“It is easy to have impact on the overall decision of The Hague prosecutor, as anyone can write directly with evidence of the crimes that this religious organization has committed,” according to an email from Axel Cooley axel@telegracia.com received this week by City of Angels Blog.

“It is vital to do this well before his decision date, May 15, 2011, so that he can utilize this evidence to proceed,” writes Cooley.

Send your story and evidence to:

The Prosecutor
The International Criminal Court
Dr. Luis Moreno Ocampo
Maanweg174 NL-2516 AB Den Haag
The Hague,The Netherlands

Cooley writes: “It is also important to enter your name in one of the websites of these websites demonstrating your approval:”

http://www.popeaccountability.org/do-you-approve-/index.php (English)

http://www.der-fall-des-papstes.com/finden-sie-das-gut/index.php (German)

Soon, the Pope Accountability  website will be made available in Spanish, French and Italian.

This post originally appeared at City of Angels Blog by Kay Ebeling:

Write Hague Criminal Court Prosecutor by May 11 re Crimes Against Humanity of Pope

City of Angels Blog is Ba-a-a-ack with a vengeance

New name for a feature at City of Angels Blog – PippiLeaks: Documents scanned for everyone in the world to click enlarge and read for free forever about sex crime coverups in the Catholic Church, here are 4 more from New Mexico, plus 2 bonus posts:

It started as a joke, I’d say:

Yeah I can’t afford health insurance, and I might die early as a result but there’s medical marijuana at the corner store and Viagra on the internet, so at least I’ll die happy.  That joke was at the end of a column I wrote three years ago about going to free clinics with “blood in the stools” and still never getting any diagnostic work done.  I’m still waiting for County to call me with an appointment for a colonoscopy, I’ve been waiting more than a year.  I’ve since moved out of that County…

An email today from Reading Glasses Shopper featured the “John Lennon Full-Frame Reader” as a Friday Find for $8 until midnight today only.  I would buy a pair, but the Lennon Reader only goes up to 3.5 strength and I’m shopping for 4.0 or higher.  Still I’m happy to see another thriving business selling medical care online that people used to get from doctors, as it’s all I’ve got…

A good six years ago when my daughter and I were homeless, I used up my last set of contact lenses and discovered that the reading glasses you buy at a Walgreens type store will suffice when you can’t afford the optometrist.  My eyes seem to have adjusted to the 4.0 strength glasses I’ve been able to find online where some pairs go all the way up to 7.00 in magnifying strength.  The strongest glasses you can find in drugstores is 3.25 if you’re lucky.  I think there’s some concern somewhere that keeps chain retailers from selling reading glasses stronger than 3.25 but online you can prescribe yourself all the way to total blindness.

It is kind of scary.

I mean, in twenty years, will the USA be full of blind people with cataracts and glaucoma and other disease that could have been treated?  Like a third world country, fourth world? 

The ads on TV for prescription drugs today are truly unprecedented.  I mean a 60 second commercial where 45 seconds are spent telling you all the side effects you might encounter if you take this drug, and the other drugs that you might be taking that make the drug in this commercial deadly, and what side effects you could have from the drug and if you have those deadly reactions, go at once to an emergency room.

Here is the scenario I imagine from commercials for prescription drugs:

Most Americans who do have health insurance, have opted into a low cost plan.  When I have had health insurance in past ten years, the doctors I’ve gone to have barely spoken English and sometimes I’ve even wondered how legitimate their license on the wall really was.  My favorite was the little Armenian man who was going to do in-office minor surgery on me, and as he picked up his instruments I heard him say, “oops.” 

How many of us are going into one of the doctors to whom we’ve been assigned by our insurance company, and not feeling like we can talk to the doctor at all, so we just asked for the drug we wanted, based on the TV commercial we saw, and the doctor wrote the prescription?  Then when we get home we can wait for the commercial to come on again, so we can try to write down all the side effects to watch for after starting the drug. 

As I search the internet for a place where I can buy glasses stronger than 4.0, wondering if the little bit of medical marijuana I smoke will keep me from getting glaucoma like my dad and aunt on both sides of the family had, using Fixodent to glue back in old tooth fillings and hopefully with lots of mouthwash keeping my teeth from rotting, staying away from men who take Viagra, when maybe I really should be looking for a man who takes Viagra, hoping that the muscle relaxant I bought from Canada won’t have a bad interaction with the pain killer I bought from India… I keep reminding myself. 

We’re not meant to stay on this planet for more than 80 years or so anyway, so if I die a few years early of no health insurance, the difference is just one tiny blip in time in the totality of the cosmos.  (See, it’s easier today to get LSD than an antibiotic.)

As I posted this entry just now on AlterNet, a commercial for yet another medication came on saying,

“Interaction with other drugs such as Prilosex might result in heart attack or stroke, but don’t stop taking this medication suddenly as your risk of heart attack or stroke may increase.  Do not take this drug if you are going to have surgery, especially if you have recently had a stroke, or if you think you might have a stroke in the future, as truth is, anyone can have a stroke so a stroke really wouldn’t be a result of taking this medication, and this commercial protects us from litigation should patients die after taking our product.”

 Or something like that.  

(Posted by Kay Ebeling who produces City of Angels Blog as one of a hundred thousand victims of pedophile priests in the USA seeking truth and justice, but that is a whole nother topic.)

Levada, from Google Images

Asked about a priest who took minor boys skinny dipping, Levada says, “My memory is not that airtight.” Another priest was in treatment at House of Affirmation in Massachusetts for sex problems before coming to Oregon; it did not register in the bishop’s brain. Throughout the deposition the cardinal responds “I don’t recall,” and “I don’t remember.” Only when attorneys put hard evidence in front of the Cardinal does he suddenly have a memory, and then only for that one fact brought out by evidence

Today at 5 p.m. Rome time Cardinal William Levada gives a speech titled “Response of the Church to Cases of Sexual Abuse” after a day of meetings at The Vatican. “It is unclear whether the format will allow for any back-and-forth among the cardinals, or whether there would be any time for discussion given the limited window allotted,” Politics Daily and other news media have reported.

The main skill Levada can demonstrate to the cardinals is “How to answer questions under oath without revealing anything more than what opposing attorneys already have as evidence,” judging from the Cardinal’s own answers in a deposition taken January 2008, about sex crimes of priests in Portland, Oregon, where Levada was bishop before becoming Archbishop of San Francisco and then, just after the deposition, flying away to Rome never to return to American soil and be questioned again. Today Levada heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly The Inquisition).

Cardinal William Levada is an expert on evading the truth in deposition testimony, even after taking an oath on the Bible. Here are excerpts from the January 2008 deposition. (Attorneys Erin Olson and Kelly Clark appeared for plaintiffs, Paul Gaspari is attorney for the San Francisco Archdiocese, Mary McNamara represents Levada:)

Q: You indicated to Mr. Clark that during your tenure as archbishop of Portland that you met with a number of victims of clergy abuse.
A: I did say that, right.
Q: Can you tell me the names of any one of them.
A: I don’t recall that.
Q: Are you certain you actually even met with a victim?
A: To the best of my recollection, I did.
Q: But you can’t remember a single name.
A: Mm-mm.
Q: Can you remember the context of any of the meetings?
A: The context?
Q: Who the priest was, what was the person’s desires?
A: No, I don’t.

MR. MOREY: Q: During your tenure as the archbishop of Portland, were there any reports of the crime of solicitation sent to the Holy See?
A: I think I can answer no because I’m sure I would have remembered if I had done such a report.
Q: I may miss one, but during your tenure, there were reports of sexual abuse of children by priests Baccellieri, Perone, McCray, Goodrich and Also.
Ms. McNamara: Compound.
Mr. LENA: Compound. What is, I’m sorry, I’ve lost track of the question. [INAUDIBLE DISCUSSION]

***
Q: Okay, let me switch subjects and talk about Father [BLANK]
[Then 28 and a half REDACTED PAGES]

[Then we get to Erin Olson’s questioning of Cardinal Levada:]

Q: How about Father Donald Durand?
A: I received a report of child sexual abuse. I think it would be more inappropriate behavior.
Q: Can you describe the nature of the complaint?
A: I believe the report I received was one of skinny dipping in a river up towards Silverton or Salem someplace.
Q: Skinny dipping alone?
A: With minors, minor boys.
Q: Did you receive that from a known source?
A: I don’t recall. But that sticks in my memory for some reason. And my memory is not that airtight, as you know.
Q: Did you take any action in response to the complaint?
A: I’m sure I must have discussed it with Father Lienert.
Q: Would it be documented in a memorandum of sorts?
A: It could well have been. Certainly I think it would have been discussed with him.
Q: With Father Durand?
A: With Father Durand.
Q: Do you have any independent memory of that discussion?
A: No, I don’t.

***
Q: What did you do when you received the report about Father Goodrich?
A: Well, as I recall, he was not in a condition to be interviewed himself. But I’m not absolutely sure whether someone didn’t attempt to interview him. You know, I don’t know. There should be something in the record about it.
Q: Do you recall having a meeting with Father Lienert, Tom Selliken, and counsel for the archdiocese about how to proceed with that investigation?
A: I don’t recall such a meeting but that would be the normal thing.
Q: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about that. When a complaint against a priest was received by you during the course of your tenure as archbishop, what would be your first reaction in terms of what you would do?
A: If it came to me directly, I would call in the vicar for clergy and share this complaint with him, ask for any information and background and ask him to go through files. And then we would meet about what next steps to take.
Q: Was it always the case, with regard to the seven priests you’ve identified about whom you received complaints during your tenure, that you would convene a meeting to discuss how the investigation would proceed?
A: It would not necessarily- we would- the people that were mentioned, the archdiocesan attorney, oftentimes the risk management person, all of those persons would be involved in consultation. But whether we would always meet together, it’s not- I don’t recall that being the case.
*****
Ms. OLSON: Q: In Paragraph 3, exhibit 41 describes Father Grammond being upset because he’s being treated so harshly and I’m sort of summarizing it. In it he says: “Father Jim Harris was accused of child abuse fifteen years ago and nothing has happened to him.” Were you familiar with the prior allegation against Father Jim Harris?
A: No.
Q: Did you know Father Harris simply as his supervisor or more as a passing acquaintance?
A: No, I knew him as his bishop. I think Harris was already retired by this time.
Q: Did you receive information from Father Lienert, [Vicar for Clergy] after he got this rant from Father Grammond, that there had been an accusation made against Father Harris?
A: I don’t recall having that information before, before this indication, before hearing from, I’m sure I heard from Father Lienert about developments in the Grammond case.
Q: Do you recall learning from Father Lienert in 1992 that a prior accusation of child sexual abuse had been made against Father Jim Harris?
A: All I recollect is what’s in this memo.

(Read more at City of Angels Blog by City of Angels Lady reporting from the City of Angels)

With CofA Blog now in Albuquerque, we begin what should be an outpouring of information about the Servants of the Paraclete treatment center for priests with “psycho-sexual problems.” Started in 1949 with the best intentions of providing spiritual renewal and prison-like oversight of problem priests, Via Coeli in Jemez Springs morphed by the 1960s into a psychology-dependent almost New Age secular rehab that was so assured of its success treating pedophilia that it sent its priests into local parishes while they were still in treatment, thus creating an inordinately high number of victims of clergy sex crimes in the region around Jemez Springs in Northern New Mexico

Scanned at City of Angels Blog for you to click enlarge and read are minutes from a February 13, 1967, meeting held: “To present to the archbishop a plan whereby guest-priests under the care of the Servants of the Paraclete could enter into ministerial work in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as a final step in a graduated program of rehabilitation begun at Via Coeli Monastery, and continued through the Paraclete houses in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.”

The minutes were among documents found during the discovery phase of the L.A. Clergy Cases that settled in 2007, where Cardinal Roger Mahony authorized payment of $660 million to 510 plaintiffs and avoided testifying in trials where these documents would have been released by much more mainstream media than City of Angels Blog.

The Archbishop of Santa Fe and Servants of the Paraclete leaders felt it prudent not to tell local parishes about the problems the out-patient priests brought with them, the minutes reveal, as you can read on Page 2:

“In placing men in the parishes, the Archbishop would use his judgment and discretion in informing the pastors only of what he thought they must absolutely know about the priest they were receiving, so that they might more effectively work with the man.”

The minutes continue: “No details or particulars of a clinical nature need be made known regarding the man’s past history.”

“The Archbishop seemed immediately receptive to the idea (of placing out-patient priests in parishes) and added his own personal interest in and concern for the work, then proposed the following parishes as suitable fur such a plan:

In Albuquerque:

Sacred Heart
St. Anza’s
San Felipe
Our Lady of Fatima
Queen of Heaven
Holy Ghost
Our Lady of Assumption
St. Francis Xavier
St. Bernadette’s
St. Theresa
Annunciation
Immaculate Conception
St. Charles
Holy Family
St. Edwin’s
Ascension
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Nativity EVM (Alameda)
St. Clement’s (Los Lunas)

(My God, how big was the population of Albuquerque in 1967 that they even had this many Catholic Churches. City of Angels will be absorbing local culture as we remain in Albuquerque.)

“The point was made that the program as so far stated might carry with it an inconvenience in terms of constant personnel changes in the parishes. The Archbishop remarked that there were enough parishes available to obviate that problem… He repeated that the priests of the archdiocese were ready and willing to help in this operation.”

(More from page 2-3, where as CofA Blog reads it, The Catholic Church through SotP experimented with the people in local New Mexico parishes, used them as guinea pigs to see if pedophile priests who completed treatment were ready for full-time assignments or not:)

“It was further agreed that the parochial assignment was to be of an indefinite nature, lasting as long as was necessary for the man to give evident signs that he had readjusted well to the ministry and was now deserving of a full time assignment, either in his home diocese, his religious community, or in whatever opportune situation he might be placed. It was agreed that should a man fail to measure up in his parochial assignment, he should be returned to a Paraclete house, preferably in the Canyon, where efforts at his priestly renewal might begin again.”

The Paraclete New Mexico Corporation?

Page 3 goes on to discuss teaching opportunities for the Servants of the Paraclete out-patients as “not feasible at the moment, with one possible exception, at St. Vincent’s Academy.” Also on Page 3: They’re adding four more rooms because of the “influx of guests,” the $10,000 cost would be referred to the Paraclete New Mexico Corporation.

The Archbishop “spoke of his admiration for the professional services being extended to the Paracletes by Dr. Frank Rowe (Howe? It’s hard to read this 1967 typewriter with its ink splotches), and Dr. John Salazar.”

Also on Page 3, the Archbishop, concerned about overcrowding and understaffing, “cautioned that we not allow a large number of specifically ill-adjusted emotional cases to accumulate in one place.”

(Continue reading, scan these minutes plus other Paraclete Documents at City of Angels Blog where we posted here: http://cityofangels8.blogspot.com/2010/11/paraclete-doc-guest-priests-enter.html  Monday, November 15, 2010

Paraclete Doc: ‘Guest-priests enter ministerial work and no details of a clinical nature need be made known’ Minutes from Feb 1967 Meeting

As soon as I heard that Melissa Huckaby murdered 9-year-old Sandra Cantu in a church basement March 27, 2009, I got a chill. The Santillan vs. Bishop of Fresno trial had been in progress the previous weeks in Fresno, right in the middle of the Highway 5 ride between Tracy, California, where the murder and rape took place, and Wasco, where the molestations by Monsignor Anthony Herdegen of the Santillan brothers took place. The murder weapon Huckaby used was a rolling pin used to press out communion wafers in the Clover Baptist Church. As soon as I heard about the murder, I felt there might be a connection, with the extensive news coverage of the jury trial especially when Cardinal Roger Mahony testified. As the jury began deliberation in Santillan vs. Bishop of Fresno, Melissa Huckaby interrupted her preparation to teach a Sunday School class and took Sandra Cantu on a ride to the church.

Today we are running Day Two of the testimony of Bishop John Steinbock in that trial at City of Angels Blog. The Bishop of Fresno’s first day of testimony is here in Part One of this series posted October 28, 2010.

This story of the connection between Cantu’s murder and the Fresno trial has been simmering at City of Angels Blog for a while. I’ve thought about going North to visit Huckaby in prison and ask her, was there a connection between the trial and the mania inside your head the day you murdered Cantu? Was it a coincidence that you murdered Cantu just hours after Catholic leaders did a PR routine under oath testifying they knew nothing of pedophile priest crimes? I thought of traveling to interview Huckaby and ask her those questions, but now City of Angels is going the other direction to Albuquerque, to write about Servants of the Paraclete starting next week. We can always visit Huckaby in prison years from now. She isn’t going anywhere.

Meanwhile here is more official transcript from March 23, 2009, day two of Bishop Steinbock’s testimony. Part 3, in this series “What Melissa Huckaby Heard” will be transcript of the trial from March 26, 2009, the day before Huckaby interrupted her work scissoring magazine pictures for a Sunday School project to murder Sandra Cantu in the basement of the church where her grandfather was pastor.

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF FRESNO
CENTRAL DIVISION
Before the Honorable Donald S. Black, Judge
Department 97B

GEORGE SANTILLAN, individually and)
HOWARD SANTILLAN, individually, )
Case No. 03CECG04480
Plaintiffs,
-vs-
DEFENDANT JOHN DOE 1, DEFENDANT
JOHN DOE 2, DEFENDANT JOHN DOE 3,
and DOES through 100, inclusive,)

JURY TRIAL VOLUME IV

MR. ANDERSON: There is in the testimony of Bishop Steinbock and the cross-examination, an additional matter that I intend to cross-examine him on.
THE COURT: Well, Bishop Steinbock is here. Do you want him in the courtroom listening to this?
MR. ANDERSON: No.
THE COURT: Would you step outside, Bishop Steinbock.
MR. ANDERSON: The matter that I expect to come up, Your Honor, pertains to the testimony given by Bishop Steinbock late in the day when we- before we recessed. And in particular to the topic of all the things that he and they are doing. And among those, Exhibit 529, in which, and I quote from it, he makes assurances, “I want to assure everyone that I know of no priest active in ministry in our Diocese that has been involved in a sexual abuse of a minor.”
THE COURT: What is the date of that?
MR. ANDERSON: That’s 2002, Your Honor. I have the exhibit here if you’d like to see that.
MS. McGUIRE: Well, we redacted that.
THE COURT: Is that portion redacted?
MR. DE MARCO: That portion wasn’t redacted.
MR. ANDERSON: No. And — and I was asking about that as well. And, Your Honor, I intend to offer the finding — cross-examine the witness first, but offer the finding that was made in this court pertaining to Father Swearingen in which the jury found that he had committed sexual abuse against a minor.
THE COURT: But that was after 2002, wasn’t it?
MR. ANDERSON: It was. But he’s making an affirmative representation that this was the case then and has done nothing to revoke that, otherwise clarify it, and continues to make that representation. And I’m further prepared to offer proof that Swearingen is in ministry involving youth at the current time.
MS. McGUIRE: Your Honor, what is that — we’ve already been around this several times in motion in limine and agreed that the Court has ruled that no other cases will come in. How is that relevant?
THE COURT: But I also indicated the other day that it’s getting closer and closer. And the problem here, the problem is- and what I’ve learned since we first addressed this issue- is that the church has been making representations 12 about this. And I just- ultimately, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this, but it concerns me that the jury is- has been given the impression that there are no other cases like this.
MS. McGUIRE: Well, Your Honor, we can redact that out of the- the jury has not seen this.
THE COURT: But it’s already there. I mean, it was there — to some extent it was there in Bishop Steinbock’s testimony last week that he commissioned Mr. Gordon to do an- to do an investigation and-
MS. McGUIRE: But he –
THE COURT: -it came up clean.
MS. McGUIRE: He clarified that by saying it wasn’t Gordon that did the investigation; it was Father Avila.
THE COURT: I don’t know how much he clarified it, but 1 that’s what I’m concerned about and that’s what I’m listening for.
MS. McGUIRE: We can redact that out if they’re concerned about that. But now to get into issues involving Father Eric Swearingen and turn this case into what’s- what’s going on with him, I just don’t understand how that would be relevant. The Bishop hasn’t made any representations that there is no other priest that’s been accused in this Diocese. He’s made no representations in his testimony that there’s no other accusations being made against other priests in this Diocese.
MR. ANDERSON: Counsel — Your Honor, that’s for counsel to argue. The fact of the matter is the exhibit is in evidence. He had it read to every parish and has made affirmative representations to this Court and to this jury throughout his testimony, both yesterday- the last day we were in court and the day before, that there are no credibly accused priests out there.
THE COURT: What is the date of that letter?
MR. ANDERSON: The date of this is April 7th, 2002.
THE COURT: And when was Swearingen first accused?
MR. ANDERSON: September of 2002.
THE COURT: After that letter?

********************
Q: I’m going to ask you to read what you had read in all the parishes in the Diocese in April of 2002, beginning with “we.”
A “We are all shocked by the sad and unfortunate scandals in the church that have appeared in the media, even though the scandals are not as widespread as the secular media may suggest. The scandal still exists and troubles us all greatly. I want to assure everyone that I know of no priest active in ministry in our Diocese that has been involved in the sexual abuse of a minor.”
********************************

MR. ANDERSON: Yeah. And the jury verdict, of course, finding that he had committed the offenses was after that. However, on Thursday late, this Bishop- and Mr. De Marco has some of the testimony- made a number of representations to the jury, Your Honor, suggesting that they’re doing all these things to protect the children, among them safe harbor programs, outreach to victims, candor with the people. And not only to this exhibit, but the adjudication of Swearingen and the report made in 2002, late, and the subsequent adjudication and a finding that he had committed abuse clearly impeaches every one of those assertions. And frankly, Your Honor, I think Bishop Steinbock is- is misleading the Court and attempting to mislead the jury by saying that he’s done all the right things even more recently when, in fact, he put Swearingen back in ministry after that finding by the jury that this Court presided and continues him in ministry to youth. And I have evidence- it can be shown very briefly by cross-examination- of that very fact and very briefly. It is proper impeachment. It is a door opened by their witness and Bishop Steinbock, and we’re allowed to bring it out.
MR. DE MARCO: The testimony relating to conduct in recent days, recent years, is at pages 433 and 434 of Thursday’s transcript. But defense counsel asked him, “What are you doing now to protect children?” And he gave a laundry list of things and — creating the impression they’re taking responsible action now. That is a concrete thing that can be shown where they’re not looking out to protect children.
THE COURT: Anything else?
MS. McGUIRE: Your Honor, I just- under 352, I think it is –
THE COURT: Haven’t you — haven’t you — or hasn’t the Bishop created an impression that is to some extent impeached by this information?
MS. McGUIRE: Your Honor, I don’t believe so. I think what he -
THE COURT: Why?

(Continue reading through the end of Steinbock’s testimony at City of Angels Blog posted Nov. 4, 2010)

Behind closed doors and golden gates, The Vatican claims to know how to deal with pedophile priests. The Pope has made great strides in communicating with victims, says a letter from the official Vatican spokesman Sunday, citing “listening groups” at U.S. archdioceses as an example. Those groups have very few low attendance. In fact, first change The Vatican needs to make is to stop taking credit for any progress being made to stop pedophile priests. If it had not been for persistent pursuit by civil attorneys of these criminals, none of the truth about pedophile priests would be public today. No thanks goes to Catholic Church hierarchy, who use every legal means available to fight the victims.

“Think of us as an ally” Fr. Federico Lombardi repeats in his apparent impromptu letter to the Survivors Voice group protest Sunday October 31 at The Vatican.

One real thing the Church could do: In each region of the United States, take property the Church uses as retreats for priests and turn it over to an independent group to run as recovery centers for the victims of pedophile priest crimes. Take the spa like acreage where priests who commit these serial felonies can go for months at a time and let the victims run the properties as recovery centers for the victims, since many of us face worst behavioral and psychological results of the priests’ crimes than the priests who committed them. The Catholic Church could show it really has changed by admitting its guilt and taking genuine action for the victims, even if it means relinquishing some real estate assets.*

Apparently Lombardi was trying to deliver his letter calling the Church an “ally” to Survivors Voice as they stood outside on the sidewalk Sunday, but the protesters started jeering him and he had to retreat back into the building, according to news reports. But reading Lombardi’s letter just now in National Catholic Reporter I started jeering myself by the third paragraph, because once again the Church is buck passing. The Vatican admits it was wrong for about three sentences, then starts pointing the finger of guilt in the other direction.

Lombardi writes in paragraph three: “I feel encouraged by the attitude of the Pope to listen to the victims, and show the will to do everything necessary, so that the horrible crimes of sexual abuse may never happen again.”

Right away that’s a problem.

Because you can’t work on the future without first fixing the past. You can’t have the same guys who perpetrated the crimes now be in charge of the solution, yet that is what The Vatican has used its power and influence to ensure, and that is what makes victims jeer.

But great, Mr. Lombardi, (and be grateful I can call you “mister”) you say The Vatican is going to listen? Then prove it, show us, make a major change and do it in public showing us that you are finally listening.

Lombardi writes: “I know, you think that the Church should do more, and in a quicker way. From my point of view the Church has done, and is doing a lot. Not only the Pope, with his words and example, but many Church communities in various parts of the world have done and are doing a lot, by way of listening to the victims as well as in the matter of prevention and formation. Personally, I am in contact with many persons who work in this field in many countries, and I am convinced that they are doing a lot.”

Therein lies another problem. “Listening groups” at archdioceses don’t reach most of the victims, because most victims of pedophile priests don’t want to step foot in or near a Catholic building ever again. Most of us gag, some vomit, many double over in pain just when we see a clerical collar. How can you expect us to be able to come to the Catholic Church for healing when it’s the Catholic Church that traumatized us?

********************
Watch Al Jazeera Report video of interview with Gary Bergeron the night before Reformation Day 2010
*********************

Apparently Church hierarchy spend all their time cloistered behind security gates communicating with no one but each other. Yet they claim they have listened to survivors of pedophile priest crimes around the world. Lombardi cites these “listening groups” as a sign of all the good they’ve done, when in fact in most cities archdioceses have had to open listening groups up to “victims of child sex abuse in every situation,” because there weren’t enough participants among the real victims of real Catholic priest pedophiles willing to participate.

Still Lombardi says the Pope is already doing a lot by listening. And the mainstream media quote him like he can be believed.

Continue reading longer version of this story here at City of Angels Blog posted November 1, 2010.

Gerald Fitzgerald

He was about to get drafted into the Vietnam War when friends said you could find refuge at a retreat in the New Mexico mountains. “Oso Pious” and a buddy drove 290 miles through winding wilderness roads and arrived in the middle of the night at the cluster of structures that was Via Coeli, a rehab center for problem priests in Jemez Springs. There, Servants of the Paraclete religious order brothers bustled the young men onto the grounds for what was to be safe haven from the draft while they worked on deferment.

But soon Father Gerald Fitzgerald (pictured at this post on ), with his Kennedy family eyes, stood over young Oso saying, “God sent you here” and without preparation or going to seminary or even particularly having a calling, the 20-year-old found himself with a new identity: Father Pious. Oso contacted me through Facebook after we published Murmur She Wrote 1 October 16th, announcing that City of Angels Blog is going on the road, first stop Albuquerque to write about Servants of the Paraclete. Now a New Mexico resident, the former Servant is known in online comments and blogs as “Oso Pious.” He only remained with the Order from April to December 1965, then became a special education teacher in New Mexico.

Over the phone this week, Oso told me of watching local kids swim in the pool with the pedophiles in New Mexico, helping draft dodgers slip over the border into Canada at a Vermont Servants of the Paraclete center, and living out a false identity as Father Gerald’s secretary, “Father Pious.” Oso left Servants of the Paraclete when a fellow brother set himself on fire as part of an antiwar protest, and church hierarchy told Oso Pious to keep it secret.

I’d actually read some of Oso Pious’s story earlier in Sons of Perdition the 2009 book by former Missing Link editor Jay Nelson, on page ix: “‘Father Pious,’ as he prefers to be called contacted me. This gentleman claims that he’d been a novice with the Servants of the Paraclete for some time in the mid to late 1960s. Though he has not provided any documentary evidence, his local knowledge plus assertion of certain obscure facts about Servants of the Paraclete, which later research verified, have convinced me that he was indeed present there.”

When Oso and his college friend arrived at Via Coeli, the priests put them up in the Nuncio Villa, where they were to cram for exams and get their grades up. “I was going to Regis College, a Jesuit university in Colorado,” Oso said. “The draft board wasn’t allowing student deferments. We had to make a certain grade or we were going to Vietnam.”

Hours after their arrival, the priest from Boston who founded the religious order and said he was a Kennedy family member penetrated Oso’s young visage and said, as Oso relayed to me, “You think it’s an accident that you came here, but it’s not an accident, you’re the one we’ve been praying for, you’re going to be the first priest ordained in the Canyon.”

Oso said, “I was a twenty year old kid, imagine how that affected me.”

Oso told me the story, and I’m so happy I’ve worked as a Transcriber since 1998, so now can type so fast, I can take down pretty much everything a person says to me over the phone:

“Gerald made me Father Pious so I could be his secretary. They invented this person named Father Pious and I was good at writing what they called Pious Pap.

“We’d get people to sponsor priests. We wouldn’t say they were pedophiles, but say this priest needed a sponsor. That was my job as Father Pious, as his secretary to bring in all the money.”

Kids Swimming With Pedophile Priests

Oso also was lifeguard at a Servants of the Paraclete pool in Jemez Springs that was open to the locals.

“I was a lifeguard at Camp Ped, the special pool they had for the kids in the neighborhood,” he continued in our recent phone call. “That’s where pedophiles would molest some of the little kids. I was the lifeguard.

He tried to explain the environment to me: “The Jemez Springs Via Coeli was a prison. Priests could get sent there for all kinds of reasons, then they divided them up. We put all the alcoholics in one house, the guys trying to have sex with kids in another place.

“I was at the one where they had the pedophiles, where they also had the pool for the kids to swim, and they let them swim together.

“We knew we had crazy nuts there, but we didn’t know how bad it was. One guy was painting crucifixes red, one guy was a compulsive bingo player, but the Catholic Church was in denial.

“I was trained by Servants of the Paraclete as a guard. I’d get a call to go to the La Madrid Bar and pick a guy up. The police didn’t know how to deal with them. Any kind of crime these priest did, the New Mexico police would turn them over to us. Even to this day, the Governor of New Mexico will not put priests on the sex offender list, because the Governor is Catholic and the Church has control of everything.”

Oso’s ruse as Father Pious, helping donors sponsor problem priests while he was staying at Via Coeli, was cut short:

“One day this nun showed up and said, I want to meet this holy man,” Oso laughs into the phone, “I said, tell her Father Pious is in the woods in deep meditation.”

Father Gerald helped Oso get out of Dodge fast.

“He showed me a map of the world with all these push pins. He said, we’ve got about thirty or forty houses, all over the world, and we have the papal privilege, because we work directly for the Pope. He said, we don’t have to go through channels. He says, where would you like to go.

“I said, Father Gerald, I’ve been all those places because my dad was in the military, except this one on the Canadian border in Vermont. So he sent me up there.”

‘My friend Roger set himself on fire’

Oso says that at the Servants of the Paraclete center in northern Vermont they helped young men cross the border into Canada and evade the draft in the Vietnam War. Around that time in New York City a group of Buddhists set themselves on fire.

Roger LaPorte a Servant of Paraclete member in Vermont, joined them.

“My friend Roger set himself on fire in front of the United Nations building. It was 1965 and he was a Servants of Paraclete member.”

Oso said by order of Cardinal Spellman, nobody found out the connection of the antiwar protest suicides in New York to Servants of the Paraclete in Vermont.

“Roger went nuts,” Oso said, “seeing people burning themselves to death. He went to New York to get our supplies, and we found out later he had set himself on fire too.

“All the higher ups, Cardinal Spellman etcetera, said we couldn’t tell anyone he was a Paraclete.

“We were doing all kinds of illegal stuff, smuggling people across the border, the Father Pious stuff. They said if anyone investigates you, say Brother Roger was a homeless man we fed but don’t admit he was one of the members of the Order.

“We were told to bare faced lie.”

Story continues at City of Angels Blog in longer form.

“It is clear” that Ron Johnson was part of a coalition of Wisconsin Catholic Dioceses led by Archbishop Jerome Listecki when the current Republican challenger to Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin testified this year in opposition to the Child Victims Act. ”If the name Listecki sounds familiar, it’s the same ultra-right wing bishop that made national news for saying Obama shouldn’t go to Notre Dame,” Uppity Wisconsin reports on its blog pages.  Following is quoted from that site: Video linked below is from the Wisconsin State Senate on January 12, 2010.

Previously, a short three minute video was was posted on youtube of Ron Johnson testimony before the Wisconsin State Senate on January 12, 2010, in opposition to the Child Victims Act.

I have recently discovered where that video came from:  WisconsinEye, which is somewhat like a Wisconsin version of CSPAN.

So, I went back and viewed the whole committee hearing which lasted approximately four hours.  And I discovered many shocking revelations

The entire Catholic coalition stayed around for nearly the whole hearing, until about a half hour from the end, when victims of childhood sexual abuse were really starting to lay into them. When I say lay into them, I mean it– I included some on the video.”

Watch VIdeo at City of Angels Blog:  Video: Feingold Challenger Testified for Catholic Church re Pedophile Priest issue, Wisconsin 

Listecki has the dubious distinction of running the LaCrosse Diocese for many years. During Listecki’s time in LaCrosse the Diocese had the highest “clearance rate” of priests accused of childhood sexual assaults in the nation. The national average of accused priests being “cleared” by the diocese and being allowed to return to their parishes is 12%. At the LaCrosse Diocese, the rate is a whopping 64%. Reports Uppity Wisconsin dot org

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