Some fences mended, still Catholics are not getting the true story about sex crimes by their priests

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By Kay Ebeling

(Here goes half my readership, oh well):

One way to bypass corporate media control and tell the story of sex crimes in the Catholic Church is to take it to the streets, talking to one person at a time. Like we did with Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse, which last week arrived at the Pacific Coast after starting in Eastern Oregon on July 27th (see photos below).

Still, the Listening Session at the Catholic Church in Portland last Saturday continues to haunt me. I know I'm going to perplex and maybe even enrage some people by writing this, but it is honestly how I feel. Something is definitely not right with the way active Catholics are getting the story about crimes in their churches, or rather not getting the story.

At first of course there was the initial afterglow when the Compassionate Listening session ended. When people communicate and mend fences, it releases endorphins everywhere. But following the session, something was wrong, I couldn't quite put finger on it at first, and still haven’t quite got it.

Okay, the parishioner who opened the meeting said by way of introduction that indeed at that very same church a pastor had recently been removed, suddenly. The speaker inferred that there had only been one charge of a sex crime against a child filed concerning Gus Krumm and she said those charges had never been proven. -

Once again, because of the wording on so many settlements, the church ends up with a non-admission of guilt. As a result stories in the news, and apparently stories priests proclaim from the pulpit, continue to say “alleged abuse” or perpetuate the myth that the charges against most pedophile priests have not been proven true.

The charges may not be proven in a court of law, but that is only because Church attorneys are so resourceful in manipulating the justice system. So the court of Catholic hierarchy can continue to proclaim innocence, and pass that myth onto the parishioners, at the same time encouraging them to get their news on the priest sex crime topic only from them, the very same bishops who perpetuated the crimes.

Actually that one and only official charge referred to regarding Krumm was the first lawsuit filed in 1995 concerning Krumm, and the Franciscans paid a significant settlement, while continuing to keep Krumm in service, transferring him from Orange County to Portland, Oregon.

Misinformation to the parishioners is a result of wording Church Attorneys add onto almost all settlements made out of court. The non admission of guilt leaves sexual predators’ names off of sex offender registries, and allows bishops to proclaim mistruths from the pulpit, keeping their parishioners in the dark as to how bad the crimes really were.

If anyone wonders why so many adult victims of pedophile priests can’t seem to “let go and put it behind us,” it’s seeing this slippery justice on the part of the bishops that keeps us riled up.

This was a group who had been meeting in and around Ascension Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon, for more than two years, a group spawned by the resignation of Pastor Krumm, a group of intelligent seemingly well read individuals who profess an interest in the clergy sex abuse crisis. And yet they still think there has only been one charge against Krumm and it’s never been verified.

I think there was also a comment at the Listening Session that it’s only a small number of priests nationally who’ve been found to have acted out and committed sex crimes against children.

This Part Really Creeps Me Out

Several persons we met through the listening session and later the Walk mentioned The Eucharist. One woman spoke of her relative who is a pedophile priest survivor living in another state, she mentioned his isolation and loneliness. “I just hope he comes back to the Eucharist,” she then said, and I felt a chill go up my spine.

Something is just not right here.

I'm not saying the prayer, the spirit, the notion behind the words of Catholics who are still actively Catholic isn’t respected.

But there’s something scary about how even after hearing the length and breadth of the crimes that took place - horrendous crimes, violent sexual assault that was nodded away or ignored by the bishops - people still return to this church, repeating that idea that they have to ingest a Eucharist that is prayed over by one of these criminals or their time in eternity is damned.

It’s like - don't you see?

The same people telling you these ideas that keep you chained to their church are the ones who lied through decades of child sex assault crimes going on right before their eyes. How can people keep filing back into their cathedrals, even after knowing the horrendous crimes that were allowed to take place by virtue of the very secrecy that is inherent in that religion.

Oh God one gets boggled trying to describe this frustration. There are no parallels. I can’t make a reference with an example, because I don't think there is an example.

I can say, I did learn to have more respect for Catholics who are at least trying to find out the truth, after going to the Listening Session. I just wish there were more listening sessions between Catholics and adult victims of priest sex crimes.

Maybe narrowcast the sessions on the web, with diagrams and maps and links, so people will get better educated everywhere.

These crimes are unparalleled in history, there is no precedent in law or social graces, when it comes to communicating about the crimes of pedophiles in the Catholic Church. So I close my eyes and type what comes into my head and maybe this will all go away someday.

One listening parishioner, Quentin, (pictured left) spoke toward the end of the session and related an analogy. After the death of Christ, he said, the first Christians spread the Word at the same time they told the story of this heinous crime that had been committed against a great man, nailing him to the cross. Today, says Quentin, Catholics have to proclaim the truth about the great crime committed by their church, where the bishops allowed sexual assaults on children and vulnerable adults to take place disregarding the damage done to parishioners.

It’s like the scene in The Time Machine. When the sirens go off, the humans go into a trance and then file in a straight line one by one into the cave where the Morlocks will grind them into food. They walk willingly, not quite knowing what they're doing as they're entranced, but they drop everything and file like automatons….

It just doesn't add up in my head. How can you look straight at these crimes and the Mafia like behavior of bishops across America with their teams of attorneys and PR firms - look at the damage they did to just two people sitting in front of you, not to mention the tens of thousands of other survivors there are out there - how can anyone look at the totality of these crimes and then -

When the church bell rings in the early AM as if in a trance they file one by one through the cavernous doors of the churches, continuing to feed the monster.

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OH, KAY, You are never satisfied:

Maybe it’s because it’s my birthday today and I'm sixty one years old and still have never been able to be in love… please, God, just once before I die can I experience a normal healthy intimate relationship?

Tom Doyle emails me that putting my personal life out there all over the internet is not a good practice.

Oh well, too late now.


(Above, Walk Across Oregon in Portland cools off Sunday afternoon in Jamison Square by the fountain, getting to know each other.)
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Still the Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse as a whole is an idea that I hope gets developed by Virginia Jones and Elizabeth Goeke and the rest of the crew who made it happen this year. A mass of people all wearing the same or similar t-shirts walking through public places really makes its presence known. Then the conversation begins. You can, one person at a time, tell the stories that media outlets don't seem to want to run. That person you talk to will then tell another person who will then tell more individuals.

And along the way, you contact new activists, like we see in the photo at right. When Walk Across Oregon was stopped to cool off in Jamison Square in Portland last Sunday, a woman walked up and asked to be a volunteer, and Virginia signed her up on the spot.

Plus you get exercise and fresh air as a bonus. Hope the Walkers do something similar next year.

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Letters, We Get Letters:

Story posted here last Sunday, about a form of Delayed Discovery that is Repressed Memory, generated a lot of email, most of which is published here:

Bob Schwiderski wrote:

Hi Kay, I hope you are enjoying the beauty of Oregon. I wish to share with you and those addressed in your email the explanation of "Delayed Discovery." Delayed Discovery is not the same as "recovered memory" or "suppressed memory." Delayed Discovery is when a victim, let's say of sexual abuse, makes the "causal connection" between the act(S) of abuse and the negative dynamics those acts cause in life. I for example had a drinking and drug problem - a negative dynamic in my life because of the abuse.

I discovered later in life that the "causal connection" between my alcohol/drug sickness was the childhood sexual abuse I survived. The when I discovered those damages and injuries, they were later in my life or, "delayed discovery" from my prepubescent years. "Delayed Discovery" is a term often used in our existing states civil law/sexual abuse statute of limitations laws. In many of the codifications of these states laws, the term is following by the term "made the causal connection be the act of abuse and the damages and injuries."

I am concerned that the misuse of the term "Delayed Discovery" will only confuse survivors, their loved ones, their supporters and those trying to gain understandings about sexual abuse. Besides, those that fight us in the legislative battles to correct the civil justice laws, organizations such as the Catholic Conferences and insurance companies, loved it when our side of the issue confuse ourselves.

Your friend,
Bob Schwiderski, Minnesota USA

John Brown wrote:

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your input - unfortunately this is all an absurdity and very typical of the way the catholic church has manipulated our health and legal systems to further its covering up of the global scope of the abuses and the industry which has grown up to support it.

Only the sophistry of the largest known group of co-ordinated pedophiles on the planet could attempt to devise a means to classify and control and regulate how one recalls their abuse. The stupidity is extended further when we are drawn into the legal battle traps the church and its insurance and legal businesses want to work in - where else would you want to fight if you have had hundreds of years to manipulate the entire social system of your country in your favor.

Does this mean that should be a new category to argue over if we used the term "forgot for some time" - a great place for the legal sycophants however it bears no relationship to reality and also displays a stunning ignorance of basic human biology and psychology. The aim is to keep victims returning to their abuse - that keeps them re traumatized and ineffectual. There are still places within the church who are entreating victims to relate the horrors of their abuse and packaging and reselling with a target audience of other victims - nothing will send them running with more fear and loathing than to have to sit through a DVD length of horror - this works a charm and keep hundreds of victims quiet, any that attempt to speak out are met with similar sophistry and myth.

Proper research instead of court battles will show that there is no substance to the myth that victims are scarred for life - they can be if you keep putting them in front of church produced DVDs however. The years of recovery can be dealt with more effectively in a few weeks with simple and appropriate techniques.

Bringing an argument as twisted as this church in regards how one recalls a past event only displays the desire of the church to maintain as many myths as it can - there is money and children to rape for them if they can.

The sooner people get over the notion that this church will act appropriately the better - it has not been able to do this in its previous 2000 year history and it beggars belief that there are still people on the planet who could ignorantly cling to this notion.

When a religion comes to be a moral hazard to our society due to its gods demanding the sexual sacrifice of society's children then its time to remove and do away with such scams.

JohnB, Australia

NB: The issue of support here is entirely lacking only argument over the minutiae and obsolete. Where are the statements to Kay to say it is wonderful for you Kay to have been able to recall, for us there is no matter if that was triggered by the bounce of a ball - the important thing for us is that it has helped set you free from the sophistry of the greatest scam and fraud ever perpetrated upon society simply to maintain the supply of suckers and children to feed their sociopathic cravings. A pox is a pox no matter what else you call it.

JohnB

The World's most despised Catholic due to bringing to the world a definitive and appropriate solution to the global clergy abuse crisis.

18 people walk in Astoria

Final leg of Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse reached the Pacific Ocean last week, after trekking across the state.

Still Compassionate Listening needs elaboration:

Here is an explanation of Restorative Justice and Compassionate Listening related to abuse on our website under "What we Believe" as well as a list of Core Principles that came our of our experiences with clergy abuse. We saw what went wrong in our parishes and experiences and what went right and laid them out. For example, our core principles are:

1. Every person is sacred.
Read every survivor and every confused parishioner is sacred. Nobody should be left out

2. Coming together in community is a sacred act.
Parishioners and the community need to be part of the healing process as well as the survivors. This should not be handled by professionals away from parishioners. The community is sacred and should not be kept in the dark. Individuals we are important but our coming together for mutual healing and support is really important.

3. Apology is a sacred gift.
Real and genuine apology is rare in the Catholic clergy abuse scandal. We are trying to promote that. The Sack Cloth Penance Patch is part of that promotion of apology.

4. Healing is a sacred journey.
So often Catholics want survivors of clergy abuse to forgive, forget, and move on. You would never rush a retreat or mass. How can you rush healing? Healing from clergy abuse is a very spiritual experience. There is no quick and easy way about it.

This is all on our website. You won't find it anywhere else. This is us, our core message. I think these core understandings are really key to healing the wounds we all carry from clergy abuse as well as other forms of abuse.

--Virginia Jones
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Story that generated above emails:

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Recovering a memory that may help explain recovered memory, while speaking to a group about recovered memory ...
*By Kay Ebeling

Yesterday six parishioners came to hear two pedophile priest crime victims talk in a room at Ascension Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon...

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Don't forget to High Five us through PayPal
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You take sex away from people it’s got to come from somewhere and it’s not going to come from the kids anymore: Transcript of KCTU show just webcast

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By Kay Ebeling

Just because I do it for a living, I transcribed Educating to End Abuse just now as it was webcast, and am posting it here. I know I said next post would be a report with photos of the Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse in Portland last weekend, and that post will be up by Saturday. But, just because I do it for a living and it felt right, here is a rough transcript of the show that just aired on KCTU Wichita, River City Forum.

On screen were Peggy Warren, producer of the show, and Sheryl Nutt, station owner. John Brown from Australia managed to come in with video using Skype. The connection was lost a bit into the program, and John then came in by telephone, but the video connection has so much potential for future webcasts. Also by phone was Ken Kociorek from San Diego.

Watch here at City of Angels for the announcement of next month's guest on Educating to End Abuse from Wichita.

FIRST QUESTION TO JOHN BROWN in Australia was, what is the September One Initiative:

JOHN BROWN: The September 1 initiative aim is simply to bring to the world a definitive and appropriate solution to the global clergy abuse crisis. The September One Initiative is asking for government, church, and religion to sit at the table as responsible global citizens and solve this crisis that's caused so many men women and children to be the subject of rape across the planet. That's pretty well where I start from Sheryl.

SHERYL NUTT: We're talking to John on Skype which is an exciting connection, because it’s an internet connection

PEGGY WARREN: You mention the difficulty you had raising your child, which goes across the board with adult victims of pedohpilia.

JOHN: I was raped many-many times by nuns, by priests, and I got through that through a good portion of my life until I wanted to raise my child in a safe environment, and once I attempted to do that, I found that I came into conflict with community services, with government, with police, and with religion itself. And I took a good look at it, and we can identify the evidence is there that the Catholic Church has for hundreds if not thousands of years, had a policy of keeping secret the sexual abuse of children. And it has undertaken a global process, where it has manipulated whole societies and political systems into taking part of that coverup of the abuse.

The Catholic Church has clearly failed society, the evidence is it’s an organization that's run by damaged and seriously affected men, men who are able to provide quite easily a global standard to keep the sexual abuse of children a secret, yet they're unable to provide a single policy towards providing safety of children in our current everyday life.

There is no other way to describe the total failure when the leading light of Christianity is so constipated in its own sexual dysfuncionality to -

SHERYL: Unable or unwilling?

JOHN: Either way it’s a danger to society when it holds the position in society that it does. And it blackmails our entire political systems, and it blackmails its own followers, majority of which admit the existing hierarchy has to come down, has to finish. These affected men are in positions of power and they're not willing to go, despite the evidence of [INAUDIBLE] that's there for the whole world to see.

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KEN: I'm still Catholic, I'm staying around, you're not going to get rid of me.

JOHN: This is our church.
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PEGGY: Virtus programs are in most Catholic Churches in America today. Does Australian Catholic Church have anything similar to that in place?

JOHN: We've had a great deal of silence here. We've looked at the policies of Catholic Churches and schools around the country and it appears that it’s a few concerned teachers get together over a pot of tea and put one together. There must be in this country ten thousand different policies and they're played on the wing. Some of them are just totally dysfunctional. There’s no standardization here, there’s only dissention and argument and a lot of people who have moral and ethical dilemmas, and that's understandable, but it’s a shame they put that in the way of progress in society and progress of putting this crisis to an end.

SHERYL: Ken, are you there?

KEN KOCIOREK: Yes I am dear lady, [TECHNICAL DIFFICULTY ] From kindergarten to fourth grade, the nuns would ridicule and abuse me and a few other things we won’t get into the horrors of. My mother finally got me out of the school in the fourth grade. Then In San Diego there were trials and the archdiocese saying they won’t pay and it triggered something in me.

I started to go back to the Buffalo Diocese and I challenged them, I filled out the paperwork and they threw it in the trash can three and a half years ago. I said you know what if I can’t get you on the courtroom I’ll get you on the street. I have a TV show that goes to Catholic Churches around the country.

I wear the tshirt and it’s growing, moving forward positively.

Ken: I close Roman Catholic churches. There’s one. Make the Vatican [TECHNICAL DIFFICULTY ]
I just close them.

PEG: How do you find the Catholics to email?

KEN: I know how to get to the Catholics, I know how to get in the email.

PEG: You still go to Mass in Catholic churches?

KEN: I'm still Catholic, I'm staying around, you're not going to get rid of me.

JOHN: This is our church.

KEN: The bad people go silent, the good people want to know what's going on.

JOHN: This is our church.

PEGGY: Have you met with diocesan officials in San Diego?

KEN: Yes, but they just avoid me because they don’t want to hear me. I have a channel on YouTube, called sex starved clergy, hopefully that doesn't offend anyone, but that's what they are, they do not care for me.

SHERYL: You think? [LAUGHING]

KEN: You take sex away from people it’s got to come from somewhere and it’s not going to come from the kids anymore- [TECHNICAL DIFFICULTY]

PEG: There’s still abuse in Jewish and all religions but I do think the Catholic Church does attract more deviants, but I don't think celibacy is the reason. I do - it’s not all about not having sex.

KEN: It attracts some very wicked cruel people, and nuns are the perfect example - my first hand experience with nuns. I tried to call Sisters of Mercy in Buffalo New York and they hung up on me. Because they all have fictitious names, they're not real.

PEG: Have you contacted former classmates?

KEN: No one wants to cooperate, one was hit in the lunch line, I haven’t been able to get hold of anybody among my classmates that will work for me. They won’t work with me, just like my family has cut me off, but they weren’t there to witness it. So I’ve turned to the street and met wonderful people like John Cindy yourself, Kay, when they've seen the t-shirt I’ve never seen people laugh so much. So we took it to the streets.

PEG: I really do think law enforcement in the United States is slowly coming around. Ken, is there anything you could tell our viewing audience, what can the average person do?

KEN: I’ll send them a free t-shirt and they can wear that around. Get in touch with the local Catholic church and find out if survivors are okay and they'll find out they're not, as most of them are wacked out like I am.

SHERYL: We'll come back to you after we take this call.

BOB: I'm watching the program and I see a survivor from Australia, someone from San Diego and you two ladies. I'm a survivor also, but I'm not spending my energy [SOUNDS LIKE] dribbling all over the Catholic Church, I'm spending my energy trying to encourage those that have been sexually abused to step forward and work together to prevent sexual abuse of all children. If you think it’s just a Catholic Church issue, that’s ignorant. We have sexual abuse throughout all society. I don't understand why everybody just wants to address their anger and frustration at a failing institution like the Catholic Church. Let’s put our energy into preventing sexual abuse.

SHERYL: I agree, I think sexual abuse is so pervasive, it has come into every aspect of our lives. The Church is only a small percentage of it, but I think sometimes people focus on the Church because it tries so hard to shield itself.

BOB: So did our schools, so did Uncle Louie and Aunt Sally.

PEG: We have had others here focusing on incest and other abuse, in Kansas we're trying to get the Statute of Limitations lengthened and we've had guests from all different denominations.

BOB: All sexual abuse or just those in the Catholic Church?

PEG: All types of sexual abuse.

BOB: [OVERLAPPING] I wish these guys would use their energy on the cause of all, not on the failing institutions like the Catholic Church.

PEG: The only institution fighting the statute of limitations is the catholic church.

BOB: I disagree with that.

PEG: Well here in Kansas that was-

BOB: [OVERLAPPING] Well I disagree, because I was in Kansas.

KEN: Bob, I’d be honored to be part of your program to stop the abuse. I’d be honored to work with you.

SHERYL: John, are you still with us? We lost John. Bob made a good point, this is not anything new. Sexual abuse towards children is a heinous offense and it happens everywhere.

KEN: Until legislation is passed I will continue to close Roman Catholic churches, I'm not waiting for legislation.

PEG: You latch onto what has directly affected you. The legislation in most states on the SOL will affect all children. Even doing a little bit is better than not doing anything.

KEN: I'm going to continue closing churches.

S: Another caller?

SYBIL: Good morning. I agree with Bob, it could be physicians and teachers and instead of dwelling on the pain, that's not helping people to get better.

SHERYL: The Church has been reluctant to get counseling for people who do need help after abuse. They need to help financially with that issue, because that's one of the reasons people don't seek help, they can’t afford it.

SYBIL: The clergymen should take a lie detector and get a background check before you become a clergyman or anything, you need to be background checked.

PEG: In Maine there is a bill introduced this session that addresses exactly that. You've got to start somewhere, that's a good start, because a lot of these guys don't have a record.

KEN: Sybil, you've got a great point and also what do you think of all clergy - I want them registered with child services, I don't care if they've been good or bad, they should be registered. And we'll be evolved into a safer Catholic Church or I’ll continue to close them down.

S: Another caller, Joe? Good evening. Ken, apparently Joe was unable to connect. [OFF CAMERA CONVERSATION] John, is that you?

JOHN: Sorry, we had a technical glitch with our internet. [LAUGHTER]

SH: While you were gone a couple people called, one lady suggested all clergy should have a background check.

JOHN: We have that system here in Australia, but unfortunately some areas of the hierarchy don't consider nuns part of the clergy, in other parts of the country, priests don't even bother to get the green card as we call it here. It doesn't do a great deal of good. But the Church doesn't bother to monitor to make sure all its priests and clergy are monitored and checked out.

PEG: Yeah, they can have so many policies and programs, but until they take action, which I don't think a lot of us have seen, action-

JOHN: We're not asking for the world, just the Catholic Church. This is an organization that rules with power, and it’s capable of huge things on this Earth. Just give us one policy.

SHERYL: Another caller on the line,

JOE: Yeah several things. I'm almost sixty seven years old, gosh was abused over fifty-five years ago by the friendly parish priest. Ken mentioned he’s alienated from his family and this issue does alienate people from their families. My brothers and sisters will not talk to me about this, and they all know about it. My wife and grand kids are very supportive I'm lucky about that.

I agree with Bob that this goes on in all sectors of society not just the Catholic Church. But what makes it worse for me, not minimalizing anybody’s abuse, what makes it worse for me is …

You know, we were told things like I have the power to send you to heaven or hell. The spiritual advisor is not supposed to be a rapist. Sure, there’s more teachers that do this than priests, well duh, there’s a lot more teachers than preists.

I’ve been all the way across the United States and Canada about this issue and I just can’t believe how horrific the stories are that come out about the sexual abuse at the hands of these men of God.

SHERYL: That's what people find so horrific, is not only is your body violated but also your faith is violated and where do you go then.

PEG: Yeah you can’t go to your pastor for counseling if it's your pastor who's abusing you, especially if you've been told some wacked out story like that your parents will be killed.

JOE: Both of my parents died without ever knowing that two of their sons was abused by the priest. My dad was a very-very strict Catholic and he didn't trust anybody in the world, EXCEPT for Catholic priests.

PEG: It’s that automatic trust that not only Catholics but society in general have for clergy. That's why I'm trying to get them on a list of professionals in this state - that's how they get in. They abuse their power and-

JOE: Yes, I'm aware that this goes on all over the place, but in my mind, being raised the way I was that the priest could walk on water, he was just one step below Jesus, how do you at ten years old rationalize what Jesus is doing to you and then on top of it all, he was giving me alcohol to make me compliant. I knew what it was like to get a buzz from alcohol when I was ten years old.

SH: Thank you, Joe, we'll go on to next caller Mary.

MARY: I was abused by a priest at age nine. What I’ve seen here in St. Louis is, Persons tend to go to the church first, not other authority figures, and that's how the church is able to hide abusers.

SH: Then they protect the priest not the abused.

MARY: I still see it here in St. Louis where things become public but the parents refuse to go to the police, and a minor child cannot do it without the parents’ cooperation, so the priests continue to be in the parishes.

PEGGY: That is an example of how Catholic parents are groomed. If there is a problem in your household, you go to the church even if it’s the church doing it.

MARY: Groomed is a good word for it, the priest who abused me abused my parents first by grooming them.

SH: Back to Ken. Any comments?

KEN: First I want to thank you ladies for letting this happen, I think we're making history, John would agree. It’s getting fixed.

SH: It needs to get fixed. One thing the Church could do is make sure that whenever a child is alone with a priest, as in the current altar servers, they always have a chaperone. That would be a logical step to take.

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JOHN: 'We put up $42 million to anyone who can come up with an improved way of thinking. For government, religion, and victims to come to the table, sit down, and work together, for a solution.'

(ME: $42 million? Billed to the church, I suppose)
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KEN: The Vatican used to tell us the world was flat, the sun revolved around the Earth, and now they're saying it’s alright to have these sick clergy, but I'm not buying into it anymore.

JOHN: It’s ground breaking here. What I heard listening to those stories just now, they're the same stories I hear from Canada, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Africa, New Zealand, I can name country after country. Each one experiences this same horror on a personal level across the country. Millions of children are sexually abused by the largest identified, globally connected pedophile ring this planet has ever experienced. And the Church has manipulated society to protect it. That needs to end.

PEG: What can people do to help this situation?

JOHN: Ken and I are looking for a peaceful solution. We put up $42 million to anyone who can come up with an improved way of thinking. For government, religion, and victims to come to the table, sit down, and work together, for a solution.

That's the first step you do in any problem. We can’t get the Catholic Church to do this. I’ve personally emailed the Vatican, I’ve emailed the Queen, politicians on every level, and we're asking them to address this as what it is, a global abuse crisis.

The stories you hear are the same stories you hear in any city on this planet.

SH: This is a topic that makes people really uncomfortable to talk about but it has to be talked about.

JOHN: These men are damaged and broken, they're sociopaths, they're not functional, they don't function the same way parents do. A parent has as its first responsibility the protection of its offspring. When a religion interferes with that, it’s at fault, it shows how severely broken it is.

The Catholic Church over thousands of years has been able to deny things like the shape of the Earth. If a priest speaks out today, he’s condemned for not keeping (the sexual abuse) secret.

The teaching of the Catholic Church is that priests are above the law. Priests have a right to rape women and children at their leisure, as they please. And they have the right to be above the law and be protected.

When you have men falsely representing God, this is what you get. When you tend towards total failure in a society, what you have is what you get. There’s not a person listening in here today that needs to be a rocket scientist to say there are better ways than this.

SH: But first you've got to get their attention.

JOHN: The only people on the planet who don't get it are the Catholic hierarchy and those they've deceived in political and business systems. These people have grown to build an entire industry to suck off the destruction and rape and pillage by the church for centuries, and they stand up in front of us on Television as good Catholics.

SH: Which makes you wonder what their definition of good is.

JOHN: As good as the men they work for.

KEN: You look at the Pope, would you hire him to run your company? He can’t even get out of a chair.

SH: What really bothered me about when the pope was in the United States, he made this blanket apology about past abuses, he spoke as though it was no longer an issue. Well it is an issue. They're not past abuses, they're present abuses, and there is no policy against that.

KEN: Also the Vatican was involved in financing the Nazis and extermination of the Jews, plus with the American Indians and other ethnic groups that were wiped out, those orders came from the Vatican. They've built wealth on intimidating people and causing fear. Their churches sure are closing fast though.

PEGGY: You do make a good point about the pope. He says he now wants to go into all the religious sister communities and make sure they're still following the teachings of Rome. So he can have his little minions from Rome hit all the convents around the United States, why can’t he have some counselors or therapists hit all the Catholic -

KEN: How about customer service? Why did they stop having clergy be married? Why did that stop? Why do nuns have fictitious names? I can’t find out the names of the nuns that abused me, as no one will talk to me, and I'm one of their customers.

PEG: Ken approaches things in a different way. I don't think there’s any changes possible in the Catholic Church, I focus on legislation. But it’s interesting the approach Ken is taking to work through this from the inside, that's why I wanted to share what he’s doing in California.

(Attempts to connect with caller Bob to no avail.)

SH: Peggy says you're noticing success with your system.

KEN: I’ve found people who six months ago were suicidal, now they can’t stop laughing.

PEG: You have to laugh about this craziness.

KEN: You have to laugh. Anyone who wants a free t-shirt, I don't want any money, I send them around the world.

PEG: What website can they go to do get that t-shirt.

KEN: Google September 1 2001. Or go to YouTube and type in Molested Catholic.

PEG: Why the colors yellow and purple on the tshirts?

KEN: The colors are- I remember purple from the church all the time, so I thought purple was cool. And gold, I know those are the predominant colors when you go to church.

KEN: I’ve spoken to people all over the world about this. The nuns still do strike left handed people. For some reason the Catholic Church doesn't like left handed people. I had a nun in the lunch line, Sister Mary Fitzgerald, she’d grab me by my hand, then grab me by the crotch and pick me up -

PEG: If anyone watching remembers Ken’s school.

KEN: In [SOUNDS LIKE] Atavia, New York run by the craziest group of nuns. 1963 to 1967 kindergarten to fourth grade.

BOB's CALL COMES IN:

BOB: You mention law enforcement, in Kansas, the criminal law does not have a situation where a member of the clergy uses their power or position for abuse, Kansas needs to change that law, like they have for doctors and everybody else. When they change that law, make sure they don't play the game that the priests weren’t doing their duties.

Now about the mothers. In the old days, if the cops came and took out the child, they’d scare everybody, that's changing. Now in forensics interviewing, they put children in little rooms, with little chairs, a child friendly environment. Cameras are hidden in the walls. That way a child does not have to sit on a witness stand.

So we've stopped that crap that the idea of the abuse was caused by somebody else. Clergy abuse survivors have gotten a lot of new legislation.

Why spend all this energy against a Catholic Church, just get away from it. If you were married to me and I didn't come home at night because I was drinking and out with another woman, you’d divorce my butt. The church has destroyed your life, divorce it.

SH: WE'RE running out of time-

BOB: Up until five years ago, law enforcement didn’t have the knowledge they have now. Cops, social workers, that whole fabric of our society are learning from clergy sexual abuse survivors who have been joined by others - hey, I encourage San Diego --

SH: WE'RE out of time, thank you for your call. John and Ken, going to try something real quick. Have I got you both there. We're about to leave, thank you both for joining us this evening and sharing this information.

THEME MUSIC UP

KEN: Thank you, ladies, you're the ones who need to be thanked, nor me.

SHERYL: Thanks for watching and thanks for joining us, fellows.
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We are not going away, this is our church, say John and Ken: Rough transcript of Educating to End Abuse tonight

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By Kay Ebeling

The majority of the restrictions in our lives is all bound up in mythology of predominantly the Catholic Church. It’s time for the scam and the scandal to end.

Today: Internet TV show on clergy sex crimes at 6PM Central (4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern) Call in toll free this afternoon

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A monthly program on Clergy Sex Crimes, Educating To End Abuse, kicks off Season 4 late this afternoon, live on the internet from KCTU Wichita, with a national toll free number for listeners to phone-in and be part of the show. Two men who survived serial molestation as children in Catholic orphanges, one in New York and one in Australia, are special guests for the show tonight. Plus whoever calls in on the toll free line can add their thoughts. The show airs tonight at 6PM Central (CST) (4 PM in Los Angeles, 7PM in New York).

Tune in live on the internet by clicking here. Join the conversation by calling 1-866-905-8855.

Producer Peggy Warren is a clergy sex crime survivor from Kansas who picked up her trauma and turned it into a sword four years ago, convincing the local TV station to give her one night on its program that airs weeknights at 6 in Wichita, The River City Forum. A mother of five who also works as a school teacher, Warren puts together the monthly broadcasts featuring survivors she finds who are doing active work on clergy sex crime issues around the world.

The show is liveliest with a lot of callers. Guests tonight, John Brown from Australia and Ken Kosiorek from San Diego, promise to stir up the words. Both men became active on the issue of clergy sex crimes this year. John started The September 1 Initiative in Australia, Ken started wearing and selling Molested Catholic t-shirts like the one we featured in yesterday's post here at City of Angels.

Call-in today Thursday August 27 at 6PM Central (7PM New York time, 3PM California time).

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To watch: Go to http://www.kctu.com

Click where it says 43 Live Online 24/7 .

Call 1-866-905-8855 to be part of the show.
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Considering the verbiage on Ken's t-shirts and the loquacious emails I've gotten from John, this should be an interesting show. Ken, a New York native, identifies himself as a "Healing Left Handed Molested Catholic." John - well he has this Australian accent and a real way with words. Apparently the orphanages down under provide a pretty good education, as John is, well, an eloquent speaker. Ken is extremely . . . passionate.

This promises to be a lively show tonight.
Watch and call in tonight..

Remember, the City of Angels is Everywhere, and so is Educating to End Abuse, once a month online from Wichita....

UPDATE: Peggy calls in to City of Angels this morning.

"I'm excited about tonight," Peggy said when she called me this morning about the show.

"Educating to End Abuse got started in January 2006 shortly after I went public with my, um, situation. Shortly after I went public with my own experience of exploitation by a Roman Catholic priest Nicholas Voelker.

"The show started with Janet Patterson and me together, it went so well the first night, they invited us to come back and it took off from there."

I asked Peggy if the station balked at her suggestion back in late 2005 to do a show about Clergy Sex Crimes.

“They weren’t hesitant at all. It’s a family owned TV station here in Wichita and the couple that owns it are two very strong courageous fearless people.

"I wish there were more people around the world that could be as supportive and receptive and caring as Ron and Sheryl Nutt, owners of KCTU.

“I would bet other local TV stations would welcome other survivors the way KCTU did here in Wichita.

“The audience is growing and growing, plus Educating to End Abuse is On Facebook here reaching more and more people."

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NEXT POST - Story and photos from Walk Across Oregon in Portland last weekend.

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Don't forget to click our PayPal button.

-by kay ebeling

I am a convert. I see where Molested Catholic T-Shirts work.

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When Cindy Falter joined Walk Across Oregon last Sunday wearing the Molested Catholic t-shirt, I know a few people became uncomfortable - at the Powell's City of Books entrance, as well as in our group of activists. Words on the t-shirt are in-your-face: I was molested by Dirty Filthy Sex Starved Catholics. Would you let a priest or nun babysit your children?

If anyone found the t-shirt offensive or wanted to start an argument, well, Cindy had her two Great Dane service dogs with her (in photos here). As Cindy spoke I would break in with: “We have to talk to people one at a time on the street, because mainstream media will never tell the entire story of the pedophiles and how they operate in the Catholic Church. The Church intimidates corporate media to bury the details. So we are telling the story to one person at a time, walking through the city in these t-shirts.”

Cindy survived a three year period, grades one through three, of serial molest by George Neville Rucker when he was a priest in El Segundo, California, in the 1960s. He would take her out of the classroom into the rectory and sacristy and rape her. The school nuns saw what was taking place, heard Cindy scream she did not want to go, and still forced her to leave the classroom and join him over and over. No one stopped it. Cindy tells a tale so horrific it takes words like those on the Molested Catholic t-shirt to begin the introduction, to prepare listeners for what they are about to hear. Then Cindy has an open door to begin to explain just how bad the crimes were.

And people listen.

Maybe it’s because we were in Portland, Oregon, a city known for its intelligent and progressive population, and we were outside a huge used bookstore, which would attract the more intelligent and progressive of the population, but it was remarkable to me how effective it was for Cindy to stand there and draw a crowd with that t-shirt, then tell the story.

I hope to meet up with Cindy again soon to walk down another street, or stand on another corner, and strike up this conversation. We may just show up soon in a city near you. . .

I didn't think I could wear the t-shirt in public myself, but after seeing how effective the words on the t-shirt are as, well, a conversation starter, I might wear one next time. When Cindy stood outside Powell's City of Books, I saw people stop, and then listen, then stay stopped, and continue to listen, and of course, she has her dogs.

Meanwhile City of Angels and staff just got in late last night on Amtrak. This morning I can't open any of my video files, so until my Technical Crew (daughter) wakes up I can't see them yet. More posts with more photos AND VIDEO will appear later today or tomorrow, for now I may join my staff and get some more restttttt-zzzz
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Don't forget to click our PayPal, thank you
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- by Kay Ebeling'
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Oh, and will we move to Portland? Well, I can't take my TV job that pays most the bills with me, so it may be more than a month or two before we move.

Do we need to get out of L.A.? Well last night outside VanNuys a guy who had been on the train behind us the entire ride from Portland jumped up all of a sudden and started hollering at my daughter and me. We were laughing and he hated us for laughing too loud and called me a Bitch and slammed both hands on the back of the seat - screaming in an uncontrolled rage.

The Amtrak guy got him to stop and move to another car. . .

Then on the Red Line home from Union Station to Hollywood, the cars were jam packed, people that late at night are jamming on some drug or another most of them. One guy was dancing around to the music in his ears his heroin and meth effected body all odd shaped. A homeless guy was hollering at people he halucinated in front of him.

Do we want to get out of L.A.? Yes! And Portland is everything I used to love and now miss about L.A. plus Portland is special and unique and I want to live there, yes.

But will we ever be able to escape the snares and snarls of L.A. whose roots are already entangled in our legs holding us down here?

Stay tuned...
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Purchase a t-shirt by emailing Molested Catholic:
kenweld@san.rr.com

>>>>>>>

Don't forget to click our PayPal

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Truth is, most people don't get their news from one form of media anymore.

Truth is, mainstream media

Recovering a memory that may help explain recovered memory, while speaking to a group about recovered memory ...

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By Kay Ebeling

Yesterday six parishioners came to hear two pedophile priest crime victims talk in a room at Ascension Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon. A handful of Cathoilcs took extra steps to find out what really happened with the handling of pedophiles and their victims in the Catholic Church. The group has been meeting there for two years, practicing Compassionate Listening , which originated in the Middle East with Israeli and Palestian neighbors trying to live peacefully with each other. Compassionate Lisstening techniques help combatants "see the humanity of each other, even when they disagree," writes Rabbi David Zaslow, of Ashland Oregon. Hmm, Ashland, Oregon.

Along with me yesterday was Cindy, a plaintiff from the L.A. Clergy Cases who drove all the way from the East Coast where she now lives, and between the two of us, I think these Compassionate Listening parishioners heard more than they expected to hear. I mean, Cindy is a victim of George Neville Rucker, 'nuff said.

Saturday, the Compassionate Listening Catholics learned from Cindy and me a bit about how bad things really were, from them we learned the Church is not telling its parishioners the whole story. So church going Catholics who rely on their bishops to tell them for the story still think most the allegations were never proved, and that the church has been benevolent and merciful. No wonder so many Catholics say, let's put it all behind us. They still think this is about a few incidents of inappropriate touching that may not even have happened.

No, it was sodomizing altar boys behind church altars, pulling kids out of second grade classrooms to the rectory to bang them 'til they bleed.

The bishops and monsignors are obviously doing all they can to keep parishioners in the dark. I bet they never tell their parishioners to read Bishop Accountability or City of Angels Blog. Apparently most practicing Catholics still really don't know how bad the pedophile epidemic was - and is. They are not finding out how duplicitous were the bishops, how widespread was the network of pedophiles amoung the priests, and that the crimes were not a little bit of inappropriate touching or temporary lapses of morality, the crimes were serial felony rape of children.

On my mind a lot on this trip is a specific kind of Delayed Discovery, where the adult victim of pedophilia has buried and forgotten the experience - until they have a child themselves. As the child reaches the age the adult was when the pedophilia occurred, often the memory of the experience comes in, or the realization of who was really the guilty party. "Watching the child at the age you were," I was trying to describe it to the group Saturday, "you look at the child and you realize how innocent they are and - no that's not it." I stopped and froze, then-

Jumped up, even waving my arms, and said, "I remember now how it started to happen. My daughter around age five was standing in front of a picture window facing the street. I tought she was dancing, exposing herself to the neighbors, because that is what I would do at age five, having been sexualized by a priest around that ago. I thought she had her dress pulled up, because in her I saw myself at her age acting out that way, and I thought that's what kids do.

"I ran up and grabbed her and she was just a kid standing in the window. And it hit me. How would she even know to be sexy and seductive at age five. How did I know to be sexy and seductive at age five. Something must have happened to me to get me started, because this innocent child in front of me has no idea or inclination at all to act the way I did."

In the weeks after I pulled Lizzie away from the picture window and realized she wasn't dancing there like a five year old harlot, specifics of what happened to me started to creep into my head, usually in the early morning in those moments between sleep and awakening. Today, I truly believe recent changes in law about Delayed Discovery are a start, but still not enough. Having a two or three year year cap on how long you can take action after a recovered memory is not enough, putting an upper age limit on when you can file suit is outright wrong. Because today at age 61 a good 16 years after the memory got sparked, I have not yet settled inside. I'm still figuring things out, I'm still finding things out.

Oregon has always seemed to be two years ahead of California in progressive activism. (After 8 years of Bush, Oregon is now ten years ahead of California.) I like it here. People here live the way I dreamed of living as a hippie in the 1970s.

Regarding the pedophile crisis in the Oregon Church, the Portland Archdiocese is now releasing most of the church documents that the church fought releasing, from the clergy cases that started here in the early 1990s. L.A. is just now waiting for the mediating judget to release the first batch from its cases that started there in 2002. The Portland Archdiocese led the pack of bankruptcies that the Church claims are a result of civil lawsuit payouts due to pedophilia in the priesthood.

It stands to reason that a progressive and oroginal process such as Compassionate Listening, where pedophile victims and parishioners start communicating and trying to begin healing, would originate in Oregon as well. It felt good believe it or not to sit in a room with intelligetnt Catholics, and I will write more about this whole experience next week when we get back to L.A.

I'm developing a magazine length story on Delayed Discovery, especially when the realization of the crime comes about because your own child turns the same age you were when the pedophilia took place. For the first ten years or so after my own Delayed Discovery, I hardly told anyone about it because I thought it was so strange and weird and freaky. Then I started City of Angels Blog in 2007, and as I started to read motions and complaints filed by plaintiffs in the L.A. Clergy Cases, I found out Delayed Discovery that happens when your child turns the age you were during the crime is a very common phenomenon, indeed, it's textbook.

For whoever finally gets around to writing the text book.

Maybe remembering the incident of Lizzie in the picture window while I was talking to the Compassionate Listening Group helped explain to them how Delayed Discovery takes place. Maybe people someday will stop asking, "Why did they wait forty years before coming forward?"

Oh by the way. Lizzie and I may move up here to Oregon, just because people here in Portland will help us get moved, and I'm beginning to get paranoid about the filth in L.A. Where we live, when you go outside you always smell human urine and feces mixed in with the heat and smog. You come home from an errand with a layer of grime on you that probably includes molecules of human waste When humans are living on the sidewalk and relieving themselves wherever they can find a bush - especially in the growing numbers as you see in L.A. - inevitably some new virus or bacteria is going to form. It dawned on me, as I looked at clean sidewalks and trees that aren't dying in the city of Portland, that if we don't get out of L.A. soon, in the near future they may not let anyone out, because of contamination. Okay, I have a vivid imagination, but when you look at the state of humanity on the streets of inner city L.A. and Hollywood, it's easy to feel like you are living in a sci fi movie. If we stay in L.A. much longer they may have to carry me away while I'm hollering: Soylent Green is made of People. The Catholic Church is run by felons. Soylent Green is humans - they are Felons, felons, felons, do you hear me felons .....

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Don't forget to click PayPal with a high five every three months or so to keep City of Angels blog alive.
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Incident in NY: Church crowd throws coins at crime victims, disrupts event, bused in like anti-Health Care Reform hecklers

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UPDATE: We are on our way to Portland (Tues PM)

By Kay Ebeling

"We knew they were going to come. They showed up in buses," said Joel Engelman of NY, who was there when church supporters threw coins at crime victims demonstrating in front of Assemblyman Vito Lopez' office in Brooklyn. "After being there a good part of the week, I’d never seen any of those buses, but they were screaming, 'We're from the neighborhood,'" Engelman said.

"Then Lopez spoke, pointed at the survivors, and said, 'They're here for the money, and we're here for justice.' They started throwing coins and dollar bills and saying go home, here’s your money, go home. A couple of aides in the crowd incited them, after Lopez said these people want to bankrupt the church."

Lobbyists against the New York Child Victims Act, working for the Catholic Church, have been using the same questionable tactics as lobbyists against National Health Care Reform, busing people in to demonstrations, after coaching them to chant, holler, and disrupt genuine public discourse.

Tim Walsh of Long Island was also at the incident: "It went on for a good half hour, at the end there were coins all over the street.

"Once the assemblyman said, they want money we want justice, the people started throwing coins," Walsh, who is a New York activist, said.

(Photo left, Rev. Kieran E. Harrington)

"Harrington said, 'I'm just here supporting the church,' and I said, what about the people yelling and throwing coins, you haven’t reached out to victims right there being harassed?," Walsh said.

"He’s like, we can’t afford to allow that kind of legislation go through."

Tim Walsh continued: At first I saw the dollar on the street and was going to pick it up, then I thought no there’s too much going on. Then I looked and saw more coins on the street, then I saw a couple people tossing someting and realized, oh wow, they're throwing coins at us.

"This little pug of a priest about four feet tall is hugging Lopez and smiling, nearly humping the Assemblman's leg, [LAUGHTER] it was pathetic, it was really pathetic."

(Photo left, Similarities between demonstrations against Health Care Reform and against the New York Child Victims Act are too similar for it to be a coincidence.)

"There were about two hundred of them and they didn't know about the Child Victims Act," said Walsh. "They looked at me like they had no idea what I was talking about. I went up to some of them and said, we applaud any good acts Lopez does in the neighborhood. We're here because of the backroom deals in Albany Lopez has made trying to stop this bill. They looked at me like they had no idea what I was talking about."

Engelman, who works as an activist with Survivors for Justice in NY City, said, "They didn't know what Lopez was doing about the legislation. They didn't know about the Child Victims Act."

Engelman added: "It wasn’t the whole crowd doing it, it started with one, others followed suit, not all throwing coins. It was just people here and there, they were on barricades screaming things like, You look like a pedophile pointing at us. They were just there was no shame.

"A couple hundred from the other side were bused in, the Hassidim community bused in people too," Engelman added.

"They literally didn't know why they were there, but were just standing there because they were told to. I know how that system works, the Hassidic guys, they are in the system throughout the day where they study and get paid to study.

"They just say get on the bus, we've got to be at this place."

(At left, A Demonstrator from local Hassidic Community demonstrating in favor of Child Victims Act outside Vito Lopez office in Brooklyn, New York)

Around the country, crowds bused in by lobbyists are often uninformed on topics about which they are heckling demonstrators. We've seen people on Medicare bused in to Health Care town hall meetings, where they call out that they don't want government interference in their health coverage. And we've seen Catholics young and old and newly immigrated to America, bused in to Vito Lopez' office in Brooklyn NY to heckle adult child sex crime victims demonstrators. The group bused to Lopez' office did not even know there is a Child Victims Act.

We first read about the coin throwing incident in Marci Hamilton's July 28th column: "When the survivors confronted the marchers with the truth about the bill, some of the marchers actually threw coins at the survivors," Hamilton wrote at FindLaw.

Adult victims of pedophile clergy hoped to get the Child Victims Act, which is in a kind of pergatory in the state of New York, passed this year, but deep pockets of church lobbyists prevented it.

Quotes from Hamilton's column about the incident:

"The ugliest confrontation to date, engineered by the bishops and pitting believers against survivors, occurred in front of Lopez's office. A handful of Jewish and Catholic survivors have been staging a protest there for weeks. DiMarzio organized a group of believers to march in support of Lopez's opposition to the Child Victims Act. Two busloads of people were taken to the neighborhood and told – contrary to the facts - that the CVA would bankrupt the dioceses, causing losses of services.

"About a dozen survivors, who had been raped as children by priests and rabbis, stood across the street holding signs in favor of the Child Victims Act. When the survivors confronted the sadly uninformed marchers with the truth about the bill and the misinformation from the bishops and Lopez, they told me directly, some of the marchers actually threw coins at the survivors.

Some of the marchers actually threw coins at the survivors.
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Marci Hamilton column that prompted this post:

The New York Catholic Conference's Aggressive Bid to Stop Reform of Child Sex Abuse Laws

(Above, a spontaneous demonstration by persons involved with the issues?)
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HOW DID COIN THROWING START?

Engelman said: "It started with one or two people and
then many more of them and then more joined. There were from what I saw, one guy actually threw a 20 dollar bill."

There had been 15 to 20 survivors demonstrating in front of Vito Lopez' office for the past two weeks, and the day of the incident there were the same 15 persons there.

"What happened earlier was the police came," Engelman said, "and when they saw there were suddenly hundreds of people there, they divided the street with barricades, one side for survivors, the other Lopez supporters."

Tim Walsh gave more details about the coin throwing incident:

"Six pastors arrived and they had shipped in two busloads of parishioners. I was talking to one, I said why are you here and he said, oh you guys are going to bankrupt the church

"And there were little old ladies standing around him like they worshipped him. I threw out the facts that I had, facts that we've been using over the months with the legislators in Albany, undermining everything he was saying.

"The guy pushed me, in front of the ladies. And not angrily, but he pushed me away from him."

CofA: That's assault.

Tim: Yeah, and I said to the ladies, ths is how the church treats its own victiims of sex abuse, and the ladies were in shock and he was apologizing. But I didn't accept his apology, I walked away.

Joel: Come on. An assemblyman (like Lopez, pictured left) who can’t get two hundred people to scream in his support and come on their own accord? Those hecklers were there because they were giving back to Lopez, they were getting some kind of thing from the church or from Lopez.

Tim: The Catholic Church and a Jewish group sent in 3 buses, two Catholic kool-aid drinkers and the other was Jewish guys who must snort the stuff. They were all there supporting Lopez saying he does good, with their little posters.

Joel: We knew who was from the neighborhood and none of them looked familiar. They were totally clueless.

Tim: Lopez said, They want money, we want justice. Here he’s only allowing the two year extension of the statutes, and playing right in to what the church wants.

City of Angels was alarmed to find this video at YouTube from the day they tossed the coins:



Joel Engelman said:

The neighborhood is Williamsburg, I grew up there. It's pretty big and while we were out there for a good part of the week, in front of his office, it was very surprising for us to hear that most people in the neighborhood hated him. They were saying, I'm so glad you guys are here.

They'd walk by saying, "Vito Lopez - he’s gotta go." We got to know the locals and got some info on him.

Several people told me that Lopez is not Spanish, the neighborhood is Spanish. Lopez is maybe Italian of Spanish descent but he’s actually Jewish.

He’s been in the neighborhood wheeling and dealing real estate, he was doing that before anything else and he was known as a shady guy. He’s been in the paper, he doesn't even live in Brooklyn, he lives in Queens, but he represents Brooklyn. He probably has a place in Brooklyn, but everyone knows he lives in Queens.

The guy got into office and through his dealings with the community, he became the real estate boss in that part of Brooklyn. All of Brooklyn is pretty corrupt, but this guy is a powerful guy in the Democratic party in Brooklyn. . .

Tim Walsh added:

Lopez, he’s the assemblyman from Brooklyn. He’s pro gay marriage and pro choice and the Catholic Church is offering him a land deal at the same time he is fighting the Child Victims Act

I met the bishop’s henchman Father Harrington in Albany a month or two ago, he stands outside the assembly chambers lobbying, with his collar on, saying the church is going to go bankrupt, the church is going to go bankrupt.

He said they want money, we want justice, and then they started throwing coins.

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Here is video of Vito Lopez rallying his troops against the Child Victims Act in Albany:



At the channel hosting above video from Albany on YouTube it says:

New York State Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D, 53rd District) speaks at the Knights of Columbus prayer rally on May 12, 2009 regarding two sexual-abuse bills under consideration in the assembly and state senate.

At the channel hosting the video of the hollering demonstrators outside Vito Lopez' office it says:

A Rally that demonstrated the good that M of A Vito Lopez has done for BUshwick and Williamsburg. And to further let opponents of the Lopez Bill know that we support M of A Lopez, and trust his judgement. [sic]

Like City of Angels reported here, this rallying of crowds around a unifying common hatred is known as Fascism.

More info on Anti-Health care demonstrations across the
USA:

"Democrats have said the protesters are being organized by conservative lobbying groups like FreedomWorks. Republicans respond that the protests are an organic response to the Obama administration’s health care restructuring proposals.

"There is no dispute, however, that most of the shouting and mocking is from opponents of those plans. Many of those opponents have been encouraged to attend by conservative commentators and Web sites.

From New York times report Saturday August 8, 2009

Health debate turns hostile at meetings

Democrats say protesters are being organized by conservative lobbying groups

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Don't forget to click our PayPal buttons here at City of Angels to support work and writing here (we work better with full stomachs).

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(Columbia River morning, Walk 2009)


(Moonrise over Pendleton, Walk 2009)

Walk Across Oregon started much like City of Angels, plus an idea for the bishops, in Sunday Roundup at CofA today

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By Kay Ebeling

Did anyone else notice, the first news in months about the Grand Jury investigating Cardinal Mahony came out right after the U.S. Attorney in L.A. announced he's retiring and going into private practice last week?

City of Angels will post with videos pics and interviews next week from Portland. I jumped at the chance to join the annual Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse after talking to Virginia Jones, the woman who began it last year, as I could see she and I had a connection at a soul level. People like us, as soon as we learn about sex crimes and felony coverups in the Catholic Church, we immediately pick up a torch.

The way Virginia started the Walk is a lot like the way I started City of Angels in 2007, not knowing where it was going to lead, what it was going to do, just using the resource that was in front of me. I just knew I had to do something much like Virginia. At the end of this post is more about Walk Across Oregon where City of Angels will take part in Portland next weekend: Aug. 22-23.

The quote from Cardinal Roger Mahony's lawyers that raised questions in Sworn Enemies of the Catholic Church posted here last week was this:

“The cost of defense in time, money, and public opprobrium in cases like childhood sexual abuse places extreme pressure on Defendants [the Church] to settle cases irrespective of their merits.”

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"Irrespective of their merits"
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The quote is from the Archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Mahony, through his attorney, in a letter to the state Supreme Court about the 2006-7 settlements in Los Angeles.

“That pressure is necessarily exacerbated as the number of cases reaches into the hundreds and the Defendants are relentlessly held up to public scorn, ridicule, and contempt by the mass media,” writes Lee Potts of Hennigan lawfirm in L.A, speaking for the Archbishop.

Somehow that argument is supposed to persuade the state high court to side with the the Church and prevent more crime victims from coming forward.

The letter was filed with the State Supreme Court last April by the Hennigan, Hennigan & Dorman lawfirm in L.A., in support of the Bishop of Oakland’s attempts to get Quarry v. Doe 1 (the Bishop of Oakland) de-published, as we reported here:

The letter proves the Church is conducting a behind the scenes campaign to spin this message: Claims filed by sex crime victims against the Church are often weak and lacking merit, but the Catholic Church, being pastoral and humble, pays out millions to plaintiffs just to "put this behind us" and be good Christians, forgiving everyone, no matter how bad the sin.

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Not sins,

Felony sex crimes.

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Priest Extradited to London last week arrived in L.A. into welcome arms of Roger Mahony in 1985

(AP) – Aug 8, 2009

LONDON — A former California priest extradited from the U.S. appeared in a British court Saturday, charged with sexually abusing young boys.

James Robinson, 71, is alleged to have carried out the abuse when he served as a Roman Catholic priest in Britain between 1959 and 1983.

He moved to California in 1985 and was arrested there in January after he was tracked down by a BBC program and challenged in person by one of his accusers.

Robinson was taken into custody after a two-minute hearing at a court in Birmingham, 120 miles (190 kilometers) north of London
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Post Coming Monday, Aug. 17th

Lobbyists for the U.S. bishops against the New York Child Victims Act use the same dirty tricks as lobbyists against health care reform, busing blue-haired bubble heads to demonstrations, after coaching them to chant, holler, and disrupt genuine public discourse.

(For preview see Video of Vido Lopez, state assemblyman from Brooklyn, New York, at Bottom of the Blog today)

It usually ends up the hecklers do not even know what the demonstration is about, and are just doing what leaders tell them to do. With health care it's people on Medicare hollering they don't want government interference in their medical care. At Vito Lopez' Brooklyn Office it was persons from the neighborhood disrupting demonstrators without even knowing there is a Child Victims Act, or in some cases understanding enough English to find out.

Organized around a message of hatred, the actions of Vito Lopez against the Child Victims Act in New York and the antics of Anti-Health Care Reform activisits around the country smack of fascism.

FASCISM

Where leaders get people riled up by filling crowds with a common hatred, then turn the mongers loose on an unsuspecting oppressed people.

Scary

Read more manana here at City of Angels

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IDEA FOR THE BISHOPS

Ebeling Rant #7,395,99999999999

The Church is still more concerned about covering its assets than tending to its damaged former parishioners, adult victims of pedophile priests. That's the real reason so many of the sex crime victims end up getting an attorney and asking for money in settlements. It is not passionate knee jerk anti-Catholic prejudice that drives thousands of lawsuits against the church, as Mahony and other bishops imply.

There is no pastoral outreach for those of us who prefer not to return to the Catholic Church. We have to get cash and find pastoral outreach elsewhere.

In the last twenty years, the amount of money the Church has spent on attorneys et al to battle plaintiffs could have been used to build recovery centers all over the country, in every region, employing survivors, the ones of us who are functioning enough to still work. But that would have been too ... Benevolent, Decent, Humble, Reconciliatory ... for the Catholic Church. Did they ever even consider it?

Because think of it.

What entity in the world knew, as early as the 1980s, that there were not just a handful, but thousands of adult victims of pedophile priests in the world? What group knew from the start that those thousands would be reaching out trying to find each other to compare stories, and in the end, see patterns of criminal activity that go way beyond one man inappropriately touching a child?

The only group who knew there were thousands of pedophile priest sex crime victims back in the 1980s is the American Bishops. And from the start, they battled the claimants with hostile lawyering and hush money, using PR and other consultants. As a result, the bishops are still able to control the news that gets to the media and keep quiet the total truth, as well as keep survivors around the country from finding each other.

The bishops could have put that entire effort from the start in the 1980s into recovery and healing of the people who were damaged by these crimes. Imagine how much better things could have turned out if all the money the church has spent on attorneys and PR and other contractors, to beat down the plaintiffs, had been spent instead on setting up sex crime PTSD clinics around the country, to help the victims.

Yeah, why not, PTSD clinics for sex crime victims around the country

There is a connection. Every pedophile priest the Catholic Church allowed to operate created dozens of victims, sexualized children who grew up more confused than even other children who were sexually molested. Because when it's a priest molesting a child, you have that extra added confusion for the victim of how sex is connected to religion and God.

The Church has to see its role in the growth of Sex Crimes all over the country.

And make amends.

Setting up PTSD clinics for Sex Crime Victims, not just the Church’s victims, but all sex crime victims who need PTSD treatment, now that would be genuine pastoral outreach.

I'll take the job as Executive Director...

One good thing that has come out of the Clergy Cases nationwide is a new understanding of how child sex crimes affect an adult in later years.

When a sex act is perpetrated on a child, the victim often internalizes the experience, and ends up living a life of PTSD induced reactions.

The discovery of child sex crimes in the Catholic Church HAS contributed to mental health studies on recovered memory and associative disorders.

Why not build on this new knowledge, find out more?

Do something positive. Do, well, heck, do what Jesus would do.

In terms of pedophile priests, the Catholic Church today is in the same position as the 1980s, where there are likely still thousands more victims who could come forward.

Will the church just keep up this legal battle?

Or will it turn its entire attitude around and do what Christians around the world expect. Tend to the sick and be generous and merciful as it uses its resources in healing.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one . . .

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Send Us Pics of Yourself in a Molested Catholic T-Shirt

We're starting a series here at City of Angels: Photos of people wearing Ken Kosiorek's t-shirts. Here is JohnB of Australia wearing his:



Gutsy guy, Ken in San Diego, below, wears his Molested Catholic t-shirts to Mass, regularly.

To get a tshirt contact kenweld kenweld@san.rr.com but be prepared to start receiving a lot of email afterwards, a lot of it with MOLESTED CATHOLIC in the subject liine, as Ken pulls no punches.

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WALK ACROSS OREGON to End Child Abuse, events next weekend in Portland.

It is almost a PTSD reaction put to good work, at least for me it is, and I think it may be the same for Virginia Jones, who started the Walk when she had just converted to Catholicism and found out the priest at her new church was Gus Krumm, transferred from L.A. to Portland after too many children in Orange County reported him as a pedophile.

Right away Virginia saw the crimes in totality and felt compelled to pick up a torch. Thanks a lot to Bishop Accountability, where anyone searching for information about pedophile priests can find a wealth of knowledge, Jones read about the national scope of the crimes, and she knew she had to do something.

So without hesitation, she started to do something. Like Peggy Warren in Wichita with her cable TV show, like Kathy Shaw in Boston with Abuse Tracker, like others around the country now starting blogs and YouTube channels.

Virginia wrote last week from the Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse, "The director of Safe Harbors in Wallowa County wants to join us for a few hours one of our days in Portland.

"The Walk Across Oregon in Pendleton and Hermiston was very successful. We made connections with survivors and supporters of survivors and led one of them right to the offices of Domestic Violence Services."

The weekend we are in Portland, we plan to do videos, interviews, as well as wild footage of the Walk through that cool green city, posting it all on YouTube and here at City of Angels.

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From the flyer

The Portland Itinerary:

(Hope a lot of people join us.)

Saturday, August 22

Mt. Tabor, Hawthorne District: We will meet at Ascension Catholic Church at 7507 SE Yamhill Street at 10 AM to have a Compassionate Gathering listening session with clergy abuse survivor, Kay Ebeling who writes the City of Angels Blog. At Noon we will walk to the top of Mt. Tabor and then down Stark Street to Laurelhurst Park at 2PM and then Belmont/Hawthorne Districts visiting shops and cafes as we please.

Sunday, August 23

Start at OMSI at 9 AM and walk along the Willamette Esplanade to the Steel Bridge, cross on the lower pedestrian walkway to Waterfront Park, walk to Yamhill Street and up Yamhill Street arriving at Pioneer Square at 11:30AM. We will take a break at Pioneer Square. Then we will proceed along Yamhill to SW 10th Avenue. We will turn right at SW 10th Avenue and walk right to Powell’s City of Books on Burnside Street. We will pause to browse at Powell’s, and head to Jamison Square Park arriving at 2 PM. We will pause to enjoy the fountain and then head along Lovejoy to NW 23rd

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City of Angels will make our presence known at the Compassionate Gathering listening session Saturday and in Jamison Square at the interactive fountain, a potluck pizza party (in planning stage still) on Sunday.
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After leaving LaGrande in Eastern Oregon July 27th, the Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse will come down the Columbia River into Portland next week, arriving in the city Saturday August 22nd. A a small contingency of City of Angels communicators will join the Walk in Portland (my daughter and her friend Michelle, plus anyone else who wants to join us).

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Don't forget to click PayPal with high fives to help make City of Angels Happen...
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This morning I put a new entry at City of Angels 2 "This Really Happened 2" also working titled "Sunset Boulevard" click and go there for another summer read.
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Crossing freeway / railroad tracks into The Dalles. Walk Across Oregon to End Child Abuse 2009
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DON'T FORGET PAYPAL
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