.
By Kay Ebeling
Richard Tollner was driving home from a meeting with a client Friday night when he found out from a reporter that the priest he accused of pedophile sex crimes had been “cleared” by a canonical trial.
“A Newsday reporter called me Friday night and asked what do you think of the results of the trial,” Tollner told City of Angels this morning. “I said what do you mean trial. She says, the canonical trial. I said, I wouldn't know. I’ve been calling the archdiocese the last two years, all they say is ‘We have nothing to report,” Tollner said.
“It’s occurrences like this, Placa being cleared, that create the need for a Child Victims’ Act in New York,” Tollner added. The current statute of limitations for Placa's charged crimes ran out in 1982. “The Church made it look like there’s only one person who’s come forward about Placa and that's not the case, there’s three known victims.”
Richard Tollner testified at that canonical trial that “cleared” Alan Placa and, before last week, had been waiting over two years to hear the results. “I used to call every month asking what are you going to do about Placa.”
At those Canonical hearings in the Albany archdiocese business offices, Tollner had to use Church provided legal counsel for the hearings: “The church provided me with a what they call a Promoter of Justice. Then he was always on vacation when I called him with questions,” Tollner said.
“We were basically supposed to just use the church people, I could use an attorney for counsel but not in the hearing.”
That “canonical penal trial” ordered by Vatican ended up clearing the charges and Alan Placa is now going to be reinstated as a priest.
"They had testimony, they just didn't listen."
“The hearings were right here in Albany, in the church offices, just in a conference room. It was a very simple thing, it was basically three judges, they were priests from upstate New York and a guy from Philadelphia
“We hit them right between the eyes with exactly what they needed, and they never heard us," Tollner said. "I'm surprised," with the results.
“We had five witnesses who were fellow seminarians, family members, and other victims
“Other victims
“Plural."
PLURAL
Sometimes they just submitted written testimony but they still submitted witness testimony to the trial.
“I was there five or six times, spent about two hundred hours on research and preparation, because this was super hard testimony," Tollner said.
News reports from last week state: "Placa was placed under investigation by the Church after he was identified as 'Priest F' in a grand jury investigation in New York's Suffolk County. The grand jury heard testimony from three alleged victims, two students and an altar boy, who said that a "Priest F" had molested them in the 1970s,” the paragraphs that are picked up and repeated in most the news articles about Placa’s cleared charges state:
City of Angels knows of at least two other victims of Placa who could be witnesses but refuse to come forward and testify.
When the Newsday reporter called Tollner, “Boy was she surprised because I was like, you've gotta be kidding me,” Tollner said. “Because I thought they’d do something. I was expecting them to do something, I didn't know if they would laicize him, but that's what they wanted them to do.
Tollner says he testified before at least five times in the canonical hearings two years ago along with several other witnesses.
Still, “A lot of people I talked to are not surprised that Placa was cleared,” Tollner said, “because Placa was also an attorney for the church, he was handling their sex abuse cases.
“If people find out that the attorney who handled their cases and talking people out of going to the police, which Placa did, he talked victims out of filing charges. When they find out he was sexually abusing kids himself, you’d think that would go to his character, as an attorney.”
I asked Tollner, What are you going to do, if the Child Victims Act passes, and he said, “I’ll be very happy for the other victims.”
****************
How Mainstream News Covers the Story:
New York Daily News
Msgr. Alan Placa, longtime friend of Rudy Giuliani, not guilty of molesting ...
New York Daily News - Rachel Monahan - Dec 6, 2009
Msgr. Alan Placa, a close friend of Rudy Giuliani, is cleared of allegations that he molested a teenager in 1975. ...
Bishop confronted over clearing priest of abuse charge Newsday (subscription)
Church clears Giuliani friend in abuse case The Associated Press
all 195 news articles »
ABC News
Sex Abuse Victims' Groups Outraged By Vatican Decision to Clear Accused Priest
ABC News - Avni Patel - 1 hour ago
The Diocese of Rockville Centre announced on Friday that the Catholic Church had found Monsignor Alan Placa not guilty of molesting teenage boys, ...
Former vice-chancellor of LI diocese cleared of sex abuse claim
Commonweal - Paul Moses - 14 hours ago
... ago against a former vice-chancellor of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Monsignor Alan Placa, over an incident that allegedly occurred 34 years ago. ...
Placa's diocesan career
Newsday (subscription) - Dec 4, 2009
Monsignor Alan PlacaAge: 65Education: BA degree from Manhattan College; Ph.D. in Theology from Fordham University; JD from Hofstra University School of Law. ...
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Alan Placa may be cleared by a Canonical Trial but here's his record in Bishop Accountability:
Source:
Newsday 4.17.02;
NY Times 4.19.02;
Newsday 5.14.02;
Newsday 6.03.02;
Newsday 6.07.02;
Newsday 6.14.02;
Suffolk Co. Grand Jury Report 1.17.03;
NY Times 2.01.03;
Telegram & Gazette 2.17.03;
Newsday 2.11.03;
NY Times 2.20.03;
Compasso et al v. Volmer et al, 4.14.03;
Newsday 4.15.03;
NY Times 12.04.03;
Worcester Telegram & Gazette 7.22.07
Assignments:
ABC News 10.23.07 (add'l article);
EDGE Boston 10.24.07 (add'l article);
Albany Times Union 11.07.07 (add'l article);
Inside Catholic 11.26.07 (add'l article);
Statement by Diocese of Rockville Centre 12.4.09 (add'l article);
BA.org Assignment Record and Other Info
******************
City of Angels interviewed Richard Tollner for a 2007 story:
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Giuliani hired the pedophile priest who crafted Church defense of pedophile priests, while a New York pedophile priest predator himself
*****
By Kay Ebeling
How did a predator pedophile priest end up as legal counsel at a center for pedophile priests, crafting Catholic legal strategies for pedophile priests at the same time as he was committing sex crimes against minors himself? Today that same Monsignor Alan Placa is close advisor to Rudy Giuliani who is running for President of the United States.
AND HERE:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Giuliani as president would mean advisors like Alan Placa, the pedophile priest/attorney who created Church policy for pedophile priests
*****
By Kay Ebeling
A New York grand jury ends its report on Alan Placa, pedophile priest, with these words: “Ironically, Priest F would later become instrumental in development of Diocesan policy in response to allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests.” Irony? More like criminal conspiracy. Below are more quotes from Suffolk County about Placa, who today whispers in Rudy Giuliani’s ear, plus an interview with Richard Tollner, one of Placa’s more vocal accusers. ...
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Blog produced by Kay Ebeling, Hollywood, California
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Sorry to rush this post out, folks, gotta get back to my job on Scream Queens Season Two oh, and also, am working Donald Trump's new show. Imagine what City of Angels could do with a budget where I could drop one of my other jobs, travel to do these stories in person with video, and do City of Angels full time...
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Showing posts with label pedophile priests Catholic Church bishop felons sex crimes children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pedophile priests Catholic Church bishop felons sex crimes children. Show all posts
Monday, December 07, 2009
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
The Franciscan grabbed the freshman by the testicles and instructed the boy to cough as if it were a hernia exam. Just another day of Seminary Life.
.
Franciscan friars with no medical training tested boys for "undescended testacles" at St. Anthony's high school seminary in the 1960s and '70s, as revealed in a new lawsuit filed in Santa Barbara last month and reported here in Part 4 of the Santa Barbara Story November 2009 here at City of Angels. Soon after the testicle exam, an assault by a group of unruly Franciscan friars fills out the plaintiff's first year of high school, apparently just another part of life at the seminary.
The legal documents in pedophile priest rape episodes again speak for themselves. Here are more direct quotes from: First Amended Complaint for Damages and Relief, Case Number 1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court November 3, 2009.
Assault During a Physical Exam in the School Infirmary, from First Amended Complaint Case #1338070: "Although initially thrilled to be so far away from his abusive home, the situation for Plaintiff at St. Anthony’s degenerated quickly. Specifically, within a month or two of school starting Plaintiff was called to the infirmary. Upon arriving Plaintiff observed notorious perpetrator Father Robert Van Handel sitting near an infirmary bed, along with another Franciscan he did not recognize. Van Handel then informed Plaintiff he was there 'for a check-up.'
"Unbeknownst to Plaintiff, this was a fraudulent misrepresentation as the Franciscans have never had any agents qualified to conduct medical exams, much less any such agents assigned to St. Anthony’s [seminary in Santa Barbara]. To the contrary, when a serious medical problem arose with a student, the Franciscans either called Paul Munch MD, or took the ill student to the hospital.
"Unfortunately Plaintiff had no knowledge of this fraud as the Franciscans had never notified law enforcement, parents or the community that physical exams of students by men with no medical training had been approved by the Franciscans almost two decades earlier, and had been utilized to abuse numerous students since then. Plaintiff also had been raised to trust priests and follow their every instruction."
Because these stories seem unbelievable, I asked Tim Hale, the Santa Barbara attorney who authored the briefs, how he came up with the details in these cases, as reported here November 23, 2009 Hale said: "Everything alleged in the amended complaints is supported by admissible evidence assembled from investigation and discovery conducted during the last eleven years of litigation involving the Franciscans." Hale works for Nye Peabody Stirling & Hale law firm in Santa Barbara.
****************
The second Franciscan told Plaintiff where to stand and to drop his pants, Plaintiff complied without question. The man then approached Plaintiff, grabbed his (Plaintiff’s) testicles, and instructed Plaintiff to turn his head to cough as if he was conducting some sort of hernia exam.
**********************
More direct quotes from Santa Barbara Case #1338070:
Consequently, Plaintiff believed Van Handel’s fraudulent misrepresentation, and when the second Franciscan told Plaintiff where to stand and to drop his pants, Plaintiff complied without question. The man then approached Plaintiff, grabbed his (Plaintiff’s) testicles, and instructed Plaintiff to turn his head to cough as if he was conducting some sort of hernia exam. This ploy was utilized repeatedly during sexual assaults by Father Cimmarrusti, the abuser of at least twenty-three (23) St. Anthony’s students in the 1960s.
The Franciscan then told Plaintiff he had to perform another purported test, and without any further explanation instructed Plaintiff to bend over the infirmary bed. When Plaintiff again complied without question, the Franciscan proceeded to digitally penetrate the shocked boy rectally.
When the supposed exam was finished Plaintiff felt embarrassed and ashamed, and confused as to why he felt this way. However, he still gave no thought to questioning the Franciscan as, in Plaintiff’s mind at that time, Catholic priests were incapable of any wrongful conduct and were beyond reproach.
**************
The Assault by Dave Johnson
********************
First Amended Complaint Case #1338070 Continued:
Also during his first semester at St. Anthony’s Plaintiff was subjected to another sexual assault by two Franciscans, then religious brother and future priest, Dave Johnson and one other Franciscan who Plaintiff was unable to identify other than by his garb. However, there was no "check-up" charade this time. Instead it was a physically violent and terrifying assault involving Johnson’s forcible rape of Plaintiff with a foreign object.
Plaintiff was walking down the hall one evening after dinner having just finished kitchen duty. Another student told him he needed to go to Johnson’s office, and Plaintiff did so without question, knocking on the closed office door. Johnson told him to come in and immediately instructed Plaintiff to take all his clothes off and get down on his knees.
Shocked at the instruction and sensing something was horribly wrong, Plaintiff panicked and began crying. Johnson then angrily said something to the effect of "I told you to take your clothes/pants off," walked behind Plaintiff and violently tackled or pushed Plaintiff into the ground, simultaneously grabbing Plaintiff’s hair and shoving Plaintiff’s face into the carpet.
**************
Utterly panicked and terrified, Plaintiff continued crying, struggled, to no avail.
***********************
SB Case #1338070 continued:
The door then opened and two more people entered, an adult dressed in Franciscan garb, and a student. However, he did not get a good look at them as Johnson was straddling his upper back. Plaintiff heard the door being closed immediately after they entered, heard Johnson say "grab his pants," and then felt hands pulling his pants off. To Plaintiff’s horror, he then heard Johnson say "and the underwear."
Utterly panicked and terrified Plaintiff continued crying, struggled to no avail, and began pleading with Johnson "please don’t do this, what did I do?" Now naked from the waist down, and feeling as if someone was lying on him at a 45 degree angle holding him on the ground so that his bare buttocks were exposed, Plaintiff heard Johnson yelling at him, saying "now it is my turn."
Plaintiff then began to feel something that felt like a big wooden stick first being poked and prodded between his buttocks, and then being pushed against his anus. Plaintiff now recalls at this point going into another state of mind, dissociating himself from the violent sexual assault. He prayed to God not to let this happen, while hearing himself crying and sobbing, and still pleading with Johnson to stop. As the assault continued Plaintiff stopped struggling and submitted, having learned from past experiences that this was sometimes the best way of ending an assault.
Plaintiff may have blacked out and recalls regaining a semblance of consciousness or awareness of the sound of Johnson and at least one other person in the room laughing. He felt people get off of his now limp body, and then either stood or was pulled up and pulled his pants up. He recalls seeing the student standing in the corner with a coat rack that may have been the foreign object used by Johnson during the assault. He also saw the second man standing over him, and recognizing the man was wearing the brown robes worn by Franciscans.
Johnson then told Plaintiff to keep his mouth shut about the assault or he would make matters worse. Plaintiff fled the room.
*******************
The Assault by Gus Krumm
***************************
Case #1338070 continued:
Unfortunately, as the school year came to a close yet another notorious perpetrator and faculty member, then religious brother and future priest Gus Krumm, inflicted another violent sexual assault on Plaintiff. Specifically, one night as Plaintiff walked down a seminary hallway he passed by Krumm’s office and heard what sounded like grunts or groans coming from inside.
As the front office door was open, Plaintiff entered and asked if everything was ok. Krumm emerged from his bedroom shortly thereafter; Krumm appeared to be sweating and smelled bad, and looked disheveled wearing only Corduroy shorts and a gray t-shirt. Krumm angrily asked what Plaintiff was doing in his office, and Plaintiff explained he had heard strange noises and thought someone needed help.
This enraged Krumm who proceeded to grab Plaintiff, spin him around, and drive Plaintiff forcefully into the office wall. Krumm then pinned Plaintiff from behind to the point the boy could not move, pushing Plaintiff’s face against the wall.
Krumm then began thrusting his groin against Plaintiff’s buttocks, placed his mouth next to Plaintiff’s ear, and reached around and grabbed the terrified and immobilized boy’s genitals, squeezing them tightly to the point Plaintiff was in so much pain he began to cry. Eventually Krumm said something to the effect of "you didn’t see anything here, you didn’t hear anything, and you’re not wanted. And you’re probably not coming back." Plaintiff was so terrified and in such pain he agreed immediately. Krumm then released Plaintiff’s genitals and shoved the still crying boy out of the office.
********************
‘You didn't see anything here, you didn't hear anything here, and you're not wanted.’
*******************************
First Amended Complaint Case #1338070 Continued:
10.1 The sexual abuse and exploitation of Plaintiff and the circumstances under which it occurred caused Plaintiff to develop various psychological coping mechanisms which reasonably made him incapable of ascertaining the resulting damages from that conduct. Within three years of filing his lawsuit, Plaintiff discovered or reasonably should have discovered that psychological injury or illness occurring after the age of majority was caused by the sexual abuse.
When Plaintiff first arrived at St. Anthony’s he felt tremendously relieved to be away from his abusive home-life. Catholic schools and parishes had long been his sanctuary, and St. Anthony’s felt particularly safe as it was located far away from his stepfather in another state. As a result, his initial sense of relief was overwhelming, almost to the point of euphoria.
The Perpetrators, acting as managing agents of the Defendants, utilized the trust and reverence inherent in their status as a Franciscans to isolate and abuse Plaintiff.
Plaintiff was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family that idolized priests, was taught by Defendants to trust, revere and obey priests as God’s representatives on earth, and had long viewed priests as the caretakers of his sanctuary from an abusive home-life. The Perpetrators exploited Plaintiff’s hope of having been rescued from his abusive home-life and also utilized Plaintiff’s trust and resulting vulnerability and deference to priests to manipulate Plaintiff, who was approximately fourteen (14) and fifteen (15) years of age during the period of abuse.
One of the manipulations resulted in Plaintiff’s abuse in the infirmary during the purported physical exam. When Plaintiff was instructed to go to the infirmary he did as he was told. Once there, Father Van Handel fraudulently informed Plaintiff before the assault that Plaintiff was there for a "check-up" to be performed by the Perpetrator. The Perpetrator then fraudulently informed Plaintiff he had to conduct a "test" on Plaintiff.
********************
This check-up, what on its face appeared to be a legitimate medical purpose, performed by a perpetrator.
***********************************
This use of what on its face appeared to be a legitimate medical purpose, while in the school infirmary, coupled with Van Handel’s and the Perpetrator’s trusted status as Franciscans, inhibited Plaintiff’s awareness of the wrongfulness of this conduct until recently. Van Handel and the Perpetrator thus exploited Plaintiff’s having been raised in the Catholic church, as well as Plaintiff’s desperate need to feel he was finally safe, and fraudulently induced Plaintiff to believe he had been called to the infirmary for a legitimate medical purpose.
Consequently, while sensing something was wrong Plaintiff could not comprehend why he felt ashamed and embarrassed after the supposed exams, and was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct until recently, within the last three years. Specifically, it was not until after he began recovering his memories of the abuse by Johnson and Krumm that he first sought out and read other accounts of St. Anthony’s students who were sexually abused.
It was during this time that he first learned that many students had been abused during fraudulent physical examinations conducted by Franciscan perpetrators. Only after reading these accounts did he begin to suspect Van Handel’s and the Perpetrator’s statements were fraudulent, and had been utilized by the two Franciscans to make him vulnerable to the abuse by the Perpetrator. Until then, Van Handel’s and the Perpetrator’s fraud, coupled with Plaintiff’s inherent trust in the words of the priests and his desperate need to believe he was finally somewhere safe, resulted in psychological blocking mechanisms that prevented Plaintiff from facing and realizing the Perpetrator’s conduct in the infirmary was wrongful and had caused him injury.
**************
In the lawsuit here is the story of going to O’Brien in Phoenix to report these crimes in Santa Barbara, reported in City of Angels in The Phoenix Connection here
************************
[For Plaintiff] Countless days of extreme introversion and walking around in silence, emotionally shut down and unable to face the reality of his life, would follow. It was not until July of 2006 that Plaintiff began to recover the repressed St. Anthony’s memories sometime after an unexpected encounter with Johnson, or at least a man who looked like Johnson. In the weeks that followed that encounter Plaintiff suffered through numerous inexplicable sleepless nights.
Finally, after one particularly fitful night of disturbing dreams, Plaintiff awoke to the shocking realization he had begun recovering memories of the abuse by Johnson and Krumm. And it was not until sometime after he began recovering these memories that Plaintiff first realized the abuse had caused him injury. He also began for the first time to understand his own feelings surrounding the abuse, how the abuse has affected him, and how it continues to affect him.
Plaintiff’s repression also rendered him unable to recognize the wrongfulness of Johnson’s and Krumm’s conduct, and further resulted in Plaintiff internalizing feelings of shame, self-blame, and self-loathing. Blocking out and dissociating from those feelings rendered Plaintiff unable to perceive the injuries he suffered from the abusive conduct and its effect on his life.
11. As a direct result of the wrongful conduct alleged herein, Plaintiff has suffered, and continues to suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life; has suffered and continue to suffer spiritually; was prevented and will continue to be prevented from performing Plaintiff’s daily activities and obtaining the full enjoyment of life; has sustained and continue to sustain loss of earnings and earning capacity; and/or has incurred and will continue to incur expenses for medical and psychological treatment, therapy, and counseling.
*****************
Defendants continue to conspire
*********************
12. Plaintiff incorporates all paragraphs of this First Amended Complaint as if fully set forth herein.
13. Defendants continue to conspire and engage in efforts to:
1) conceal from the general public the sexual assaults committed by, the identities of, and the pedophilic/ephebophilic tendencies of, the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic agents;
2) attack the credibility of the victims of the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic agents;
3) protect the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic current and former agents from criminal prosecution and registration as sex offenders for their sexual assaults against children; and
4) exploit and abuse the protection for religious freedom provided by the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the purpose of escaping their obligation to report childhood sexual abuse under California Penal Code section 11166, all in violation of law.
14. The negligence and/or deception and concealment by Defendants was and is injurious to the health of, indecent or offensive to the senses of, and an obstruction to the free use of property by, the general public, including but not limited to residents of the County of Santa Barbara and all other members of the general public who live in communities where
****************
Defendants’ conduct has caused further injury to the public and severely impaired the safety of children
**************************
Defendants conducted, and continue to conduct, their work and/or ministry, and was and is indecent and offensive to the senses, so as to interfere with the general public’s comfortable enjoyment of life in that children cannot be left unsupervised in any location where Defendants’ agents are present as the general public cannot trust Defendants to prohibit their pedophilic agents from supervising, caring for, or having any contact with children, nor to warn parents of the presence of the pedophilic agents of Defendants, nor to identify their pedophilic agents, nor to identify and/or report to law enforcement their agents accused of childhood sexual abuse, thus creating an impairment of the safety of children in the neighborhoods where Defendants conducted, and continue to conduct, their work and/or ministries.
Defendants’ conduct has caused further injury to the public and severely impaired the safety of children where Defendants have protected and concealed the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic agents from criminal prosecution and registration as sex offenders for their sexual assaults, where the Perpetrators and/or Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic agents subsequently have left Defendants’ employ, and where Defendants have disavowed any responsibility for the Perpetrators and/or Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic former agents despite the fact Defendants facilitated these former agents’ avoiding criminal prosecution and having to register as sex offenders. As a result of Defendants’ conduct, when Defendants’ former agents have sought employment placing them in positions of trust with children, Defendants are the only ones aware of the risk posed by these former agents, and potential employers, childcare custodians, and parents have no means of identifying the risk to their children posed by such men. Today’s children continue to be put at risk and abused under these circumstances by Defendants’ former agents, at least as recently as 2007.
15. The negligence and/or deception and concealment by Defendants was specially injurious to Plaintiff’s health as he and his family were unaware of the danger posed to children left unsupervised with agents of Defendants, and as a result of this deception, Plaintiff was placed in the custody and control of the Perpetrators, agents of Defendants, who subsequently sexually assaulted Plaintiff.
16. The continuing public nuisance created by Defendants was, and continues to be, the proximate cause of the injuries and damages to the general public alleged in paragraph 14, and of Plaintiff’s special injuries and damages as alleged in paragraph 15.
17. In doing the aforementioned acts, Defendants acted negligently and/or intentionally, maliciously and with conscious disregard for Plaintiff’s rights.
18. As a result of the above-described conduct, Plaintiff has suffered, and continues to suffer special injury in that they suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life; has suffered and continues to suffer spiritually; was prevented and will continue to be prevented from performing Plaintiff’s daily activities and obtaining the full enjoyment of life; has sustained and will continue to sustain loss of earnings and earning capacity; and/or has incurred and will continue to incur expenses for medical and psychological treatment, therapy, and counseling.
The Current Santa Barbara Series:
Part 1 is here
Part 2 is here
Part 3 is here
************
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***********************
-Blog produced by Kay Ebeling
Franciscan friars with no medical training tested boys for "undescended testacles" at St. Anthony's high school seminary in the 1960s and '70s, as revealed in a new lawsuit filed in Santa Barbara last month and reported here in Part 4 of the Santa Barbara Story November 2009 here at City of Angels. Soon after the testicle exam, an assault by a group of unruly Franciscan friars fills out the plaintiff's first year of high school, apparently just another part of life at the seminary.
The legal documents in pedophile priest rape episodes again speak for themselves. Here are more direct quotes from: First Amended Complaint for Damages and Relief, Case Number 1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court November 3, 2009.
Assault During a Physical Exam in the School Infirmary, from First Amended Complaint Case #1338070: "Although initially thrilled to be so far away from his abusive home, the situation for Plaintiff at St. Anthony’s degenerated quickly. Specifically, within a month or two of school starting Plaintiff was called to the infirmary. Upon arriving Plaintiff observed notorious perpetrator Father Robert Van Handel sitting near an infirmary bed, along with another Franciscan he did not recognize. Van Handel then informed Plaintiff he was there 'for a check-up.'
"Unbeknownst to Plaintiff, this was a fraudulent misrepresentation as the Franciscans have never had any agents qualified to conduct medical exams, much less any such agents assigned to St. Anthony’s [seminary in Santa Barbara]. To the contrary, when a serious medical problem arose with a student, the Franciscans either called Paul Munch MD, or took the ill student to the hospital.
"Unfortunately Plaintiff had no knowledge of this fraud as the Franciscans had never notified law enforcement, parents or the community that physical exams of students by men with no medical training had been approved by the Franciscans almost two decades earlier, and had been utilized to abuse numerous students since then. Plaintiff also had been raised to trust priests and follow their every instruction."
Because these stories seem unbelievable, I asked Tim Hale, the Santa Barbara attorney who authored the briefs, how he came up with the details in these cases, as reported here November 23, 2009 Hale said: "Everything alleged in the amended complaints is supported by admissible evidence assembled from investigation and discovery conducted during the last eleven years of litigation involving the Franciscans." Hale works for Nye Peabody Stirling & Hale law firm in Santa Barbara.
****************
The second Franciscan told Plaintiff where to stand and to drop his pants, Plaintiff complied without question. The man then approached Plaintiff, grabbed his (Plaintiff’s) testicles, and instructed Plaintiff to turn his head to cough as if he was conducting some sort of hernia exam.
**********************
More direct quotes from Santa Barbara Case #1338070:
Consequently, Plaintiff believed Van Handel’s fraudulent misrepresentation, and when the second Franciscan told Plaintiff where to stand and to drop his pants, Plaintiff complied without question. The man then approached Plaintiff, grabbed his (Plaintiff’s) testicles, and instructed Plaintiff to turn his head to cough as if he was conducting some sort of hernia exam. This ploy was utilized repeatedly during sexual assaults by Father Cimmarrusti, the abuser of at least twenty-three (23) St. Anthony’s students in the 1960s.
The Franciscan then told Plaintiff he had to perform another purported test, and without any further explanation instructed Plaintiff to bend over the infirmary bed. When Plaintiff again complied without question, the Franciscan proceeded to digitally penetrate the shocked boy rectally.
When the supposed exam was finished Plaintiff felt embarrassed and ashamed, and confused as to why he felt this way. However, he still gave no thought to questioning the Franciscan as, in Plaintiff’s mind at that time, Catholic priests were incapable of any wrongful conduct and were beyond reproach.
**************
The Assault by Dave Johnson
********************
First Amended Complaint Case #1338070 Continued:
Also during his first semester at St. Anthony’s Plaintiff was subjected to another sexual assault by two Franciscans, then religious brother and future priest, Dave Johnson and one other Franciscan who Plaintiff was unable to identify other than by his garb. However, there was no "check-up" charade this time. Instead it was a physically violent and terrifying assault involving Johnson’s forcible rape of Plaintiff with a foreign object.
Plaintiff was walking down the hall one evening after dinner having just finished kitchen duty. Another student told him he needed to go to Johnson’s office, and Plaintiff did so without question, knocking on the closed office door. Johnson told him to come in and immediately instructed Plaintiff to take all his clothes off and get down on his knees.
Shocked at the instruction and sensing something was horribly wrong, Plaintiff panicked and began crying. Johnson then angrily said something to the effect of "I told you to take your clothes/pants off," walked behind Plaintiff and violently tackled or pushed Plaintiff into the ground, simultaneously grabbing Plaintiff’s hair and shoving Plaintiff’s face into the carpet.
**************
Utterly panicked and terrified, Plaintiff continued crying, struggled, to no avail.
***********************
SB Case #1338070 continued:
The door then opened and two more people entered, an adult dressed in Franciscan garb, and a student. However, he did not get a good look at them as Johnson was straddling his upper back. Plaintiff heard the door being closed immediately after they entered, heard Johnson say "grab his pants," and then felt hands pulling his pants off. To Plaintiff’s horror, he then heard Johnson say "and the underwear."
Utterly panicked and terrified Plaintiff continued crying, struggled to no avail, and began pleading with Johnson "please don’t do this, what did I do?" Now naked from the waist down, and feeling as if someone was lying on him at a 45 degree angle holding him on the ground so that his bare buttocks were exposed, Plaintiff heard Johnson yelling at him, saying "now it is my turn."
Plaintiff then began to feel something that felt like a big wooden stick first being poked and prodded between his buttocks, and then being pushed against his anus. Plaintiff now recalls at this point going into another state of mind, dissociating himself from the violent sexual assault. He prayed to God not to let this happen, while hearing himself crying and sobbing, and still pleading with Johnson to stop. As the assault continued Plaintiff stopped struggling and submitted, having learned from past experiences that this was sometimes the best way of ending an assault.
Plaintiff may have blacked out and recalls regaining a semblance of consciousness or awareness of the sound of Johnson and at least one other person in the room laughing. He felt people get off of his now limp body, and then either stood or was pulled up and pulled his pants up. He recalls seeing the student standing in the corner with a coat rack that may have been the foreign object used by Johnson during the assault. He also saw the second man standing over him, and recognizing the man was wearing the brown robes worn by Franciscans.
Johnson then told Plaintiff to keep his mouth shut about the assault or he would make matters worse. Plaintiff fled the room.
*******************
The Assault by Gus Krumm
***************************
Case #1338070 continued:
Unfortunately, as the school year came to a close yet another notorious perpetrator and faculty member, then religious brother and future priest Gus Krumm, inflicted another violent sexual assault on Plaintiff. Specifically, one night as Plaintiff walked down a seminary hallway he passed by Krumm’s office and heard what sounded like grunts or groans coming from inside.
As the front office door was open, Plaintiff entered and asked if everything was ok. Krumm emerged from his bedroom shortly thereafter; Krumm appeared to be sweating and smelled bad, and looked disheveled wearing only Corduroy shorts and a gray t-shirt. Krumm angrily asked what Plaintiff was doing in his office, and Plaintiff explained he had heard strange noises and thought someone needed help.
This enraged Krumm who proceeded to grab Plaintiff, spin him around, and drive Plaintiff forcefully into the office wall. Krumm then pinned Plaintiff from behind to the point the boy could not move, pushing Plaintiff’s face against the wall.
Krumm then began thrusting his groin against Plaintiff’s buttocks, placed his mouth next to Plaintiff’s ear, and reached around and grabbed the terrified and immobilized boy’s genitals, squeezing them tightly to the point Plaintiff was in so much pain he began to cry. Eventually Krumm said something to the effect of "you didn’t see anything here, you didn’t hear anything, and you’re not wanted. And you’re probably not coming back." Plaintiff was so terrified and in such pain he agreed immediately. Krumm then released Plaintiff’s genitals and shoved the still crying boy out of the office.
********************
‘You didn't see anything here, you didn't hear anything here, and you're not wanted.’
*******************************
First Amended Complaint Case #1338070 Continued:
10.1 The sexual abuse and exploitation of Plaintiff and the circumstances under which it occurred caused Plaintiff to develop various psychological coping mechanisms which reasonably made him incapable of ascertaining the resulting damages from that conduct. Within three years of filing his lawsuit, Plaintiff discovered or reasonably should have discovered that psychological injury or illness occurring after the age of majority was caused by the sexual abuse.
When Plaintiff first arrived at St. Anthony’s he felt tremendously relieved to be away from his abusive home-life. Catholic schools and parishes had long been his sanctuary, and St. Anthony’s felt particularly safe as it was located far away from his stepfather in another state. As a result, his initial sense of relief was overwhelming, almost to the point of euphoria.
The Perpetrators, acting as managing agents of the Defendants, utilized the trust and reverence inherent in their status as a Franciscans to isolate and abuse Plaintiff.
Plaintiff was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family that idolized priests, was taught by Defendants to trust, revere and obey priests as God’s representatives on earth, and had long viewed priests as the caretakers of his sanctuary from an abusive home-life. The Perpetrators exploited Plaintiff’s hope of having been rescued from his abusive home-life and also utilized Plaintiff’s trust and resulting vulnerability and deference to priests to manipulate Plaintiff, who was approximately fourteen (14) and fifteen (15) years of age during the period of abuse.
One of the manipulations resulted in Plaintiff’s abuse in the infirmary during the purported physical exam. When Plaintiff was instructed to go to the infirmary he did as he was told. Once there, Father Van Handel fraudulently informed Plaintiff before the assault that Plaintiff was there for a "check-up" to be performed by the Perpetrator. The Perpetrator then fraudulently informed Plaintiff he had to conduct a "test" on Plaintiff.
********************
This check-up, what on its face appeared to be a legitimate medical purpose, performed by a perpetrator.
***********************************
This use of what on its face appeared to be a legitimate medical purpose, while in the school infirmary, coupled with Van Handel’s and the Perpetrator’s trusted status as Franciscans, inhibited Plaintiff’s awareness of the wrongfulness of this conduct until recently. Van Handel and the Perpetrator thus exploited Plaintiff’s having been raised in the Catholic church, as well as Plaintiff’s desperate need to feel he was finally safe, and fraudulently induced Plaintiff to believe he had been called to the infirmary for a legitimate medical purpose.
Consequently, while sensing something was wrong Plaintiff could not comprehend why he felt ashamed and embarrassed after the supposed exams, and was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct until recently, within the last three years. Specifically, it was not until after he began recovering his memories of the abuse by Johnson and Krumm that he first sought out and read other accounts of St. Anthony’s students who were sexually abused.
It was during this time that he first learned that many students had been abused during fraudulent physical examinations conducted by Franciscan perpetrators. Only after reading these accounts did he begin to suspect Van Handel’s and the Perpetrator’s statements were fraudulent, and had been utilized by the two Franciscans to make him vulnerable to the abuse by the Perpetrator. Until then, Van Handel’s and the Perpetrator’s fraud, coupled with Plaintiff’s inherent trust in the words of the priests and his desperate need to believe he was finally somewhere safe, resulted in psychological blocking mechanisms that prevented Plaintiff from facing and realizing the Perpetrator’s conduct in the infirmary was wrongful and had caused him injury.
**************
In the lawsuit here is the story of going to O’Brien in Phoenix to report these crimes in Santa Barbara, reported in City of Angels in The Phoenix Connection here
************************
[For Plaintiff] Countless days of extreme introversion and walking around in silence, emotionally shut down and unable to face the reality of his life, would follow. It was not until July of 2006 that Plaintiff began to recover the repressed St. Anthony’s memories sometime after an unexpected encounter with Johnson, or at least a man who looked like Johnson. In the weeks that followed that encounter Plaintiff suffered through numerous inexplicable sleepless nights.
Finally, after one particularly fitful night of disturbing dreams, Plaintiff awoke to the shocking realization he had begun recovering memories of the abuse by Johnson and Krumm. And it was not until sometime after he began recovering these memories that Plaintiff first realized the abuse had caused him injury. He also began for the first time to understand his own feelings surrounding the abuse, how the abuse has affected him, and how it continues to affect him.
Plaintiff’s repression also rendered him unable to recognize the wrongfulness of Johnson’s and Krumm’s conduct, and further resulted in Plaintiff internalizing feelings of shame, self-blame, and self-loathing. Blocking out and dissociating from those feelings rendered Plaintiff unable to perceive the injuries he suffered from the abusive conduct and its effect on his life.
11. As a direct result of the wrongful conduct alleged herein, Plaintiff has suffered, and continues to suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life; has suffered and continue to suffer spiritually; was prevented and will continue to be prevented from performing Plaintiff’s daily activities and obtaining the full enjoyment of life; has sustained and continue to sustain loss of earnings and earning capacity; and/or has incurred and will continue to incur expenses for medical and psychological treatment, therapy, and counseling.
*****************
Defendants continue to conspire
*********************
12. Plaintiff incorporates all paragraphs of this First Amended Complaint as if fully set forth herein.
13. Defendants continue to conspire and engage in efforts to:
1) conceal from the general public the sexual assaults committed by, the identities of, and the pedophilic/ephebophilic tendencies of, the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic agents;
2) attack the credibility of the victims of the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic agents;
3) protect the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic current and former agents from criminal prosecution and registration as sex offenders for their sexual assaults against children; and
4) exploit and abuse the protection for religious freedom provided by the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the purpose of escaping their obligation to report childhood sexual abuse under California Penal Code section 11166, all in violation of law.
14. The negligence and/or deception and concealment by Defendants was and is injurious to the health of, indecent or offensive to the senses of, and an obstruction to the free use of property by, the general public, including but not limited to residents of the County of Santa Barbara and all other members of the general public who live in communities where
****************
Defendants’ conduct has caused further injury to the public and severely impaired the safety of children
**************************
Defendants conducted, and continue to conduct, their work and/or ministry, and was and is indecent and offensive to the senses, so as to interfere with the general public’s comfortable enjoyment of life in that children cannot be left unsupervised in any location where Defendants’ agents are present as the general public cannot trust Defendants to prohibit their pedophilic agents from supervising, caring for, or having any contact with children, nor to warn parents of the presence of the pedophilic agents of Defendants, nor to identify their pedophilic agents, nor to identify and/or report to law enforcement their agents accused of childhood sexual abuse, thus creating an impairment of the safety of children in the neighborhoods where Defendants conducted, and continue to conduct, their work and/or ministries.
Defendants’ conduct has caused further injury to the public and severely impaired the safety of children where Defendants have protected and concealed the Perpetrators and Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic agents from criminal prosecution and registration as sex offenders for their sexual assaults, where the Perpetrators and/or Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic agents subsequently have left Defendants’ employ, and where Defendants have disavowed any responsibility for the Perpetrators and/or Defendants’ other pedophilic/ephebophilic former agents despite the fact Defendants facilitated these former agents’ avoiding criminal prosecution and having to register as sex offenders. As a result of Defendants’ conduct, when Defendants’ former agents have sought employment placing them in positions of trust with children, Defendants are the only ones aware of the risk posed by these former agents, and potential employers, childcare custodians, and parents have no means of identifying the risk to their children posed by such men. Today’s children continue to be put at risk and abused under these circumstances by Defendants’ former agents, at least as recently as 2007.
15. The negligence and/or deception and concealment by Defendants was specially injurious to Plaintiff’s health as he and his family were unaware of the danger posed to children left unsupervised with agents of Defendants, and as a result of this deception, Plaintiff was placed in the custody and control of the Perpetrators, agents of Defendants, who subsequently sexually assaulted Plaintiff.
16. The continuing public nuisance created by Defendants was, and continues to be, the proximate cause of the injuries and damages to the general public alleged in paragraph 14, and of Plaintiff’s special injuries and damages as alleged in paragraph 15.
17. In doing the aforementioned acts, Defendants acted negligently and/or intentionally, maliciously and with conscious disregard for Plaintiff’s rights.
18. As a result of the above-described conduct, Plaintiff has suffered, and continues to suffer special injury in that they suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life; has suffered and continues to suffer spiritually; was prevented and will continue to be prevented from performing Plaintiff’s daily activities and obtaining the full enjoyment of life; has sustained and will continue to sustain loss of earnings and earning capacity; and/or has incurred and will continue to incur expenses for medical and psychological treatment, therapy, and counseling.
The Current Santa Barbara Series:
Part 1 is here
Part 2 is here
Part 3 is here
************
Don't Forget the PayPal High Five Campaign. Support City of Angels by sending us $5 or more every now and then using the Donate buttons on the left. After each post we pass the hat through PayPal, that's how it works...
***********************
-Blog produced by Kay Ebeling
Storm the Vatican April 2010. Also, Money for therapy comes from plaintiffs not Church, and Santa Barbara Story Part 3
.
By Kay Ebeling
Medical Exams of freshmen by Friars for "undescended testicles"
Part 3 of the Santa Barbara Story, is below. Also we are running reruns from last week for clarification. Some readers balked and misunderstood about the therapy funds available for victims announced here a few days ago. It is Not money that comes from the Church, the funds come from plaintiffs in the Santa Barbara 2006 settlements. They donated and created a trust fund for other victims who need therapy. Also, the Ash Wednesday 2010 Day of Silence announced a few days ago here is to raise funds for people in Canada who are going to Rome to "storm the Vatican" in April 2010. Both stories are rerun below for clarification, but first, from Santa Barbara.
The author of City of Angels is slammed at work, had planned to write an evocative drama based on these Santa Barbara court documents, but I have to work overtime all this week on my "real" job. So instead here at City of Angels we are copy and pasting from the legal documents, exactly as filed: I am not making this stuff up. The following, except for occasional offset comments by CityofA, all the way to the line of asterisks (***) is direct quotes from: First Amended Complaint for Damages and Relief, Case Number 1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court November 3, 2009.
As to Gus Krumm, long before the Franciscans assigned him to St. Anthony’s Seminary he and another notorious Franciscan perpetrator, Father Philip Wolfe, contracted the sexually transmitted disease known as "crabs" while doing field work as novices (training to become Franciscans). The source of the crabs were adolescent boys Wolfe and Krumm encountered who, according to Krumm, were willing to do anything for money.
And according to Krumm, Wolfe contracted not only crabs but other sexually transmitted diseases from these adolescent boys, prompting Wolfe’s and Krumm’s novice master (also a Franciscan) to lecture both men angrily and repeatedly with regards to the sexual promiscuity with these boys that resulted in Wolfe and Krumm contracting crabs.
At Right,
Gus Krumm, looking like a hot dude
Complaint Document Continued:
Thus, long before the Franciscans hired Krumm and Wolfe and assigned them to work at St. Anthony’s, the Franciscans knew both Perpetrators had been sexually involved with adolescent boys. Despite this knowledge the Franciscans assigned both Perpetrators to work with adolescent boys, including Craig (Plaintiff), doing nothing to stop the contact or to warn Craig.
************
Medical Exams: The Friar Tucks Up Your Scrotum
Part of the Freshman Experience at St. Anthony's Seminary, Santa Barbara
************
Case #1338070 Complaint, cont'd:
Finally, with regards to physical examinations of students, during either the 1964-65 or 1965-66 school year, the Franciscans not only authorized such examinations but authorized them by Father Mario Cimmarrusti –a man with no medical training who was one of the most prolific Franciscan perpetrators in the history of this scandal.
Cimmarrusti had expressed "concern" during a faculty meeting that some students appeared not to be developing normally, and had undescended testicles.
No Franciscan questioned how Cimmarrusti gained such knowledge.
Cimmarrusti then told the faculty, including Fr. Xavier Harris, that other signs a student was not developing normally included undeveloped sexual organs, lack of pubic hair, softness or femininity, or no changes to a student’s voice. He then proposed a program to the faculty wherein he would perform an initial assessment of freshmen students to determine if they were exhibiting any of these so called signs.
Despite the fact Cimmarrusti had no medical training, the fact the rector (who had worked at other high schools prior to St. Anthony’s) had never heard of such a program, and the fact St. Anthony’s applicants were required to submit proof of a complete physical exam by an actual physician, the St. Anthony’s Franciscan faculty, including rector Father Xavier Harris, approved this program.
At Left, Krumm and Cimmarrusti, from Google Images, from Santa Barbara News-Press
Complaint Document continued:
Even worse, they approved the program without any understanding as to how Cimmarrusti would perform these so-called "assessments." The Franciscans’ uninformed consent in this regard was especially egregious given that the initial assessment proposed by Cimmarrusti included factors which by necessity required assessing each student’s testicles and pubic hair.
*****************
Asseessing each freshman boy's teticles and pubic hair! By a friar with no medical training, just a later proved proclivity for little boys, See Maria Cimmarrusti in the database under C at bishopaccountability
*****************
Thus, Cimmarrusti’s Franciscan-sanctioned sexual assaults of new seminarians commenced, and by at least 1966 the Franciscans began receiving reports that Cimmarrusti was sexually abusing students during these supposed examinations.
A number of future Franciscan perpetrators – including Robert Van Handel, Dave Johnson and Gus Krumm – were St. Anthony’s students while Cimmarrusti was committing his Franciscan-sanctioned assaults. At least one of them – Van Handel – continued Cimmarrusti’s tradition and was present at the start of a similar assault against Craig fifteen years after the Franciscans first approved Cimmarrusti’s supposed program.
*****************
Only changes we made in document quotes above were to break it into smaller paragraphs for graphic purposes and adding first names, when the doc references names that had been given earlier.
THIS STORY IS NOT OVER
Part 4 will be posted by the end of this week.
Part 2 is here
Part 1 is here
Background:
PROOF: Santa Barbara was Dumping Ground for problem priests. PROOF: Franciscan sex crime ploys continue in 2009
.By Kay EbelingPart One: The bishop of San Diego used the words "dumping ground" in 1950 when he complained to Rome that too many problem priests were ending up in Banning, Beaumont and other towns in the developing region. By the 1960s the Franciscans had moved 26 priests from San Diego to Santa Barbara, where
AND
Monday, November 23, 2009
New sex crime ploy of Franciscans: Only take pedophilia reports in Confession then claim religious privilege: Plus a Phoenix-Santa Barbara connection
.By Kay Ebeling
Part 2: A parishioner walks into Sts. Simon and Jude Catholic Church in Orange County saying he wants to talk about a predator priest. He tells the Franciscan Father Michael Harvey he wants to discuss Gus Krumm. The parishioner barely gets the name Krumm out of his mouth when ...
2 Reruns,
as they need clarification as
Some people think the therapy announced below is being paid for by the Church. No this money comes out of the 2006 Santa Barbara plantiffs' settlements and wise investment. Last Friday this was buried in the middle of all the Irish stories being released:
Money is available for pedophile priest crime victims who need therapy, through Therapy Trust for Victims in Santa Barbara.
Ray Higgins called from Santa Barbara to say, "We have right now enough money in Therapy Trust for Victims' fund for nine or ten more persons to get therapy, so we're getting the word out nationally."
Priest sex crime victims in Santa Barbara pooled funds after receiving settlements in 2006 and created a trust to help other pedophile priest sex crime victims get therapy. Currently because of sound money management, the fund has money available for about nine more people to get an estimated two years of therapy. Contact Ray Higgins at: Therapy Trust for Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse therapytrust@cox.net for an application.
Therapy Trust for Victims still has money because it wrote financial sanity into its founding papers. Higgins told me, "The terms of the trust say we can only invest in FDIC insured accounts, not bonds or stocks or any risk investments."
*******************
The following is from the Trust, in their own words:
There are hundreds of victims of molestation by Roman Catholic clergy that have not been able to receive any therapy from the Church and have not received a monetary settlement. A vast majority of these are in dire need of therapy but are unable to afford it. Most have been so severely affected by what happened to them that they suffer from many ailments such as low self esteem, anxiety, paranoia, relationship problems, etc.
Many were never able to put their lives together enough to finish their education and therefore are limited to low paying jobs and long periods of unemployment. Some are unable to hold down a job and have been on welfare or unemployment for so long that they are no longer considered employable.
The purpose of this trust is to provide victims the help they need so that they can lead normal lives again. Although there are many needs, the trust feels that the most pressing need and the one that has the most potential for accomplishing that purpose is to pay for therapy for as many as possible.
Recognizing that there are many other needs, we feel that the limited funds available can be put to the best use by paying for therapy for as many as possible.
Our goal is to make the application and approval process as non intrusive as possible while at the same time assuring that the funds are used to the best advantage by those who receive them. Many have approached their respective dioceses in an attempt to obtain help, only to be re-victimized.
Some dioceses have stated that they have changed their policy and will provide therapy for victims who ask for it but most of those who have been re-victimized are afraid to approach their diocese because they had such a painful experience in the past.
AND ANOTHER RERUN:
Ash Wednesday Day of Silence is For:
Survivors of violence in Catholic institutions are uniting across borders to converge on Rome and the Vatican this April 2010.
To break the silence imposed on them, and the crimes of the church. Project starts with an International Day of Silence on Ash Wednesday February 17, 2010.
Remember this date:
Some Canadians are organizing an international project to stop religious terrorism and bring to justice the killers of children, and the project includes a Day of Silence Ash Wednesday February 17, 2010.
"The only reason I'm still alive is because I know people care about what happened to me, and will stand beside me when I face the ones who tortured me," says Bingo, survivor of Catholic Indian Residential Schools, Vancouver, Canada
Report from Canada: Survivors of violence in Catholic institutions are uniting across borders to converge on Rome and the Vatican this April 2010 to break the silence imposed on them, and the crimes of the church.
You can be of direct moral and practical help to these courageous men and women by taking a vow of silence on February 17, 2010 in order to stand in solidarity with them and all those who are silenced by churches and governments - and offer them material support.
The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD), a network of survivors of Christian Indian Residential Schools in Canada, and their allies in Italy, Ireland and the United States, are asking people of conscience everywhere to remain silent on that day and acquire pledges for their effort.
The funds raised from these sponsors will be used to pay the travel costs of survivors of Catholic Indian residential schools who will confront the Pope and Vatican officials in Rome during April of 2010.The FRD is asking seven things of the Vatican:
1. Repatriate for a proper burial the remains of all children who died in Catholic boarding schools, churches, orphanages and other institutions.
2. Surrender those responsible for these deaths and open the Vatican archives for inspection.
3. Revoke papal laws which condone and legitimate conquest, rape and murder, including the Romanus Pontifex (1455) and Inter Catera (1493).
4. Revoke the Vatican policy - established by the present Pope - of concealing evidence of violence against children in Catholic churches and of silencing the perpetrator and the victim.
5. Return all lands taken from indigenous people by the church.
6. Pay back to the victims all the wealth made for the church off the labor of children and others in Catholic institutions.
7. Appear before an international war crimes Tribunal to answer charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
A public vigil in memory of the children who died at the hands of the church, held outside the Vatican on October 11, has forced senior church officials to agree to meet with FRD representatives in April to discuss these demands.
Thus, your support during this crucial period leading up to April is especially needed.
Ash Wednesday is traditionally a time for repentance and transformation. Help us make this year the time when the church will actually repent from its crimes, be held accountable for mass murder, and stop violating the innocent.
Contact Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, at the address below.
contact Hidden From History by postal mail:
Kevin Annett
The Elders Council of the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared
c/o 260 Kennedy St.
Nanaimo, B.C. Canada V9R 2H8
You may also undergo the silence and then pledge your own donation to us. Make this day an important teaching moment for your friends and neighbours!Please contact us directly for how you can be of help, at 250-753-3345.
In memory of more than 50,000 children who died in Canadian Indian Residential Schools
******************
Read the original story: full story about the Hidden From History proect:
***************************
I'm off to work on Scream Queens Season Two, no it does not mean there will be a Saw VII. The Reality Show Scream Queens was a big success last year, even I liked it, a bigger success than the movie they were casting with the show... So they are casting "another horror film from DreamWorks" with this season of Scream Queens. You didn't hear it here first...
-ke
********************
Don't forget the PayPal High Five Campaign. After each post we pass the hat using Donate buttons on the left. That's how this works
-ke
By Kay Ebeling
Medical Exams of freshmen by Friars for "undescended testicles"
Part 3 of the Santa Barbara Story, is below. Also we are running reruns from last week for clarification. Some readers balked and misunderstood about the therapy funds available for victims announced here a few days ago. It is Not money that comes from the Church, the funds come from plaintiffs in the Santa Barbara 2006 settlements. They donated and created a trust fund for other victims who need therapy. Also, the Ash Wednesday 2010 Day of Silence announced a few days ago here is to raise funds for people in Canada who are going to Rome to "storm the Vatican" in April 2010. Both stories are rerun below for clarification, but first, from Santa Barbara.
The author of City of Angels is slammed at work, had planned to write an evocative drama based on these Santa Barbara court documents, but I have to work overtime all this week on my "real" job. So instead here at City of Angels we are copy and pasting from the legal documents, exactly as filed: I am not making this stuff up. The following, except for occasional offset comments by CityofA, all the way to the line of asterisks (***) is direct quotes from: First Amended Complaint for Damages and Relief, Case Number 1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court November 3, 2009.
As to Gus Krumm, long before the Franciscans assigned him to St. Anthony’s Seminary he and another notorious Franciscan perpetrator, Father Philip Wolfe, contracted the sexually transmitted disease known as "crabs" while doing field work as novices (training to become Franciscans). The source of the crabs were adolescent boys Wolfe and Krumm encountered who, according to Krumm, were willing to do anything for money.
And according to Krumm, Wolfe contracted not only crabs but other sexually transmitted diseases from these adolescent boys, prompting Wolfe’s and Krumm’s novice master (also a Franciscan) to lecture both men angrily and repeatedly with regards to the sexual promiscuity with these boys that resulted in Wolfe and Krumm contracting crabs.
At Right,
Gus Krumm, looking like a hot dude
Complaint Document Continued:
Thus, long before the Franciscans hired Krumm and Wolfe and assigned them to work at St. Anthony’s, the Franciscans knew both Perpetrators had been sexually involved with adolescent boys. Despite this knowledge the Franciscans assigned both Perpetrators to work with adolescent boys, including Craig (Plaintiff), doing nothing to stop the contact or to warn Craig.
************
Medical Exams: The Friar Tucks Up Your Scrotum
Part of the Freshman Experience at St. Anthony's Seminary, Santa Barbara
************
Case #1338070 Complaint, cont'd:
Finally, with regards to physical examinations of students, during either the 1964-65 or 1965-66 school year, the Franciscans not only authorized such examinations but authorized them by Father Mario Cimmarrusti –a man with no medical training who was one of the most prolific Franciscan perpetrators in the history of this scandal.
Cimmarrusti had expressed "concern" during a faculty meeting that some students appeared not to be developing normally, and had undescended testicles.
No Franciscan questioned how Cimmarrusti gained such knowledge.
Cimmarrusti then told the faculty, including Fr. Xavier Harris, that other signs a student was not developing normally included undeveloped sexual organs, lack of pubic hair, softness or femininity, or no changes to a student’s voice. He then proposed a program to the faculty wherein he would perform an initial assessment of freshmen students to determine if they were exhibiting any of these so called signs.
Despite the fact Cimmarrusti had no medical training, the fact the rector (who had worked at other high schools prior to St. Anthony’s) had never heard of such a program, and the fact St. Anthony’s applicants were required to submit proof of a complete physical exam by an actual physician, the St. Anthony’s Franciscan faculty, including rector Father Xavier Harris, approved this program.
At Left, Krumm and Cimmarrusti, from Google Images, from Santa Barbara News-Press
Complaint Document continued:
Even worse, they approved the program without any understanding as to how Cimmarrusti would perform these so-called "assessments." The Franciscans’ uninformed consent in this regard was especially egregious given that the initial assessment proposed by Cimmarrusti included factors which by necessity required assessing each student’s testicles and pubic hair.
*****************
Asseessing each freshman boy's teticles and pubic hair! By a friar with no medical training, just a later proved proclivity for little boys, See Maria Cimmarrusti in the database under C at bishopaccountability
*****************
Thus, Cimmarrusti’s Franciscan-sanctioned sexual assaults of new seminarians commenced, and by at least 1966 the Franciscans began receiving reports that Cimmarrusti was sexually abusing students during these supposed examinations.
A number of future Franciscan perpetrators – including Robert Van Handel, Dave Johnson and Gus Krumm – were St. Anthony’s students while Cimmarrusti was committing his Franciscan-sanctioned assaults. At least one of them – Van Handel – continued Cimmarrusti’s tradition and was present at the start of a similar assault against Craig fifteen years after the Franciscans first approved Cimmarrusti’s supposed program.
*****************
Only changes we made in document quotes above were to break it into smaller paragraphs for graphic purposes and adding first names, when the doc references names that had been given earlier.
THIS STORY IS NOT OVER
Part 4 will be posted by the end of this week.
Part 2 is here
Part 1 is here
Background:
PROOF: Santa Barbara was Dumping Ground for problem priests. PROOF: Franciscan sex crime ploys continue in 2009
.By Kay EbelingPart One: The bishop of San Diego used the words "dumping ground" in 1950 when he complained to Rome that too many problem priests were ending up in Banning, Beaumont and other towns in the developing region. By the 1960s the Franciscans had moved 26 priests from San Diego to Santa Barbara, where
AND
Monday, November 23, 2009
New sex crime ploy of Franciscans: Only take pedophilia reports in Confession then claim religious privilege: Plus a Phoenix-Santa Barbara connection
.By Kay Ebeling
Part 2: A parishioner walks into Sts. Simon and Jude Catholic Church in Orange County saying he wants to talk about a predator priest. He tells the Franciscan Father Michael Harvey he wants to discuss Gus Krumm. The parishioner barely gets the name Krumm out of his mouth when ...
2 Reruns,
as they need clarification as
Some people think the therapy announced below is being paid for by the Church. No this money comes out of the 2006 Santa Barbara plantiffs' settlements and wise investment. Last Friday this was buried in the middle of all the Irish stories being released:
Money is available for pedophile priest crime victims who need therapy, through Therapy Trust for Victims in Santa Barbara.
Ray Higgins called from Santa Barbara to say, "We have right now enough money in Therapy Trust for Victims' fund for nine or ten more persons to get therapy, so we're getting the word out nationally."
Priest sex crime victims in Santa Barbara pooled funds after receiving settlements in 2006 and created a trust to help other pedophile priest sex crime victims get therapy. Currently because of sound money management, the fund has money available for about nine more people to get an estimated two years of therapy. Contact Ray Higgins at: Therapy Trust for Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse therapytrust@cox.net for an application.
Therapy Trust for Victims still has money because it wrote financial sanity into its founding papers. Higgins told me, "The terms of the trust say we can only invest in FDIC insured accounts, not bonds or stocks or any risk investments."
*******************
The following is from the Trust, in their own words:
There are hundreds of victims of molestation by Roman Catholic clergy that have not been able to receive any therapy from the Church and have not received a monetary settlement. A vast majority of these are in dire need of therapy but are unable to afford it. Most have been so severely affected by what happened to them that they suffer from many ailments such as low self esteem, anxiety, paranoia, relationship problems, etc.
Many were never able to put their lives together enough to finish their education and therefore are limited to low paying jobs and long periods of unemployment. Some are unable to hold down a job and have been on welfare or unemployment for so long that they are no longer considered employable.
The purpose of this trust is to provide victims the help they need so that they can lead normal lives again. Although there are many needs, the trust feels that the most pressing need and the one that has the most potential for accomplishing that purpose is to pay for therapy for as many as possible.
Recognizing that there are many other needs, we feel that the limited funds available can be put to the best use by paying for therapy for as many as possible.
Our goal is to make the application and approval process as non intrusive as possible while at the same time assuring that the funds are used to the best advantage by those who receive them. Many have approached their respective dioceses in an attempt to obtain help, only to be re-victimized.
Some dioceses have stated that they have changed their policy and will provide therapy for victims who ask for it but most of those who have been re-victimized are afraid to approach their diocese because they had such a painful experience in the past.
AND ANOTHER RERUN:
Ash Wednesday Day of Silence is For:
Survivors of violence in Catholic institutions are uniting across borders to converge on Rome and the Vatican this April 2010.
To break the silence imposed on them, and the crimes of the church. Project starts with an International Day of Silence on Ash Wednesday February 17, 2010.
Remember this date:
Ash Wednesday,
February 17, 2010
Some Canadians are organizing an international project to stop religious terrorism and bring to justice the killers of children, and the project includes a Day of Silence Ash Wednesday February 17, 2010.
"The only reason I'm still alive is because I know people care about what happened to me, and will stand beside me when I face the ones who tortured me," says Bingo, survivor of Catholic Indian Residential Schools, Vancouver, Canada
Report from Canada: Survivors of violence in Catholic institutions are uniting across borders to converge on Rome and the Vatican this April 2010 to break the silence imposed on them, and the crimes of the church.
You can be of direct moral and practical help to these courageous men and women by taking a vow of silence on February 17, 2010 in order to stand in solidarity with them and all those who are silenced by churches and governments - and offer them material support.
The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD), a network of survivors of Christian Indian Residential Schools in Canada, and their allies in Italy, Ireland and the United States, are asking people of conscience everywhere to remain silent on that day and acquire pledges for their effort.
The funds raised from these sponsors will be used to pay the travel costs of survivors of Catholic Indian residential schools who will confront the Pope and Vatican officials in Rome during April of 2010.The FRD is asking seven things of the Vatican:
1. Repatriate for a proper burial the remains of all children who died in Catholic boarding schools, churches, orphanages and other institutions.
2. Surrender those responsible for these deaths and open the Vatican archives for inspection.
3. Revoke papal laws which condone and legitimate conquest, rape and murder, including the Romanus Pontifex (1455) and Inter Catera (1493).
4. Revoke the Vatican policy - established by the present Pope - of concealing evidence of violence against children in Catholic churches and of silencing the perpetrator and the victim.
5. Return all lands taken from indigenous people by the church.
6. Pay back to the victims all the wealth made for the church off the labor of children and others in Catholic institutions.
7. Appear before an international war crimes Tribunal to answer charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
A public vigil in memory of the children who died at the hands of the church, held outside the Vatican on October 11, has forced senior church officials to agree to meet with FRD representatives in April to discuss these demands.
Thus, your support during this crucial period leading up to April is especially needed.
Ash Wednesday is traditionally a time for repentance and transformation. Help us make this year the time when the church will actually repent from its crimes, be held accountable for mass murder, and stop violating the innocent.
Contact Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, at the address below.
contact Hidden From History by postal mail:
Kevin Annett
The Elders Council of the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared
c/o 260 Kennedy St.
Nanaimo, B.C. Canada V9R 2H8
You may also undergo the silence and then pledge your own donation to us. Make this day an important teaching moment for your friends and neighbours!Please contact us directly for how you can be of help, at 250-753-3345.
In memory of more than 50,000 children who died in Canadian Indian Residential Schools
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Read the original story: full story about the Hidden From History proect:
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I'm off to work on Scream Queens Season Two, no it does not mean there will be a Saw VII. The Reality Show Scream Queens was a big success last year, even I liked it, a bigger success than the movie they were casting with the show... So they are casting "another horror film from DreamWorks" with this season of Scream Queens. You didn't hear it here first...
-ke
********************
Don't forget the PayPal High Five Campaign. After each post we pass the hat using Donate buttons on the left. That's how this works
-ke
Monday, November 23, 2009
New sex crime ploy of Franciscans: Only take pedophilia reports in Confession then claim religious privilege: Plus a Phoenix-Santa Barbara connection
.
By Kay Ebeling
( UPDATE November 25: Happy Thanksgiving, readers. I give my brain a break and stay off topic on holidays, watch for new posts, more ground breaking new revelations, after the weekend. I'm going to start eating all this great stuff my daughter is cooking up... - happy thanksgiving - ke )
Part 2: A parishioner walks into Sts. Simon and Jude Catholic Church in Orange County saying he wants to talk about a predator priest. He tells the Franciscan Father Michael Harvey he wants to discuss Gus Krumm. The parishioner barely gets the name Krumm out of his mouth when Father Harvey ushers him into the Confessional to continue the conversation. Harvey’s response "was immediate and premeditated," reads the opening paragraphs of First Amended Complaints in Cases 1337577 and 1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court, Oct. 5 and Nov. 3, 2009.
"Before the parishioner could say anything further about Krumm, Harvey insisted that any discussion regarding Krumm be in the context of the confessional, thus rendering the communication penitential," read 1st Amended Complaints in the two civil lawsuits.
When I first read these briefs, even I could not believe the crimes alleged in the lawsuits, they are so shocking. So I asked Tim Hale, the Santa Barbara attorney who authored the briefs, how he came up with the details in these cases. "Everything alleged in the amended complaints is supported by admissible evidence assembled from investigation and discovery conducted during the last eleven years of litigation involving the Franciscans," emailed Tim Hale of Nye Peabody Stirling & Hale Santa Barbara in reply.
In Part 2 today, we are running direct quotes from both complaints about 1st Amendment manipulation by the Franciscans, ever exploiting America's belief if religious freedom. Part 3 of this story is so sordid, even a little repulsive, that City of Angels will wait until after the "Thanksgiving" holiday in the USA to publish it.
What will be in Part 3? Well, to those of you who heard rumors about man-boy group sex forced on high school boys at St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara, and about the cases of crabs, the rumors are shown to be true, detailed to some extent in documents for Cases: 1337577 and 1338070, in Santa Barbara Superior Court, Anacapa Division.
So we'll let our readers digest their turkey dinner and produce extra anti-stress hormones, before we post the details from these Santa Barbara lawsuits that involve medical exams of private parts conducted by Franciscan brothers who have no medical training.
Yes, the rumors that the friars liked to play doctor with teenage studetns at St. Anthony's are also apparently true, but we are not even going to go there until after Thanksgiving.
******************
The rest of this post is direct quotes, from Complaints in Cases #1337577 and #1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court, Anacapa Division, in recent weeks.
Me, I gotta get back to work on Scream Queens Season 2, will be working all through the Thanksgiving holiday, and for that I give thanks.
*****************
DIRECT QUOTES FROM CASES #1337577 and 1338070, Santa Barbara Superior Court, Anacapa Division:
9.1 Even worse, the Franciscans now are exploiting the religious freedoms protection provided by the First Amendment in order to avoid their obligations as mandatory reporters under Penal Code section 11166.
In July of 2009 a former parishioner at the Franciscan parish in Orange County, St. Simon and Jude, reported the Franciscans’ latest child-endangering ploy. That parishioner met with Franciscan Father Michael Harvey at his parish in 2008.
When the parishioner stated he wished to discuss notorious Franciscan perpetrator Father Gus Krumm, Father Harvey’s response was immediate and premeditated: before the parishioner could say anything further about Krumm, Harvey insisted that any discussion regarding Krumm be in the context of the confessional, thus rendering the communication penitential.
As a result of such efforts by the Franciscans to protect their predatory members, very few of these men have been prosecuted, convicted, and forced to register as sex offenders. Thus, the Franciscans have successfully concealed the identities of an unknown number of Franciscan perpetrators.
As evidenced by their efforts to escape their reporting obligations, by the recent victims in the Ladenburger case, and by the continuing pattern of deceit evidenced by the Franciscans’ conduct towards a female plaintiff, the clergy-abuse crisis has not been abated by the 2006 Franciscan litigation.
To the contrary, it is business as usual at Franciscan corporate headquarters. For this reason, the legal system cannot sit back and wait for current or former Franciscan perpetrators such as Ladenburger to reveal themselves through new victims.
The ongoing lies, deceit, and concealment by the Franciscans mandate proactive efforts to save today’s children from new abuse like that suffered by Ladenburger’s recent victims.
The public needs to know where Br. Sam Cabot is currently working, particularly when he is less than half a mile away from an elementary school. They need to know about the abuse committed by Br. Matteo, and where he is currently assigned or in residence. They need to know about Fr. Mel Bucher’s history of abuse, particularly where he is allowed to conduct or have access to retreats for adolescents.
And they need to know about every other current or former Franciscan who, like Ladenburger until he was caught sexually abusing more children in 2007, have been accused of childhood sexual abuse but have not yet been identified.
It is an abomination that of the twenty-seven (27) Franciscan perpetrators who have lived in Santa Barbara since 1936, only two have been criminally prosecuted in Santa Barbara County. The sad reality is the criminal courts’ hands have been tied by the Franciscans’ successful efforts to conceal Franciscan criminal acts until the applicable statutes of limitation have expired.
As a result, absent immediate action by the civil courts, today’s children will continue to be victimized by Franciscan perpetrators throughout the Western United States at the numerous locations where the Franciscans of the Province of St. Barbara conduct their business.
Pursuant to the compelling state interest in preventing acts of future childhood sexual abuse, the Franciscans must be ordered to disclose immediately the identities, histories of abuse, and last known locations of all current and former Franciscans accused of childhood sexual abuse while they were members of the order. They also must be ordered not to insist that reports of misconduct by Franciscans be made only in the context of a penitential communication.
*****
THEN IN ADDITION
The Phoenix Connection
IN CASE #1337577
A victim trusts David O'Brien who later becomes Bishop of Phoenix
(Direct quote from First Amended Complaint #1337577:)
When Plaintiff returned home to Phoenix once school ended. he reported the abuse (at St. Anthony's SB) to the pastor at his home parish, Father Thomas O’Brien, a priest who would go on to become the Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix.
Plaintiff described the assault by Brother Dave Johnson and another assault by Franciscan Brother Gus Krumm. Plaintiff also showed O’Brien photographs of Krumm and Johnson from his yearbook.
O’Brien in turn asked to hold on to the yearbook until they met again, telling plaintiff to return 2 or 3 days later.
Unfortunately Plaintiff had placed his faith and hope in a man who ultimately would be proven to be a complete ethical and moral failure both as a priest and as a human being.
**********
Give me the pictures, sonny, and I'll talk to you in a couple days. Little did the boy know
**********
Direct quotes from 1st Amended Complaint in Case #1337577 SB continue:
O’Brien would later admit – in exchange for immunity from prosecution for his actions – that beginning at least as early as 1979 and throughout his 22-year career as a bishop he repeatedly placed children at risk to be sexually abused by transferring known perpetrator priests to new parishes without any warning to the parish or the community.
Further evidence of O’Brien’s moral depravity came within weeks of this agreement on June 16, 2003, when O’Brien was arrested and later convicted of felony hit and run after the vehicle he was driving struck and killed a six-foot tall, 235 lb. man. Despite the size of the victim and the fact the impact had caved in O’Brien’s windshield, O’Brien claimed he thought someone had thrown a rock at his car, or that he had struck an animal.
The grand jury investigation that led to O’Brien’s admissions in exchange for immunity revealed that in 1979 O’Brien had received reports of the abuse of a ten year-old boy by another priest, and that instead of reporting the priest to law enforcement or warning parents, O’Brien transferred him to another parish where he continued to abuse children.
********
More on the Santa Barbara Cases after thanksgiving, me I'm going to find a bar...
***************
POST SCRIPTS:
On November 16, 2009, Cardinal Francis George told the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in Baltimore.
"There are others who would keep the bishops permanently imprisoned in the clerical sexual abuse scandal of recent years. The proper response to a crisis of governance, however, is not no governance but effective governance. (Huh? What does that mean? )
George went on:
"The clerical ranks have been purged of priests and bishops known to have abused children, (Whatever the sins of those abusers, they) "cannot be allowed to discredit the truth of Catholic teaching."
THEN
On November 18, 2009
Lee Podles, author and Bishop Accountability board member, wrote:
"The bishops say they have changed, but the bishops also assured us there was no problem to begin with. I do not believe any fact that a bishop asserts until I have verified it."
& Another
POST SCRIPT
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. A retired priest pleaded not guilty Nov. 5, 2009, to charges that he molested a young boy at a Costa Mesa church more than 17 years ago.
Denis Lyons, 75, of Seal Beach, who is free on $100,000 bail, was arrested last October at his Leisure World home and accused of molesting the boy when he was a second and third grade student at St. John the Baptist Catholic School between 1992 and 1995.
Lyons, who was removed from ministry in 2002, was a priest at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church during those years.
He faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted of four felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14, plus a sentencing enhancement that he committed substantial sexual conduct.
(On video of DA it says Lyons masturbated the boy twice in the rectory and twice in the sacristy of that church in Costa Mesa.)
**************
POST SCRIPT 3
Balanced Justice:
60-year sentence for man who molested boys
November 13, 2009 (WAUKEGAN, Ill.) (WLS) -- A suburban man accused of running a sex club for boys out of his home has learned how much he will pay for his crimes. A judge sentenced Michael Rebecca to 60 years in prison Friday. Rebecca admitted to more than 200 incidents with boys between the ages of 11 and 16. He was convicted on 20 counts of sexual assault back in September. The incidents took place at Rebecca's Vernon Hills home. Prior to Friday's sentencing, Rebecca and the judge heard from one of the victims.
The Lake County judge called Michael Rebecca a parent's worst nightmare, a predator who started with the son of a close friend of his, and then used that boy to lure more victims.
MEANWHILE:
Ex Chicago area priest Fred Lenczycki only got 5 years for abusing boys over a 30 year period, served 2-1/2. Lenczycki was then held briefly briefly as sexually dangerous and currently lives in River Forest, Illinois.
******************
EXTRA!! EXTRA!!
Money available for pedophile priest crime victims who need therapy, through Therapy Trust for Victims in Santa Barbara.
Ray Higgins called from Santa Barbara. "We've got now enough for nine or ten more people can get therapy."
Victims in Santa Barbara pooled funds after receiving settlements in 2006 and currently have money available for nine people to get about two years of therapy. Contact Ray Higgins at: Therapy Trust for Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse therapytrust@cox.net for an application.
Higgins sat on the Board of Inquiry that produced the 1993 Report that first opened the doors to the depth and bredth of pedophilia inbred in Catholic systems.
Therapy Trust for Victims still has money because it wrote financial sanity into its founding papers. Higgins told me, "The terms of the trust say we can only invest in FDIC insured accounts, not bonds or stocks or any risk investments."
More in an upcoming post about the Trust.
**************
Watch for Part 3 of the Santa Barbara series soon after Thanksgiving...
**************
Don't forget the PayPal High Five Campaign. After each post we pass the hat using Donate buttons on the left. That's how this works
-ke
By Kay Ebeling
( UPDATE November 25: Happy Thanksgiving, readers. I give my brain a break and stay off topic on holidays, watch for new posts, more ground breaking new revelations, after the weekend. I'm going to start eating all this great stuff my daughter is cooking up... - happy thanksgiving - ke )
Part 2: A parishioner walks into Sts. Simon and Jude Catholic Church in Orange County saying he wants to talk about a predator priest. He tells the Franciscan Father Michael Harvey he wants to discuss Gus Krumm. The parishioner barely gets the name Krumm out of his mouth when Father Harvey ushers him into the Confessional to continue the conversation. Harvey’s response "was immediate and premeditated," reads the opening paragraphs of First Amended Complaints in Cases 1337577 and 1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court, Oct. 5 and Nov. 3, 2009.
"Before the parishioner could say anything further about Krumm, Harvey insisted that any discussion regarding Krumm be in the context of the confessional, thus rendering the communication penitential," read 1st Amended Complaints in the two civil lawsuits.
When I first read these briefs, even I could not believe the crimes alleged in the lawsuits, they are so shocking. So I asked Tim Hale, the Santa Barbara attorney who authored the briefs, how he came up with the details in these cases. "Everything alleged in the amended complaints is supported by admissible evidence assembled from investigation and discovery conducted during the last eleven years of litigation involving the Franciscans," emailed Tim Hale of Nye Peabody Stirling & Hale Santa Barbara in reply.
In Part 2 today, we are running direct quotes from both complaints about 1st Amendment manipulation by the Franciscans, ever exploiting America's belief if religious freedom. Part 3 of this story is so sordid, even a little repulsive, that City of Angels will wait until after the "Thanksgiving" holiday in the USA to publish it.
What will be in Part 3? Well, to those of you who heard rumors about man-boy group sex forced on high school boys at St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara, and about the cases of crabs, the rumors are shown to be true, detailed to some extent in documents for Cases: 1337577 and 1338070, in Santa Barbara Superior Court, Anacapa Division.
So we'll let our readers digest their turkey dinner and produce extra anti-stress hormones, before we post the details from these Santa Barbara lawsuits that involve medical exams of private parts conducted by Franciscan brothers who have no medical training.
Yes, the rumors that the friars liked to play doctor with teenage studetns at St. Anthony's are also apparently true, but we are not even going to go there until after Thanksgiving.
******************
The rest of this post is direct quotes, from Complaints in Cases #1337577 and #1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court, Anacapa Division, in recent weeks.
Me, I gotta get back to work on Scream Queens Season 2, will be working all through the Thanksgiving holiday, and for that I give thanks.
*****************
DIRECT QUOTES FROM CASES #1337577 and 1338070, Santa Barbara Superior Court, Anacapa Division:
9.1 Even worse, the Franciscans now are exploiting the religious freedoms protection provided by the First Amendment in order to avoid their obligations as mandatory reporters under Penal Code section 11166.
In July of 2009 a former parishioner at the Franciscan parish in Orange County, St. Simon and Jude, reported the Franciscans’ latest child-endangering ploy. That parishioner met with Franciscan Father Michael Harvey at his parish in 2008.
When the parishioner stated he wished to discuss notorious Franciscan perpetrator Father Gus Krumm, Father Harvey’s response was immediate and premeditated: before the parishioner could say anything further about Krumm, Harvey insisted that any discussion regarding Krumm be in the context of the confessional, thus rendering the communication penitential.
*************
Under California Penal Code section 11166(c)(1), clergy do not have to notify law enforcement of childhood sexual abuse if they learned about it in a penitential communication.
*************
Direct quotes from Complaints continue:
Under Penal Code section 11166(c)(1), clergy can avoid their obligations to notify law enforcement of reports of childhood sexual abuse if their knowledge or suspicion is acquired in the context of a penitential communication.
Thus, by insisting the parishioner make any disclosure regarding Krumm as a penitential communication, Father Harvey insured he would have no reporting obligation under section 11166 in the event of a report of childhood sexual abuse.
The legislature could not have intended section 11166(c) to be used as a shield by entities that protect perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse, but that is exactly what Father Harvey and the Franciscans have accomplished by insisting that any reports of misconduct by Franciscans be made in the context of penitential communications.
In so doing the Franciscans have turned the Constitution on its head, using First Amendment protections to shield Franciscan perpetrators from law enforcement and to make the world a much more dangerous place for children.
**********Direct Quotes from the Complaint briefs
The Franciscans have turned the Constitution on its head
**********
As a result of such efforts by the Franciscans to protect their predatory members, very few of these men have been prosecuted, convicted, and forced to register as sex offenders. Thus, the Franciscans have successfully concealed the identities of an unknown number of Franciscan perpetrators.
As evidenced by their efforts to escape their reporting obligations, by the recent victims in the Ladenburger case, and by the continuing pattern of deceit evidenced by the Franciscans’ conduct towards a female plaintiff, the clergy-abuse crisis has not been abated by the 2006 Franciscan litigation.
To the contrary, it is business as usual at Franciscan corporate headquarters. For this reason, the legal system cannot sit back and wait for current or former Franciscan perpetrators such as Ladenburger to reveal themselves through new victims.
The ongoing lies, deceit, and concealment by the Franciscans mandate proactive efforts to save today’s children from new abuse like that suffered by Ladenburger’s recent victims.
***********Direct Quotes from the Complaint Briefs:
Ongoing lies, deceit, and concealment
***********
The public needs to know where Br. Sam Cabot is currently working, particularly when he is less than half a mile away from an elementary school. They need to know about the abuse committed by Br. Matteo, and where he is currently assigned or in residence. They need to know about Fr. Mel Bucher’s history of abuse, particularly where he is allowed to conduct or have access to retreats for adolescents.
And they need to know about every other current or former Franciscan who, like Ladenburger until he was caught sexually abusing more children in 2007, have been accused of childhood sexual abuse but have not yet been identified.
It is an abomination that of the twenty-seven (27) Franciscan perpetrators who have lived in Santa Barbara since 1936, only two have been criminally prosecuted in Santa Barbara County. The sad reality is the criminal courts’ hands have been tied by the Franciscans’ successful efforts to conceal Franciscan criminal acts until the applicable statutes of limitation have expired.
************Direct quotes from Complaints continue:
Out of 27 perpetrators, only 2 have been prosecuted
************
As a result, absent immediate action by the civil courts, today’s children will continue to be victimized by Franciscan perpetrators throughout the Western United States at the numerous locations where the Franciscans of the Province of St. Barbara conduct their business.
Pursuant to the compelling state interest in preventing acts of future childhood sexual abuse, the Franciscans must be ordered to disclose immediately the identities, histories of abuse, and last known locations of all current and former Franciscans accused of childhood sexual abuse while they were members of the order. They also must be ordered not to insist that reports of misconduct by Franciscans be made only in the context of a penitential communication.
*****
THEN IN ADDITION
The Phoenix Connection
IN CASE #1337577
A victim trusts David O'Brien who later becomes Bishop of Phoenix
(Direct quote from First Amended Complaint #1337577:)
When Plaintiff returned home to Phoenix once school ended. he reported the abuse (at St. Anthony's SB) to the pastor at his home parish, Father Thomas O’Brien, a priest who would go on to become the Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix.
Plaintiff described the assault by Brother Dave Johnson and another assault by Franciscan Brother Gus Krumm. Plaintiff also showed O’Brien photographs of Krumm and Johnson from his yearbook.
O’Brien in turn asked to hold on to the yearbook until they met again, telling plaintiff to return 2 or 3 days later.
Unfortunately Plaintiff had placed his faith and hope in a man who ultimately would be proven to be a complete ethical and moral failure both as a priest and as a human being.
**********
Give me the pictures, sonny, and I'll talk to you in a couple days. Little did the boy know
**********
Direct quotes from 1st Amended Complaint in Case #1337577 SB continue:
O’Brien would later admit – in exchange for immunity from prosecution for his actions – that beginning at least as early as 1979 and throughout his 22-year career as a bishop he repeatedly placed children at risk to be sexually abused by transferring known perpetrator priests to new parishes without any warning to the parish or the community.
Further evidence of O’Brien’s moral depravity came within weeks of this agreement on June 16, 2003, when O’Brien was arrested and later convicted of felony hit and run after the vehicle he was driving struck and killed a six-foot tall, 235 lb. man. Despite the size of the victim and the fact the impact had caved in O’Brien’s windshield, O’Brien claimed he thought someone had thrown a rock at his car, or that he had struck an animal.
The grand jury investigation that led to O’Brien’s admissions in exchange for immunity revealed that in 1979 O’Brien had received reports of the abuse of a ten year-old boy by another priest, and that instead of reporting the priest to law enforcement or warning parents, O’Brien transferred him to another parish where he continued to abuse children.
********
More on the Santa Barbara Cases after thanksgiving, me I'm going to find a bar...
***************
POST SCRIPTS:
On November 16, 2009, Cardinal Francis George told the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in Baltimore.
"There are others who would keep the bishops permanently imprisoned in the clerical sexual abuse scandal of recent years. The proper response to a crisis of governance, however, is not no governance but effective governance. (Huh? What does that mean? )
George went on:
"The clerical ranks have been purged of priests and bishops known to have abused children, (Whatever the sins of those abusers, they) "cannot be allowed to discredit the truth of Catholic teaching."
THEN
On November 18, 2009
Lee Podles, author and Bishop Accountability board member, wrote:
"The bishops say they have changed, but the bishops also assured us there was no problem to begin with. I do not believe any fact that a bishop asserts until I have verified it."
& Another
POST SCRIPT
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. A retired priest pleaded not guilty Nov. 5, 2009, to charges that he molested a young boy at a Costa Mesa church more than 17 years ago.
Denis Lyons, 75, of Seal Beach, who is free on $100,000 bail, was arrested last October at his Leisure World home and accused of molesting the boy when he was a second and third grade student at St. John the Baptist Catholic School between 1992 and 1995.
Lyons, who was removed from ministry in 2002, was a priest at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church during those years.
He faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted of four felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14, plus a sentencing enhancement that he committed substantial sexual conduct.
(On video of DA it says Lyons masturbated the boy twice in the rectory and twice in the sacristy of that church in Costa Mesa.)
**************
POST SCRIPT 3
Balanced Justice:
60-year sentence for man who molested boys
November 13, 2009 (WAUKEGAN, Ill.) (WLS) -- A suburban man accused of running a sex club for boys out of his home has learned how much he will pay for his crimes. A judge sentenced Michael Rebecca to 60 years in prison Friday. Rebecca admitted to more than 200 incidents with boys between the ages of 11 and 16. He was convicted on 20 counts of sexual assault back in September. The incidents took place at Rebecca's Vernon Hills home. Prior to Friday's sentencing, Rebecca and the judge heard from one of the victims.
The Lake County judge called Michael Rebecca a parent's worst nightmare, a predator who started with the son of a close friend of his, and then used that boy to lure more victims.
MEANWHILE:
Ex Chicago area priest Fred Lenczycki only got 5 years for abusing boys over a 30 year period, served 2-1/2. Lenczycki was then held briefly briefly as sexually dangerous and currently lives in River Forest, Illinois.
******************
EXTRA!! EXTRA!!
Money available for pedophile priest crime victims who need therapy, through Therapy Trust for Victims in Santa Barbara.
Ray Higgins called from Santa Barbara. "We've got now enough for nine or ten more people can get therapy."
Victims in Santa Barbara pooled funds after receiving settlements in 2006 and currently have money available for nine people to get about two years of therapy. Contact Ray Higgins at: Therapy Trust for Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse therapytrust@cox.net for an application.
Higgins sat on the Board of Inquiry that produced the 1993 Report that first opened the doors to the depth and bredth of pedophilia inbred in Catholic systems.
Therapy Trust for Victims still has money because it wrote financial sanity into its founding papers. Higgins told me, "The terms of the trust say we can only invest in FDIC insured accounts, not bonds or stocks or any risk investments."
More in an upcoming post about the Trust.
**************
Watch for Part 3 of the Santa Barbara series soon after Thanksgiving...
**************
Don't forget the PayPal High Five Campaign. After each post we pass the hat using Donate buttons on the left. That's how this works
-ke
Friday, November 20, 2009
PROOF: Santa Barbara was Dumping Ground for problem priests. PROOF: Franciscan sex crime ploys continue in 2009
.
By Kay Ebeling
Part One: The bishop of San Diego used the words "dumping ground" in 1950 when he complained to Rome that too many problem priests were ending up in Banning, Beaumont and other towns in the developing region. By the 1960s the Franciscans had moved 26 priests from San Diego to Santa Barbara, where they then raped more than 60 children. The letter to Rev. James T. Booth in Rome April 26, 1950, is Exhibit A attached to two new lawsuits filed Nov. 3, 2009, in Santa Barbara Superior Court.
Franciscan pedophiles removed from the priesthood in past years, are now showing up as therapists and teachers - Working with Teenagers, Living near Children - in towns around the Northwestern United States, because the Francicans continue to hide the crimes of their pedophile priests, other evidence in the Complaints shows.
There are so many new charges, so much new evidence, new stories about old pedophile priests and old stories about new ones in the pages of these two new lawsuits filed November 3 in Santa Barbara that City of Angels has to break our reporting into several different parts.
The letter from the Bishop of San Diego reads:
The Complaint then says the Bishop was frustrated with the Franciscans and began applying to religious bodies in Rome to evict the problem Franciscan Friars from parishes in the Diocese of San Diego.
"It would appear the Bishop eventually succeeded," read the Complaints, "and sometime in the 1950s the Franciscans made Santa Barbara their new dumping ground for Franciscan perpetrators.”
Watch this weekend for parts 2, 3, 4, and whatever it takes to tell this story.
The legal briefs read like literature, so here are paragraphs, City of Angels copy-and-pasted from Paragraphs of two First Complaints, written by Tim Hale of the Nye Peabody Stirling & Hale lawfirm in Santa Barbara.
“Franciscan perpetrators have been sexually assaulting children in Santa Barbara since at least 1936. During this time at least forty-four (44) pedophilic and/or ephebophilic Roman Catholic priests or religious brothers have been assigned to work at and were living at and/or visiting various locations around Santa Barbara County.”
Beginning in the late 1950s the Franciscans began sending the first of at least twenty-six (26) Franciscan perpetrators to Santa Barbara following their expulsion from the San Diego Diocese. Those perpetrators are identified below in the decades they first appeared and continued to reside in or visit Santa Barbara based on information known to date:
26 Pedophile Priests Transferred From San Diego to Santa Barbara:
1 - Fr. Owen Da Silva (1930s)
2 - Brother Berard Connolly (1940s, 1980s - 1990s)
3 - Fr. Martin McKeon (1950s - 1960s)
4 - Fr. Edward Henriques (1960s)
5 - Fr. Mario Cimmarrusti (1960s - 1970s)
6 - Fr. Mel Bucher (1960s)
7 - Fr. Forrest McDonald (1960s - 1970s)
8 - Br. Kevin Dunne (1960s - 1970s)
9 - Br. Sam Cabot (1960s-1980s)
10 - Fr. Edmund Austin (1970s)
11 - Fr. Gus Krumm (1970s - 1980s)
12 - Fr. Paul Conn (1970s - 1980s)
13 - Fr. Dave Johnson (1970s - 1980s)
14 - Fr. Joseph Prochnow (1970s - 1980s)
15 - Br. Matteo Guerrero (1970s, 1990s - 2000s)
16 - Fr. Robert Van Handel (1970s -1990s)
17 - Fr. David Carriere (1970s - 2000s)
18 - Fr. Steve Kain (1980s)
19 - Fr. Philip Wolfe (1980s)
20 - Pre-novitiate candidate Ed Byrom (1980s)
21 - Pre-novitiate candidate Tom Thing (1980s)
22 - Fr. Chris Berbena (1980s)
23 - Fr. Remy Rudin (1980s - 1990s)
24 - Br. Gerald Chumik (2000s)
25 - Pedro Vasquez (2000s)
26 - Fr. Claude Riffel (1941-44, 1975-76)"
***************************
First Complaints Read Like Literature
(Both First Complaints contain the paragraphs below, which as a Blogger, I love, as I don't have to do anything but cut and paste, they are written so well.)
By the 1960s if not sooner these corrupt seeds planted by the Franciscans began bearing poisonous fruit as Franciscan perpetrators abused Santa Barbara children at a horrifying rate.
At least eighty-five (85) children have been sexually abused in Santa Barbara by Roman Catholic priests or religious brothers since 1936. Sixty-two (62) of those children were abused by Franciscan priests or religious brothers since 1960.
The confirmed number of victims and Franciscan perpetrators grows each year.
The consequences of the Franciscans’ continuing corporate practices with regards to Franciscan perpetrators have been disastrous both for local children, and for a society that continues to bear the financial burden of the psychological fallout for abuse survivors.
*****************
If the Church does not handle the pedophile priest problem, U.S. taxpayers end up paying for damages.
*******************************
NOV 3 COMPLAINT QUOTES CONT'D:
Abuse survivors often engage in addictive, self-destructive, and, unfortunately, sometimes criminal behavior as they deal with the psychological scars caused by childhood sexual abuse.
These behaviors in turn result in things such as divorce proceedings on court calendars, substance abuse, arrests, and incarcerations, all of which are paid for by the common taxpayer rather than by the truly culpable but tax-exempt organizations that protected the perpetrators.
The evidence of the Franciscans’ culpability in this regard is overwhelming.
Time and again the Franciscans have had the opportunity to end the cycle of abuse by reporting perpetrators to law enforcement, and by warning the general public when a Franciscan has been accused of sexually assaulting a child. Since at least 1964 the Franciscans have been concealing these crimes and shielding their criminal members from discovery.
Sadly, even with the global settlement of the 2003-2006 litigation, the Franciscans have not changed their ways. The following are examples only of some of the most recent known Franciscan conduct placing today’s children at risk. These examples illustrate the Franciscans’ conduct remains a present day threat to children wherever the Franciscans conduct their business:
*******************
Franciscan 'Did Not Think It Appropriate' to Tell Parishioners New Priest is Admitted Pedophile
************************
In July of 2003, the Franciscans assigned an admitted perpetrator – Father Gus Krumm – to a Sacramento parish next door to a school without any warning to the community. One Franciscan priest readily admitted he was aware of Father Krumm’s prior abuses but did not think it was appropriate to share such information with parishioners.
Despite the fact the Franciscans claimed Father Krumm was forbidden contact with young children, he did in fact have direct contact with young children while at this assignment.
*******************
In Arizona, didn't notify parishioiners new priest was a pedophile. 'Probably should have.'
******************************
In January 2004 it was revealed that the Franciscans had assigned perpetrator Brother Kevin Dunne to a Franciscan-run parish in Phoenix, St. Mary’s Basilica. The Franciscans warned neither the parishioners nor the community of the risk Dunne posed, and the Phoenix community had no means of identifying Dunne as a perpetrator as – thanks to the Franciscans never having reported Dunne’s crimes to law enforcement – he had never been prosecuted and is not a registered sex offender.
Thus, the fact Dunne had raped at least one St. Anthony’s student, and the fact the Franciscans had settled a claim made by that student, was known only to the Franciscans. The parish manager stated the Franciscans had never advised him of Dunne’s criminal conduct, and that "they probably should have."
*******************
Dallas Morning News Forces Franciscans to Admit Priest a Pedophile
******************************
In July 2004 the Franciscans admitted – albeit only after a reporter from the Dallas Morning News made the facts public – that yet another predator had been calling the Old Mission Santa Barbara home for over two years. Specifically, in the early to mid-1970's Franciscan Brother Gerald Chumik assaulted at least one victim in Canada. Canadian authorities attempted to prosecute Brother Chumik in the 1990s, but Chumik fled to the United States.
The Franciscans successfully and secretly harbored Brother Chumik, a fugitive from justice, behind the walls of the Mission for over two years. The Franciscans provided no warning to the public, much less to neighboring schools, of the threat Brother Chumik posed until the Dallas Morning News published the truth about Chumik.
**************
Continuing to hide pedophiles at Old Santa Barbara Mission
**************************
In July 2005, the Franciscan Vicar Provincial, Brother Tom West, admitted Mission resident, Franciscan Pedro Vasquez, had been accused of sexually assaulting a person West described as a "young man."
The Franciscans had allowed Vasquez to live at the Mission for three years without any warning to the community, and admitted to this fact in July of 2005 only when they knew its publication was inevitable.
*************
2001: Father Kain Abuses Again, Gets Moved to San Francisco
***********************
In 2005, the former rector of St. Anthony’s, Father Xavier Harris, testified that while he was assigned at St. Williams in Los Altos in 2001, a well-known Franciscan perpetrator, Father Steve Kain, assisted there as well.
Father Harris did not warn any of the parishioners of Father Kain’s propensities, nor, to his knowledge, did any other Franciscans warn any parishioners about Father Kain.
With no shortage of victims who were unaware of the risk he posed, Father Kain abused again. Father Harris testified that Father Kain was then forced to stop assisting at St. Williams due to the abuse allegations, and was transferred to St. Boniface in San Francisco.
Once again, Father Harris testified he had no knowledge of any warnings to parishioners at St. Boniface regarding Father Kain’s propensities.
************
No One Knows Where Father Mateo Guererro Goes
**********************
In late 2006 a victim spoke with Father Virgil Cordano at the Mission and informed Cordano he had been raped in 1976 by a Franciscan religious brother, Brother Mateo Guererro.
Cordano did not act surprised at this information, admitted there had been other complaints against Mateo, and admitted that Mateo had been transferred as a result. To date, the Franciscans have taken no steps to make this information public, no steps to determine whether there are any other victims of Mateo who have not come forward, no steps to notify the communities in which Mateo has been assigned over the course of his career as a Franciscan, and no steps to warn the current community where Mateo is assigned.
***************
Perpetrator Punishment: Become Manager of Retreat Center for School-Aged Children. Pedophile priest still at San Luis Rey in 2008.
***********************
From approximately 1994 to at least 2008 the Franciscans assigned another admitted perpetrator – Fr. Mel Bucher – to Old Mission San Luis Rey. Fr. Bucher sexually assaulted at least one adolescent boy in Oregon in the early 1970s. Despite this admission, the Franciscans allowed Fr. Bucher to manage the Mission San Luis Rey retreat center.
The retreat center conducts retreats for, among others, high school-aged children, including overnight retreats for students from, among other locations, Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana.
At least one current Franciscan and former Mater Dei faculty member has stated he would not discuss the allegations of abuse by Fr. Bucher with Mater Dei faculty or administrators because he does not "see any purpose being served in that."
The Franciscans have never warned the families of these students of Fr. Bucher’s history of abuse.
*****************
Now Oregon Seems to Be New Dumping Ground for Predator Pedophile Priests in the Franciscans.
******************************
In February 2009, Father Claude Riffel was accused of sexually assaulting a boy at another Franciscan seminary, St. Francis Minor Seminary in Troutdale, Oregon, in the early 1960s. Riffel was dean of discipline for the school when he would call the teenager out of class on the pretext of assigning work and then abuse him.
To date, the Franciscans have taken no steps to make this information public, and no steps to determine whether there are any other victims of Riffel who have not come forward. The Franciscans also have taken no steps to notify the communities in which Riffel has been assigned during his career as a Franciscan, including but not limited to the Santa Barbara community where from approximately 1941-44, and again from 1975-76, Riffel was assigned to St. Anthony’s and worked with boys the same age as those he is accused of abusing at the seminary in Oregon.
*****************
Pedophilia among the priests keeps going on and on, because the Church has changed nothing within, where the problem germinated and festered for decades.
**************************
In June 2009 Franciscan Father Alexander Manville was accused of the sexual abuse of an approximately eight-year-old boy in 1992-93. To date, the Franciscans have taken no steps to make this information public, and no steps to determine whether there are any other victims of Manville who have not come forward.
The Franciscans also have taken no steps to notify the communities in which Manville has been assigned over the course of his career as a Franciscan, including but not limited to the Santa Barbara community where for approximately thirteen years, from 1960-73, Manville served on the faculty at Bishop Diego High School.
(Quotes from First Complaints filed November 3, 2009, in Santa Barbara Superior Court, continued:)
Such action and inaction by the Franciscans has and will continue to produce disastrous results, as evidenced by the case of Fr. Louis Ladenburger. Ladenburger left the priesthood and the Franciscan order in 1996. However, early in his career as a Franciscan Ladenburger was treated for what former St. Anthony’s rector and Franciscan Provincial Minister, Mel Jurisich, has described only as "inappropriate professional behavior and relationships."
**********************
New Euphemism for pedophile priests' crimes: "Inappropriate Professional Behavior and Relationships."
*********************
Such vague terms are standard procedure for the Franciscans when describing acts of childhood sexual abuse by their priests and religious brothers.
After sending Ladenburger for treatment for his criminal conduct twice in the 1980s, the Franciscans allowed him to continue to work as a priest, including working at high schools. After another psychological review in 1993 the Franciscans were sufficiently concerned to restrict Ladenburger’s ministry.
However, at no time did the Franciscans report Ladenburger’s criminal acts to law enforcement. At no time did the Franciscans warn any families or communities where Ladenburger had worked or was working as a priest.
*****************
Ladenburger accused in 1980s, arrested in 2007. How many more kids was he able to rape in those 27 years?
***************************
As a result, when he left the priesthood nearly twenty-years after the Franciscans first learned of and began to conceal the risk he posed to children, Ladenburger had never been convicted of a sex crime, was not a registered sex offender, and only the Franciscans were aware of his pedophilic propensities. An unknown number of children have been sexually assaulted by Ladenburger as a result.
In May of 2007 Ladenburger was arrested for sexually assaulting several children in Idaho.
When first contacted shortly after Ladenburger’s arrest the Franciscans denied having any record of past abuses by Ladenburger. After this initial denial, Fr. Jurisich finally admitted to Ladenburger’s sordid history, and the Franciscans’ knowledge since the 1980s of the risk he posed to children. Ladenburger has since pleaded guilty to lewd conduct with two boarding school students, and on March 24, 2008, was sentenced to five years in prison.
The sentencing judge, the Honorable John Luster, found Ladenburger’s conduct so severe that he rejected a joint request by the prosecution and the defense of a suspended sentence. Ladenburger has admitted he is a sex addict.
These latest victims are further evidence of the continuing threat to all children posed by the Franciscans’ refusal to warn the public of their current and former members who have been accused of sexual abuse.
***********
The Story Is Not Over
********************
(More Quotes Copy and Pasted Directly from First Complaints filed Nov. 3 in Santa Barbara Superior Court:)
Four months after the Franciscans first denied then admitted they knew about the threat posed by Ladenburger, they were at it again. One would hope that after decades of Franciscan sexual abuse and cover-ups, at some point – perhaps, for instance, now that the number of confirmed Santa Barbara victims of Franciscan childhood sexual abuse has risen to sixty-three (63) – the Franciscan hierarchy would finally reconsider the corporation’s horribly flawed strategy of lying about and refusing to identify Franciscan priests and brothers accused of sexual abuse.
One would hope that after seeing today’s children continuing to be victimized as a result of this failed corporate strategy they would finally recognize that for the sake of both past and future victims, it was time to tell the truth.
Tragically, the Franciscans’ ongoing efforts to protect their pedophilic members, and to protect the corporation’s financial interests, establish a continuing pattern of conduct causing new harm to today’s children, new trauma to adult survivors of Franciscan childhood sexual abuse, and causing the continuing financial burden to a society paying for the resulting psychological fallout.
The Franciscans have learned nothing from the sad events involving Ladenburger, much less from their sordid history. Instead, they continue to re-victimize survivors of Franciscan sexual abuse, to create new victims, and to increase the resulting financial burden on society, by continuing to lie, conceal and cover-up the identities of Franciscans who pose a risk to children.
****************
Part Two Coming In a Matter of Moments, Hours, or Days, depending on how much work I have to do for the reality TV shows I work for - ke
**********************
Don't forget the PayPal High Five Campaign for City of Angels, using Donate buttons on the left.
After each post we pass the hat, that's how it works.
.
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By Kay Ebeling
Part One: The bishop of San Diego used the words "dumping ground" in 1950 when he complained to Rome that too many problem priests were ending up in Banning, Beaumont and other towns in the developing region. By the 1960s the Franciscans had moved 26 priests from San Diego to Santa Barbara, where they then raped more than 60 children. The letter to Rev. James T. Booth in Rome April 26, 1950, is Exhibit A attached to two new lawsuits filed Nov. 3, 2009, in Santa Barbara Superior Court.
Franciscan pedophiles removed from the priesthood in past years, are now showing up as therapists and teachers - Working with Teenagers, Living near Children - in towns around the Northwestern United States, because the Francicans continue to hide the crimes of their pedophile priests, other evidence in the Complaints shows.
There are so many new charges, so much new evidence, new stories about old pedophile priests and old stories about new ones in the pages of these two new lawsuits filed November 3 in Santa Barbara that City of Angels has to break our reporting into several different parts.
The letter from the Bishop of San Diego reads:
"During the thirteen years since this Diocese was erected, to my own personal knowledge, the Saint Barbara Province of the Franciscan Fathers has used this Diocese as a dumping ground for their moral, mental and physical problems. It became necessary for me some time ago to demand the withdrawal of one misfit after another. (From Exhibit A, attached as evidence to two new lawsuits filed November 3, 2009 in Santa Barbara Superior Court.)
The Complaint then says the Bishop was frustrated with the Franciscans and began applying to religious bodies in Rome to evict the problem Franciscan Friars from parishes in the Diocese of San Diego.
"It would appear the Bishop eventually succeeded," read the Complaints, "and sometime in the 1950s the Franciscans made Santa Barbara their new dumping ground for Franciscan perpetrators.”
Watch this weekend for parts 2, 3, 4, and whatever it takes to tell this story.
The legal briefs read like literature, so here are paragraphs, City of Angels copy-and-pasted from Paragraphs of two First Complaints, written by Tim Hale of the Nye Peabody Stirling & Hale lawfirm in Santa Barbara.
“Franciscan perpetrators have been sexually assaulting children in Santa Barbara since at least 1936. During this time at least forty-four (44) pedophilic and/or ephebophilic Roman Catholic priests or religious brothers have been assigned to work at and were living at and/or visiting various locations around Santa Barbara County.”
Beginning in the late 1950s the Franciscans began sending the first of at least twenty-six (26) Franciscan perpetrators to Santa Barbara following their expulsion from the San Diego Diocese. Those perpetrators are identified below in the decades they first appeared and continued to reside in or visit Santa Barbara based on information known to date:
26 Pedophile Priests Transferred From San Diego to Santa Barbara:
1 - Fr. Owen Da Silva (1930s)
2 - Brother Berard Connolly (1940s, 1980s - 1990s)
3 - Fr. Martin McKeon (1950s - 1960s)
4 - Fr. Edward Henriques (1960s)
5 - Fr. Mario Cimmarrusti (1960s - 1970s)
6 - Fr. Mel Bucher (1960s)
7 - Fr. Forrest McDonald (1960s - 1970s)
8 - Br. Kevin Dunne (1960s - 1970s)
9 - Br. Sam Cabot (1960s-1980s)
10 - Fr. Edmund Austin (1970s)
11 - Fr. Gus Krumm (1970s - 1980s)
12 - Fr. Paul Conn (1970s - 1980s)
13 - Fr. Dave Johnson (1970s - 1980s)
14 - Fr. Joseph Prochnow (1970s - 1980s)
15 - Br. Matteo Guerrero (1970s, 1990s - 2000s)
16 - Fr. Robert Van Handel (1970s -1990s)
17 - Fr. David Carriere (1970s - 2000s)
18 - Fr. Steve Kain (1980s)
19 - Fr. Philip Wolfe (1980s)
20 - Pre-novitiate candidate Ed Byrom (1980s)
21 - Pre-novitiate candidate Tom Thing (1980s)
22 - Fr. Chris Berbena (1980s)
23 - Fr. Remy Rudin (1980s - 1990s)
24 - Br. Gerald Chumik (2000s)
25 - Pedro Vasquez (2000s)
26 - Fr. Claude Riffel (1941-44, 1975-76)"
***************************
First Complaints Read Like Literature
(Both First Complaints contain the paragraphs below, which as a Blogger, I love, as I don't have to do anything but cut and paste, they are written so well.)
By the 1960s if not sooner these corrupt seeds planted by the Franciscans began bearing poisonous fruit as Franciscan perpetrators abused Santa Barbara children at a horrifying rate.
At least eighty-five (85) children have been sexually abused in Santa Barbara by Roman Catholic priests or religious brothers since 1936. Sixty-two (62) of those children were abused by Franciscan priests or religious brothers since 1960.
The confirmed number of victims and Franciscan perpetrators grows each year.
The consequences of the Franciscans’ continuing corporate practices with regards to Franciscan perpetrators have been disastrous both for local children, and for a society that continues to bear the financial burden of the psychological fallout for abuse survivors.
*****************
If the Church does not handle the pedophile priest problem, U.S. taxpayers end up paying for damages.
*******************************
NOV 3 COMPLAINT QUOTES CONT'D:
Abuse survivors often engage in addictive, self-destructive, and, unfortunately, sometimes criminal behavior as they deal with the psychological scars caused by childhood sexual abuse.
These behaviors in turn result in things such as divorce proceedings on court calendars, substance abuse, arrests, and incarcerations, all of which are paid for by the common taxpayer rather than by the truly culpable but tax-exempt organizations that protected the perpetrators.
The evidence of the Franciscans’ culpability in this regard is overwhelming.
Time and again the Franciscans have had the opportunity to end the cycle of abuse by reporting perpetrators to law enforcement, and by warning the general public when a Franciscan has been accused of sexually assaulting a child. Since at least 1964 the Franciscans have been concealing these crimes and shielding their criminal members from discovery.
Sadly, even with the global settlement of the 2003-2006 litigation, the Franciscans have not changed their ways. The following are examples only of some of the most recent known Franciscan conduct placing today’s children at risk. These examples illustrate the Franciscans’ conduct remains a present day threat to children wherever the Franciscans conduct their business:
*******************
Franciscan 'Did Not Think It Appropriate' to Tell Parishioners New Priest is Admitted Pedophile
************************
In July of 2003, the Franciscans assigned an admitted perpetrator – Father Gus Krumm – to a Sacramento parish next door to a school without any warning to the community. One Franciscan priest readily admitted he was aware of Father Krumm’s prior abuses but did not think it was appropriate to share such information with parishioners.
Despite the fact the Franciscans claimed Father Krumm was forbidden contact with young children, he did in fact have direct contact with young children while at this assignment.
*******************
In Arizona, didn't notify parishioiners new priest was a pedophile. 'Probably should have.'
******************************
In January 2004 it was revealed that the Franciscans had assigned perpetrator Brother Kevin Dunne to a Franciscan-run parish in Phoenix, St. Mary’s Basilica. The Franciscans warned neither the parishioners nor the community of the risk Dunne posed, and the Phoenix community had no means of identifying Dunne as a perpetrator as – thanks to the Franciscans never having reported Dunne’s crimes to law enforcement – he had never been prosecuted and is not a registered sex offender.
Thus, the fact Dunne had raped at least one St. Anthony’s student, and the fact the Franciscans had settled a claim made by that student, was known only to the Franciscans. The parish manager stated the Franciscans had never advised him of Dunne’s criminal conduct, and that "they probably should have."
*******************
Dallas Morning News Forces Franciscans to Admit Priest a Pedophile
******************************
In July 2004 the Franciscans admitted – albeit only after a reporter from the Dallas Morning News made the facts public – that yet another predator had been calling the Old Mission Santa Barbara home for over two years. Specifically, in the early to mid-1970's Franciscan Brother Gerald Chumik assaulted at least one victim in Canada. Canadian authorities attempted to prosecute Brother Chumik in the 1990s, but Chumik fled to the United States.
The Franciscans successfully and secretly harbored Brother Chumik, a fugitive from justice, behind the walls of the Mission for over two years. The Franciscans provided no warning to the public, much less to neighboring schools, of the threat Brother Chumik posed until the Dallas Morning News published the truth about Chumik.
**************
Continuing to hide pedophiles at Old Santa Barbara Mission
**************************
In July 2005, the Franciscan Vicar Provincial, Brother Tom West, admitted Mission resident, Franciscan Pedro Vasquez, had been accused of sexually assaulting a person West described as a "young man."
The Franciscans had allowed Vasquez to live at the Mission for three years without any warning to the community, and admitted to this fact in July of 2005 only when they knew its publication was inevitable.
*************
2001: Father Kain Abuses Again, Gets Moved to San Francisco
***********************
In 2005, the former rector of St. Anthony’s, Father Xavier Harris, testified that while he was assigned at St. Williams in Los Altos in 2001, a well-known Franciscan perpetrator, Father Steve Kain, assisted there as well.
Father Harris did not warn any of the parishioners of Father Kain’s propensities, nor, to his knowledge, did any other Franciscans warn any parishioners about Father Kain.
With no shortage of victims who were unaware of the risk he posed, Father Kain abused again. Father Harris testified that Father Kain was then forced to stop assisting at St. Williams due to the abuse allegations, and was transferred to St. Boniface in San Francisco.
Once again, Father Harris testified he had no knowledge of any warnings to parishioners at St. Boniface regarding Father Kain’s propensities.
************
No One Knows Where Father Mateo Guererro Goes
**********************
In late 2006 a victim spoke with Father Virgil Cordano at the Mission and informed Cordano he had been raped in 1976 by a Franciscan religious brother, Brother Mateo Guererro.
Cordano did not act surprised at this information, admitted there had been other complaints against Mateo, and admitted that Mateo had been transferred as a result. To date, the Franciscans have taken no steps to make this information public, no steps to determine whether there are any other victims of Mateo who have not come forward, no steps to notify the communities in which Mateo has been assigned over the course of his career as a Franciscan, and no steps to warn the current community where Mateo is assigned.
***************
Perpetrator Punishment: Become Manager of Retreat Center for School-Aged Children. Pedophile priest still at San Luis Rey in 2008.
***********************
From approximately 1994 to at least 2008 the Franciscans assigned another admitted perpetrator – Fr. Mel Bucher – to Old Mission San Luis Rey. Fr. Bucher sexually assaulted at least one adolescent boy in Oregon in the early 1970s. Despite this admission, the Franciscans allowed Fr. Bucher to manage the Mission San Luis Rey retreat center.
The retreat center conducts retreats for, among others, high school-aged children, including overnight retreats for students from, among other locations, Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana.
At least one current Franciscan and former Mater Dei faculty member has stated he would not discuss the allegations of abuse by Fr. Bucher with Mater Dei faculty or administrators because he does not "see any purpose being served in that."
The Franciscans have never warned the families of these students of Fr. Bucher’s history of abuse.
*****************
Now Oregon Seems to Be New Dumping Ground for Predator Pedophile Priests in the Franciscans.
******************************
In February 2009, Father Claude Riffel was accused of sexually assaulting a boy at another Franciscan seminary, St. Francis Minor Seminary in Troutdale, Oregon, in the early 1960s. Riffel was dean of discipline for the school when he would call the teenager out of class on the pretext of assigning work and then abuse him.
To date, the Franciscans have taken no steps to make this information public, and no steps to determine whether there are any other victims of Riffel who have not come forward. The Franciscans also have taken no steps to notify the communities in which Riffel has been assigned during his career as a Franciscan, including but not limited to the Santa Barbara community where from approximately 1941-44, and again from 1975-76, Riffel was assigned to St. Anthony’s and worked with boys the same age as those he is accused of abusing at the seminary in Oregon.
*****************
Pedophilia among the priests keeps going on and on, because the Church has changed nothing within, where the problem germinated and festered for decades.
**************************
In June 2009 Franciscan Father Alexander Manville was accused of the sexual abuse of an approximately eight-year-old boy in 1992-93. To date, the Franciscans have taken no steps to make this information public, and no steps to determine whether there are any other victims of Manville who have not come forward.
The Franciscans also have taken no steps to notify the communities in which Manville has been assigned over the course of his career as a Franciscan, including but not limited to the Santa Barbara community where for approximately thirteen years, from 1960-73, Manville served on the faculty at Bishop Diego High School.
(Quotes from First Complaints filed November 3, 2009, in Santa Barbara Superior Court, continued:)
Such action and inaction by the Franciscans has and will continue to produce disastrous results, as evidenced by the case of Fr. Louis Ladenburger. Ladenburger left the priesthood and the Franciscan order in 1996. However, early in his career as a Franciscan Ladenburger was treated for what former St. Anthony’s rector and Franciscan Provincial Minister, Mel Jurisich, has described only as "inappropriate professional behavior and relationships."
**********************
New Euphemism for pedophile priests' crimes: "Inappropriate Professional Behavior and Relationships."
*********************
Such vague terms are standard procedure for the Franciscans when describing acts of childhood sexual abuse by their priests and religious brothers.
After sending Ladenburger for treatment for his criminal conduct twice in the 1980s, the Franciscans allowed him to continue to work as a priest, including working at high schools. After another psychological review in 1993 the Franciscans were sufficiently concerned to restrict Ladenburger’s ministry.
However, at no time did the Franciscans report Ladenburger’s criminal acts to law enforcement. At no time did the Franciscans warn any families or communities where Ladenburger had worked or was working as a priest.
*****************
Ladenburger accused in 1980s, arrested in 2007. How many more kids was he able to rape in those 27 years?
***************************
As a result, when he left the priesthood nearly twenty-years after the Franciscans first learned of and began to conceal the risk he posed to children, Ladenburger had never been convicted of a sex crime, was not a registered sex offender, and only the Franciscans were aware of his pedophilic propensities. An unknown number of children have been sexually assaulted by Ladenburger as a result.
In May of 2007 Ladenburger was arrested for sexually assaulting several children in Idaho.
When first contacted shortly after Ladenburger’s arrest the Franciscans denied having any record of past abuses by Ladenburger. After this initial denial, Fr. Jurisich finally admitted to Ladenburger’s sordid history, and the Franciscans’ knowledge since the 1980s of the risk he posed to children. Ladenburger has since pleaded guilty to lewd conduct with two boarding school students, and on March 24, 2008, was sentenced to five years in prison.
The sentencing judge, the Honorable John Luster, found Ladenburger’s conduct so severe that he rejected a joint request by the prosecution and the defense of a suspended sentence. Ladenburger has admitted he is a sex addict.
These latest victims are further evidence of the continuing threat to all children posed by the Franciscans’ refusal to warn the public of their current and former members who have been accused of sexual abuse.
***********
The Story Is Not Over
********************
(More Quotes Copy and Pasted Directly from First Complaints filed Nov. 3 in Santa Barbara Superior Court:)
Four months after the Franciscans first denied then admitted they knew about the threat posed by Ladenburger, they were at it again. One would hope that after decades of Franciscan sexual abuse and cover-ups, at some point – perhaps, for instance, now that the number of confirmed Santa Barbara victims of Franciscan childhood sexual abuse has risen to sixty-three (63) – the Franciscan hierarchy would finally reconsider the corporation’s horribly flawed strategy of lying about and refusing to identify Franciscan priests and brothers accused of sexual abuse.
One would hope that after seeing today’s children continuing to be victimized as a result of this failed corporate strategy they would finally recognize that for the sake of both past and future victims, it was time to tell the truth.
Tragically, the Franciscans’ ongoing efforts to protect their pedophilic members, and to protect the corporation’s financial interests, establish a continuing pattern of conduct causing new harm to today’s children, new trauma to adult survivors of Franciscan childhood sexual abuse, and causing the continuing financial burden to a society paying for the resulting psychological fallout.
The Franciscans have learned nothing from the sad events involving Ladenburger, much less from their sordid history. Instead, they continue to re-victimize survivors of Franciscan sexual abuse, to create new victims, and to increase the resulting financial burden on society, by continuing to lie, conceal and cover-up the identities of Franciscans who pose a risk to children.
****************
Part Two Coming In a Matter of Moments, Hours, or Days, depending on how much work I have to do for the reality TV shows I work for - ke
**********************
Don't forget the PayPal High Five Campaign for City of Angels, using Donate buttons on the left.
After each post we pass the hat, that's how it works.
.
stay tooned
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Nancy Pelosi and the Bishops
QUIET POST:
From email to an overseas friend:
Pelosi is a Congresswoman, the Legislative branch, Obama is the Executive Branch. In US this is drilled into our heads in third grade. So having Pelosi sign a doc from The White House bombs as a joke...
Best humor would be to combine all Pelosi's gay constituents in San Francisco with her recent bursts of reliosity as she begins to get closer to ... old age.
In SF there are three classes of people. The EXTREMELY wealthy, the gays, and blacks, who are mostly still living in ghetto projects, even in 2009. Nice new projects on the South Side, away from everyone else.
Her dad was mayor of Baltimore, as a young girl in the 1960s (?) she came to SF and married one of the incredibly wealthy people they have in that city-
You have to understand Calif and SF are full of a very strange demographic of partying liberal wealth. In SF most working people have to commute and live in the suburbs, there is NO PLACE for a working class person to live in SF unless their family had the home since the 1940s, the rest of the housing is taken up by those three classes of people- extremely wealthy, well connected gay, or ghetto black. So those are Nancy's constituents.
With Jerry Brown it's the same, the Old Money (for California, old). These are descendents of families that exploited the hell out of the region when it was first discovered by white men. They created ways to squirrel away the wealth before statehood came and made them have to obey laws.
We've ended up with a Libertarian population that likes to party and be rich, it's hard to understand the mixture of ideologies that results from Calif politics unless you live here.
I mean we have Governor Schwartzenegger.
Arnold is very savvy and figured out as soon as he stepped on US soil that volunteering as a Republican campaign worker would pay off for him in the end.
Funnier things to say about Pelosi are she's a skinny coifed rich lady with this weird group of people she represents- rich, gays, and ghetto blacks. She took up household in the House of Representives for 30 (?) years and now is the matriarch over all these men...
Pelosi's a wily politician. Even after this thing with the bishops, I am waiting to see the end result of what she did before criticizing her peronally.
Working with the bishops, knowing Pelosi, may have been part of her long term strategy. Politically she just won points with a bunch o' these idiot brained fundamentalists who only grasp two issues in American politics: They're Anti Gay and Pro Jesus.
She just got 50 percent of their brains back on the health care side by playing around with the bishops ... so wait and see how health care reform ends up before totally trashing Nancy Pelosi.
ke
******************
From email to an overseas friend:
Pelosi is a Congresswoman, the Legislative branch, Obama is the Executive Branch. In US this is drilled into our heads in third grade. So having Pelosi sign a doc from The White House bombs as a joke...
Best humor would be to combine all Pelosi's gay constituents in San Francisco with her recent bursts of reliosity as she begins to get closer to ... old age.
In SF there are three classes of people. The EXTREMELY wealthy, the gays, and blacks, who are mostly still living in ghetto projects, even in 2009. Nice new projects on the South Side, away from everyone else.
Her dad was mayor of Baltimore, as a young girl in the 1960s (?) she came to SF and married one of the incredibly wealthy people they have in that city-
You have to understand Calif and SF are full of a very strange demographic of partying liberal wealth. In SF most working people have to commute and live in the suburbs, there is NO PLACE for a working class person to live in SF unless their family had the home since the 1940s, the rest of the housing is taken up by those three classes of people- extremely wealthy, well connected gay, or ghetto black. So those are Nancy's constituents.
With Jerry Brown it's the same, the Old Money (for California, old). These are descendents of families that exploited the hell out of the region when it was first discovered by white men. They created ways to squirrel away the wealth before statehood came and made them have to obey laws.
We've ended up with a Libertarian population that likes to party and be rich, it's hard to understand the mixture of ideologies that results from Calif politics unless you live here.
I mean we have Governor Schwartzenegger.
Arnold is very savvy and figured out as soon as he stepped on US soil that volunteering as a Republican campaign worker would pay off for him in the end.
Funnier things to say about Pelosi are she's a skinny coifed rich lady with this weird group of people she represents- rich, gays, and ghetto blacks. She took up household in the House of Representives for 30 (?) years and now is the matriarch over all these men...
Pelosi's a wily politician. Even after this thing with the bishops, I am waiting to see the end result of what she did before criticizing her peronally.
Working with the bishops, knowing Pelosi, may have been part of her long term strategy. Politically she just won points with a bunch o' these idiot brained fundamentalists who only grasp two issues in American politics: They're Anti Gay and Pro Jesus.
She just got 50 percent of their brains back on the health care side by playing around with the bishops ... so wait and see how health care reform ends up before totally trashing Nancy Pelosi.
ke
******************
Friday, November 13, 2009
Same secrecy- slash- confidentiality found with Mormon and Adventist as in Catholic clergy sex crime cases
*
By Kay Ebeling
(When different churches face charges of clergy sex crimes, they respond in similar ways, Kelly Clark tells City of Angels. A lawyer for plaintiffs in pedophile lawsuits regarding Mormon and Adventist clergy as well as Roman Catholic priests, Clark took time to sit down and answer several questions on video when we were in Portland Oregon last summer. His answers re similarities between religions' responses is transcribed here, with the video embedded for viewing below the transcript. We will use Clark's answers to other questions from last summer's interview in future blogs.)
Here, Clark says: "We find the same secrecy slash confidentiality emphasized in Mormon and Adventist cases, as we find in Catholic cases. I call it secrecy, the Churches call it Privacy or Confidentiality. They end up being sued not just for child abuse but for coverup as well.
"Another common theme is, Our work is too important to have our name smudged with child abuse claims. Another similarity in Mormon, Adventist, and Catholic Church sex abuse cases is institutional blindness.
"The Catholic Church is safer today, not because bishops got the Holy Spirit, but because they got sued over and over and over again.
"Anyplace where relationships of trust are being built with children, abuse can happen."
HERE IS THE TRANSCRIPT
The video is at our channel on YouTube, also embedded in this blog post at the bottom
Q : You have cases that are Seventh Day Adventist and Mormon and you were talking about similarities with the Catholic Church?
KC : Yes, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormon Church, Boy Scouts, we've done cases involving public and private schools, athletic leagues, any place where kids hang out, any place where relationships of trust are being built with children is where child abuse happens.
And the interesting dynamic, I think the piece the public needs to get here is that there’s a twofold truth here. One, these institutions almost always react to preserve their good name, to protect their self interest.
They almost always have the same instinctive response. Protect the institution.
Q : The institution and not the child?
KC : I don't think that's unique to the Catholic Church, I think that happens in a lot of different institutions. The second thing that I would say, and this is something I’ve thought about a lot, most of these institutions are good institutions, you know. They are institutions that we should want to improve, not want to throw out. I have always had a healthy respect for the Catholic, the best of the Catholic Church.
The Boy Scouts, the Mormon Church, the Adventist Churches, these are all institutions that do a lot of good for society and I think properly understood civil litigation can be a, a change agent. And to the extent that the Catholic Church is a safer place than it was 25 years ago, it’s not because the bishops got the Holy Spirit it’s because they got sued over and over and over again. And they decided to change what they were doing.
We're seeing the same dynamics in some of these other institutions as well, and I don't want to overlook the fact that these are good institutions that do a lot of good for society and need to be made better. We're not suing the child pornography industry here. You know, people who set out to do bad. We're suing people who set out to do good, and that's, that's sometimes an issue, it’s very much an issue in front of juries. Some juries don't want to award money against the Boy Scouts or a church.
************
Some juries don't want to award money against the Boy Scouts or a church
************************
But if they begin to see that lawsuits may be the only way some of these organizations are going to change, then that level of understanding can lead to, I think, some positive things. That's what I hope this work does. That's what I see in common between all these institutions, because good institutions can be made better.
Q : Can you give an example of something similar in Mormon and a Catholic clergy sex abuse cases?
KC : Sure. The bishop will handle it. Yes, there’s a report that's made of child abuse.
The bishop in the Mormon Church means something very different than the bishop in a Catholic Church
Now the bishop in the Mormon Church means something very different than the bishop in a Catholic Church. The bishop in a Mormon Church is essentially a pastor of a local ward or a parish. So a complaint comes in and the family is told, I'm the bishop, I’ll handle it. And the family says great, they trust that that's going to be handled.
Well the same thing happens of course, we know unfortunately that it happened a lot in the Catholic Church. An allegation comes in about a priest, maybe the bishop meets with the family. I’ll take care of it, [BACKGROUND NOISE, TRAIN] I’ll speak to Father John, it won’t happen again, we'll take care of it. and then nothing happens or Father John gets a slap on the wrist and he’s back in ministry three months later.
The absolute trust of the families.
That the hierarchy of the church is going to do the right thing, that’s a frequent theme, same is true for scout leaders, in institutions across the board.
Q : Almost any religion that you deal with?
KC : Not just any religion, any organization that by definition is trying to do good. The reason I keep saying that is because I think there’s a certain sense in which these organizations think that the ends justify the means. We are such a noble organization, the work we're doing is so important, that we can’t afford to have our good name smudged by a public accusation of child abuse.
And so they think the ends justify the means, and that kind of institutional blindness I think is very-very dangerous. No institution no matter how good it is, is exempt or immune from the cancer of child abuse. Which is the reason they all have to be vigilant, look at their policies, put them in place, practice them, follow them, and when an allegation comes forward, do the right thing.
The right thing and the smart thing is the same thing.
Which is protect the child.
It’s the right thing to do for all the obvious moral reasons, it’s the smart thing to do because if you don't do that, and you get sued, then you're not just sued for child abuse, you're sued for coverup as well. And in these situations, it’s almost never a mistake, it’s almost always a coverup, that comes back to bite you in the rear end. So those are some of the similarities I see between all of these institutions of trust.
Q : What about secrecy in the other institutions?
KC : I see a lot of the same emphasis on secrecy slash confidentiality. I call it secrecy, the institutions tend to call it confidentiality or privacy. Where they want to handle things kind of behind the scenes.
There’s something about a culture of power and a culture of secrecy that go hand in hand. And in my opinion these organizations would do well, they would do the smart thing, and they would do the right thing, if they would get the secrets out.
Look, once the secrets come out, then healing can happen.
Governments understand this. The South African government had Truth and Reconciliation Hearings.
We're going to get the truth out, and once the truth gets out, they're going to get past apartheid and everybody is going to understand what our history has been, what mistakes were made, who was at fault, we're going to have forgiveness, and then we're going to move on. The South African government did that with apartheid.
None of the churches we've been talking about have yet gotten the truth out concerning child abuse.
That's why we had such a hard time getting documents released from the Catholic Church all over the country. The bishops promise they'll do it and then they don’t do it.
(We planned to produce a super video to post here, using this interview with music, wowser edits, and dissolves, and all that. But have not been able to get the video software I have on this computer to open these files…)
So posted above, Kelly Clark in raw video speaking with Kay Ebeling August 22, 2009, in his Portland, Oregon law firm offices.
Raw Video
Hey, I'm 61 years old, my sister doesn't even have email...
.......
Don't forget the PayPal high five campaign.
After each post we pass the hat, using the Donate buttons on the left. That's how it works.
*********************
POST SCRIPTS:
Your Parish Lobbyists At Work
Anyone who was surprised that the Bishops were able to lobby Congress so BLATANTLY on health care this week has not been paying attention to the pedophile priest crisis and lobbying the Church has done in Ohio, Illinois, New York, Connecticutt, and on and on and on...
It's unfortunate but the entity that evokes the least faith and hope during these troubled times is the Catholic Church, revealing its true colors in city after city as it fights to prevent personnel files on pedophile priests from getting into the public's hands.
Any other organization that had produced five thousand pedophile priests and let them prey on families in nearly every city in the country would be under intense federal investigation. Since it is the Catholic Church, we get to see the United Conference of Catholic Bishops spend time in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's office this week, while she phoned the Vatican, then allowed anti abortion language to enter the House Health Care Reform bill, possibly killing the chance for hundreds of thousands of poor people to get medical treatment.
This colony of felons allowed pedophilia to become institutional, and a population of pedophiles now operates around the country, confusing religious ceremony with rape of children..
IT NEVER STOPS:
Like In Missouri:
Of the six pedophiles, two generations of males in a town east of Kansas City, MO, arrested this week for ritualistic sex crimes against children,
Three were lay priests:
"Three of the men arrested this week were members of the Community of Christ lay priesthood: Burrell Mohler Sr., David Mohler and Jared Mohler. The priesthood licenses of all three were suspended Wednesday morning, said Linda Booth, church communications director."
What is this sick connection between mutated religious ceremonies and sex with children?
Read the article here:
Child sex abuse allegations may turn into a murder case
MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
By DONALD BRADLEYThe Kansas City Star
LEXINGTON, Mo.
*****************************
Catholics think the Times reports too much about clergy sex abuse... This quote from: Sunday New York Times Opinion piece:
James Martin, a priest and an editor of the Jesuit magazine "America" believes reporters at The Times work hard to get stories right, though he sometimes questions the prominence and frequency of articles about the church’s sex scandal....
********************
From Jay Nelson:
The Return of Robert Sanchez
He’s back. They say criminals always return to the scene of the crime; bad pennies always show up again.So perhaps it was inevitable that the person of Robert Fortune Sanchez, the former Archbishop of Santa Fe disgraced by his own admitted abuse of at least five women along with gross negligence in his incompetent handling of the clergy abuse scandals, has once again shown up in his New Mexican homeland.Only now, he’s no longer a prelate, but a simple monk — a Franciscan friar, to be exact.
According to the website of the Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the former archbishop has been a friar for two years now, and is celebrating his fiftieth anniversary as a Roman Catholic priest with his Franciscan brothers.He has so much to celebrate, after all. What a record. During his nineteen years as archbishop, hundreds of New Mexico children were sexually abused by his priests, while he did virtually nothing to stop them. Nor did the chief shepherd of the community minister at all to victims and their families and parishes hurt by these monsters.... Read More Here
By Kay Ebeling
(When different churches face charges of clergy sex crimes, they respond in similar ways, Kelly Clark tells City of Angels. A lawyer for plaintiffs in pedophile lawsuits regarding Mormon and Adventist clergy as well as Roman Catholic priests, Clark took time to sit down and answer several questions on video when we were in Portland Oregon last summer. His answers re similarities between religions' responses is transcribed here, with the video embedded for viewing below the transcript. We will use Clark's answers to other questions from last summer's interview in future blogs.)
Here, Clark says: "We find the same secrecy slash confidentiality emphasized in Mormon and Adventist cases, as we find in Catholic cases. I call it secrecy, the Churches call it Privacy or Confidentiality. They end up being sued not just for child abuse but for coverup as well.
"Another common theme is, Our work is too important to have our name smudged with child abuse claims. Another similarity in Mormon, Adventist, and Catholic Church sex abuse cases is institutional blindness.
"The Catholic Church is safer today, not because bishops got the Holy Spirit, but because they got sued over and over and over again.
"Anyplace where relationships of trust are being built with children, abuse can happen."
HERE IS THE TRANSCRIPT
The video is at our channel on YouTube, also embedded in this blog post at the bottom
Q : You have cases that are Seventh Day Adventist and Mormon and you were talking about similarities with the Catholic Church?
KC : Yes, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormon Church, Boy Scouts, we've done cases involving public and private schools, athletic leagues, any place where kids hang out, any place where relationships of trust are being built with children is where child abuse happens.
And the interesting dynamic, I think the piece the public needs to get here is that there’s a twofold truth here. One, these institutions almost always react to preserve their good name, to protect their self interest.
They almost always have the same instinctive response. Protect the institution.
Q : The institution and not the child?
KC : I don't think that's unique to the Catholic Church, I think that happens in a lot of different institutions. The second thing that I would say, and this is something I’ve thought about a lot, most of these institutions are good institutions, you know. They are institutions that we should want to improve, not want to throw out. I have always had a healthy respect for the Catholic, the best of the Catholic Church.
The Boy Scouts, the Mormon Church, the Adventist Churches, these are all institutions that do a lot of good for society and I think properly understood civil litigation can be a, a change agent. And to the extent that the Catholic Church is a safer place than it was 25 years ago, it’s not because the bishops got the Holy Spirit it’s because they got sued over and over and over again. And they decided to change what they were doing.
We're seeing the same dynamics in some of these other institutions as well, and I don't want to overlook the fact that these are good institutions that do a lot of good for society and need to be made better. We're not suing the child pornography industry here. You know, people who set out to do bad. We're suing people who set out to do good, and that's, that's sometimes an issue, it’s very much an issue in front of juries. Some juries don't want to award money against the Boy Scouts or a church.
************
Some juries don't want to award money against the Boy Scouts or a church
************************
But if they begin to see that lawsuits may be the only way some of these organizations are going to change, then that level of understanding can lead to, I think, some positive things. That's what I hope this work does. That's what I see in common between all these institutions, because good institutions can be made better.
Q : Can you give an example of something similar in Mormon and a Catholic clergy sex abuse cases?
KC : Sure. The bishop will handle it. Yes, there’s a report that's made of child abuse.
The bishop in the Mormon Church means something very different than the bishop in a Catholic Church
Now the bishop in the Mormon Church means something very different than the bishop in a Catholic Church. The bishop in a Mormon Church is essentially a pastor of a local ward or a parish. So a complaint comes in and the family is told, I'm the bishop, I’ll handle it. And the family says great, they trust that that's going to be handled.
Well the same thing happens of course, we know unfortunately that it happened a lot in the Catholic Church. An allegation comes in about a priest, maybe the bishop meets with the family. I’ll take care of it, [BACKGROUND NOISE, TRAIN] I’ll speak to Father John, it won’t happen again, we'll take care of it. and then nothing happens or Father John gets a slap on the wrist and he’s back in ministry three months later.
The absolute trust of the families.
That the hierarchy of the church is going to do the right thing, that’s a frequent theme, same is true for scout leaders, in institutions across the board.
Q : Almost any religion that you deal with?
KC : Not just any religion, any organization that by definition is trying to do good. The reason I keep saying that is because I think there’s a certain sense in which these organizations think that the ends justify the means. We are such a noble organization, the work we're doing is so important, that we can’t afford to have our good name smudged by a public accusation of child abuse.
And so they think the ends justify the means, and that kind of institutional blindness I think is very-very dangerous. No institution no matter how good it is, is exempt or immune from the cancer of child abuse. Which is the reason they all have to be vigilant, look at their policies, put them in place, practice them, follow them, and when an allegation comes forward, do the right thing.
The right thing and the smart thing is the same thing.
Which is protect the child.
It’s the right thing to do for all the obvious moral reasons, it’s the smart thing to do because if you don't do that, and you get sued, then you're not just sued for child abuse, you're sued for coverup as well. And in these situations, it’s almost never a mistake, it’s almost always a coverup, that comes back to bite you in the rear end. So those are some of the similarities I see between all of these institutions of trust.
Q : What about secrecy in the other institutions?
KC : I see a lot of the same emphasis on secrecy slash confidentiality. I call it secrecy, the institutions tend to call it confidentiality or privacy. Where they want to handle things kind of behind the scenes.
There’s something about a culture of power and a culture of secrecy that go hand in hand. And in my opinion these organizations would do well, they would do the smart thing, and they would do the right thing, if they would get the secrets out.
Look, once the secrets come out, then healing can happen.
Governments understand this. The South African government had Truth and Reconciliation Hearings.
We're going to get the truth out, and once the truth gets out, they're going to get past apartheid and everybody is going to understand what our history has been, what mistakes were made, who was at fault, we're going to have forgiveness, and then we're going to move on. The South African government did that with apartheid.
None of the churches we've been talking about have yet gotten the truth out concerning child abuse.
That's why we had such a hard time getting documents released from the Catholic Church all over the country. The bishops promise they'll do it and then they don’t do it.
(We planned to produce a super video to post here, using this interview with music, wowser edits, and dissolves, and all that. But have not been able to get the video software I have on this computer to open these files…)
So posted above, Kelly Clark in raw video speaking with Kay Ebeling August 22, 2009, in his Portland, Oregon law firm offices.
Raw Video
Hey, I'm 61 years old, my sister doesn't even have email...
.......
Don't forget the PayPal high five campaign.
After each post we pass the hat, using the Donate buttons on the left. That's how it works.
*********************
POST SCRIPTS:
Your Parish Lobbyists At Work
Anyone who was surprised that the Bishops were able to lobby Congress so BLATANTLY on health care this week has not been paying attention to the pedophile priest crisis and lobbying the Church has done in Ohio, Illinois, New York, Connecticutt, and on and on and on...
It's unfortunate but the entity that evokes the least faith and hope during these troubled times is the Catholic Church, revealing its true colors in city after city as it fights to prevent personnel files on pedophile priests from getting into the public's hands.
Any other organization that had produced five thousand pedophile priests and let them prey on families in nearly every city in the country would be under intense federal investigation. Since it is the Catholic Church, we get to see the United Conference of Catholic Bishops spend time in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's office this week, while she phoned the Vatican, then allowed anti abortion language to enter the House Health Care Reform bill, possibly killing the chance for hundreds of thousands of poor people to get medical treatment.
This colony of felons allowed pedophilia to become institutional, and a population of pedophiles now operates around the country, confusing religious ceremony with rape of children..
IT NEVER STOPS:
Like In Missouri:
Of the six pedophiles, two generations of males in a town east of Kansas City, MO, arrested this week for ritualistic sex crimes against children,
Three were lay priests:
"Three of the men arrested this week were members of the Community of Christ lay priesthood: Burrell Mohler Sr., David Mohler and Jared Mohler. The priesthood licenses of all three were suspended Wednesday morning, said Linda Booth, church communications director."
What is this sick connection between mutated religious ceremonies and sex with children?
Read the article here:
Child sex abuse allegations may turn into a murder case
MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star
By DONALD BRADLEYThe Kansas City Star
LEXINGTON, Mo.
*****************************
Catholics think the Times reports too much about clergy sex abuse... This quote from: Sunday New York Times Opinion piece:
James Martin, a priest and an editor of the Jesuit magazine "America" believes reporters at The Times work hard to get stories right, though he sometimes questions the prominence and frequency of articles about the church’s sex scandal....
********************
From Jay Nelson:
The Return of Robert Sanchez
He’s back. They say criminals always return to the scene of the crime; bad pennies always show up again.So perhaps it was inevitable that the person of Robert Fortune Sanchez, the former Archbishop of Santa Fe disgraced by his own admitted abuse of at least five women along with gross negligence in his incompetent handling of the clergy abuse scandals, has once again shown up in his New Mexican homeland.Only now, he’s no longer a prelate, but a simple monk — a Franciscan friar, to be exact.
According to the website of the Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the former archbishop has been a friar for two years now, and is celebrating his fiftieth anniversary as a Roman Catholic priest with his Franciscan brothers.He has so much to celebrate, after all. What a record. During his nineteen years as archbishop, hundreds of New Mexico children were sexually abused by his priests, while he did virtually nothing to stop them. Nor did the chief shepherd of the community minister at all to victims and their families and parishes hurt by these monsters.... Read More Here
***************
Meanwhile, so much for closure:
Sentencing brings some closure to victims of priest's abuse
Nov 10, 2009
By: Laurel Myers, Sudbury Northern Life
Four grown men, with tears streaming down their faces, stood up in a courtroom and told their stories of lifelong pain, feelings of shame and loneliness. More than a quarter of a century ago, the four men, between 12 and 17 years of age at the time, each served as an altar boy at their local Catholic church, under the guidance of Father Bernard Cloutier.
NEXT DAY:
Catholic priest released on bail one day after sentencing for sexual abuse
KIRK MAKIN
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Nov. 11, 2009 12:00AM EST
JUSTICE REPORTER
A Catholic priest who moved from parish to parish in Northern Ontario for a decade abusing altar boys was freed on bail yesterday, less than 24 hours after he was sentenced to five years behind bars. Mr. Justice Michael Moldaver of the Ontario Court of Appeal characterized his decision to grant Father Bernard Cloutier bail as "a very close call" - particularly given the judge's misgivings about how the public might react to his prompt release. "The public could lose faith in the administration of justice if they see this as a revolving door - he's in for a day and then he's out," he remarked.
************
Don't forget the PayPal High Five Campaign. After each post we pass the hat, using the Donate Buttons on the left.
That's how it works.
ke
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