It's disheartening
when the media quote any of the cardinals who are in Rome this week to select a
new Pope. The news is peppered with articles: How
the disgraced Roger Mahony of L.A. is still able to vote, how the elevated
Francis George of Chicago shows concern for his crime victims. Why do any
Catholic Church leaders deserve any news coverage other than reports about each
cardinal's complicity in the cover-up of a hundred thousand children being
molested by their priests in the last 70 years in the USA alone?
Last week mainstream news copied down the words of Cardinal
George of Chicago as he found microphones in the Vatican and pontificated about
zero tolerance. George was quoted throughout the world saying,
"Because there are victims, cardinals must address the issue of sexual
misconduct in the pre-conclave meetings" (for example in Chicago Tribune March
7).
Well I know from
experience how Cardinal George treats victims of pedophile priests in his
archdiocese as I reported here:
WEDNESDAY, APRIL
18, 2012
“There’s
a problem, it's your blog,” said the the "mediator" beside me, as the
Chicago Archdiocese tried to silence City of Angels Blog on April 8, 2011.
Church attorneys had lured me to the windy city by . . . "
When reporters just
write down what the cardinals claim, without bothering to find anyone who’s had
a direct experience of their policies, it's more damage done to the pedophile
priest victims
However, just like we see
in the U.S. today in stories about the economy and how the poor and not the last two wars are responsible for budget deficits, mainstream reporters just write down what spokesmen say and
publish it, performing as corporate stenographers, instead of journalists.
Meanwhile the only
victims advocacy group visible, SNAP, is in Rome this week releasing statements
about which cardinal would be a better pick for next Pope.
As if it makes a
difference.
Roger Mahony is not
the only guilty cardinal
As awful as Mahony of
Los Angeles may be* he’s not the only scarlet cardinal. His current role
as demon serves more as a diversionary tactic orchestrated by the church than a
news story.
Only reason Mahony
appears to be so bad is his files were released. In reality, he’s likely
not any worse than every other Catholic cardinal or bishop across the globe.
The pedophile priest crimes were an epidemic throughout the church,
the same pattern of hiding the crimes and transferring the perpetrators was
repeated in every archdiocese.
If prosecutors could
go through Pedophile Priest Personnel Files in every archdiocese as they are doing in Los Angeles, they would likely find
that every bishop in the Catholic Church is guilty of the same crimes committed by Roger Mahony.
So Mahony gets to put
himself in martyr mode and all across the land, news reporters fall for it and
report exactly the story the church wants reported:
Focus on Mahony, don't
write about every other archdiocese in the world doing the same thing.
There are more than a
hundred thousand victims of pedophile priests living with our damages in the
USA right now. Roger Mahony is no more guilty than every bishop in the
United States, he’s just been forced to release internal documents.
Mahony Might Even Be
One of the Better Ones
Considering the size
of settlements Mahony approved to be paid, $660 million to 510 plaintiffs in
2007, plus more in 2006 and since 2007, he might be one of the more decent
bishops, in the end, if you can call any of them decent. At least Mahony seemed
to realize the scope of the damage done to a kid being raped by a priest, and
he approved an average of a million dollars to any victim who found their way
to a lawyer during the one-year window that was opened in California in 2003 to
file lawsuits. One million average, per victim, when bishops in
other cities have only paid out in the low five figures.
PETITION
To Change Illinois SOL
for sex abuse victims.
You can sign a
petition to try to get Illinois law changed so Cardinal George could be forced
to help the victims he claims to care about and maybe even release documents
from the Chicago Archdiocese the way they were released in Los Angeles by
clicking here:
ILLINOIS JUSTICE FOR CHILD VICTIMS petition reached 107
signers last week. But if we are going to have an impact, it's critical that
more people contact The Illinois State House. With your help, we can reach our goal! Share this link
Thank you
Cardinal George of
Chicago had the audacity to offer me Five Thousand Dollars as a settlement for
molestation by pedophile priest Thomas Barry Horne in Bartlett Illinois, sex
crimes committed on me at preschool age that ruined my sexuality for the rest
of my life, and as a result ruined my ability to hold a job or maintain a
relationship for life. Five thousand dollars was what I was offered from
the Chicago Archdiocese and a threat that I better stop blogging about my
experiences or someone in the church might sue me.
So in that respect,
poor dejected persecuted Roger Mahony might be one of the best of the
cardinals. I think it's almost diversionary to single the former L.A.
archbishop out as a bad guy when the pedophile priest crimes were epidemic all
throughout the Church, Mahony is just the only one who's paid out huge
settlements and released files, albeit after a long fight. He at least gave lip
service to the amount of damage being raped by a priest as a child does to a
person.
Doubt we'll even get
that far in other archdioceses, for example, Chicago.
God only knows how
many more children were raped worldwide and over the centuries by perverts
using their position as priest to get to children and cardinals who let them do
it.
ALSO
I NEED HELP
I'm trying to get back to California and need to raise two thousand dollars to drive a Uhaul
home.
I left L.A. in
November 2010 thinking I’d be able to report on pedophile priest stories across
the country, what I ambitiously called Murmur She Wrote.
But soon after arriving in Albuquerque, poverty became the dominant factor in
my life and I realized it's impossible to do investigative journalism without a
car.
Now I find myself
stranded in Illinois. My job that I do over the internet seems to be
disappearing in the morass of the American economy and I'm scared I'll
never be able to even get back home.
If a few hundred
persons put five dollars or more on my PayPal account it would help me at least
get home so I can be near my daughter. While Cardinal George and all the rest of them are luxuriating in the weeks long process of selecting a new Pope in
Rome, I'm sick with lupus and have no health care as I'm not in my home state, I'm stranded with no car in a strange
city, and I just want to go home. PS I don't think of myself as a
survivor at all. I'm still a victim, broke and broken.
Please use your credit or debit card and send a High $5 or higher by clicking the PayPal Donate button in the left hand column on this blog.
Or email me at cityofangelslady@yahoo.com
And help me get home.
***********
UPDATE: 3:45 PM.
I have found evidence while here in Illinois that my story about Fr. Horne in Bartlett and about being told to stop babbling by Cardinal Stritch really did happen.
MORE TO COME IN A BLOG POST SOON
******************************
One political
cartoonist captured the real story of selection of the next pope.
Cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta
Journal Constitution, February 2, 2013. Published here so that when I
post this post at Facebook there will
be art connected to it.
LINKS IN THIS POST:
Link to article on my
experience with Cardinal George's Attorneys in April 2011 here:
Link to Illinois
Petition:
Link to my PayPal
account:
Linking to PayPal in the blog post does not
work.
So please use one of the "Donate" buttons in the left hand column of this
blog, to send me a high $5 or higher and help me get back to California.
Link to Atlanta
Journal Constitution cartoonist Mike Luckovich:
* POOR PITIFUL MAHONY:
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Religion News Service-Feb 19, 2013
The controversy over Cardinal Roger Mahony's vote in the conclave that ... “Cardinal Mahony should not only stay home from the conclave but ...
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Sky News-Feb 20, 2013
California Cardinal Roger Mahony has come under pressure to skip the ... whether Cardinal Mahony should attend the conclave next month to elect a ... saying he had not been equipped to deal with the problem of sexual ...
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KTVU San Francisco-Feb 25, 2013
"There are some victims groups for whom enough is never enough, so we ... an investigation into Vatican leaks to cardinals voting on his successor. ... Levada and Mahony will join more than 100 cardinals on Thursday in ...
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Daily Beast-11 hours ago
And not a single cardinal has called for excluding Mahony. ...Mahony actually had the temerity to defend what he did and what he failed to do.
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abc11.com-2 hours ago
US Cardinals Sean Patrick O'Malley, center, Roger Mahony, right, and ... Saturday installed the top of the Sistine Chapel chimney thatwill signal to the world ... "We're not going to send out text messages or SMS messages, you'll ... While the cardinals ponder their choices, preparations for the vote continue.
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The Guardian-17 hours ago
When it comes to the conclave of 115 cardinals who will choose the next pope in ... Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, and Cardinal ... a quarter of the total number of pope-makers, do not want for colourful ... supreme court voted in 2012 to legalise the termination of foetuses with ...
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RenewAmerica-Feb 23, 2013
Cardinal Roger Mahony's reign of terror--and why he should notboard ... is none other than the deciding vote of a corrupt human being and a ...
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Posted by Kay Ebeling,
The City of Angels is Everywhere
.
