.
Now and then people ask, what are you doing, Kay, where are City of Angels Blog posts.
This is what I answered to one person recently:
"It's like I got ejected from the space ship and left as debris orbiting the Earth.
"But at least I have cable..."
More will come out eventually...
Meanwhile still working sick and struggling, tired and defeated, nothing too different.
.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Why are SNAP files secret in the first place?
.
Wow those files, any PI worth pennies could get into them. I wish SNAP would just X out all the names and publish their files. Imagine what we'd find out about the Church if SNAP made all the stories it's heard public. Think about it. How many victims contacted SNAP expecting their stories to remain secret? I'd think the opposite was true, we called SNAP in an attempt to tell it to the world. SNAP should have been sharing all that information with the public from the start. Why keep it secret? Let's hear all the stories of all the victims who've called SNAP last 20 years. You can change names of things to protect privacy but let's get this whole story out about what the priests did. What better way than for SNAP to publish its files in a looong website so we all can hear the details of what happened in state after state and all across the country. Why Secret Files? Who does that? Were people contacting Clohessy thinking he's a father confessor, or because he kept holding press conferences about the sex crimes of pedophile Catholic priests?
Photo is cropped from The New York Times 03 13 12 and ran with caption: "David Clohessy keeps records from his advocacy group, known as SNAP, in his St. Louis home." Why in the world are all those boxes full of stories about these crimes being kept shut?
.
Other stories on this topic:
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The way I see it
I read ALL the comments at the NY Times piece yesterday...
AND
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
What I think about SNAP subpoenas, Clohessy deposition, recent events
Why doesn't SNAP just answer the subpoenas and turn over court ordered documents, with any private information redacted? You know, with a black marking pen swiped...
.
Posted By Kay Ebeling
.
NOTE: Your privacy would not be breached. Just change names and identifying information like any writer does in stories like this. There is no reason to keep these crimes secret, except to protect the criminal side of the church's reputation.
We could call it The Transparency Project.
.
Wow those files, any PI worth pennies could get into them. I wish SNAP would just X out all the names and publish their files. Imagine what we'd find out about the Church if SNAP made all the stories it's heard public. Think about it. How many victims contacted SNAP expecting their stories to remain secret? I'd think the opposite was true, we called SNAP in an attempt to tell it to the world. SNAP should have been sharing all that information with the public from the start. Why keep it secret? Let's hear all the stories of all the victims who've called SNAP last 20 years. You can change names of things to protect privacy but let's get this whole story out about what the priests did. What better way than for SNAP to publish its files in a looong website so we all can hear the details of what happened in state after state and all across the country. Why Secret Files? Who does that? Were people contacting Clohessy thinking he's a father confessor, or because he kept holding press conferences about the sex crimes of pedophile Catholic priests?Photo is cropped from The New York Times 03 13 12 and ran with caption: "David Clohessy keeps records from his advocacy group, known as SNAP, in his St. Louis home." Why in the world are all those boxes full of stories about these crimes being kept shut?
.
Other stories on this topic:
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The way I see it
I read ALL the comments at the NY Times piece yesterday...
AND
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
What I think about SNAP subpoenas, Clohessy deposition, recent events
Why doesn't SNAP just answer the subpoenas and turn over court ordered documents, with any private information redacted? You know, with a black marking pen swiped...
.
Posted By Kay Ebeling
.
NOTE: Your privacy would not be breached. Just change names and identifying information like any writer does in stories like this. There is no reason to keep these crimes secret, except to protect the criminal side of the church's reputation.
We could call it The Transparency Project.
.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Not an easy conversation topic
.
I usually don't let it come up in conversation that I'm a pedophile priest victim who writes a bit about it, but one time recently I did, and the guy got an informed look on his face and said, “You know what really bugs me about all that stuff is... The Catholic Church had insurance policies for their priests raping kids.”
He was so astounded by that one fact.
I said, "That's not all.
"The Church also owns the insurance companies. So their corporation sells policies to Archdioceses around the country to cover them for pedophile priest complaints. It turns out to be a self-contained unit. They sell insurance that covers their own archdioceses, then that money is used to pay the settlements.
“They didn't lose a thing,” I found myself hollering. There in my driveway I had wound myself up to screaming. My lips had rolled back to the top of my teeth, my voice filled with gravel, as just then this thought hit me:
“Not only that.
"The crisis and scandal produced a scapegoat for the Church to use to explain all its financial problems.
"Us.
"The pedophile priest victims are now scapegoats for the Catholic Church.
"When they have to close properties that aren't producing, like elementary schools and small parishes.
"They can blame it on the pedophile priest victims and the settlements they had to pay [a small fraction of] us.”
By now I was panting and sweating.
My friend held his cigarette midair, kind of sniffed in disdain at what was happening to me before his eyes, then nodded. "Man."
Being a pedophile priest victims, makes it hard for me to hold a casual conversation.
.
I usually don't let it come up in conversation that I'm a pedophile priest victim who writes a bit about it, but one time recently I did, and the guy got an informed look on his face and said, “You know what really bugs me about all that stuff is... The Catholic Church had insurance policies for their priests raping kids.”
He was so astounded by that one fact.
I said, "That's not all.
"The Church also owns the insurance companies. So their corporation sells policies to Archdioceses around the country to cover them for pedophile priest complaints. It turns out to be a self-contained unit. They sell insurance that covers their own archdioceses, then that money is used to pay the settlements.
“They didn't lose a thing,” I found myself hollering. There in my driveway I had wound myself up to screaming. My lips had rolled back to the top of my teeth, my voice filled with gravel, as just then this thought hit me:
“Not only that.
"The crisis and scandal produced a scapegoat for the Church to use to explain all its financial problems.
"Us.
"The pedophile priest victims are now scapegoats for the Catholic Church.
"When they have to close properties that aren't producing, like elementary schools and small parishes.
"They can blame it on the pedophile priest victims and the settlements they had to pay [a small fraction of] us.”
By now I was panting and sweating.
My friend held his cigarette midair, kind of sniffed in disdain at what was happening to me before his eyes, then nodded. "Man."
Being a pedophile priest victims, makes it hard for me to hold a casual conversation.
.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Pedophiles an afterthought in full page ad 'Quit Catholic Church' March 2012 NYTimes
.
But Wow, the Times would not have even accepted this ad ten years ago, as my friend pointed out, musta woke up grumpy this morning. The ad is a result of the Church's incoherent attack on a woman's right to birth control through her health insurance. To me, I wonder how the Church can have any political influence at all after letting at least a hundred thousand kids get raped in its churches over the last fifty years.
But it's true, this ad running shows a definite switch in public perception of the Catholic Church, just because the ad ran.
It focuses on the birth control weirdness of the Republican primary race, then says, "Can‘t you see how misplaced your loyalty is after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and coverup going all the way to the top?" but not until the very end just above, "There is a more welcoming home for you."
s
I still think they should not have waited until the very end to mention child rape coverups.
I'm so hard to please... at least they did mention it. And as Jay said, it's earth shattering that the ad ran at all.
.
But Wow, the Times would not have even accepted this ad ten years ago, as my friend pointed out, musta woke up grumpy this morning. The ad is a result of the Church's incoherent attack on a woman's right to birth control through her health insurance. To me, I wonder how the Church can have any political influence at all after letting at least a hundred thousand kids get raped in its churches over the last fifty years.
But it's true, this ad running shows a definite switch in public perception of the Catholic Church, just because the ad ran.
It focuses on the birth control weirdness of the Republican primary race, then says, "Can‘t you see how misplaced your loyalty is after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and coverup going all the way to the top?" but not until the very end just above, "There is a more welcoming home for you."
s
I still think they should not have waited until the very end to mention child rape coverups.
I'm so hard to please... at least they did mention it. And as Jay said, it's earth shattering that the ad ran at all.
.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
More to come
.
I haven't even written the part about what happened in Hollywood in 1969 yet.
Lots more to come...
.
I haven't even written the part about what happened in Hollywood in 1969 yet.
Lots more to come...
.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
I may live in the first spa town in the USA but...
.
Sheldon and I share an aversion to massage. .
I'm just not healed enough to take part in all the massage therapy going on around me, oh well, there's still the water... (clip is screenshot from an episode of Big Bang Theory)
Meanwhile me, I'm real busy still working 3 jobs- no i never did get a settlement, the fuckers- and every bit of time I have I try to give to a book I hope to finish by 2015 and post here http://cityofangels15.blogspot.com/ and to be honest, I get a horrible physical reaction when I open a news story about pedophile priests, almost all the time, and if SNAP is in the story I start hyperventilating. They are not worth dying over. The lies and manipulations were waking me up in the middle of the night for about 3 years and that's finally stopping. That's good as what more can I do? I think with the Vicims of Silence board and my blog just being here, people will one after another over time figure out what happened.
Meantime, I'm writing about other topics at City of Angels 9 http://cityofangels9.blogspot.com/ and discovering I'm NOT a despicable horrible person to be shut out and shut up as the experience of last few years made me feel. So I continue life-changing, not disappearing, but definitely stepping back to look at things from a different viewpoint.
I'm still here, just quieter
.
Sheldon and I share an aversion to massage. .
I'm just not healed enough to take part in all the massage therapy going on around me, oh well, there's still the water... (clip is screenshot from an episode of Big Bang Theory)
Meanwhile me, I'm real busy still working 3 jobs- no i never did get a settlement, the fuckers- and every bit of time I have I try to give to a book I hope to finish by 2015 and post here http://cityofangels15.blogspot.com/ and to be honest, I get a horrible physical reaction when I open a news story about pedophile priests, almost all the time, and if SNAP is in the story I start hyperventilating. They are not worth dying over. The lies and manipulations were waking me up in the middle of the night for about 3 years and that's finally stopping. That's good as what more can I do? I think with the Vicims of Silence board and my blog just being here, people will one after another over time figure out what happened.
Meantime, I'm writing about other topics at City of Angels 9 http://cityofangels9.blogspot.com/ and discovering I'm NOT a despicable horrible person to be shut out and shut up as the experience of last few years made me feel. So I continue life-changing, not disappearing, but definitely stepping back to look at things from a different viewpoint.
I'm still here, just quieter
.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
My Phone Was Tapped while I was blogging about pedophile priests
.
UPDATE MAY 2014: I am rewriting this, to be posted at Faster in a few days.
I even remember when they tapped it and how: (This is a work in progress part of a book to be released in 2015 at http://cityofangels15.blogspot.com/ )
Olga stood inches from the screen door, peering in at me as she knocked. At the sound I jumped a few inches, fingers twitched, I hit the wrong computer keys. When I took off my headphones, the city noise filled my ears: At least two helicopters overhead all the time, endless loud voices shouting in Armenian from the apartments close by, the electric hum that underlies everything in East Hollywood.
Neighbors' loud voices, that's an understatement. I had been hobbling around mumbling, “Sopranos. Warbling sopranos,” since the first weeks we moved to this lanai style crumbling apartment building, and now we'd been there more than a year. So as Olga stood inches from my doorway cooing to me to come out, she was a solo with the warbling sopranos as always in the background.
My neighbors and I detested each other, and we rarely spoke other than to nod good day. Maybe twice one of them had knocked on my door in the two years I'd lived there.
They gossiped in Armenian endlessly in the walkway just outside my door, where they sit on makeshift lawn furniture sipping espresso, living on Social Security in a country where they've never held a job, while I slaved away at three jobs in the apartment just on the other side of a picture window, trying to hear my work videos over their warbling.
It was a mutual detest, we lived in separate universes within feet of each other.
Then out of the blue Olga calls out to me and knocks, so insistent I go to the door without even hitting "Save" on the computer, thinking it will only take seconds. But Olga insists I come now with her to her apartment to do something with her computer that she can't explain. I almost like Olga as she is at least trying to learn English, unlike the other Eastern Europeans in the building who can't even answer what time is it, or was that an earthquake in English, but will gladly stick a palm in your hand on the Sunday before Easter and whisper something in your ear in what sounds like Latin.
What I can get now from Olga's fractured English is come right away, I am having trouble with my computer.
She's so insistent I leave with her and don't even lock my door.
So when first I get to Olga’s door I don't want to go in. All these neighbor men and women sit against the wall sipping espresso and staring at us. I don't want to leave my apartment with the door unlocked, even for ten seconds, but Olga is urging me in behind her drawn blinds.
So I'm soon all the way inside her rooms, no view of what is going on outside, sitting at her little computer and I can’t see what it is she thinks is wrong with her computer.
A STRANGE SOUND fills the room. My cat lets out with a sound he never made before or since, a long howl from next door that goes into another howl and another and continues nonstop for a good thirty seconds.
The whole time the cat is howling, I'm trying to get up from the computer chair but Olga has her hands on my shoulder, saying “Internet Explorer, see? Internet Explorer.”
I say, yes, there it is right there in the corner, Internet Explorer. What do you
want me to do with it?” and try to get up but Olga won't let me get up.
If she says anything, I can't hear her because the cat is now howling louder. Louder.
I try to get up, I say, what's that? My cat has never made that sound before. And Olga pushes my shoulders down and points at her computer screen. I'm thinking, it's just my cat, I've only been gone thirty seconds, what will a few more seconds mean, and I diddle around on the computer keys, can’t find anything wrong or amiss or not working or needing attention at all with her computer.
Olga, meanwhile, has her head turned most of this time, and now as if getting a signal, she lifts her hands from my shoulders and says something like, oh well, I’ll have to ask Sasha to fix it. Olga gestures as if to say, you can go now.
The cat has is no longer howling.
I go back home. Nothing is amiss, nothing is different. My computer monitor still glows.
My cat glares at me like you are so dumb.
From that time on, there was a tapping knocking noise on my phone, a tapping noise that would start up whenever I said the words Archdiocese, bishop, Pope, Vatican, Jeff Anderson, and a few other phrases that would come to the attention of chatter seeking internet spy software.
Looking back, I know that during the years I did City of Angels Blog in L.A., my phone was tapped. And now looking back from a different perspective, I realize that day when Olga lured me out of my apartment, and my cat was howling trying to warn me, was when whoever it was tapped my phone.
Not only was there a blatant knocking noise on the phone that even the most cynical of my associates would admit had to be phone tap noise,
But
From then on, SNAP somehow always knew everything I was doing. They found out who I was talking to, and each time I began work to develop a story, there would be interaction on the other end with someone from SNAP, they intervened. Then my news source would no longer talk to me. The contact would have a changed attitude, and in a couple cases just say, I can’t talk to you anymore, and hang up the phone.
It happened over and over. I'd be working on a story, suddenly the source was in contact with SNAP, then the source would not talk to me anymore.
Meanwhile the phone was clicking and clicking and clicking. Every time I'd say a phrase like, pedophile priest, bishop, Jeff Anderson, archdiocese- the tapping noise increased, as those bots found key words and tapped in.
The intervention by SNAP to stop every story I was writing became something I just watched happen, one time after another. I'd track down a contact, start developing a story, then just wait to see how long it would take. There would be an unexpected interaction between my contact and SNAP, and a few days later when I followed-up and called back as arranged, that source would not talk to me anymore.
At first I took it personally and it hurt, man, it really hurt. Doors kept slamming on me. It happened often, but every time, in that interim between the first contact and SNAP, there would be a surprise: "You'll never guess who got in my cab today," or "Barbara Blaine called me, out of the blue, and asked me to run a press event." It became real obvious to me what was happening, although trying to describe it here left me sounding paranoid. But at least I stopped taking it personally.
That obstruction started in 2008, long before Feb. 2010 when I first published something publicly negative about SNAP.
When I was doing City of Angels Blog full speed starting in 2007, I expected to get some harassment from the Church, I mean, I was publishing things about the clergy cases in L.A. that no other news media was covering, digging up docs and posting about the priests, the attorneys, the hierarchy. Considering the subject matter, it surprised me there wasn't more harassment, I expected it.
But of course, I know now.
The church set up this fake victims support nonprofit, to carry out its obstruction. They gained our trust, so we all spilled everything to them in a way we never would talk to an archdiocese Victim Assistance officer. Then the stories we gave SNAP about a hundred thousand or so sexual felonies by Catholic priests committed against children went into a file somewhere in a St. Louis basement, never to be heard again.
*************
More to Come
.
ADD:
There is one guy I talked to all the time when I got the blog going, because he could help me specifically with my case, he knew what was happening in the Chicago Archdiocese. In 2008-9 we were talking about doing a project together. Then one day I called him and he said, "You'll never guess who got in my cab today. Barbara Blaine." A chill went over me, because by now the strange intervention had been going on for more than a year.
"She just happened to get into your taxi?" I asked. "Yeah," he answered, "strangest thing. I never see her in the city."
A couple weeks later I phoned again asking when we could start working again on that project and he said, "You know what, we've decided to just do something here in Chicago with people who are here locally, not bring in anybody from the outside."
I was stunned, and once again cut off, in this brusque cruel cold way, because in the end with SNAP it has been about control of the message. They were not going to let me do anything.
.
COMING:
There is one guy I talked to all the time when I got the blog going, because he could help me specifically with my case, he knew what was happening in the Chicago Archdiocese. In 2008-9 we were talking about doing a project together. Then one day I called him and he said, "You'll never guess who got in my cab today. Barbara Blaine." A chill went over me, because by now the strange intervention had been going on for more than a year.
UPDATE MAY 2014: I am rewriting this, to be posted at Faster in a few days.
I even remember when they tapped it and how: (This is a work in progress part of a book to be released in 2015 at http://cityofangels15.blogspot.com/ )
Olga stood inches from the screen door, peering in at me as she knocked. At the sound I jumped a few inches, fingers twitched, I hit the wrong computer keys. When I took off my headphones, the city noise filled my ears: At least two helicopters overhead all the time, endless loud voices shouting in Armenian from the apartments close by, the electric hum that underlies everything in East Hollywood.
Neighbors' loud voices, that's an understatement. I had been hobbling around mumbling, “Sopranos. Warbling sopranos,” since the first weeks we moved to this lanai style crumbling apartment building, and now we'd been there more than a year. So as Olga stood inches from my doorway cooing to me to come out, she was a solo with the warbling sopranos as always in the background.
My neighbors and I detested each other, and we rarely spoke other than to nod good day. Maybe twice one of them had knocked on my door in the two years I'd lived there.
They gossiped in Armenian endlessly in the walkway just outside my door, where they sit on makeshift lawn furniture sipping espresso, living on Social Security in a country where they've never held a job, while I slaved away at three jobs in the apartment just on the other side of a picture window, trying to hear my work videos over their warbling.
It was a mutual detest, we lived in separate universes within feet of each other.
Then out of the blue Olga calls out to me and knocks, so insistent I go to the door without even hitting "Save" on the computer, thinking it will only take seconds. But Olga insists I come now with her to her apartment to do something with her computer that she can't explain. I almost like Olga as she is at least trying to learn English, unlike the other Eastern Europeans in the building who can't even answer what time is it, or was that an earthquake in English, but will gladly stick a palm in your hand on the Sunday before Easter and whisper something in your ear in what sounds like Latin.
What I can get now from Olga's fractured English is come right away, I am having trouble with my computer.
She's so insistent I leave with her and don't even lock my door.
So when first I get to Olga’s door I don't want to go in. All these neighbor men and women sit against the wall sipping espresso and staring at us. I don't want to leave my apartment with the door unlocked, even for ten seconds, but Olga is urging me in behind her drawn blinds.
So I'm soon all the way inside her rooms, no view of what is going on outside, sitting at her little computer and I can’t see what it is she thinks is wrong with her computer.
A STRANGE SOUND fills the room. My cat lets out with a sound he never made before or since, a long howl from next door that goes into another howl and another and continues nonstop for a good thirty seconds.
The whole time the cat is howling, I'm trying to get up from the computer chair but Olga has her hands on my shoulder, saying “Internet Explorer, see? Internet Explorer.”
I say, yes, there it is right there in the corner, Internet Explorer. What do you
want me to do with it?” and try to get up but Olga won't let me get up.
If she says anything, I can't hear her because the cat is now howling louder. Louder.
I try to get up, I say, what's that? My cat has never made that sound before. And Olga pushes my shoulders down and points at her computer screen. I'm thinking, it's just my cat, I've only been gone thirty seconds, what will a few more seconds mean, and I diddle around on the computer keys, can’t find anything wrong or amiss or not working or needing attention at all with her computer.
Olga, meanwhile, has her head turned most of this time, and now as if getting a signal, she lifts her hands from my shoulders and says something like, oh well, I’ll have to ask Sasha to fix it. Olga gestures as if to say, you can go now.
The cat has is no longer howling.
I go back home. Nothing is amiss, nothing is different. My computer monitor still glows.
My cat glares at me like you are so dumb.
From that time on, there was a tapping knocking noise on my phone, a tapping noise that would start up whenever I said the words Archdiocese, bishop, Pope, Vatican, Jeff Anderson, and a few other phrases that would come to the attention of chatter seeking internet spy software.
Looking back, I know that during the years I did City of Angels Blog in L.A., my phone was tapped. And now looking back from a different perspective, I realize that day when Olga lured me out of my apartment, and my cat was howling trying to warn me, was when whoever it was tapped my phone.
Not only was there a blatant knocking noise on the phone that even the most cynical of my associates would admit had to be phone tap noise,
But
From then on, SNAP somehow always knew everything I was doing. They found out who I was talking to, and each time I began work to develop a story, there would be interaction on the other end with someone from SNAP, they intervened. Then my news source would no longer talk to me. The contact would have a changed attitude, and in a couple cases just say, I can’t talk to you anymore, and hang up the phone.
It happened over and over. I'd be working on a story, suddenly the source was in contact with SNAP, then the source would not talk to me anymore.
Meanwhile the phone was clicking and clicking and clicking. Every time I'd say a phrase like, pedophile priest, bishop, Jeff Anderson, archdiocese- the tapping noise increased, as those bots found key words and tapped in.
The intervention by SNAP to stop every story I was writing became something I just watched happen, one time after another. I'd track down a contact, start developing a story, then just wait to see how long it would take. There would be an unexpected interaction between my contact and SNAP, and a few days later when I followed-up and called back as arranged, that source would not talk to me anymore.
At first I took it personally and it hurt, man, it really hurt. Doors kept slamming on me. It happened often, but every time, in that interim between the first contact and SNAP, there would be a surprise: "You'll never guess who got in my cab today," or "Barbara Blaine called me, out of the blue, and asked me to run a press event." It became real obvious to me what was happening, although trying to describe it here left me sounding paranoid. But at least I stopped taking it personally.
That obstruction started in 2008, long before Feb. 2010 when I first published something publicly negative about SNAP.
When I was doing City of Angels Blog full speed starting in 2007, I expected to get some harassment from the Church, I mean, I was publishing things about the clergy cases in L.A. that no other news media was covering, digging up docs and posting about the priests, the attorneys, the hierarchy. Considering the subject matter, it surprised me there wasn't more harassment, I expected it.
But of course, I know now.
The church set up this fake victims support nonprofit, to carry out its obstruction. They gained our trust, so we all spilled everything to them in a way we never would talk to an archdiocese Victim Assistance officer. Then the stories we gave SNAP about a hundred thousand or so sexual felonies by Catholic priests committed against children went into a file somewhere in a St. Louis basement, never to be heard again.
*************
More to Come
.
ADD:
There is one guy I talked to all the time when I got the blog going, because he could help me specifically with my case, he knew what was happening in the Chicago Archdiocese. In 2008-9 we were talking about doing a project together. Then one day I called him and he said, "You'll never guess who got in my cab today. Barbara Blaine." A chill went over me, because by now the strange intervention had been going on for more than a year.
"She just happened to get into your taxi?" I asked. "Yeah," he answered, "strangest thing. I never see her in the city."
A couple weeks later I phoned again asking when we could start working again on that project and he said, "You know what, we've decided to just do something here in Chicago with people who are here locally, not bring in anybody from the outside."
I was stunned, and once again cut off, in this brusque cruel cold way, because in the end with SNAP it has been about control of the message. They were not going to let me do anything.
.
COMING:
There is one guy I talked to all the time when I got the blog going, because he could help me specifically with my case, he knew what was happening in the Chicago Archdiocese. In 2008-9 we were talking about doing a project together. Then one day I called him and he said, "You'll never guess who got in my cab today. Barbara Blaine." A chill went over me, because by now the strange intervention had been going on for more than a year.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Don't let Google fool you that coverage of Archdiocese trial is wide
.
With all the news coverage you find with a Google search of the pretrial hearings in Philadelphia, when you click "Home" at the site of any of these news outlets, all the news you find about pedophiles and the Catholic Church are stories lauding Coach Joe Paterno and bemoaning the closing of Catholic schools, no promoted coverage of the criminal trial to take place in March regarding the four priests in the pedophile priest scandal is found on Page One.
Letter from 1968 could show abuse pattern, prosecutor says Philadelphia ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - 7 hours ago
By John P. Martin A letter written by a Philadelphia priest four decades ago about teenage brothers on a sadomasochistic outing could help prove that church officials endangered children 30 years later, a prosecutor contended Wednesday.
Lawyer: Pa. church official threw peer 'under bus'
Fox News - 15 hours ago
PHILADELPHIA – An indicted Catholic church official is showing signs he won't take the fall alone for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, with his lawyer saying Wednesday that a successor threw him "under the bus." Monsignor William Lynn, 61, ...
Philly prosecutors want to use dozens of old priest-abuse cases at monsignor's ...
Washington Post - Jan 25, 2012
PHILADELPHIA — Will a Catholic monsignor be left to defend the sins of the Philadelphia archdiocese in the child sex-abuse scandal? A judge Wednesday may rule on whether prosecutors can use dozens of old priest-abuse allegations at Monsignor William ...
2 sides contest using past responses in priest trial Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan 25, 2012
By John P. Martin Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the forthcoming child endangerment trial of a Philadelphia cleric sparred for a second day Tuesday over whether jurors should hear how the monsignor and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia responded to ...
Lawyers: Gov't hanging Pa. church abuse on 1 man
Atlanta Journal Constitution - Jan 24, 2012
By MARYCLAIRE DALE AP PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors are trying to hold a single Roman Catholic church official responsible for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, defense lawyers argued Tuesday at a key hearing in a novel clergy-abuse case.
Lawyers: Prosecutors hanging blame for Philly church abuse on 1 monsignor ...
Washington Post - Jan 24, 2012
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors are trying to hold a single Roman Catholic church official responsible for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, defense lawyers argued Tuesday at a key hearing in a novel clergy-abuse case. City prosecutors want to ...
Priests' past conduct is an issue in sex-abuse case
Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan 24, 2012
Msgr. William J. Lynn is accused of recommending parish assignments… (ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer) One by one, the assistant district attorneys walked to a courtroom lectern Monday to tell, at times explicitly, different versions of what ...
Philly judge weighs church sex abuse evidence
Newsday - Jan 24, 2012
Nation Newsday > News > Nation Philly judge weighs church sex abuse evidence Published: January 24, 2012 9:07 AM By The Associated Press MARYCLAIRE DALE (Associated Press) PHILADELPHIA - (AP) -- A Philadelphia judge could decide Tuesday if prosecutors ...
Prosecutors, lawyers spar in priest sex-abuse case Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan 24, 2012
Edward V. Avery, seen here leaving the Criminal Justice Center on Oct. 7, is accused… (Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer) By John P. Martin INQUIRER STAFF WRITER One by one, the assistant district attorneys walked to a courtroom lectern Monday ...
Pa. archdiocese named 'unindicted co-conspirator'
CBS News - Jan 23, 2012
(AP) PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors on Monday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of being an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a clergy sex abuse case and said the Roman Catholic Church fed predators a steady supply of children.
More Shocking Allegations Emerge in Philadelphia Priest Child-Sex Scandal
CBS Local - 20 hours ago
(Msgr. William Lynn walks with his attorney after pleading not guilty on Friday to child endangerment and other charges. Photo by Steve Tawa) By Tony Hanson PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge today heard more disturbing ...
Dr. Anthea Butler On Church Abuse Case
MyFox Philadelphia - Jan 25, 2012
PHILADELPHIA - Prosecutors in the church abuse case will be in court Wednesday morning pushing to include some 30 child endangerment cases as part of the trial against Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn is accused of keeping priests around who were suspected ...
Prosecutors: Archdiocese Financially Motivated To Cover Up Sexual Abuse By Priests
CBS Local - Jan 25, 2012
Edward Avery, Charles Engelhardt, James Brennan, Bernard Shero, and William Lynn are charged in connection with sex crimes against children in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. By Tony Hanson PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The prosecution presents evidence of ...
ALLEGATIONS PILE ON PRIEST Philadelphia Daily News 2012-01-25
Philadelphia Daily News - Jan 25, 2012
BY MENSAH M. DEAN CITY PROSECUTORS yesterday continued to pile on the allegations that a former high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia facilitated the sexual abuse of church children by repeatedly looking the other way when confronted ...
With all the news coverage you find with a Google search of the pretrial hearings in Philadelphia, when you click "Home" at the site of any of these news outlets, all the news you find about pedophiles and the Catholic Church are stories lauding Coach Joe Paterno and bemoaning the closing of Catholic schools, no promoted coverage of the criminal trial to take place in March regarding the four priests in the pedophile priest scandal is found on Page One.
Letter from 1968 could show abuse pattern, prosecutor says Philadelphia ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - 7 hours ago
By John P. Martin A letter written by a Philadelphia priest four decades ago about teenage brothers on a sadomasochistic outing could help prove that church officials endangered children 30 years later, a prosecutor contended Wednesday.
Lawyer: Pa. church official threw peer 'under bus'
Fox News - 15 hours ago
PHILADELPHIA – An indicted Catholic church official is showing signs he won't take the fall alone for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, with his lawyer saying Wednesday that a successor threw him "under the bus." Monsignor William Lynn, 61, ...
Philly prosecutors want to use dozens of old priest-abuse cases at monsignor's ...
Washington Post - Jan 25, 2012
PHILADELPHIA — Will a Catholic monsignor be left to defend the sins of the Philadelphia archdiocese in the child sex-abuse scandal? A judge Wednesday may rule on whether prosecutors can use dozens of old priest-abuse allegations at Monsignor William ...
2 sides contest using past responses in priest trial Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan 25, 2012
By John P. Martin Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the forthcoming child endangerment trial of a Philadelphia cleric sparred for a second day Tuesday over whether jurors should hear how the monsignor and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia responded to ...
Lawyers: Gov't hanging Pa. church abuse on 1 man
Atlanta Journal Constitution - Jan 24, 2012
By MARYCLAIRE DALE AP PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors are trying to hold a single Roman Catholic church official responsible for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, defense lawyers argued Tuesday at a key hearing in a novel clergy-abuse case.
Lawyers: Prosecutors hanging blame for Philly church abuse on 1 monsignor ...
Washington Post - Jan 24, 2012
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors are trying to hold a single Roman Catholic church official responsible for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, defense lawyers argued Tuesday at a key hearing in a novel clergy-abuse case. City prosecutors want to ...
Priests' past conduct is an issue in sex-abuse case
Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan 24, 2012
Msgr. William J. Lynn is accused of recommending parish assignments… (ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer) One by one, the assistant district attorneys walked to a courtroom lectern Monday to tell, at times explicitly, different versions of what ...
Philly judge weighs church sex abuse evidence
Newsday - Jan 24, 2012
Nation Newsday > News > Nation Philly judge weighs church sex abuse evidence Published: January 24, 2012 9:07 AM By The Associated Press MARYCLAIRE DALE (Associated Press) PHILADELPHIA - (AP) -- A Philadelphia judge could decide Tuesday if prosecutors ...
Prosecutors, lawyers spar in priest sex-abuse case Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan 24, 2012
Edward V. Avery, seen here leaving the Criminal Justice Center on Oct. 7, is accused… (Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer) By John P. Martin INQUIRER STAFF WRITER One by one, the assistant district attorneys walked to a courtroom lectern Monday ...
Pa. archdiocese named 'unindicted co-conspirator'
CBS News - Jan 23, 2012
(AP) PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors on Monday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of being an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a clergy sex abuse case and said the Roman Catholic Church fed predators a steady supply of children.
More Shocking Allegations Emerge in Philadelphia Priest Child-Sex Scandal
CBS Local - 20 hours ago
(Msgr. William Lynn walks with his attorney after pleading not guilty on Friday to child endangerment and other charges. Photo by Steve Tawa) By Tony Hanson PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge today heard more disturbing ...
Dr. Anthea Butler On Church Abuse Case
MyFox Philadelphia - Jan 25, 2012
PHILADELPHIA - Prosecutors in the church abuse case will be in court Wednesday morning pushing to include some 30 child endangerment cases as part of the trial against Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn is accused of keeping priests around who were suspected ...
Prosecutors: Archdiocese Financially Motivated To Cover Up Sexual Abuse By Priests
CBS Local - Jan 25, 2012
Edward Avery, Charles Engelhardt, James Brennan, Bernard Shero, and William Lynn are charged in connection with sex crimes against children in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. By Tony Hanson PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The prosecution presents evidence of ...
ALLEGATIONS PILE ON PRIEST Philadelphia Daily News 2012-01-25
Philadelphia Daily News - Jan 25, 2012
BY MENSAH M. DEAN CITY PROSECUTORS yesterday continued to pile on the allegations that a former high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia facilitated the sexual abuse of church children by repeatedly looking the other way when confronted ...
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Hidden Truth Revealed in Words of Msgr. Lynn Defense
.
Attorneys for Monsignor William Lynn are admitting that all the way up to 2002, it was Church policy and practice that priests who rape children remain in ministry, with ongoing secrecy and coverup of their crimes, in defense attempts to get some of the guilt off Lynn in the criminal trial coming in March in Philadelphia.
"Lynn, [his defense attorneys] said, was doing his job as ordered in the era before 2002," per several news reports on pretrial hearings in the criminal case against four Philadelphia Archdiocese priests for sex abuse of children.
Read the AP story here at Newsday.
.
Attorneys for Monsignor William Lynn are admitting that all the way up to 2002, it was Church policy and practice that priests who rape children remain in ministry, with ongoing secrecy and coverup of their crimes, in defense attempts to get some of the guilt off Lynn in the criminal trial coming in March in Philadelphia.
"Lynn, [his defense attorneys] said, was doing his job as ordered in the era before 2002," per several news reports on pretrial hearings in the criminal case against four Philadelphia Archdiocese priests for sex abuse of children.
Read the AP story here at Newsday.
.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
I didn't ask the story to go this way, it just did
.
A couple people think SNAP is being attacked by church lawyers for its decades of work, through the recent Kansas City depositions and subpoenas. I think SNAP is self destructing because their work is done. By destructing in a very public way, they are keeping control of the story even as they self-destruct.
Of course the "Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests" is not really self destructing, but they could.
Because their work is done here.
SNAP ran damage control over the pedophile priest story as it broke in city after city, they intercepted and garnered all the contact information for the media and victims and stashed it away, not even sharing contacts with local leaders, rarely connecting new victims with other victims who live nearby. One by one SNAP discouraged activists who came forward around the country and would have created a real movement. Now people are starting to figure them out here and there, so SNAP should get out while the getting's good. Their work is done here.
Meanwhile all hundred thousand victims in the USA are isolated and discouraged, in the same vacuum we were in before this whole thing started.
*****
People point out nice phrases SNAP gets in the news here and there as proof of SNAP's good works. Problem is, I believe SNAP and the Church are one and the same at the executive level.
So any public disclosures by SNAP are actually orchestrated by the bishops to in the end make the church look like the good guys, and the victims look like money grubbing unsatisfiable malcontents.
Keep paying attention, look closer.
For me, today, any time SNAP stands in front of the cameras, the news is being manipulated by the church. So I read every item both the Church and SNAP releases with skepticism.
Release of the current Clohessy deposition story and the nun whistle blower in Kansas City just before its release are part of SNAP's hidden agenda.
I didn't ask for the story to go this way, it just did.
Meanwhile the cover story of being a national support organization is very effective, for finding out who the victims are and what they intend to do. Only SNAP knows what victims have said where and when, and they share almost none of that information. A dozen stories have been released through SNAP, in a very controlled fashion.
The people in the pews have no idea how many victims there are or the extent of the sexual violence that was propagated on children. If they did, the people would not still be in the pews. SNAP has run damage control on this issue very effectively.
***
The only ones who knew in the 1980s that there would be a need for control when a hundred thousand victims came forward were the American bishops. I think SNAP was born at the 1985 bishops conference where Tom Doyle wrote the founding documents. SNAP's real purpose was to keep us all from being able to really create a movement.
And they succeeded.
Just think, why Clohessy? Why Blaine? Out of all hundred thousand pedophile priest victims in the USA, why do we only see two-three survivors wherever the story breaks? Why haven't they changed the adjectives they use in twenty years? It's all been under control from above.
Intuitively, a genuine victims group in crimes like these would be inclusive and transparent. Instead we have SNAP.
I had a very unique perspective doing CofA blog, that allowed me to interview victims around the country and see what SNAP was doing to people, repeatedly. They really did not want me to see that and did all they could to stop me.
It has not been a fun experience.
.
I wrote about the whole weird experience at City of Angels 2 in a lot more detail.
.
A couple people think SNAP is being attacked by church lawyers for its decades of work, through the recent Kansas City depositions and subpoenas. I think SNAP is self destructing because their work is done. By destructing in a very public way, they are keeping control of the story even as they self-destruct.
Of course the "Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests" is not really self destructing, but they could.
Because their work is done here.
SNAP ran damage control over the pedophile priest story as it broke in city after city, they intercepted and garnered all the contact information for the media and victims and stashed it away, not even sharing contacts with local leaders, rarely connecting new victims with other victims who live nearby. One by one SNAP discouraged activists who came forward around the country and would have created a real movement. Now people are starting to figure them out here and there, so SNAP should get out while the getting's good. Their work is done here.
Meanwhile all hundred thousand victims in the USA are isolated and discouraged, in the same vacuum we were in before this whole thing started.
*****
People point out nice phrases SNAP gets in the news here and there as proof of SNAP's good works. Problem is, I believe SNAP and the Church are one and the same at the executive level.
So any public disclosures by SNAP are actually orchestrated by the bishops to in the end make the church look like the good guys, and the victims look like money grubbing unsatisfiable malcontents.
Keep paying attention, look closer.
For me, today, any time SNAP stands in front of the cameras, the news is being manipulated by the church. So I read every item both the Church and SNAP releases with skepticism.
Release of the current Clohessy deposition story and the nun whistle blower in Kansas City just before its release are part of SNAP's hidden agenda.
I didn't ask for the story to go this way, it just did.
Meanwhile the cover story of being a national support organization is very effective, for finding out who the victims are and what they intend to do. Only SNAP knows what victims have said where and when, and they share almost none of that information. A dozen stories have been released through SNAP, in a very controlled fashion.
The people in the pews have no idea how many victims there are or the extent of the sexual violence that was propagated on children. If they did, the people would not still be in the pews. SNAP has run damage control on this issue very effectively.
***
The only ones who knew in the 1980s that there would be a need for control when a hundred thousand victims came forward were the American bishops. I think SNAP was born at the 1985 bishops conference where Tom Doyle wrote the founding documents. SNAP's real purpose was to keep us all from being able to really create a movement.
And they succeeded.
Just think, why Clohessy? Why Blaine? Out of all hundred thousand pedophile priest victims in the USA, why do we only see two-three survivors wherever the story breaks? Why haven't they changed the adjectives they use in twenty years? It's all been under control from above.
Intuitively, a genuine victims group in crimes like these would be inclusive and transparent. Instead we have SNAP.
I had a very unique perspective doing CofA blog, that allowed me to interview victims around the country and see what SNAP was doing to people, repeatedly. They really did not want me to see that and did all they could to stop me.
It has not been a fun experience.
.
I wrote about the whole weird experience at City of Angels 2 in a lot more detail.
.
These Days
.
I am doing a lot of posting at the Victims of Silence message board, using "Muckraker" as a moniker.
.
-kay
.
I am doing a lot of posting at the Victims of Silence message board, using "Muckraker" as a moniker.
.
-kay
.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Clohessy hypocrisy makes all pedophile priest victims look bad
.
Just like with priest personnel files, a judge can review subpoenaed SNAP files "in camera" and decide what information should not be released, in order to prevent damage to persons involved. The same rules should apply to SNAP as apply to the Catholic Church. No Secrets. Clohessy's current intransigence on this issue makes me wonder, what is SNAP so determined to hide?
It amazes me how SNAP can make "survivors" look bad by issuing press statements, claiming they speak for survivors, when I don't think SNAP has ever taken a poll or asked survivors to vote on where they want the "movement" to go, or even conducted a vote on who should be the leaders. For example, to me and a lot of survivors, leafletting about pedophiles outside Mass at churches is insensitive and makes victims look as "callous and reckless" as SNAP calls the church. Yet SNAP ignored me and other survivors who tried to point out this insensitivity and asked for the activism to have a different focus. Clohessy just answered to me, "This is what we do." Then SNAP continued to leafet outside churches, making it clear, at least to me, that SNAP was taking direction from some invisible entity, not survivors at the grass roots level.
This situation where Clohessy released information that was under a gag order in a press statement, then was ordered by a court to turn over documents and refused, has opened up a can of worms, and made victims look so unfair that, once again, I get the feeling SNAP is working surreptitiously for the church. I know most people think I'm paranoid for believing SNAP really works for the church, but look at how this stance Clohessy has taken makes pedophile priest victims look hypocritical and opens the door for suspicion and criticism.
SNAP is claiming the church is too secretive while SNAP carries out the same secretive tactics as the church, refusing to answer questions in deposition and refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents- It's as if SNAP's goal is to make victims look like hypocrites.
I might feel compassion for David Clohessy's current dilemma if SNAP had Ever shown concern for individual survivors, or demonstrated any real advocacy and support for the pedophile priest victims. But instead SNAP seems to mainly work to get the SNAP name in the news connected to every story about pedophile priests, to make sure the only thing anyone reads about this issue from "survivors" is a prefabricated press statement from a corporate spokesperson at SNAP.
So SNAP assures that all communication about these crimes everywhere in the country goes through SNAP, where details of the crimes then rarely get publicly reported again, other than a meek sound byte in response to stories that are already in the news.
That's damage control, not advocacy, and in the case of accused priest Michael Tierney of St. Louis, Clohessy seems to have gone too far, and now he's asking for the rules that apply to everyone else not to apply to him or the survivors' "network."
Maybe Clohessy made a big mistake, or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing all along.
In other words, this whole thing stinks, and this is yet another layer in the cesspool of the "survivor movement" self destructing while SNAP runs the show.
I'd like to see SNAP have to open its files for investigation. We might finally find out who they really represent. It might cause the news media to report something other than whatever pre-approved statement comes out of a SNAP spokesperson's mouth and instead start asking some probing questions.
For instance SNAP claims to get "hundreds" of calls from new victims each week. But where is the evidence? Where are the hundreds of new victims and their stories? Where is the support and comfort for victims? Why do only one or two people show up for SNAP events when there are about a hundred thousand pedophile priest victims in the USA right now?
Where is the advocacy? Other than in SNAP press statements...
This latest chapter with Clohessy avoiding deposition questions has provided a whole bucket of manure for Catholic Church defenders to use in their endless efforts to make the pedophile priest victims look like we are in it for the money and that many of us just made up our stories so we could file lawsuits.
Clohessy wants it both ways. By calling himself a spokesperson for survivors, he makes all pedophile prist victims look like we want to operate under a separate set of rules.
SNAP has played right into church defense hands with this latest incident, and by continuing to refuse to turn over their documents and answer questions in deposition, SNAP continues to make the victims look like opportunistic hypocrites.
I can't help feeling that the purpose of SNAP all along was to make victims look bad, otherwise, why weren't activists like Jay Nelson and me and Michael Baumann and so many others across the country taken in and made part of the "network" so that it would operate as a genuine network? The opposite happened. Anyone with new and innovative ideas to contribute to the movement has been trompled on and silenced by SNAP. Now the movement consists of one or two people in St. Louis and Chicago representing "us" to the world.
And look at the negative image of "survivors" that they are creating.
I have watched the way the news media go only to SNAP to get "sound bytes" that say almost nothing at all, then reporters publish SNAP press statements and think they are including our side of the story. I've watched one activist after another across the country get shot down while Barbara and David insinuate themselves into the middle of every story on this issue, blocking out everyone else. Now with this new development, I can only observe, as I've developed a strange case of ennuie about the whole issue of pedophile priests, a reaction eerily similar to that of other survivors who tried to do something with this "movement" and instead of encouragement, got shot down by SNAP.
Activists end up defeated and give up: Hmm. Seems SNAP creates the exact result the Catholic Church would want, and would go to any length to make happen.
So now I'll sit and watch Crusaders, such as David Pierre with his mediareport and Bill Donohue from the Catholic League, use this latest debacle from SNAP as ammunition to shoot us all down. Believe me, it pains me to find myself agreeing with The Catholic League, but you have to tell the truth as you see it, no matter how unpopular it makes you.
Someday someone with some influence will take time to figure out what really happened here. For now I just sit here on the sidelines where SNAP made sure I ended up, observing.
And again wondering: Who put these people from SNAP in charge to begin with and what is their real motivation?
Sick and tired of the whole damn thing, I am,
Kay Ebeling
Read the story about this latest hypocrisy at Boston dot com:
I've written a lot more on SNAP- its secrecy, its insistence on control of the message, and its questionable treatment of victims- at City of Angels 2 in the past two years. I write from my place on the sidelines, marginalized and almost silenced, where SNAP wants the more vocal survivors to stay.
I've learned that if a survivor criticizes SNAP, they end up ostrasized and blacklisted, in good old Catholic Church historical tradition.
So go figure.
.
Just like with priest personnel files, a judge can review subpoenaed SNAP files "in camera" and decide what information should not be released, in order to prevent damage to persons involved. The same rules should apply to SNAP as apply to the Catholic Church. No Secrets. Clohessy's current intransigence on this issue makes me wonder, what is SNAP so determined to hide?
It amazes me how SNAP can make "survivors" look bad by issuing press statements, claiming they speak for survivors, when I don't think SNAP has ever taken a poll or asked survivors to vote on where they want the "movement" to go, or even conducted a vote on who should be the leaders. For example, to me and a lot of survivors, leafletting about pedophiles outside Mass at churches is insensitive and makes victims look as "callous and reckless" as SNAP calls the church. Yet SNAP ignored me and other survivors who tried to point out this insensitivity and asked for the activism to have a different focus. Clohessy just answered to me, "This is what we do." Then SNAP continued to leafet outside churches, making it clear, at least to me, that SNAP was taking direction from some invisible entity, not survivors at the grass roots level.
This situation where Clohessy released information that was under a gag order in a press statement, then was ordered by a court to turn over documents and refused, has opened up a can of worms, and made victims look so unfair that, once again, I get the feeling SNAP is working surreptitiously for the church. I know most people think I'm paranoid for believing SNAP really works for the church, but look at how this stance Clohessy has taken makes pedophile priest victims look hypocritical and opens the door for suspicion and criticism.
SNAP is claiming the church is too secretive while SNAP carries out the same secretive tactics as the church, refusing to answer questions in deposition and refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents- It's as if SNAP's goal is to make victims look like hypocrites.
I might feel compassion for David Clohessy's current dilemma if SNAP had Ever shown concern for individual survivors, or demonstrated any real advocacy and support for the pedophile priest victims. But instead SNAP seems to mainly work to get the SNAP name in the news connected to every story about pedophile priests, to make sure the only thing anyone reads about this issue from "survivors" is a prefabricated press statement from a corporate spokesperson at SNAP.
So SNAP assures that all communication about these crimes everywhere in the country goes through SNAP, where details of the crimes then rarely get publicly reported again, other than a meek sound byte in response to stories that are already in the news.
That's damage control, not advocacy, and in the case of accused priest Michael Tierney of St. Louis, Clohessy seems to have gone too far, and now he's asking for the rules that apply to everyone else not to apply to him or the survivors' "network."
Maybe Clohessy made a big mistake, or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing all along.
In other words, this whole thing stinks, and this is yet another layer in the cesspool of the "survivor movement" self destructing while SNAP runs the show.
I'd like to see SNAP have to open its files for investigation. We might finally find out who they really represent. It might cause the news media to report something other than whatever pre-approved statement comes out of a SNAP spokesperson's mouth and instead start asking some probing questions.
For instance SNAP claims to get "hundreds" of calls from new victims each week. But where is the evidence? Where are the hundreds of new victims and their stories? Where is the support and comfort for victims? Why do only one or two people show up for SNAP events when there are about a hundred thousand pedophile priest victims in the USA right now?
Where is the advocacy? Other than in SNAP press statements...
This latest chapter with Clohessy avoiding deposition questions has provided a whole bucket of manure for Catholic Church defenders to use in their endless efforts to make the pedophile priest victims look like we are in it for the money and that many of us just made up our stories so we could file lawsuits.
Clohessy wants it both ways. By calling himself a spokesperson for survivors, he makes all pedophile prist victims look like we want to operate under a separate set of rules.
SNAP has played right into church defense hands with this latest incident, and by continuing to refuse to turn over their documents and answer questions in deposition, SNAP continues to make the victims look like opportunistic hypocrites.
I can't help feeling that the purpose of SNAP all along was to make victims look bad, otherwise, why weren't activists like Jay Nelson and me and Michael Baumann and so many others across the country taken in and made part of the "network" so that it would operate as a genuine network? The opposite happened. Anyone with new and innovative ideas to contribute to the movement has been trompled on and silenced by SNAP. Now the movement consists of one or two people in St. Louis and Chicago representing "us" to the world.
And look at the negative image of "survivors" that they are creating.
I have watched the way the news media go only to SNAP to get "sound bytes" that say almost nothing at all, then reporters publish SNAP press statements and think they are including our side of the story. I've watched one activist after another across the country get shot down while Barbara and David insinuate themselves into the middle of every story on this issue, blocking out everyone else. Now with this new development, I can only observe, as I've developed a strange case of ennuie about the whole issue of pedophile priests, a reaction eerily similar to that of other survivors who tried to do something with this "movement" and instead of encouragement, got shot down by SNAP.
Activists end up defeated and give up: Hmm. Seems SNAP creates the exact result the Catholic Church would want, and would go to any length to make happen.
So now I'll sit and watch Crusaders, such as David Pierre with his mediareport and Bill Donohue from the Catholic League, use this latest debacle from SNAP as ammunition to shoot us all down. Believe me, it pains me to find myself agreeing with The Catholic League, but you have to tell the truth as you see it, no matter how unpopular it makes you.
Someday someone with some influence will take time to figure out what really happened here. For now I just sit here on the sidelines where SNAP made sure I ended up, observing.
And again wondering: Who put these people from SNAP in charge to begin with and what is their real motivation?
Sick and tired of the whole damn thing, I am,
Kay Ebeling
Read the story about this latest hypocrisy at Boston dot com:
Priest-abuse victims group ordered to open its files******************
December 31, 2011
By Jim Suhr and Rachel Zoll
ST. LOUIS - An advocacy group that has relentlessly pressured Roman Catholic leaders to reveal the scope of sex abuse in the church has been ordered to disclose records to one priest’s defense lawyers that could include years of e-mails with victims, journalists, and others.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has so far failed to block the ruling by a judge, which requires the organization to produce the documents and also allows defense attorneys to depose the network’s national director, David Clohessy...
I've written a lot more on SNAP- its secrecy, its insistence on control of the message, and its questionable treatment of victims- at City of Angels 2 in the past two years. I write from my place on the sidelines, marginalized and almost silenced, where SNAP wants the more vocal survivors to stay.
I've learned that if a survivor criticizes SNAP, they end up ostrasized and blacklisted, in good old Catholic Church historical tradition.
So go figure.
.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Raw Notes? Why that title for CofA 12?
.
The header at the top of City of Angels Blog in 2012 says "Raw Notes" and people may wonder why.
As I wrote this blog for four years, things went real fast. Often I’d begin work on a story, more would happen, and I’d get sidetracked, then never get back to that interview or research. Those notes full of information then languished in my files for as much as four years.
In 2011 I stopped to catch my breath and so had time to look through four years of notes. The results will be posted at CofA12 starting in January (aka http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com)
I found in my files hundreds of stories, most with information that has never been published before about the pedophile priest crisis in the Catholic Church. So the Header for City of Angels Blog in 2012 is "Raw Notes" because next year I'm publishing all my unfinished stories from the past four years of doing City of Angels Blog, along with coverage of current events on the issue, with the unique inquisitive perspective CofA Blog readers have come to expect.
.
The header at the top of City of Angels Blog in 2012 says "Raw Notes" and people may wonder why.
As I wrote this blog for four years, things went real fast. Often I’d begin work on a story, more would happen, and I’d get sidetracked, then never get back to that interview or research. Those notes full of information then languished in my files for as much as four years.
In 2011 I stopped to catch my breath and so had time to look through four years of notes. The results will be posted at CofA12 starting in January (aka http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com)
I found in my files hundreds of stories, most with information that has never been published before about the pedophile priest crisis in the Catholic Church. So the Header for City of Angels Blog in 2012 is "Raw Notes" because next year I'm publishing all my unfinished stories from the past four years of doing City of Angels Blog, along with coverage of current events on the issue, with the unique inquisitive perspective CofA Blog readers have come to expect.
.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Full story of Pedophile Priests yet to be told
.
The only way a pedophile priest epidemic will never happen again in the Catholic Church is if the full extent of how bad it was becomes known.
The full story has not yet come out, because weird forces kept the crime victims from connecting, caused us to become suspicious of each other and stop getting together in LA and other cities.
Any effort in the pedophile priest victim community to start an independent demonstration or effort of any kind got stifled.
But we're all still here. There's a good hundred thousand victims throughout the Untited States.
The only way the Catholic Church will ever be vigilant enough to prevent another pedophile priest epidemic is if ALL the stories come out.
Every charge that cardinals like Roger Mahony kept down.
They weren't able to stop me.
.
The only way a pedophile priest epidemic will never happen again in the Catholic Church is if the full extent of how bad it was becomes known.
The full story has not yet come out, because weird forces kept the crime victims from connecting, caused us to become suspicious of each other and stop getting together in LA and other cities.
Any effort in the pedophile priest victim community to start an independent demonstration or effort of any kind got stifled.
But we're all still here. There's a good hundred thousand victims throughout the Untited States.
The only way the Catholic Church will ever be vigilant enough to prevent another pedophile priest epidemic is if ALL the stories come out.
Every charge that cardinals like Roger Mahony kept down.
They weren't able to stop me.
.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
CofA Blog in 2012 will be at CofA12: http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com
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In 2012 CofA Blog will be at City of Angels 12 http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com/ previews coming here soon.
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In 2012 CofA Blog will be at City of Angels 12 http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com/ previews coming here soon.
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Sunday, November 6, 2011
City of Angels in 2012
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This site http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com is where City of Angels will return in 2012.
This site http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com is where City of Angels will return in 2012.
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