and his startling additional conclusions are moving a bit
towards those of the U.S. R.C. Doyle-Mouton Report 1985, and of the author and
former U.S. priest A.W.Richard Sipe, who stated on the ABC's "Foreign
Correspondent" on 19 June 2002 that about 50% of priests were not keeping
to the celibacy rule, invented in 1079 / 1123 A.D.); 82pp, 21 x 29.7 cm (8 1/4 x 11 3/4 in), soft covers, footnotes, index, bibliography. ISBN 0-9586413-1-5 -- $17.95
[2001]
Books in this group published by:
P & B Press (Owner semi-retired but still operating, he said Dec 2004; but died July 25, 2006), PO Box 81, Como, WA, 6952, Australia, Tel 08 9450 2513, Fax 9226 4346 Used to publish The Needle periodically
pbpress § iinet net auhttp://members.iinet.net.au/~pbpress
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/carnalbooks.htm
HOPKINS, Nancy Myer, and LAASER, Mark (editors), Restoring the Soul of a Church, 1995, The Order of St. Benedict, Inc. Collegeville, MN, USA.
Articles about how to heal congregations, work with victims, deal with the abuser, and more.
(by courtesy of Pokrov Book Recommendations www.pokrov. org/Pokrov/ resourc.html , sighted Mar 9, 2005
[1995]
VANVONDEREN, Jeffrey, When God's People Let You Down / How to Rise Above Hurts That Often Occur Within the Church, 1995.
(By courtesy of Pokrov Book Recommendations www.pokrov. org/ Pokrov/ resourc.html , sighted Mar 9, 2005
[1995]
FORTUNE, Marie, 1989 / 1999, Is Nothing Sacred? The Story of a Pastor, the Women he Sexually Abused, and the Congregation he Nearly Destroyed; Harper, San Francisco.
(Image by courtesy of Pokrov Book Recommendations www.pokrov. org/ Pokrov/ resourc.html , sighted Mar 9, 2005
[1989, 1999]
ORMEROD, Neil and Thea, 1995, When Ministers Sin; Sexual Abuse in the Churches; Millenium Books, Sydney.
It was written from a Christian perspective, covering Catholic and other Western Churches, and sex abuse of children, teenagers and adults of both genders. It compared the Church leaders' hiding reaction to what they ought to have done.
Scriptural explanations are given covering the problem of evil, and the book argued the idea that the Old Testament demand on Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac (Genesis 22:2) arose from "compulsive religious fanaticism" (p 95), and this and the New Testament idea of the sacrificial death of Jesus could be thought of as parental child abuse. (p 97) After quoting Jesus's remarks including "whoever wishes to be first . . . must be slave of all" in Mark 10:42-45, the book states: "Until the Christian churches develop cultures and structures which minimize the possibilities of such abuse, they will not be following the example of Jesus." (p 106)
The book also gave case histories, including abuse by non-celibate and celibate male clergy and by a nun sexually molesting a female.
Besides listing important previous books and articles on the subject,
the book stated that the three key books about pastoral sexual abuse were by Marie Fortune 1989, Peter Rutter 1989, and Karen Lebacqz and Ronald G. Barton 1991. (p xi)
The preface was by Dorothy McRae-McMahon, national director for mission, Uniting Church in Australia.
Neil Ormerod was listed as a theologian and author, dean of studies, St Paul's Seminary, Sydney, and Thea Ormerod with a degree in social work worked as a domestic violence project officer. They had four children; 178 plus xiv pp, 15 x 23 cm (6 x 9 inches), soft covers, footnotes, no index, select bibliography. $13.20 from Elizabeth's, Perth, Mar 2003 (previous price $19.95).
[1995]
• PORTER, Dr Muriel, 2003, Sex, Power and the Clergy,AUSTRALIA: This was written by an insider, tells the story of the current crisis and asks the hard questions: why have Church leaders failed again and again to deal with sexual abuse? Is celibacy to blame in the Catholic Church? Is unfettered clergy power and lack of accountability a factor? Or is the true cause much deeper - the Churches' failure to come to terms with their ancient suspicion of both women and sexuality?
$29.95 including GST from Anglican Media Bookshop.
"Dr Porter also wrote Sex, Marriage and the Church: Patterns of Change, $18.65 inc GST. Muriel Porter knows well the resistance of churches in dealing with very sensitive and explosive issues. She's an active Anglican who has sat on church synods, she is married to priest Brian Porter, and she's a journalist and author.
Muriel has been awarded the Order of Australia for her advocacy of women's and social justice issues in the church, and she is the author of many books, including her latest, Sex, Power and the Clergy." -- Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Religion, The Spirit of Things, "Sex, Power and the Clergy," www.abc.net.au/ rn/relig/spirit/ stories/s841561.htm ,
with Rachael Kohn, on Sunday 4 May 2003.
The book's launch was reported in The Melbourne Anglican,
"Sexual abuse: a question of power," by Roland Ashby, pp 1 and 3, June 2003.
The above book is also available for $29.95 at St John's Books, Highgate Court, 26 Queen St, (behind Travelworld) Fremantle,W.A.; Tel 08 9335 1982, freo § tpg com au ;
www.perth.anglican.org ; advertisement The Anglican Messenger, Perth, W. Australia, p 16, Sep 2003
[2003]
ROSE, Michael S., 2002, Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church; Regnery Publishing, Washington.
UNITED STATES: The child sex-abuse crimes in the U.S. and some causes. Some U.S. seminaries prefer their versions of "diversity", "inclusion," and "tolerance" to traditional clean holy living.
He tells of a seminarian, John Bollard, who sued people in a Jesuit seminary for sexual harassment! (pp 21-22, 82). [Page 21 says he told KGO-TV on Aug 14 97, but p 82 said the matter was made public during his appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes in May 1999.] And the harassment was of a homosexual kind! Another man was sexually harassed so much at a seminary that he obtained a restraining order from the court! (p 69)
A health professional who was also the Master of a Masonic Lodge (long opposed by Catholicism) and had lapsed from the Church, Dr Joseph Wicker, was deciding on admissions to a Cincinnati seminary. (pp 34-35)
One seminarian got into trouble with the authorities at Mount Angel Seminary, Oregon, when he refused to study a book they said was part of the course, but which showed men performing oral sex! (p 52)
Senior seminarians expected the juniors to be their sex-partners. A man who raped two novices was promoted to "dean of novices." (p 84) Students who affirmed the standard Catholic teaching on sex, authority, and the sacraments were marked down as out-of-date, and some were expelled.
The rosary, visits to the chapel, and having a picture of the pope in your room were actively discouraged in some seminaries! Throughout the book examples are given of such un-Catholic and/or un-Christian behaviour being reported to heads of orders and bishops, but no corrective action was taken. A huge inquiry ordered by the Vatican was staffed by U.S. people, and was a whitewash.
The non-traditional teachers and students problem also allegedly existed in Louvain, Europe. Several facts about the sex-abuse scandal are detailed, too.
$54.95 from Fidelity, fidelity § j23 com au, online book store www.j23.com.au ,
PO Box 22, Ormond, Vic, 3204, Australia; 276 pp, 15 x 23 cm (6" x 9"), hard covers and dust jacket, index, references/notes, ISBN 0-89526-144-8, Dewey 262.142
[ADDENDUM: Lawyers for the American College at Louvain, Belgium, are asserting that Fr David Windsor was defamed in this book -- Fidelity, Oct 2002, p 9, reprinted from The Wanderer, Aug 1 2002. END of ADDENDUM]
[2002]
THE RECTOR of The American College at Louvain Responds to Michael S. Rose's Goodbye, Good Menwww.acl.be/Rector's%20 Response%20to%20Goodbye,%20 Good%20Men.htm
"It is with sadness that I am obliged in the interests of justice and truth to respond briefly to scurrilous charges made against The American College of the Immaculate Conception, its students, and faculty members in the book Goodbye, Good Men, by Michael S. Rose.
First of all, the former student upon whose testimony the allegations are based was dismissed from The American College seminary program with just and reasonable cause. The Formation Faculty's professional decision to dismiss him in June 2000 was unanimous." (and more) -- Very Reverend Kevin A. Codd, Rector
MICHAEL ROSE responds to critics of Goodbye, Good Men; Defends accuracy and says critics did not do their homework. Lifesite News www.lifesite.net/ ldn/2002/dec/ 02121806.html , Dec 17 02. Some of the critics allegedly had not even read the book, but got their criticisms into print. Or go direct to each response: www.cruxnews. com/crisis printer.html ,
www.cruxnews. com/register printer.html ,
www.cruxnews. com/scurrilous. html ,
and www.cruxnews. com/goodbye. html
[2002]
GREELEY, Andrew , 1999, Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest. CHICAGO (IL) -- Catholic attorney Sheila Parkhill, who for the past few years has been gathering information and evidence to eventually expose a clergy pedophile ring in the Chicago area, received an online greeting card from unknown individuals that she believes was a threat to her and her husband's safety.
The ring has been alluded to by priest-novelist-columnist Andrew Greeley -- an acquaintance of Pellegrini -- in his 1999 non-fiction book Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest (page 80):
The ring, known as The Boys' Club, was probably connected to the unsolved 1984 stabbing murder of Chicago professor and choir director Francis Pellegrini, a day before a scheduled meeting with the then Chicago archdiocese vicar for priests.
-- Renew America, "Attorney investigating clergy pedophile ring was threatened,"
www.renew america.us/ columns/ abbott/ 060224 ,
by Matt C. Abbott, February 24, 2006
[1999]
MOORE, Chris, 1995, Betrayal of Trust: The Father Brendan Smyth Affair and the Catholic Church; Marino, ISBN 186023027X .
BELFAST, DUBLIN, and the UNITED STATES: A summary of the affair by Free Definition ( http://www.free- definition.com/ Brendan-Smyth.html ) follows:
Father Brendan Smyth (1927-1997) was a Northern Ireland-born Norbertine Order Catholic priest.
In one of the worst cases of active paedophilia in the priesthood, Smyth systematically raped hundreds of children in parishes in Belfast, Dublin and the United States. The Norbertines, also known as the Presonstratensians, were alerted in the late 1940s that Smyth, who has joined the Order in 1945, had sexually abused children. However they declined to report him to the Garda Siochána (the Republic of Ireland's police force), or the Royal Ulster Constabulary (the RUC, the police force in Northern Ireland). Instead he was moved from parish to parish and between dioceses whenever allegations were made against him. In some cases, the Order did not inform the diocesan bishop in Ireland or the United States that the priest they had supplied to his diocese had a history of paedophilia and should be kept away from children.
His final exposure led to the collapse of an Irish government when the incompetent handling of an extradition request from the RUC by the Irish Attorney-General's office led to a further delay of some months in Smyth facing trial. An award-winning UTV Counterpoint programme on the affair by journalist Chris Moore (which was followed up by a book), accused the head of the Norbertines and the Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh of gross-mishandling of Smyth, the Norbertine's negligence and failure to tell others of his longstanding paedophilia enabling Smyth to sexually abuse large numbers of children freely for forty years. When Smyth some years later died in prison, the Norbertines felt it necessary to hold his funeral late at night, with his grave then covered in cement, to avoid drawing abusive crowds, or people who might vandalise the grave. In the aftermath, in less than a decade, Ireland's Mass attendance rate plummeted from 68% to 48%.
[1995]
LEBACQZ, Karen, and BARTON, Ronald G. Sex in the Parish 1991. See Barton
[1991]
ROSSETTI, Stephen (ed), Slayer of the Soul: Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church; 1990, Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic.
[1990]
RUTTER, Peter; Sex in the Forbidden Zone: When Men in Power -- Therapists, Doctors, Clergy, Teachers and others -- Betray Women's Trust; 1989, Mandala, London.
[1989]
Published by Elizabeth Brennan, Perth, Western Australia.
The recollections of Father Thomas Gaine (born 1929), trained in Ireland, officiated mainly in Western Australia, who retired in June 2001, returning to his family farm at Kenmare, Ireland.
"In my opinion, celibacy should not be a prerequisite for Priesthood. … I do not believe that a celibate is necessarily a better Priest. … Of course there have been times when I have been lonely. … it should not be imposed, it should be freely chosen. Unfortunately, we have lost some wonderful young -- and not so young -- men who were loving, caring, sensitive Priests." (p 143)
"I pray that in the future, in whatever way that future experiences the Priesthood -- celibate or not, open to women or not -- …" (p 161)
"Yes, I would have loved family life and a partner to help me in my vocation as a Priest. … I do believe that Priests should be able to marry if they wish. And I do believe that the time is not too far off when celibacy for Priests of the Catholic Church will no longer be obligatory. I pray for that day." (p 247)
"Untold damage has been done to so many by Priests and Religious who got through the net, and their actions and behaviour have left a trail of damaged lives in their wake. My earnest prayer is that the Church Authorities begin to really listen to the people …" (p 249)
Orders to 4 / 4 Maybole Court, Greenwood, WA, 6024, Australia. 254pp, 14.8 x 21 cm (5 3/4 x 8 1/4 in), soft covers, no index or footnotes, ISBN 0-9581026-0-0, $15 plus $4.50 postage and packing. Later reprinted in Ireland, without photographs.
[2002]
Book covering sexuality and other feelings of ex-Catholics
BISHOP, Sherry, Immaculate Misconceptions. More than 15 million Catholics have made the decision to leave the Church permanently, yet so many still struggle with the conflicting issues of their Catholic upbringings and a painful legacy of Catholic guilt. This is a healing book that takes an honest look at the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of numerous former Catholics as they deal with these important issues.
Incorporates interviews and anecdotes with exercises to help former Catholics face and cope with psychological and emotional factors like shame, sexuality, self-doubt, and guilt, this manual also stresses the importance of integrating what was valuable about being raised within the Church. Special advice and help for the victims of childhood abuse are also included.
Visit: www.growlocal.com/bishop/ for access to printable order form. Or Telephone Orders: 1-800-571-3422;
Fax Orders: (360) 683-2568;
Mail Orders: Veranda Press, RE: Immaculate Misconceptions by Sherry Bishop,
P.O. Box 626, Carlsborg, WA 98324, USA
[? year]
BOOKS on general child abuse:- • MULLINAR, Liz, and HOPKINSON, Simon, The Liz Mullinar Story, 1997,
Hodder & Stoughton, Rydalmere NSW, 302pp, $25, with index, hard cover. Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA), asca § hunterlink net auwww.asca.org.au PO Box 361, Cessnock, NSW, 2325, Australia.
[inserted 10 Nov 02]
[1997]
• MULLINAR, Liz, and HUNT, Candida, Breaking the Silence,
1997,
Hodder & Stoughton, Rydalmere (NSW) Australia, 326pp, $20, no index, soft cover. Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA), as above.
[inserted 10 Nov 02]
[1997]
- RCC. TV documentaries.
Irish Independent,
http://www. independent. ie/national- news/shocking- documentaries- about-paedophile- priests-led-to- probes-1595180.html ;
by John Cooney, Thursday January 08 2009
IRELAND -- THE controversy raging over the Church's handling of child sex abuse allegations has its roots in three powerful television documentaries broadcast more than a decade ago.
'Dear Daughter', 'Sex in a Cold Climate' and 'States of Fear' caused huge public outrage in the early 1990s at the scale of cover-ups of child clerical abuse by bishops and religious superiors.
The storm of public indignation at 'the sins of the Fathers and the Sisters' perpetrated behind the closed doors of parish houses, monasteries, seminaries and industrial schools led to the announcement in 1995 by the Government of its intention to set up a Commission of Inquiry.
[Posted by Kathy Shaw on January 8, 2009
2:24 AM]
- Orthodox Judaism. Fictional movie "Narrow Bridge."
The Observer,
Clara Hersh, December 30, 2008
UNITED STATES -- In the film "Narrow Bridge," writer and director Israel Moskovits confronts the controversial issue of sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish world. Moskovits plays the protagonist, Daniel Schneider, a philosophy major attending secular college. He meets Rachel Goldberg (Samantha Leshin) in a philosophy class. The pair quickly forges a bond discussing philosophy and religion, enhanced by the fact that they are seemingly the two Jews on campus. While Rachel has not grown up religious, she is interested in learning more about her heritage. Daniel helps Rachel learn about Judaism and both grow to admire each other over the process, during which they begin dating and eventually become engaged.
Their relationship has its complexities. Rachel is quick to open up to Daniel and divulge her past, but Daniel is very elusive about his life before college. Whenever Rachel asks about his past, Daniel evades her questions and hastily changes the subject. A flashback reveals that the reason for Daniel's elusiveness is because when he was young, Rabbi Kaufman, a teacher whom he trusted and who had helped him in his struggle with Judaism, had one day offered him a ride home, then took a detour and sexually abused him.
When Rachel goes home with Daniel to meet his parents, Daniel is once again confronted with his childhood trauma, as well as Rabbi Kaufman himself. This throws Daniel into a state of panic. He starts to fight with his mother and fiancé and draws away from them. His behavior is so erratic that Rachel begins to question whether or not she made a mistake accepting Daniel's marriage proposal.
PERIODICALS
National Catholic Reporter, The Independent Newsweekly, Established 1964, The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company, 115 E. Armour Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111, USA
For anyone who imagines that only one or two Churches are facing accusations of child sex abuse, please check:
"Paying for the sins of the Fathers," Anglican (equivalent to Church of England and Episcopalian Church), Roman Catholic Church, United Church, and Presbyterian Church in Canada all face child sex and physical abuse compensation claims for $CAD 1000m, while Australian Anglican dioceses are facing ruin: The Weekend Australian, March 2-3 2002, page 23
"Abuse of Trust: Child Sexual Abuse and the Churches," Background Briefing;
Catholic Archbishop of Denver U.S.A. apologises to victims of Church
sexual misconduct; Australian Anglican Primate says abuse
claims could bankrupt dioceses in Australia as in Canada:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s531384.htm April 14, 2002
The Governor-General, former Anglican archbishop Peter Hollingworth, apologises to abused woman: The West Australian, Mar 2, 2002, p 8
Guidelines to handling non-marital carnal activity of
Church workers:
www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/nonmarital.htm Perpetrators' List of Australian campaigner Clare Pascoe Henderson: http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org Broken Rites Australian support group for those abused in a Church setting: Box 163,
Rosanna, Vic 3084; 02 4990 9030 http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA), Australian
general support group, i.e., not specifically targeted on abuse in a Church setting (most perpetrators are family, acquaintances, teachers, etc.): Box 361, Cessnock,
NSW 2325; 1300 657 380, 02 4990 9030
www.asca.org.au PARKINSON, Patrick (Prof), author of Child Sexual Abuse and the Churches; Sydney, 2nd edition 2003,
www.law.usyd. edu.au/ about/ staff/ Patrick Parkinson
FOR GOOD TEACHINGS TO BE HEEDED, A BIG CLEAN-UP IS NEEDED
ANCHOR LIST (After reading an article, use Browser's "Back" button to return to Anchor List)
•The Forgotten Children; Fairbridge Farm School and its betrayal of Australia's child migrants. BRITAIN and AUSTRALIA.
2007
• The Holy Terrors, by a victim, Michael Clemenger. IRELAND.
2009
• The Irish Gulag.; How the State Betrayed its Innocent Children. IRELAND. By Bruce Arnold. The industrial schools, orphanages, etc., where the Irish State left children to the R. C. Church.
2009
•Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse. WORLDWIDE: For centuries the RCC has kept records of clergy paedophilia and other seduction, so the leaders knew all about it and all along, in spite of their denials since 2002.
May 2006
•Sons of Perdition, by Jay NELSON. NEW MEXICO, U.S.A.
[2009]
•Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel, by HARRIS, Michael. NEWFOUNDLAND, Canada. RCC moved the "dirt" from place to place.
1991
•Winter has passed,
GAINE, Tom, and BRENNAN, Elizabeth, 2002 AUSTRALIA AND IRELAND: An RC priest's biography, and quiet opposition to celibacy, and hint to include women.
2002
AUSTRALIA, CANADA, AND U.S.A. ABBREVIATIONS, click USA memory jogger: AK = Alaska; CO = Colorado; IA = Iowa; ME = Maine; MN = Minnesota; MO = Missouri; MT = Montana; NE = Nebraska.
WANT TO HELP? FAITH PURIFICATION PROGRAMME, 46 Cobine Way, Greenwood (a suburb of Perth), WA, 6024, Australia.