Justice Interruptus continues in PA

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In today's media circus, Watergate would have been the name of a blog and Richard Nixon would have remained President.  Thanks, Ralph, for all your work.  (This post was originally a comment at Philadelphia Abuse Trial Blog :)

The real conspiracy was between bishops and other bishops all over the country, not between William Lynn and one priest. Somehow I don't feel this one conviction of one monsignor on one count is all that monumental, as the Philadelphia  DA is quoted describing it. 

This statement by the jury foreman after the verdict says so much: "I never knew about the stuff happening in the church." 

Why don't people all over the world know by now about this "stuff," the aiding and abetting of thousands of pedophile priests by Catholic bishops worldwide? 

A federal prosecution of the bishops would be monumental, yes. Trials like this one of Bishops, not monsignors and priests but bishops all over the country would be real justice. 

So I feel a sense of "justice interruptus" here, as one of the pedo-priest victims whose case is so far past the SOL I'll probably never see any closure.  That's right, I can't get no satisfaction, part of the mania I've lived with since Father Horne-y aroused me at age five in 1953. 

The church must have a powerful PR machine working behind the scenes, to keep as little of this story from coming out as possible, even between the victims. Otherwise all the jurors would have known about this "stuff" before the trial. Otherwise, this trial would be all over national news. But instead, today, all over the national news is the Sandusky verdict, which was delivered the same afternoon, about one pedophile coach a few hours drive away from Philadelphia. 

To me, the real criminals are the bishops, and they are all drinking coffee out of golden cups in very comfortable places this morning. 

So we just have to keep on keeping on, and somehow get past the church's monumental PR machine to get the story of these crimes out, one blog at a time... 

City of Angels Blog at http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com is my one blog by one damaged victim who was once a credentialed journalist... 

One blog at a time

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-kay ebeling

See previous post for information on "Blind Justice" artwork.
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Jury Nullification in Philadelphia? Or is our justice system just too broken?

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I wonder if we'll find out some day there was jury nullification in the Philadelphia trial of Monsignor William J. Lynn and Father James J. Brennan.  It only takes one juror to prevent a verdict, and God knows, the Catholic Church has enough attorneys and investigators to find one person on the panel who was vulnerable and would stymie any efforts to convict.

"I don't know what the problem is," Judge Theresa Sarmina said to attorneys after the jury reported it was hung on all counts except one. (Per Reuters today).  

The judge spoke out of earshot of jurors, waiting until they left the room to continue their twelfth day of conferring.  Because honest people in this country still go through the motions of justice, even when it's obvious justice will not be carried out.  Honestly, how much more evidence did the jury need?   Read the best coverage of the Philadelphia Trial at Philadelphia Abuse Trial Blog by Ralph Cipriano.

Meanwhile, for another good summer read, go to Abused by Fr. James Robinson, a blog by Geoffrey Smith of Ireland, relating his experience testifying as one of the victims in the Robinson case in the UK in 2010.  You remember Robinson,  the priest who was located living on the lam in California, receiving generous paychecks from the Church while about a dozen victims were trying to experience justice in England?

In the Robinson case the judge acknowledged that one trial could not reveal the entirety of the crimes committed by Catholic Church hierarchy, when it came to children being raped by priests: 

Passing sentence on Robinson, Judge Patrick Thomas QC said:  “It is not for me to judge.  Others may take the view that a full investigation and full disclosure of the results of that investigation is due to the members of that church and [Robinson’s victims].”   (As quoted in dozens of news articles about the sentencing including The Sun.  )

It is not for the judge to judge?  

Well, who the heck is going to finally deliver justice in this crime spree that was carried out in Catholic Churches all over the world leaving about a hundred thousand victims alive in the USA alone right now? 

Will we see more cases like William Lynch beating up his perpetrator priest in Northern California, out of frustration among pedophile priest crime victims? 

As the jury was reporting today that it was hung up in Philadelphia, opening arguments were delayed "for an undisclosed reason" reports NBC Bay Area from San Jose "Justice Center" where Lynch is about to go on trial: 

Read this fascinating interview with Lynch  about one survivor's frustration with justice, published in the San Jose Mercury News a few days before the trial was to begin. 

Of course I'm not advocating that victims take justice into our own hands and start clobbering priests, but considering the justice interruptus we've experienced now in city after city, while the Catholic Church is still able to claim some kind of moral authority in our nation, it's understandable if victims decide to take matters into their own hands. 

All of this abuse of justice and waste of time and public money could have been avoided if the priests had just come clean from the start, and if the bishops would now admit how guilty they've been for decades.  But instead we have Catholic bishops about to embark on their Fortnight for Freedom campaign, where the bishops will attempt to dictate whether women can even have access to birth control, because planning pregnancies is such a horrible sin.   

Just look the other way, people, the bishops are saying.  Pretend none of these crimes happened.  We want to tell you how religious freedom is being lost in the United States by health insurance policies covering birth control pills for women who are not even Catholic.  

“Celibate” men who we now know allowed thousands of children to be raped while they coddled the rapists are a moral authority? 

Back to Philadelphia: 

I think we're seeing jury nullification in Philadelphia.  I've been saying that for a week at Philadelphia Abuse Trial Blog in the comments section.  Of course I don't know any facts, I'm just going on hunches based on years of paying attention. 

The jury in Philadelphia, in its 12th day of deliberations, cited its dilemma in a note to Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina that read: "We the jury are at a hung jury status on all charges except for one."

"Please advise us as to our next step," it said.

The judge, who read the note aloud in the courtroom, conferred with prosecutors and defense attorneys and sent the jurors back to continue trying to reach a verdict, then said to the attorneys:  "I don't know what the problem is."

It seems nothing works in this country anymore.  

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By Kay Ebeling, in Limbo 

Art used to illustrate this story is "Blind Justice Oil on Paper" by Brad Marshall available at Brad Marshall Art

RE How Ugly This Print Looks?

I don't know what is wrong with Blogger and Google but I cannot make the words look any better than this.  Blogger "upgraded" a few months back...

Like I said, Nothing Works anymore.
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What I meant was...

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In response to Mike S:  The reason I say this post I wrote yesterday makes no sense now: 


I say I have no support and can't find any other survivors, then I talk about all the survivors who are on Facebook that I communicate with.  That's how I meant it doesn't make sense.  And the SNAP stuff is still, to this day, very confusing for me... they are So Good at their public image, that now that I'm not doing research all the time and am just a member of the public, I'm starting to only see what SNAP puts out to the public, and they do make themselves look good, don't they.  The stuff I wrote about in 2010 was the stuff I saw from the perspective of working full time on this blog and interviewing dozens of survivors around the country.  It was the same stuff SNAP was trying to prevent me from seeing by trying to stop me from doing the blog at all.  For background, read City of Angels 2 at http://cityofangels2.blogspot.com where I describe the whole shebang... 


Gotta get back to my paid job now...
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*@W(%*^^@@@^****b Sh***22@@@&&***##@!

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I'm still going hot and cold about this blog.  I work on it a few days then decide I never want to do it again, then a few days later I'm writing it again.  

God, I wish I knew what it was like to be normal... 

I really do not know what happened

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It's just not there, the drive, the motivation, none of it is there anymore.  Probably because of what this blog did to my life.  Instead of helping me find friends and connect with people, doing this blog caused me to end up even more isolated than I was before. 

I don't even know how to describe what happened in 2010, but as a result of the phone calls I was getting and stories I was being told, I ended up certain that SNAP is counter intelligence created to keep survivors from interacting with each other and comparing notes.   

But instead of just keeping what I found to myself, I felt this need to tell the world what I had found out.  So I did, beginning in Feb. 2010.  And got cut off from everything.  I don't even get SNAP press releases anymore.  The local support groups leaders usually don't call me back.  Most survivors won’t talk to me anymore. 

Plus as a result of that series of incidents, I now don't trust anybody.  I don't know who was behind the trick played on me, or even if it was a trick.  I don't know if what people were telling me was true, or some planned project to beat me down. 

But it did beat me down.  I don't need anything more than a support organization right now and I'm blacklisted. 

So now and then I get one of the nudges that drove City of Angels Blog from January 2007 to about mid-2010.  I sit down to write the story based on the nudge, and the energy just isn't there. 

They succeeded.  Whoever they are, whatever they did, and it's hard for me to sort it out still, they got me to stop.  And got me marginalized and isolated from everyone. 

So I'm in this muddle.  I can’t talk to “civilians” about how the crime spree in the church affected my life, as civilians just don't get it.  Most other victims won’t talk to me.  I can’t go to a local SNAP support group or even, as there is in Chicago, a support group for survivors that is not run by SNAP, because they inform me they don't want me there. 

Yes.  They tell me they don't want me there. 

So I’m out here on my own, with no one to talk to.  And I just don't trust anyone anymore myself.  They don't trust me, I don't trust them and that, people, is the state of support for this pedophile priest survivor, and probably others around the USA, but we have no way of finding each other.  I don't know how others are doing as I've been cut off, but I know for me, there is no support, there never was any support, but once I wrote in a blog that there never was any support, then they made sure that there was definitely no support for me. 

So I try to start something on Facebook and the same angry voices, people who are mad all the time, chime in and take over and destroy it.  Just like what happened at the SNAP message board, just like what happened to my blog- because that's what happened in 2010, people so angry calling up and shouting at me about what SNAP did to them- and now I don't even know if those people were real…  then it happened again with a Facebook group I started.  As soon as I opened the group, these angry people started shouting at each other and those arguments dominated the group.  No one else could get a word in edgewise. 


Wish I could just be happy doing nothing.  Why can't I just enjoy the sunshine and swimming in lakes and let the bishops do what they are going to do? 


But I can't. 

So I sit here wondering what to do next....
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-Kay Ebeling


PS: This post does not make sense.  i can see that now a few hours after posting it.  I'm a little nuts these days.  Truth is I've made a lot of friends who are survivors through Facebook and several have stayed with me through the weirdness with SNAP.  I just get so down sometimes...


CLARIFICATION 2:  In response to Shoebyte: 
The reason I say this post makes no sense now: 


In this post I say I have no support and can't find any other survivors, then I talk about all the survivors who are on Facebook that I communicate with.  That's how I meant it doesn't make sense.  And the SNAP stuff is still, to this day, very confusing for me... they are So Good at their public image, that now that I'm not doing research all the time and am just a member of the public, I'm starting to just see what SNAP puts out to the public, and they do make themselves look good, don't they.  The stuff I wrote about in 2010 was the stuff I saw from the perspective of working full time on this blog and interviewing dozens of survivors around the country.  It was the same stuff SNAP was trying to prevent me from seeing by trying to stop me from doing the blog at all.  For background, read City of Angels 2 at http://cityofangels2.blogspot.com where I describe the whole shebang... 

Reform will not work, unhappy Catholics should find a new church - NY Times

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"Much as I wish I could encourage the discontented, the Catholics of open minds and open hearts, to stay put and fight the good fight, this is a lost cause. [Bill] Donohue is right. Summon your fortitude, and just go. If you are not getting the spiritual sustenance you need, if you are uneasy being part of an institution out of step with your conscience — then go. The restive nuns who are planning a field trip to Rome for a bit of dialogue? Be assured, unless you plan to grovel, no one will be listening. Sisters, just go. Bill Donohue will hold the door for you."  From New York Times Sunday June 17, 2012, op-ed column by Bill Keller that says what I think.