Hundreds of news stories in dozens of countries about Mario Pezzotti result from work done by Bill Nash last month in Massachusetts. Another Catholic Church outreach program for survivors forgets to include survivors. Plus link to a website that exposes the Archbishop of Washington, D.C.. Who to call at the U.S. DOJ and more in this week’s Roundup of News About Pedophile Priests you Won’t See Featured in Mainstream Media.

Plus another letter from Joey Piscitelli

Accused, Bishop Dupre

Pursuit of Bishop Dupre of Massachusetts

Watch for a hearing in Springfield, Mass, the last week of June to unseal the Deposition of Thomas Dupre (pictured right). The Bishop retired and disappeared after The Republican newspaper of Springfield, Mass., confronted him with molestation accusations in 2004. The bishop was indicted on rape charges same year by a Hampden County grand jury, but avoided prosecution because of the statute of limitations.

Dupre fled allegations he abused two young boys when he was a parish priest in Holyoke, Mass., in the 1970s. He has since reached out-of-court settlements with both men. Lawyer John J. Stobierski, who represents the plaintiffs, said Dupre invoked his Fifth Amendment to questions through the deposition.

City of Angels will still get a copy of the deposition transcript when it’s released, to see the questions Bishop Dupre did not want to answer.

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Put the Pope in Jail, T-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers
***********

Something that showed up in email:
(Names changed to protect the innocent.)

The Catholic Church in BLANK about two hours south of [REDACTED UK city] where we live, was having a night for victims and MM and I decided to go as the night was advertised in the papers and radio.

MM and I walked into a room of about a hundred people. Looking around the room, it seemed to me that there were no victims and only Catholic churchgoers.

MM and I were thrown out because we got up and talked. MM asked if there were any victims in the room and nobody stood up.

I asked if I could go back in but they wouldn’t allow us to return. Just bullshitting us yet again.

****************

Alvin Campbell of Springfield, Illinois, in the News Again

This story was in mainstream news
But deserves repeating here from May 30th:

The late Rev. Alvin Campbell of Springfield, Illinois: The future Pope Benedict XVI refused to defrock an American priest who confessed to molesting numerous children and even served prison time for it, simply because the cleric wouldn’t agree to the discipline.

The case provides the latest evidence of how changes in church law.

More stories about the late Rev. Alvin Campbell of Springfield, Illinois Telegraph 5.31.10; Washington Post 5.31.10

*********
One of the Highest Ranking Archbishops
Wuerl of Washington D.C. Exposed:

A fascinating website Concerning Archdiocese Washington D.C.’s Donald Wuerl and his Cover-up of sex crimes of his own former personal secretary. Website had plenty of evidence that can be copied, pasted, resized, etc:

***********

In CASE you missed it:

Bringing the Vatican to Justice
By Sam Harris,
Author/ Neuroscientist
on Huffington Post
I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Frankly, it always felt unsportsmanlike to shoot so large and languorous a fish in so tiny a barrel. (Click here to continue reading) at Huffington Post.

************

Letter from Joey Piscitelli,
Slightly edited,
Read edited parts at bottom;

Hi Kay. I sent this letter to head of the School of Canon Law, and surprisingly, I got no response.

TO: Catholic University of America
School of Canon Law
May 20. 2010

Reverend Robert Kaslyn,

My name is Joey Piscitelli, and I was* violently molested by a deviate sociopathic priest named Fr. Whelan, who worked in San Francisco for Cardinal William Levada. I sued the ** priest in 2003, and won the trial against him a jury verdict of guilty. It was appealed several times, and I won all the appeals.

***********************

The other question I have is, why would men who claim to represent God himself, like Ingels and Whelan, be such hypocritical child rapist trash

******************************************

Cardinal William Levada, who kept the sexually abusive low life trash in ministry with little children, clear up until the guilty verdict against him, had a canon lawyer named Fr. Gregory Ingels. You may probably know him.

Gregory Ingels was also a filthy serial pedophile rapist, whom Levada chose as his canon lawyer. Levada knew this.

One question I have is why would Levada have such a disgusting sickening rapist as his personal canon lawyer?

The other question I have is, why would men who claim to represent God himself, like Ingels and Whelan, be such hypocritical child rapist trash, and why would the church hierarchy like Levada cover up so may crimes for these despicable sex abusing reprehensible sub-human pigs?

I had to vomit twice as I wrote this. I puked for 5 minutes.

Anyway, It boggles my mind.

Thank you.

Joey Piscitelli

EDITED OUT:

* violently sexually molested by a filthy, disgusting, perverted, despicable, deviate, sociopathic low life

** filthy perverted…

***

From Richard Sipe last month:

New fact sheet released at the website of Richard Sipe dated May 3, 2010:

No one today has to be convinced that sexual abuse of minors is a deadly serious problem. It is a longstanding and widespread crime—it knows no cultural, ethnic, economic or religious boundaries. The Roman Catholic..

****

More News Roundup at City of Angels 8, where a longer version of this post appeared this afternoon:

ROUNDUP: News re Pedophile Epidemic in Catholic Church You Will Not Read in Mainstream Media

“SF Weekly’s attempts to obtain her office’s files on Catholic clergy abuse under the state Public Records Act suggest Harris favors concealment over transparency.”

While trying to get elected California’s top prosecutor, SF District Attorney Kamala Harris is ignoring news media requests to turn over San Francisco Archdiocese files that hold details of Catholic Church handling of pedophile priest crimes going  back 80 years, according to reports in SF Weekly.

From ‘A Secrecy Fetish’ in SF Weekly June 2:

“Harris, has for five years rebuffed reporters’ efforts to view those files, despite statements by former DA Terence Hallinan saying they should be released.”

“The records at issue may contain answers to a question of great public concern that has consumed international headlines during recent weeks: What did senior Catholic officials know, and what did they do behind the scenes, while priests accused of molesting children were shielded from punishment?” 

“For the past six weeks, SF Weekly has asked Harris’ office to comply with the request under the California Public Records Act. It has released nothing.

“A prosecutor must be careful not to release records that might undermine an investigation, unfairly malign the innocent, or expose victims to publicity they don’t want. But in this case Harris’ office seems to be going beyond these important principles to a blanket policy of secrecy.”  (Continue reading here in June 2, 2010 SF Weekly.)
****
(City of Angels: Cardinal William Levada ran the San Francisco Archdiocese until 2005 when he was put in charge of the CDF in the Vatican, which means he is now in charge of coverup of clergy sex crimes at The Vatican.)

What is Kamala Harris helping them hide?

Blogged by Kay Ebeling, The City of Angels Is Everywhere

Obama and his advisors grasp how the Vatican aided and abetted priest sex crimes about as well as they grasp BP Oil criminal acts in the Gulf of Mexico, as the recent amicus brief siding with the Vatican by Solicitor General to the U.S. Supreme Court reveals. Many emails we get at City of Angels compare handling of the BP Disaster by Obama to the Catholic Church handling of the sex abuse crisis.

Remember this one month ago?

BP Oil Disaster 1st Seen from Space Station May 4, 2010

A Japanese astronaut first saw damage expanding in the Gulf of Mexico. “From his perch on the space station, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, Expedition 23 flight engineer, photographed the Mississippi Delta showing the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico on May 4, 2010. From Space Dot Com  

Point is, when you are on the ground, in the middle of it, you don’t see the whole crime scene.  Adult victims of pedophile priests need a higher authority than local county investigators who can’t move forward because of local limits.  We need something like NASA to look down and see the pools of damaged individuals all connected to Archdioceses around the world.   Continue reading Oil Slick Looks Scary from Space here. Photo Credit: NASA

Jim Hightower wrote recently on AlterNet: Our government blindly went along with BP’s false assertion that only some 5,000 barrels a day were pouring from the well, when independent experts were shouting at the White House that the correct volume was up to 19 times that much.  Finally, almost a month after the blowout, Obama ordered a moratorium on drilling new offshore wells and on granting environmental waivers to the oil giants. Bravo, Mr. President! But his moratorium was simply ignored. Days after his order, oil companies were handed at least seven more drilling permits and five waivers. (Continue reading Who The Hell Is In Charge here )

*****

See the Similarities? 

No one wants to take on big jobs, or take a firm stand. 

*******

Now our government believes The Vatican instead of hearing the outcry of thousands of adult victims of pedophile priests.  We are pleading for a federal investigation.  These sex crimes by priests were networked and organized.  The structure that enabled it crossed state and national borders and that structure is still fully intact. 

Where is law enforcement?

Nothing in this country is working.

*****
Blogged by Kay Ebeling, The City of Angels Is Everywhere
*

"Angel" by Ami Dunn

Below is the plaintiff brief filed June 1, 2010, for the U.S. Supreme Court, written by Marci Hamilton with Anderson Advocates attorneys.

SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF FOR RESPONDENT
Pursuant to Sup. Ct. R. 15.8, Respondent submits this brief in response to the Solicitor General’s Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae (“Gov’t Br.”). The government’s brief correctly asserts that this case has none of the elements that would justify a grant of certiorari in this case, and so the petition should be denied.

The government’s brief, however, misguidedly recommends that, in the alternative, this Court should grant certiorari in order to vacate the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the purpose of re-visiting state law. The government’s suggestion rests on a misguided reading of Oregon state law, and is derived from mere dictum in an intermediate appellate Oregon court case.

The government’s reasoning would mean that the Oregon Supreme Court should have reached an opposite result in its on-point and controlling case, Fearing v. Bucher, 997 P.2d 1163, 1166 (Or. 1999). The Petition should be denied.

2 ARGUMENT

I. The Definition of “Scope of Employment” Is Governed by State Law, and, in this Case, by the Oregon Supreme Court, Which Has Held It Is a Jury Question, Not a Question of Law

It is settled precedent in the Ninth Circuit – and every other circuit to directly address the issue – that state law governs whether acts are “within the scope of employment” under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(5).
Randolph v. Budget Rent-a-Car, 97 F.3d 319, 325 (9th Cir. 1996).
See also O’Bryan v. Holy See, 556 F.3d 361, 383 (6th Cir. 2009); Robinson v. Gov’t of Malay., 269 F.3d 133, 142-145 (2d Cir. 2001); Moran v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 27 F.3d 169, 173 (5th Cir. 1994).

It is difficult to believe that there is any alternative plausible interpretation given that “scope of employment” is a long-established term under state tort law, and tort law is almost exclusively a matter for the states.
Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938).

If Congress intended “scope of employment” to be a term of legal art with a distinctive federal meaning, it would have been required to provide such a meaning.

It did not.

Therefore, the only relevant question before this Court at this time is the most reasonable and plausible interpretation of Oregon state law governing “scope of employment.”1

A. The Government Has Misread State Law Governing “Scope of Employment.”

The government has twisted Oregon state law almost to the point of being unrecognizable. First, the government treats the question whether sexual abuse can be within the scope of employment for superior respondeat liability as a matter of law.

According to the government, “the alleged sexual abuse in this case did not fall within the scope of employment as a matter of Oregon law.”

This is, in fact, a mischaracterization of the Oregon Supreme Court’s precedents.

The most plausible and reasonable reading of Oregon Supreme Court cases is that whether an employee has acted within the “scope of employment” in cases involving sex abuse is a question of fact for the jury– not a question of law. While sexual assault or abuse by itself may not be within the scope of employment, sexual assault arising out of and interrelated with the employee’s duties, actions, and, as the government correctly states, there are two additional reasons that this issue is not debatable:

Intent to serve the master may well fall within the scope of employment.

If acts clearly within the scope of employment are interrelated with and necessarily cause the abuse, the abuse can be considered by the jury as occurring within the scope of employment (along with all the other relevant acts taken in the scope of employment) for purposes of determining respondeat superior liability.

The Oregon test does not permit employer liability simply because the employment relationship brings the employee and the victim together. To the contrary, the abuse must necessarily be linked to the employee’s role, obligations, and service to the employer in such a way that a jury can infer that the acts of abuse are inseparable from the sexual aggressor’s role as an employee.

In that circumstance, the abuse can be one of the facts that satisfies the core element of proof that the employee was acting “within the scope of employment” in that case and, therefore, the employer is liable for those acts.

Oregon is not alone in treating “scope of employment” as a question of fact for the jury.

If the government were correct, Fearing would have been decided differently.

Second, the government manufactures new Oregon law by trying to extract “scope of employment” from a theory of respondeat superior liability.

There is no such thing.

“Respondeat superior” means, literally, “let the superior make answer,” Black’s Law Dictionary 1313 (7th ed. 1999), or, that the employer is liable for harm to the victim, because the employee’s actions occurred under the umbrella of the employer.

According to the government, Oregon has created a “new tort” of vicarious liability for which the triggering acts need not be in the scope of employment.

This reading cannot be supported by the discussion in Fearing or its outcome.

Moreover, under long-settled tort law, it would be nonsensical to consider respondeat superior liability without proof of acts within the scope of employment, so the government’s attempt to sever the two is absurd.

Even if the government’s reading were correct that the sex act itself is never within the scope of employment, the government’s conclusion that the defendant employer would then be absolved of liability for sexual abuse because there are no tortious acts within the scope of employment that can trigger liability is patently wrong.

The Oregon Supreme Court’s obvious reasoning is that acts necessarily leading up to the abuse are part of the set of facts establishing that the employee committed a tort within the “scope of employment.”

Therefore, the employer is vicariously liable for the abuse.

In other words, the grooming and the attempts to gain the trust of the child and family, using the position created by the employer, are sufficient tortious acts “within the scope of employment” to create vicarious liability for sex abuse.

This means that the plaintiff is permitted to go forward in a sex abuse case under Oregon law based on acts other than the sex act within the scope of employment. There is no question that the Amended Complaint describes those acts….

In fact, the Oregon Supreme Court expressly refused to reach the “scope of employment” issue:

“We limited our review of the Court of Appeals decision to the statute of limitations issue, ORAP 9.20(2), and therefore express no opinion as to the respondeat superior issue.”

In any event, the meaning of state law is determined by state supreme court precedent, not by intermediate courts.

And when the state law is fairly disputed by the parties, the state supreme court is the only appropriate body to clarify the issue.

That means the controlling decision is Fearing, as the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit correctly held.

The Government’s Reasoning Is Inconsistent with Other Provisions and the Legislative History of the FSIA

The FSIA was intended to de-politicize these cases and to take the State Department out of the calculus.

Congress could not have been more explicit that it is inappropriate for the executive branch to attempt to alter governing law in order to reach a particular end in tort or commercial cases.

Accordingly, the exceptions in FSIA were intended to shield victims from both the vagaries of politics and pressure from foreign sovereigns. The government’s far-fetched reading of Oregon law appears to cross that line.

The executive branch could be more appropriately involved with these issues if it were to take efforts to protect the interests of United States children by initiating investigations, following the lead of Ireland and Germany.

Yet, under the government’s reasoning, a private organization that creates an employment environment that induces child sex abuse in Oregon is liable for the sex abuse of the child, while a sovereign that engages in identical behavior and causes the same harm is not. This is contrary to Congress’s intent.

The legislative history states that the FSIA was enacted to protect American citizens from harm generated by the acts of sovereign employees, officials, and agents in the United States.

FSIA also was supposed to end the practice of having sovereigns pressure the State Department to avoid accountability to American citizens for torts and commercial obligations. It is axiomatic that under the FSIA, American citizens like John V. Doe, who are harmed by the employment practices of sovereigns, like the Holy See, should be permitted to go into United States courts in order to obtain redress for the harm done to them.  As the House Report explained, under the law before FSIA:…  (Continue reading at City of Angels where we posted entire document here )

DOCUMENT submitted by:

MARCI A. HAMILTON, ESQ.
Counsel of Record
36 Timber Knoll Drive
Washington Crossing, PA 18977
hamilton02@aol.com

JEFFREY R. ANDERSON, ESQ.
MICHAEL G. FINNEGAN, ESQ.
JEFF ANDERSON AND
ASSOCIATES, P.A.
366 Jackson Street, Suite 100
St. Paul, MN 55101

WILLIAM A. BARTON, ESQ.
KEVIN K. STREVER, ESQ.
BARTON & STREVER, P.C.
P.O. Box 870
Newport, OR 97365

Attorneys for Respondent
John V. Doe

Obama Administration brief posted here: DOCUMENT: Obama Brief Arguing that Foreign Sovereigns (Such As The Vatican) Are Immune From Lawsuits

Blog by Ebeling, The City of Angels Is Everywhere

Copy and pasted here, we invite comment, more stories on these U.S. Supreme Court arguments to come.

Obama and Pope 2009

The News reports that in this brief the Obama Administration agrees that a 0.17 square mile territory inside Rome, The Vatican, is a sovereign nation, and as such it is protected from lawsuits.

A City of Angels quick read leaves me thinking the logic of the Executive Branch here is: The plaintiff in Oregon cannot file suit against the Vatican because sexual assaults by the perpetrator were “not conducted in the scope of the priest’s employment,” which makes as much sense as the Federal Government in Louisiana waiting for a permit before building barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico last month.

The USA has become officious to a point beyond functioning.

Still, City of Angels has not been able to study this Amicus or “friendly” brief yet, as paid jobs take priority to CofA blogging.

Please comment on this US DOJ doc by emailing City of Angels at cityofangelslady@yahoo.com and help us understand this

Here it is, copy and pasted from the original:

DOJ BRIEF No. 09-1
In the Supreme Court of the United States

HOLY SEE, PETITIONER
v.
JOHN V. DOE

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES AS AMICUS CURIAE

QUESTION PRESENTED

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1330, 1602 et seq., establishes that foreign sovereigns are presumptively immune from suit in United States courts, 28 U.S.C. 1604, unless a claim falls within one of the exceptions to immunity enumerated in 28 U.S.C. 1605 and 1607. The tort exception to immunity permits claims against a foreign state based on “the tortious act or omission of that foreign state or of any official or employee of that foreign state while acting within the scope of his office or employment.”
28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(5).

The question presented is whether Section 1605(a)(5) authorizes a court to exercise jurisdiction over respondent’s vicarious liability claim against petitioner, the Holy See, for a priest’s sexual abuse committed in Oregon, where sexual abuse is outside the scope of the priest’s employment as a matter of Oregon law.

In the Supreme Court of the United States
No. 09-1

HOLY SEE, PETITIONER
v.
JOHN V. DOE

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Interest of the United States
Statement
Discussion
I. The court of appeals erred in holding that respondent’s claim falls within the FSIA’s tort exception
A. The court of appeals erred in holding that sexual abuse came within the priest’s scope of employment under Oregon law
B. The court of appeals appears to have further erred in conflating the FSIA’s jurisdictional scope-of-employment inquiry with the separate question of respondeat superior liability under state substantive law
II. The Court should remand for further consideration of whether the district court has jurisdiction over respondent’s vicarious liability claim under the FSIA’s tort exception
Conclusion

BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES AS AMICUS CURIAE INTEREST OF THE UNITED STATES

This brief is filed in response to the Court’s order inviting the Solicitor General to express the views of the United States. In the view of the United States, the Court should grant the petition for a writ of certiorari, vacate the judgment of the court of appeals, and remand to the court of appeals for further consideration. In the alternative, the petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied.

STATEMENT
1. Congress enacted the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1330, 1602 et seq.,

To codify the circumstances under which a foreign state may be sued in a civil action in a court in the United States. The FSIA largely codified the so-called estrictive theory of foreign sovereign immunity, under which “the sovereign immunity of foreign states should be ‘restricted’to cases involving acts of a foreign state which are sovereign or governmental in nature, as opposed to acts which are either commercial in nature or those which private persons normally perform.”
H.R. Rep. No. 1487, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 14 (1976) (1976 House Report); see Verlinden B.V. v. Central Bank of Nig., 461 U.S. 480, 486-488 (1983).

Under the FSIA, the general rule is that “a foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. 1604. The statute, however, enumerates certain exceptions to that immunity.
28 U.S.C. 1605, 1607.

One such exception permits certain tort suits against a foreign state. 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(5).

In relevant part, the tort exception provides that a foreign state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of United States courts in any case “in which money damages are sought against a foreign state for personal injury or death, or damage to or loss of property, occurring in the United States and caused by the tortious act or omission of that foreign state or of any official or employee of that foreign state while acting within the scope of his office or employment.”
1 Ibid.

If a civil suit falls within one of the FSIA’s enumerated exceptions to immunity, a federal court has subject matter jurisdiction over the suit.
28 U.S.C. 1330(a);

If a foreign state is not immune from suit, the FSIA provides that “the foreign state shall be liable in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances.”
28 U.S.C. 1606.

*****
Read the entire document where we posted this post in long form last night here:  Tuesday, June 1, 2010

DOCUMENT: Obama Brief Arguing that Foreign Sovereigns (Such As The Vatican) Are Immune From Lawsuits

HAROLD HONGJU KOH
Legal Adviser
Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520

NEAL KUMAR KATYAL
Acting Solicitor General
Counsel of Record

TONY WEST
Assistant Attorney General

EDWIN S. KNEEDLER
Deputy Solicitor General

GINGER D. ANDERS
Assistant to the Solicitor
General

DOUGLAS N. LETTER
LEWIS S. YELIN
Attorneys

Department of Justice
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
SupremeCtBriefs@usdoj.gov
(202) 514-2217

As Janet Clark wrote the 2005 novel Blind Faith about rape of an altar boy and its repercussions in a family, she remembered facts about her own 1979 sex assault by a priest. In some ways the experience of writing the novel changed the outcome of the novel. As she got the book published, Clark joined a group of women and became a plaintiff in lawsuits filed in Iowa, concerning sexual predator priest Patrick McElliott of Dubuque.

“I was just reading through the file on my case re McElliott, and I’m blown away again by his hatred and disdain for women. At one point, he had a loaded gun and threatened to kill the priest who reported him for having nude photos of a young girl. No wonder I was scared of him,” Janet Clark wrote in a recent email.

Janet Clark

She and I have been talking the past a few weeks for this story at CofA, which is partly about her 2005 novel Blind Faith, and in part about the mysterious ongoing nature of recovered memory, in adults who deal decades later with child sex crimes.

Recovering traumatic memory is not a onetime thing, but an ongoing process. In hundreds of case files in lawsuits against the Catholic Church is documentation of recovered memory, in fact, similarities in the way adult victims remembered childhood crimes in clergy cases across the country have brought a new credibility to the entire concept of repressed and recovered memory.

One pattern I’ve seen is the ongoing nature. The victim remembers the incident over a period of time, and details of the traumatic event weave in with details in the victim’s life as the memory returns.

At the same time Janet Clark pursued justice in her own case in Iowa in 2005, she wrote Blind Faith, a fiction novel, based on research she on priest sex crimes agaist children nationwide. In her fiction, a parish priest preys on altar boys in a Midwestern town. As she wrote the novel, Janet began remembering more details about her own nonfiction interactions with a priest at a 12-step retreat in 1979.

Her book conveys the roller coaster ride young Jack goes through, first on weekly escapades with Father Delanoit, then later after he reports the Friday night sodomy sessions to his family, the chaos that results, especially when they report the assaults to the archdiocese and the priest continues to serve as if nothing happened.

****************

Clark will be reading from Blind Faith at the People’s Book Co-op in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, June 8 at 7PM

*****************

At the time Janet began writing Blind Faith, “I had always remembered that the priest asked me graphic questions and then masturbated, but I hadn’t remembered that he actually touched me until the course of writing the book.”

In the course of writing the book, she realized he had done more than touch her.

Clark pursued a civil lawsuit against the Church in Dubuque, Iowa, after she finished writing the novel.

“Attorneys asked me questions, they sent me to psychologists, and it all together just jogged my memory.”

“I think it was a very organic process. I wasn’t thinking about the priest, I was wondering what would make a person become a monster.”

In 1979, at a 12-Step retreat, she was a young age 20, and “We’d done the Fifth step. I told him everything I’d ever done but he zeroed in on my little sexual sins, like premarital sex. He asked graphic questions about it and he looked me in the eye and he said, ‘You’re a contaminant.’

His unexpected hatefulness shattered her mind, her spirit, her will, she said. “From that point I complied with what he said. He penetrated me. I remember, afterwards, him going to the bathroom and getting a towel and cleaning himself off.

“It hurt. It hurt because it was done like he hated me.
It wasn’t a seduction, it was an assault, it was violent.”

Later in therapy:

“It came up in chunks, one night I woke up screaming, it was there knocking at the door of my consciousness. I went back to therapy and she made me feel safe enough that I could say what had happened. That he had touched me.

The first day of therapy, Clark referred to her own self as a “contaminant.”

Confirmation for Adult Victims of Pedophile Priests Is Not Like that of Other Catholics

(Clark is “lucky” there are more than a dozen other known teen female victims, now adults, of Patrick McElliott, as corroborating witnesses leave the Church little room for argument against an accuser.)

“I’ve talked to other of his victims,” Clark said, “and he did this for at least thirty years. He abused girls who were age ten to twenty. And the Archdiocese knew all about it.”

Blind Faith Cover

Enraged, motivated, Clark sat down and wrote Blind Faith a novel that combines the experience of dozens of families who’ve lived through a pedophile priest’s intrusion in their lives.

In a small town in Iowa, a family with some dysfunction is reliant on the church. The pedophile priest takes advantage of a boy’s vulnerability. We read the horror and shock the boy goes through as he is sodomized, then has to act normal around his family. His shame, then he tells his family, they tell the bishop, and nobody punishes the priest. All while the matriarch Lucinda keeps trying to cook normal meals for their nightly sit-down dinners.

It would be an unbelievable story if the same story hadn’t been repeated in hundreds of towns all over the country.

STORY Continues at City of Angels on Blogspot Where this story is posted in a longer version

By Kay Ebeling

The City of Angels Is Everywhere

.