The role of the Catholic church WRT conspiracies

[chiggerbit]

http://tinyurl.com/yzzles3

Vatican offers 3 reasons it's not liable for abuse

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AP – Criticism of Vatican in Wis. over abuse scandal

Slideshow:Papacy and the Vatican

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Video:Church Abuse Victim Heads To Vatican On A Mission WBZ Boston

AP – Pope Benedict XVI handles a staff with crucifix during a memorial Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, at the …
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 1 min ago

VATICAN CITY – Dragged deeper than ever into the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Vatican is launching a legal defense that it hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him answer attorneys' questions under oath.

Court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren't employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the "smoking gun" that provides proof of a cover-up.

The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about Roman Catholic priests who molested children.

The case was filed in 2004 in Kentucky by three men who claim they were abused by priests and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their attorney, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case, saying there are thousands of victims across the country.

"This case is the only case that has been ever been filed against the Vatican which has as its sole objective to hold the Vatican accountable for all the priest sex abuse ever committed in this country," he said in a phone interview. "There is no other defendant. There's no bishop, no priest."

The Vatican is seeking to dismiss the suit before Benedict XVI can be questioned or documents subpoenaed.

The preview of the legal defense was submitted last month in U.S. District Court in Louisville. The Vatican's strategy is to be formally filed in the coming weeks. Vatican officials declined to comment on Tuesday.

Plaintiffs in the Kentucky suit argue that U.S. diocesan bishops were employees of the Holy See, and that Rome was therefore responsible for their alleged wrongdoing in failing to report abuse.

They say a 1962 Vatican document mandated that bishops not report sex abuse cases to police. The Vatican has argued that there is nothing in the document that precluded bishops from calling police.

With the U.S. scandal reinvigorated by reports of abuse in Europe and scrutiny of Benedict's handling of abuse cases when he was archbishop of Munich, the Kentucky case and another in Oregon have taken on greater significance. Lawyers as far away as Australia have said they plan to use similar strategies.

At the same time though, the hurdles remain enormously high to force a foreign government to turn over confidential documents, let alone to subject a head of state to questioning by U.S. lawyers, experts say.

The United States considers the Vatican a sovereign state — the two have had diplomatic relations since 1984. In 2007, U.S. District Court Judge John Heyburn rejected an initial request by the plaintiffs to depose Benedict.

"They will not be able to depose the pope," said Joseph Dellapenna, a professor at Villanova University Law School an author of "Suing Foreign Governments and their Corporations."

"But lower level officials could very well be deposed and there could be subpoenas for documents as part of discovery," he said.

McMurry last week filed a new court motion seeking to depose the pope; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, currently Vatican secretary of state but for years the pope's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal William Levada, an American who currently heads the Congregation; and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican's representative in the U.S.

On Tuesday, McMurry filed a memorandum in support of his demand to question Benedict based on court documents unearthed last week detailing the role of the Congregation in shutting down a canonical trial for a Wisconsin priest who allegedly molested up to 200 deaf boys.

"These documents confirm that the CDF, under Pope Benedict XVI's lead, discouraged prosecution of accused clergy and encouraged secrecy to protect the reputation of the church," wrote McMurry, who represented 243 sex abuse victims that settled with the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003 for $25.3 million.

Jeffrey Lena, the reclusive architect of the Vatican's legal strategy in the U.S., is seeking to have the court rule on the Vatican's other defenses before allowing the pope to be deposed, in hopes that the suit will be dismissed. In his filing, Lena noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that when a defendant enjoys immunity, a court shouldn't allow a "discovery fishing expedition on claims that are baseless or speculative."

Lena also has argued that the pope's deposition would violate the Vatican's own laws on confidentiality, and would set a bad precedent for U.S. officials.

"If Pope Benedict XVI is ordered to testify by a U.S. court, foreign courts could feel empowered to order discovery against the president of the United States regarding, for example, such issues as CIA renditions," Lena wrote in a 2008 brief.

McMurry is eager to find out what the Vatican knew and did, in particular, about Rev. Louis Miller, who was removed from the priesthood in 2004 by the late Pope John Paul II. Miller pleaded guilty in 2003 to sexually abusing one of the plaintiffs in the Kentucky lawsuit and other children in the 1970s. He is serving a 13-year prison sentence.

In a deposition transcription obtained by The Associated Press, Miller said he had offered to resign as early as 1962 to his then-Archbishop John Floersh, and that two subsequent archbishops knew of his crimes but continued to keep him as a priest, moving him from parish to parish.

In explaining why he wanted to resign, Miller said: "I just knew that the crime was so horrendous in my own mind that I didn't feel that I was worthy to remain a priest."

But he said Floersh was "compassionate," kept him on, and told him, "You will always be a good priest."

Plaintiffs in the Kentucky suit contend that bishops are employees of the Vatican. That point is crucial to determing whether the Holy See can be held responsible for their behavior.

There's a general consensus among legal scholars that an employee is someone who works for the employer, who controls the details of the work. Attorneys for the Vatican are expected to argue that diocesan bishops do not work for the pope, and that the Holy See does not exercise the day-to-day control over their work necessary to create an employment relationship.

Also crucial to the Kentucky lawsuit is the 1962 document "Crimen Sollicitationis" — Latin for "crimes of solicitation." It describes how church authorities should deal procedurally with cases of abuse of children by priests, cases where sex is solicited in the confessional — a particularly heinous crime under canon law — and cases of homosexuality and bestiality.

McMurry argues that the document imposed the highest level of secrecy on such matters and reflected a Vatican policy barring bishops from reporting abuse to police.

Lena declined to comment Tuesday, but he has tried to shoot down McMurry's theory by arguing that McMurry's own expert witness, canon lawyer Thomas P. Doyle, has rejected theories that Crimen was proof of a cover-up.

The plaintiffs, Lena wrote in a 2008 motion, "fail to offer any facts in support of their theory that Crimen caused their injuries, nor indeed any facts that Crimen was ever in the possession of the Louisville archdiocese or used in Kentucky."

McMurry insisted Tuesday that Crimen is a smoking gun.

"The fact is, this document and its predecessors make it an excommunicable offense to reveal any knowledge of allegations that a priest has sexually abused," he said in an e-mail.

The existence of Crimen did not become publicly known until 2003, when a lawyer noticed a reference to the document while reading a 2001 letter written by Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. McMurry is seeking to subpoena Ratzinger's letter, which instructed all bishops to send cases of clerical sex abuse to him and to keep the proceedings secret.

In 2008, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the go-ahead for Kentucky lawsuit to continue, ruling that an exception to sovereign immunity, which shields most foreign governments from U.S. lawsuits, should be applied.

The 6th Circuit eliminated most of the plaintiffs claims' in its late 2008 ruling before returning it to district court.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS graf 21, to correct that reference is to one of the plaintiffs, sted defendants in the Kentucky lawsuit.)

[chiggerbit]

Ok, here's a report from the church's judge regarding the other side of the recent Wisconsin scandal involving deaf children:

http://fratres.wordpress.com/

The Just Judge — Setting the record straight in the case of abusive Milwaukee priest Father Lawrence Murphy

“The Catholic Church is probably the safest place for children at this point in history…” Father Thomas Brundage, JLC


Then-presiding judge for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee gives first-person account of church trial

By Fr. THOMAS BRUNDAGE, JLC

For CatholicAnchor.org

To provide context to this article, I was the Judicial Vicar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from 1995-2003. During those years, I presided over four canonical criminal cases, one of which involved Father Lawrence Murphy. Two of the four men died during the process. God alone will judge these men.

To put some parameters on the following remarks, I am writing this article with the express knowledge and consent of Archbishop Roger Schwietz, OMI, the Archbishop of Anchorage, where I currently serve. Archbishop Schwietz is also the publisher of the Catholic Anchor newspaper.

I will limit my comments, because of judicial oaths I have taken as a canon lawyer and as an ecclesiastical judge. However, since my name and comments in the matter of the Father Murphy case have been liberally and often inaccurately quoted in the New York Times and in more than 100 other newspapers and on-line periodicals, I feel a freedom to tell part of the story of Father Murphy’s trial from ground zero.

As I have found that the reporting on this issue has been inaccurate and poor in terms of the facts, I am also writing out of a sense of duty to the truth.

The fact that I presided over this trial and have never once been contacted by any news organization for comment speaks for itself.

My intent in the following paragraphs is to accomplish the following:

To tell the back-story of what actually happened in the Father Murphy case on the local level;

To outline the sloppy and inaccurate reporting on the Father Murphy case by the New York Times and other media outlets;

To assert that Pope Benedict XVI has done more than any other pope or bishop in history to rid the Catholic Church of the scourge of child sexual abuse and provide for those who have been injured;

To set the record straight with regards to the efforts made by the church to heal the wounds caused by clergy sexual misconduct. The Catholic Church is probably the safest place for children at this point in history.

Before proceeding, it is important to point out the scourge that child sexual abuse has been — not only for the church but for society as well. Few actions can distort a child’s life more than sexual abuse. It is a form of emotional and spiritual homicide and it starts a trajectory toward a skewed sense of sexuality. When committed by a person in authority, it creates a distrust of almost anyone, anywhere.

As a volunteer prison chaplain in Alaska, I have found a corollary between those who have been incarcerated for child sexual abuse and the priests who have committed such grievous actions. They tend to be very smart and manipulative. They tend to be well liked and charming. They tend to have one aim in life — to satisfy their hunger. Most are highly narcissistic and do not see the harm that they have caused. They view the children they have abused not as people but as objects. They rarely show remorse and moreover, sometimes portray themselves as the victims. They are, in short, dangerous people and should never be trusted again. Most will recommit their crimes if given a chance.

As for the numerous reports about the case of Father Murphy, the back-story has not been reported as of yet.

In 1996, I was introduced to the story of Father Murphy, formerly the principal of St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee. It had been common knowledge for decades that during Father Murphy’s tenure at the school (1950-1974) there had been a scandal at St. John’s involving him and some deaf children. The details, however, were sketchy at best.

Courageous advocacy on behalf of the victims (and often their wives), led the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to revisit the matter in 1996. In internal discussions of the curia for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, it became obvious that we needed to take strong and swift action with regard to the wrongs of several decades ago. With the consent of then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, we began an investigation into the allegations of child sexual abuse as well as the violation of the crime of solicitation within the confessional by Father Murphy.

We proceeded to start a trial against Father Murphy. I was the presiding judge in this matter and informed Father Murphy that criminal charges were going to be levied against him with regard to child sexual abuse and solicitation in the confessional.

In my interactions with Father Murphy, I got the impression I was dealing with a man who simply did not get it. He was defensive and threatening.

Between 1996 and August, 1998, I interviewed, with the help of a qualified interpreter, about a dozen victims of Father Murphy. These were gut-wrenching interviews. In one instance the victim had become a perpetrator himself and had served time in prison for his crimes. I realized that this disease is virulent and was easily transmitted to others. I heard stories of distorted lives, sexualities diminished or expunged. These were the darkest days of my own priesthood, having been ordained less than 10 years at the time. Grace-filled spiritual direction has been a Godsend.

I also met with a community board of deaf Catholics. They insisted that Father Murphy should be removed from the priesthood and highly important to them was their request that he be buried not as a priest but as a layperson. I indicated that a judge, I could not guarantee the first request and could only make a recommendation to the latter request.

In the summer of 1998, I ordered Father Murphy to be present at a deposition at the chancery in Milwaukee. I received, soon after, a letter from his doctor that he was in frail health and could travel not more than 20 miles (Boulder Junction to Milwaukee would be about 276 miles). A week later, Father Murphy died of natural causes in a location about 100 miles from his home

With regard to the inaccurate reporting on behalf of the New York Times, the Associated Press, and those that utilized these resources, first of all, I was never contacted by any of these news agencies but they felt free to quote me. Almost all of my quotes are from a document that can be found online with the correspondence between the Holy See and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. In an October 31, 1997 handwritten document, I am quoted as saying ‘odds are that this situation may very well be the most horrendous, number wise, and especially because these are physically challenged , vulnerable people. “ Also quoted is this: “Children were approached within the confessional where the question of circumcision began the solicitation.”

The problem with these statements attributed to me is that they were handwritten. The documents were not written by me and do not resemble my handwriting. The syntax is similar to what I might have said but I have no idea who wrote these statements, yet I am credited as stating them. As a college freshman at the Marquette University School of Journalism, we were told to check, recheck, and triple check our quotes if necessary. I was never contacted by anyone on this document, written by an unknown source to me. Discerning truth takes time and it is apparent that the New York Times, the Associated Press and others did not take the time to get the facts correct.

Additionally, in the documentation in a letter from Archbishop Weakland to then-secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone on August 19, 1998, Archbishop Weakland stated that he had instructed me to abate the proceedings against Father Murphy. Father Murphy, however, died two days later and the fact is that on the day that Father Murphy died, he was still the defendant in a church criminal trial. No one seems to be aware of this. Had I been asked to abate this trial, I most certainly would have insisted that an appeal be made to the supreme court of the church, or Pope John Paul II if necessary. That process would have taken months if not longer.

Second, with regard to the role of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in this matter, I have no reason to believe that he was involved at all. Placing this matter at his doorstep is a huge leap of logic and information.

Third, the competency to hear cases of sexual abuse of minors shifted from the Roman Rota to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Ratzinger in 2001. Until that time, most appeal cases went to the Rota and it was our experience that cases could languish for years in this court. When the competency was changed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in my observation as well as many of my canonical colleagues, sexual abuse cases were handled expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved. I have no doubt that this was the work of then Cardinal Ratzinger.

Fourth, Pope Benedict has repeatedly apologized for the shame of the sexual abuse of children in various venues and to a worldwide audience. This has never happened before. He has met with victims. He has reigned in entire conferences of bishops on this matter, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland being the most recent. He has been most reactive and proactive of any international church official in history with regard to the scourge of clergy sexual abuse of minors. Instead of blaming him for inaction on these matters, he has truly been a strong and effective leader on these issues.

Finally, over the last 25 years, vigorous action has taken place within the church to avoid harm to children. Potential seminarians receive extensive sexual-psychological evaluation prior to admission. Virtually all seminaries concentrate their efforts on the safe environment for children. There have been very few cases of recent sexual abuse of children by clergy during the last decade or more.

Catholic dioceses all across the country have taken extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults. As one example, which is by no means unique, is in the Archdiocese of Anchorage, where I currently work. Here, virtually every public bathroom in parishes has a sign asking if a person has been abuse by anyone in the church. A phone number is given to report the abuse and almost all church workers in the archdiocese are required to take yearly formation sessions in safe environment classes. I am not sure what more the church can do.

To conclude, the events during the 1960’s and 1970’s of the sexual abuse of minors and solicitation in the confessional by Father Lawrence Murphy are unmitigated and gruesome crimes. On behalf of the church, I am deeply sorry and ashamed for the wrongs that have been done by my brother priests but realize my sorrow is probably of little importance 40 years after the fact. The only thing that we can do at this time is to learn the truth, beg for forgiveness, and do whatever is humanly possible to heal the wounds. The rest, I am grateful, is in God’s hands.

Father Thomas T. Brundage, JCL

[norton ash]

The rest, I am grateful, is in God’s hands.

Father Thomas T. Brundage, JCL

And from all I've seen, God keeps his hands to himself. He don't do nuffink.

[Sounder]

Power has always corrupted, but if we knew better the actual origin and nature of order, we might find ourselves being less inclined to bow down to false 'gods'.

This site may be useful to some.

http://sophrosyne.radical.r30.net/wordpress/?p=4938

After being evicted from Rome, Pope Clement V (1305-1314) and the entire Christian bureaucracy fled to Avignon, France. Francesco Petrarch, one of Italy’s most famous scholars, lived on the outskirts of Avignon for several years. At some point he set to intentionally observe and record the papal lifestyle, and he left behind one of the most candid descriptions of the Church’s despotism ever printed. Many considered him among the greatest intellectual writers of the age and he was esteemed by nobility throughout Europe, so his rebukes carried weight and had an impact.

In his book Letters without a Title (Google Books / Archive) Petrarch described the papal court at Avignon as “boiling, seething, obscene, terrible … a fountain of dolour where Jesus Christ is mocked, where money is adored, where honesty is called foolishness and cunning called wisdom … all this you may see heaped up there.” He said that Avignon surpassed in vice any city of antiquity and gave details of the obscene life in the papal court – “raging like a moral pestilence … a school of falsity, and a temple of heresy.”

[chiggerbit]

An ad taken out in the NYT by Catholic League's Bill Donohue.



So, in other words, it's ok if a priest sexually abuses an 11-year old girl, right, so long as she's started growing a bit of pubic hair, because then it's
post-pubescent AND not gay? The man sounds like he's advocating for NAMBLA.

[chiggerbit]

I see that Sinead O'Conor and the Catholic League's Donohue were two of the participants on the Larry King Live show yesterday, discussing this topic, but before I post any of that, I want to continue with statute of limitation (SOL) discussion that I started on the previous page. I've learned that a number of states have instituted or are thinking about instituting a new new statute of limitations window that would allow victims, whose ability to sue has expired due to statue of limitations, to once again report, no matter how long ago the abuse happened. The length of these windows are determined by the states, most being one or two years. The Catholic church's response is very revealing.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20090611.html

The Maturing of a Movement: Statute of Limitations Reform for Sex Abuse Victims
By MARCI A. HAMILTON
Thursday, June 11, 2009


When the California legislature passed amendments to its statute of limitations on child sex abuse in 2002, no one knew that its members were initiating a revolution for child sex abuse survivors. The key innovation was the "window" legislation, which gave survivors one year (2003) to file claims even if the statute of limitations for their claims already had expired. In this column, I'll consider the growing influence of this important law and its supporters.

The Facts Learned from the California Experiment

There is no question that the California legislation was passed in part as a response to the public revelations about the cover-up of child sex abuse by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, stemming from the investigative reporting in the Boston Globe. But the legislators did not pass the window legislation to apply solely to the Church. The legislators took what they had learned from the problems with the hierarchy of the Church – the fact of pervasive and hidden child sex abuse – and then passed legislation to benefit all victims of child sex abuse. Thus, the legislation was not at all anti-Catholic, but rather anti-child abuse. Courts reached this obvious conclusion repeatedly, with Melanie H v. Sisters of the Precious Blood being the leading decision.

In California, over 1,000 survivors came forward (about 850 from the Catholic Church). No one knew, though, what the benefits or costs of the window would be. It was a large experiment. Now that the claims have been litigated or settled, however, there are important facts that we have learned for the first time, or that reinforced facts unearthed by previous studies:

First, window legislation is not just good for victims. It is good for everyone. Windows divulge the perpetrators' and their enabling institutions' ugly secrets. In California, the names of over 300 perpetrators who had never before been named publicly were released. And the bishops' role in placing children's needs below public appearances was also elaborated. Making that information public is a benefit to every parent and child.

Second, many survivors need decades to come forward. The fact that over 1,000 survivors (from a variety of groups) took advantage of the window confirms what social science studies have shown repeatedly: It is a psychological fact that child sex abuse victims are disabled from revealing the abuse at the time they suffer it and for many years thereafter. However, if given an opportunity to come forward years later, they do want to – and are finally able to – do so.

Third, until the window was in place, society had been making public policy based on too little information. The window revealed that the laws we have focused upon, like sex offender registries and pedophile-free zones, have assumed we know who the predators are. One of the greatest shocks in the last ten years is to learn that we only know about 10% of the perpetrators because of a broken legal system that shuts victims out of court before they get there. (Victims usually cannot name their perpetrators without the legal system, because perpetrators can and will sue the victim for defamation. If nothing else, child predators are adept at lying and dissembling.)

There were also important lessons that we learned from statute of limitations reform about trial lawyers and their contributions to society. Trial lawyers and their large contingency fees are routinely vilified, but Professor Timothy Lytton of Albany Law School has written an important book, Holding Bishops Accountable: How Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy Sexual Abuse, which supports the view that the clergy abuse lawsuits were instrumental in educating the public about abuse in the Church and about how Church leaders handled it. Even Professor Lester Brickman of Cardozo Law School, one of the most passionate opponents of abusive contingency fee practices and author of the forthcoming book The Rent Seekers: Lawyers, Torts, and Contingency Fees, has praised clergy abuse litigation for its good outcomes for society.

Without the trial attorneys and the lawsuits, society would have remained in the dangerous darkness that keeps children at extreme risk. The Boston Globe investigation was a vital beginning; only through victim-led litigation can we get to the documents and facts that explain the full story to the people.

The Movement Has Moved Across the Country, with Delaware Passing Window Legislation in 2007 and New York Now Actively Considering It

After the California statute of limitations (SOL) window closed at the end of 2003, Delaware opened a two-year window in 2007, which will close in July 2009. Once again, in Delaware, survivors deeply appreciated the opportunity for justice and the public was educated about previously anonymous child abusers.

This simple but effective idea has taken hold among survivors across the country. And similar legislation has been proposed in a number of states. Wherever the idea of SOL reform legislation for child sex abuse survivors has popped up, newspapers have come out in favor of the legislation. Supportive editorials of a variety of approaches to SOL reform have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA), Denver Post, Palm Beach Post, Chicago Tribune, Bowling Green Daily News, Louisville Courier-Journal, Baltimore Examiner, Baltimore Sun, Times Herald (Port Huron, MI), St. Louis Post Dispatch, Newark Star-Ledger, Bergen County Record, Akron Beach Journal, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Philadelphia Inquirer, Allentown Morning Call, New York Times, Albany Times-Union, Jewish Daily Forward, Journal News (Westchester, NY), Syracuse Post Standard, Dallas Morning News, Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA), and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Thoughtful people who look at the facts find SOL reform legislation to be a no-brainer. That is why its opponents often sound maniacal or hysterical.

An Anti-SOL Reform Backlash: Why the Movement's Enemies Are Fighting a Losing Battle

The window movement also has generated an anti-SOL reform backlash. When the California window legislation passed, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was still reeling from its recent exposure in Boston, and other communities across the country, and did not put up much of a fight. When the hierarchy realized after its passage, though, that many of their victims in California would open the window on the Church's secrets, they quickly mobilized, hiring an army of lawyers in California to fight every case (and now to fight the release of every document, as I discussed in a previous column).

The hierarchy's fear of having its secrets spilled also has motivated it to lobby heatedly against SOL reform. At this point, the Catholic Conference in each state is charged with monitoring whether child sex abuse statutes of limitations reform legislation is pending, and to fight it. Overall, the Conferences are spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to fight the survivor movement. They throw at the reform bills every conceivable argument, regardless of whether it is true or false, and their tone is invariably inflammatory and vituperative; they quickly and thoughtlessly demonize anyone in support of child sex abuse SOL reform.

In New York, which is now the most active state with respect to SOL reform, according to the media, four lobbyists have been hired by the hierarchy to battle the pending window legislation, the Child Victims Act (recently amended). These lobbyists have concocted three arguments: First, they say that the original bill was "unfair" because it did not apply to public institutions. (In fact, this was an outright misrepresentation of the law; it opened a window for all victims filing against public institutions under federal civil rights law and for victims in state court who could ask for a waiver of a state procedural hurdle.) In the tone of "woe is me," with their "fairness" argument, they have worked assiduously to move the attention away from the victims they created (who are walking the halls of the New York legislature virtually every day at this point), shamelessly portraying themselves as the "real victims."

Second, they argued that the original bill was too "open-ended." It is just not fair, according to them, to make the Church liable for its bad acts decades ago – even though no one questions the continuity or consistency of this 2000-year-old institution or that they are more than likely guilty in a large number of cases.

Third, they have told their parishioners and the press repeatedly that they will go "bankrupt" if they have to pay damages to the victims they created, when this is simply untrue; the Church will be able to pay its liability by selling real estate unrelated to its mission and through insurance, as I detail further below.

An Increasingly Diverse and Politically Savvy Movement

The movement in New York has become much more diverse, and has expanded to include not only survivors of the Church, but also Jewish survivors and victims of family sexual abuse. The diversification makes tremendous sense, since these bills apply to every survivor, and since the vast majority of child sexual abuse victims faced perpetrators who were neither trusted religious figures nor Mr. "Stranger Danger"; rather, the largest category of victims includes the victims of family abuse. The survivors have found many other partners, including the National Black Church Initiative and numerous Jewish groups, like Survivors for Justice, and others to join with them in their cause.

Ironically, the opposition is limited almost exclusively to a select set of religious groups, though they account for a small percentage of victims. (That means they are lobbying against the victims of incest, the largest percentage of victims.) The Catholic hierarchy has found a partner in Agudath Israel in lobbying against such reform in New York. You can identify which religious groups in a particular region of the country have particular concerns about their sex abuse secrets. In Oregon, where a bill to extend the statute of limitations is being considered, the Catholic hierarchy is working very publicly with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to stop the reform.

The victims' movement has matured in other ways as well. The survivors have become tougher and savvier in the public arena. No political fight, especially one in which religious groups are throwing around their political weight, leaves anyone unscathed. The making of legislation is like the making of sausage: No one in their right mind would want to watch. In New York State, the movement has had to learn – as it faces the brass-knuckle politics for which the state is famous -- that this movement is no different than any other. When it seemed they had no chance at getting their legislation passed, they were treated with kid gloves and respect. But now that there is a real possibility that a statute of limitations window will become law, the Church hierarchy has adopted the motto "All is fair in love and war" -- or in their case, "All is fair if the result benefits the Church." The members beholden to the Church likewise have been cold to the survivors' faces, who in turn have gotten thicker-skinned and tougher.

The Child Victims Act Is Amended to Meet All of the Church's Potentially Reasonable Objections

In order to build the strongest support for the Child Victims Act in the Legislature, its primary champion, Assemblywoman Marge Markey, agreed to amendments that would explicitly expand its reach to public institutions and cap the age of those who could bring claims under this window at age 53. She simultaneously slayed the only two plausible arguments the Church had.

Victims across the state initially were distraught at the age cap and some reacted blindly, saying that if the bill did not reach every victim, it should be killed. And truth be told, some of the most ardent supporters of the legislation are cut out by the age cap. But to their credit, they quickly recovered and went back to the arduous task of educating members of the legislature about the travails of child sex abuse survivors, and the need for New York parents and children to know who the perpetrators are. Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that having a somewhat smaller window was still far better than having no window at all in New York.

The Church was then left with its groundless financial argument against the bill. A crucial fact that came out of California was that the Church does indeed have the resources to make up for the evils that the hierarchy visited upon children. The settlements were half insurance proceeds and half proceeds from the sale of property not related to religious purposes. No schools were closed, and no services were cut, just because the Church paid the damages due to its victims under law. The one filed bankruptcy case (of the San Diego diocese) was baseless, because the diocese had so many land holdings it did not belong in bankruptcy court. The filing was dismissed.

The New York hierarchy, though, has ordered its parish priests to say the opposite to parishioners on Sunday, claiming that religious mission is threatened by statute-of-limitations windows, but putting these lies behind the pulpit does not make them true. It does, however, bring to mind a line from Prizzi's Honor, when Jack Nicholson says to Kathleen Turner, two hitmen falling love, that the Sicilians would "rather eat their children than part with money and they are very fond of children."

Nor can lies be turned to truth when a bishop states them. Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio aggressively has tried to sell the fiscal story. The money story against the window legislation, though, is deeper than his shallow predictions of the end of Catholic services (largely funded by the government anyway). The New York Times reported recently that DiMarzio removed Rev. James O'Shea of Churches United from a Brooklyn affordable housing project to increase Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez's control of it. In an unsubtle move, Lopez then introduced a bill to compete with the Child Victims Act, which was obviously co-authored by church lawyers given its original exclusion of institutions (like the Church) from liability for harming children. That bill has lost momentum in another mark of how far the survivors have come.

After Markey amended the Child Victims Act to meet the hierarchy's only potentially reasonable objections, DiMarzio moved to condescension for the victims, saying that he knows what victims need more than they do. According to the Times, he declared that "the adversarial process of litigation would present an "insurmountable barrier to bringing about what is necessary — healing." With the number of survivors joining this movement nationwide and walking the halls in Albany, his paternalism is outdated, to put the best face on it.

Knowing that money alone could not sustain their opposition forever, the hierarchy ratcheted up the rhetoric. On June 8, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights released a wild-eyed press release, calling New York's newly-amended Child Victims Act "chopped meat." The flailing for metaphor speaks for itself.

The movement was then thrown for a loop (as was all of Albany) when the New York Senate flipped from Democrat to Republican control this week. Showing their resilience, though, the survivors showed up in Albany the next days and went from office to office with the same message: This is the right and the best thing to do for New York's children. The two Senators who moved from Democrat to Republican were sponsors of the original bill, so there is every reason to believe this bill for children can be passed whether Republicans or Democrats are in control. A vote is expected in the Assembly next Tuesday, June 16.

At the same time, the reform movement has become more sophisticated, with the Survivors for Justice purchasing radio spots urging passage, other groups even hiring lobbyists, and the creation of a comprehensive website, www.sol-reform.com, on which I have taken the lead. Moreover, the movement has expanded well beyond survivor groups alone, to now include Parents for Megan's Law, the National Organization for Women, Pandora's Project, Justice for Children, the Leadership Council, and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, among many other worthy organizations.

Out of these coalitions, a new mantra can be heard, one which proves that the SOL reform movement has truly grown up and embraced its adult role in the rough-and-tumble world of politics. That mantra is directed to New York legislators right now, and it is this: Vote against the Child Victims Act, and we will fight tooth-and-nail to be sure you are never re-elected.

[chiggerbit]

I came across the term Nicolaism at Robert Parry's Consortium News, and googled the term. Wiki says:

...

According to Epiphanius of Salamis, also of the fourth century, Nicholas, one of the Seven Deacons of Acts 6:1–6, noticed others being admired for their celibacy. To avoid seeming immoderately devoted to his beautiful wife and therefore inferior in his ministry, he renounced conjugal intercourse forever. While he was able to remain continent for a while, eventually his burning desire overpowered him. However, he did not want to be regarded as inconsistent or seen as taking his oath lightly. Instead of returning to his wife, he engaged in promiscuous sex and what Epiphanius termed "sex practices against nature". In this way, he started Nicolaism, an antinomian heresy which believed that as long as they abstained from marriage, it was not a sin to exercise their sexual desires as they pleased. Revelation 2:6 and 15 expresses hatred for the "works of the Nicolaitans"

That's about as good an explanation of the Catholic Church's response to sexual abuse of children by priests as any I've seen.

[chiggerbit]

I see that some simply consider Nicolaism to be married clergy.

[yathrib]

Imagine if ACORN was responsible for all the stuff the Vatican has done or not done.

[Simulist]

Imagine if ACORN was responsible for all the stuff the Vatican has done or not done.

Wasn't the Vatican saying that just the other day?

[yathrib]

Did they? My point was that ACORN was destroyed because of a doctored video; the Vatican really is proven to be guilty by reams and reams of evidence. Yet somehow they're still there, making statements, threats, and assertions with their bare faces hanging out.

Imagine if ACORN was responsible for all the stuff the Vatican has done or not done.

Wasn't the Vatican saying that just the other day?

[Simulist]

Did they?

No, Yathrib, they didn't.

You made an excellent point. I was not only agreeing with it, but also remarking that the Vatican will concoct literally any justification to weasel its way out of responsibility — and if it had thought of ACORN, it would have used that one, too.

You're right.

[Simulist]

Jon Stewart Slams Pope Over Sex Abuse Scandal (VIDEO)

The ongoing abuse scandals in the Catholic Church got the "Daily Show" treatment last night, with Jon Stewart laying into the Church's response to the raft of allegations.

In a segment called 'Pope Opera,' Stewart mocked the Church's stubborn refusal to apologize for its actions, saying that even Domino's Pizza is more contrite than the Church.

"Look how sorry Domino's was just for their shitty pizza!" said Stewart. "They had a bad sauce recipe, (and) they've been out there nonstop. 'Oh, we're so sorry. Here, have some Crazy Bread!'"

LINK

[Laodicean]

Files show future pope resisted defrocking priest

Apr 9, 1:21 PM EDT

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Church files show that before becoming pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger resisted defrocking a California priest who molested children.

A 1985 letter signed by Ratzinger cited concerns about the effect that removing the priest would have on "the good of the universal church."

The correspondence was obtained exclusively by The Associated Press. It is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, played no role in blocking removal of pedophile priests while head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office.

The letter is part of years of correspondence between the diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle (KEYS'lee).

The Vatican confirmed Ratzinger's signature on the letter but declined comment on its contents.

[norton ash]

Some interpetations of Nostradamus say he predicts Benny One-Six will be the last Pope. Sounds about right, in a perfect world.