Defamation?

Background for Aug 29 post 

Ted made his first call to the Archdiocese hotline and encountered his own perp on the phone, as Monsignor Ray Hebert held reign over the Victim Assistance office in the 1990s.
Ted made several more calls, plus three trips from Chicago to New Orleans, in pursuit of justice, and finally filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New Orleans in Spring 2005, naming Hebert among a number of perpetrators in Madonna Manor orphanage.
Four other men also named Hebert in lawsuits soon after Ted went public.

Defamation Judgment 2010

Monsignor Hebert immediately responded with four defamation lawsuits against the four men, who were pedophile priest survivors coming forward for the first time. Three years later the men agreed to withdraw Hebert's name from their lawsuits, since it did not affect their claims, which were settled months later.
When his defamation suits got the desired results, Hebert made the rounds of news outlets claiming his name had been cleared through legal proceedings, so he was not guilty. He received community awards and accolades up to his death in Jan 2014.
But Ted Lausche still claims it was Monsignor Ray Hebert, then a young priest, who sodomized him in the Confessional at Madonna Manor.
Hebert died in Jan 2014, the lawyer who filed his defamation lawsuits pro bono died in July of the same year.
And Ted Lausche still says Ray Hebert molested him at Madonna Manor in the 1960s.

Times Picayune on Defamation Suit:

Times Picayune 06.28.06;

Times Picayune 03.18.10;

Here are the stories in full:

Abuse Claims Prompt Defamation Lawsuit

By Bruce Nolan
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
June 28, 2006

A Marrero Catholic priest named in three sexual abuse suits has sued his accusers, saying their allegations are "pure fabrications."

Monsignor Ray Hebert, 77, filed the defamation suit this month against Stacey Brown of Harvey, Ted Lausche of Lake Geneva, Wis., and Albert P. Miller of Pearl River. 

Hebert said he did so after he spoke with friends both in and out of the priesthood who told him that his silence could be construed as an acknowledgment that the accusations were true -- "and of course there can be no such acknowledgment."

Hebert's accusers, now in their 40s and 50s, spent part of their childhoods in Madonna Manor in Marrero, which once cared for young boys coming out of broken or dysfunctional families.

Brown, Lausche and Miller are among 14 plaintiffs who have sued the Archdiocese of New Orleans, alleging that they underwent beatings and sexual abuse at the institution.

Brown, Lausche and Miller specifically named Hebert among staff members or others who they said sexually assaulted them.

The archdiocese said it believed that Hebert was a victim of mistaken identity by the accusers.

Hebert retired in 2002, his 50th year as a priest, as pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Marrero and head of the archdiocese's department of clergy.

He once headed Associated Catholic Charities, the church organization that ran Madonna Manor. Hebert said that during the years when the three men claimed they were molested, he visited Madonna Manor only two or three times a year to consult with the nun who supervised the facility.

Hebert said the men, who believe they have recovered repressed memories of abuse, accused him after learning that he was director of Associated Catholic Charities during their youth. 

THEN

Molestation Allegations against Local Catholic Priest Withdrawn
By Bruce Nolan
The Times-Picayune 
March 18, 2010
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/03/molestation_allegations_agains.html 
A local Catholic priest accused of molesting four boys years ago at a church-run shelter in Marrero has cleared his name after the accusers formally withdrew their claims.

Attorneys for the accusers earlier this month filed an acknowledgment in court that Monsignor Ray Hebert did not molest their clients when they were children at Madonna Manor, a Catholic institution Hebert supervised for a time as head of Catholic Charities.

The admission comes four years after Hebert, 81, sued them for defamation.

In the past five years, more than a dozen men who lived at Madonna Manor as children have filed suits against the Archdiocese of New Orleans. They claim that various priests, nuns and lay employees beat, terrorized or sexually abused them. The lawsuits also cover alleged abuses at Hope Haven, a nearby sister institution, mostly during the 1950s and 1960s.

The archdiocese last fall settled a package of lawsuits brought by former residents of Hope Haven and Madonna Manor for $5.2 million, but other claims remain.

Four men, Stacey Brown, Larry Daigle, Ted Lausche and Albert Miller, named Hebert among their many abusers. Hebert, a senior pastor and church administrator, protested his innocence from the beginning and sued to clear his name.

"I really don't know whether any of these men were abused or not," Hebert said Thursday. "I know I did not abuse them, and I know I was never aware they were abused by anyone else."

Shortly after the claims were first made, an archdiocesan review panel set up to examine such accusations advised then-Archbishop Alfred Hughes that the evidence against Hebert was too sketchy to warrant his removal from ministry.

Harold Dearie II, a Metairie lawyer who waived his fee to take Hebert's case, said he was convinced Hebert was the victim of mistaken identity. Hebert visited the institutions only occasionally to deal with staff and administrators, rather than the children, Hebert said in court filings.

In 2008, one accuser, Daigle, said he found a photo indicating his tormentor was not Hebert. Another accuser, Brown, died; a third was found to be too emotionally disabled to proceed; and the fourth elected to withdraw as the defamation suit neared trial.

While Dearie took the case for free, Hebert estimated he paid $3,000 for copying and other fees. He said he paid for his case out of his own pocket, without help from the archdiocese.

Hebert did not seek damages in his defamation suit and collected no money after the accusations were withdrawn, Dearie said.

"This is all I ever asked, to have my name cleared," Hebert said.

Still, other cases involving alleged abuse at the two institutions remain active, and Archbishop Gregory Aymond, in settling some suits last year, said he was convinced some of the abuse claims are authentic.

Hebert's case seems to be the first locally in which accusers have recanted publicly. Nationally, "false reporting of sexual abuse by children is very rare," said Kathleen McChesney, who headed the child protection department established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops after the national scandal broke.

Hebert said Thursday he had no sense that staff at either of the two places were possibly terrorizing children sent there for safekeeping by courts or dysfunctional families.

"My whole impression, the whole time I was director of Catholic Charities when I worked with those institutions and the superiors of those institutions, was that they were running basically good programs," Hebert said.

Although some plaintiffs' suits contain case workers' notes that children had been beaten by staff, Hebert said state inspectors and church case workers did not sound alarms that caught his attention.

"I have the feeling that if we could gather all the children at Madonna Manor today, the majority would be very positive about their stay there. But to say no child was ever abused, I could not say that.

"But I also know what was said about me, and that was false."
.
As I said, the monsignor took himself on a press tour to clear his name and did not give a damn about the four damaged men. 

-ke

Background: Parallel Hells 2, Ted 1

Related News Stories for post coming Friday
Ted filed his lawsuit in spring 2005
Got media coverage 
And other victims came forward.
(From bishop accountability )

For Aug 29 post

6 Allege Abuse at Catholic Home
Suits Claim Rapes and Beatings by Priests, Nuns or Staff in '60s
By Bruce Nolan
The Times-Picayune [New Orleans LA]
August 25, 2005

Half a dozen men have filed lawsuits alleging they were sexually molested, beaten and frequently humiliated 40 years ago by nuns, priests and civilian staff members at Madonna Manor, a Catholic home for troubled children in Marrero. 

The six lawsuits represent the largest concentration of complaints involving a single institution or individual in the Archdiocese of New Orleans' three-year experience in dealing with complaints of past sexual abuse. 

The suits are based on plaintiffs' experiences between the ages of 4 and 14. In many cases they name staff members and recount specific beatings or episodes of rape or sexual molestation. 

A few also allege abuse by adult strangers whose identities the plaintiffs hope to learn as the lawsuits' investigative process unfolds. Other complaints are more generalized, describing a climate of physical and psychological abuse in which nuns beat them severely and told them they were worthless, or that no one loved them. 

In response, the archdiocese has been poring over old records to reach its own assessment of conditions at Madonna Manor during the 1960s, when the allegations are clustered, said the Rev. William Maestri, the archdiocese's spokesman. 

"We want to make sure that where there are victims, we respond appropriately to them," he said. But church investigators have found that the children's records are not up to standards found today, he said. Some records are vague; there are gaps in others. "This is not an easy thing to do over this length of time," he said. 

Twin institutions 

Madonna Manor and an affiliated institution, Hope Haven, are operated by the Archdiocese of New Orleans' charitable arm, formerly called Associated Catholic Charities. At the time of the complaints Madonna Manor was staffed by nuns belonging to the School Sisters of Notre Dame. 

Both institutions are on Barataria Boulevard in Marrero. 

Madonna Manor was founded in 1933 by a legendary West Bank priest, Monsignor Peter Wynhoven. It was opened to care for orphans or, more frequently, used as a refuge for children whose families were in turmoil. Many youngsters were placed there under court order. In other cases, families unable to care for all their children sent some to be cared for by the church. 

Madonna Manor held younger children; Hope Haven across the street held older children and teenagers. 

Throughout the 1960s, the period when the men allege their abuse occurred, the institutions enjoyed a full measure of public trust and affection. Secular and religious groups alike sponsored holiday parties and outings for the boys. The Navy invited them to tour visiting warships. 

Within the past six weeks, however, four men, Larry Daigle of Kenner, James Harvey of Altadena, Calif.; Keith Porche of Slidell and a man identified only as John Doe of New Orleans, have gone public with claims they were frequently abused at Madonna Manor. 

In addition, two other former residents, Stacey Brown of Harvey and Ted Lausche, of Lake Geneva, Wis., recently amplified suits they filed last spring that now allege specific acts of abuse at Madonna Manor by named priests, nuns or other staff members. 

Most of the men have not approached the archdiocese on their own about their complaints, Maestri said. But several apparently have been in touch with the local chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. 

Complaints about Madonna Manor "have been on our radar for more than a couple of years," SNAP spokesman Michael Kuczynski said. "The first thing that impressed us was the severity of the abuse reported. These aren't clich?d single instances of abuse against children, but repeated acts of abuse" by other students, priests, nuns and lay staff members, he said. 

Denying allegations 

Brown and Lausche allege they were raped by Monsignor Raymond Hebert, a priest who retired three years ago as pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish. 

As one of the most respected senior priests in the archdiocese, Hebert headed the archdiocese's department of clergy. For years it was his duty to investigate complaints of sexual abuse against other priests and make recommendations to the archbishop. 

"I certainly deny the charges completely," Hebert said. "I've never abused a child in my life. And I find it very disappointing that the institution itself finds itself under such severe criticism when it's long served as an outstanding child-care institution in this area." 

Hebert directed Associated Catholic Charities in the 1960s and said he often visited the home in that capacity. But he said his interests were administrative and budgetary. "I didn't have relationships with the children, and I was never alone with a child," he said. 

Maestri said the archdiocese believes Hebert may be the victim of a "misidentification." He noted that Brown said in his suit he "was heavily dosed with psychiatric drugs during most the years he lived at Madonna Manor." 

Hebert's 53-year career as a priest is otherwise without blemish, Maestri said. Church investigators believe it strains credulity that Hebert could have surreptitiously raped Brown more than 20 times, as the suit claims. 

Among the plaintiffs, Lausche is the only one to have approached the archdiocese before filing suit. But the church's internal review process months ago concluded that Lausche's claim against Hebert was "without semblance of truth," Maestri said. A second inquiry will look at Brown's allegations, he said. 

Law enforcement authorities have been notified about Lausche and Brown's allegations and will be told about the other four, Maestri said. 

Seven nuns named 

The lawsuits allege a wide spectrum of physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the home. 

Four of the six plaintiffs claim they were raped or sexually fondled by priests or men they thought were priests; three allege they were sometimes molested by nuns in dormitories at night; five allege they were sexually molested by Madonna Manor's civilian staff or other adults, sometimes off campus. 

Several of the plaintiffs focus their complaints on the same staff members. 

Among the nuns, the defendants are Sister Martin Marie, Sister Alvin Marie, Sister Gertrude Marie, Sister Mary Omer, Sister Stephen Rose, Sister Laurdette and a nun identified only as Sister Ladet. 

Maestri said an investigation by the nuns' order indicated that two are dead; two are aged and mentally incompetent and one left the order and her whereabouts are unknown. The order has no record of another defendant's name. Maestri declined to assign names to those categories. 

The men also allege that civilian staff members abused them. Those defendants are Ralph Rutledge, a band leader and bus driver, and Charlie Earhart, sometimes spelled Earhardt, a bus driver and owner of a nearby camp where he allegedly molested them on outings, four of the men said. 

Roger Stetter, the New Orleans lawyer who filed the lawsuits, said he believes Earhart died some years ago. 

In addition, Lausche names several other defendants, including Brother Dave Brueschere and Brother Patrick Click. No other information about them is given. Lausche also says he was raped by then-priest Gilbert Gauthe, a visitor to Madonna Manor whose exposure as a serial pedophile in later years was the precursor to the national sexual abuse scandal that rocked the church in 2002. 

And all allege they lived in an atmosphere of harsh beatings by nuns, including one who, several said, favored a collapsible military shovel as a regular instrument. Two men claimed they were locked in a closet for up to three days as punishment. 

"I just remember hate. Just hateful individuals," said Harvey, retired after a career as a military personnel manager. "As I relive this, I can't ever remember a pleasant moment." 

Report reflects concerns 

Some of the plaintiffs asked to see their files from those years and received reports with portions heavily blacked out, apparently to protect the privacy of other children, said Stetter, the lawyer who has filed the suits. 

Brown, however, included in his lawsuit excerpts from a 41-year-old report from Cecile Stone, a social worker who visited him at Madonna Manor in the spring of 1964. 

Brown quotes Stone as saying she found him covered with welts from a beating by Sister Laurdette. In a talk with the nun Stone said she "made it clear that it was embarrassing to me as a representative of ACC when I had to speak with parents whose children had been physically abused by one of the sisters on the staff at MM." 

A month later, Stone again found "extensive bruises" on Brown's face. Sister Laurdette "admitted that 'she let Stacey have it,' and 'took Stacey into a room alone for several minutes and beat on him,' " Stone wrote. 

" 'I told her that I was ashamed that any children entrusted to our care had been treated in this manner," Stone wrote in her notes, according to the suit. 

Dealing with the past 

In each case the men say they are permanently damaged psychologically and they blocked out memories of the abuse. They say they only recently began to acknowledge and confront their childhood experiences. 

Through years of drug abuse, job hopping and coping with his hair-trigger temper, "it was always there, but I never wanted to pay any attention to it. I was just trying to survive" psychologically, said Porche, 49, a Slidell resident who is among the plaintiffs. 

But last year Porche was contacted by Lausche who for two years had been using the Internet and other means in Wisconsin to locate as many friends as possible from his days at Madonna Manor. 

Lausche and Brown were the first to sue last spring. Media coverage of their cases prompted other plaintiffs to come forward, Stetter said. 

. . . . . . . 

ALSO

Madonna Manor rocked by new wave of sex suits

Tuesday, March 14, 2006 
By Bruce Nolan
Staff writer 

Eight more men who lived as children at Madonna Manor in the 1950s and 1960s have filed a new wave of lawsuits charging they were beaten and occasionally sexually molested at the Catholic institution. 

The charges raise the total to 14 men who have filed public accusations of brutality or sexual molestation at the hands of nuns, priests, brothers and civilian staff at the Marrero facility. The home sheltered children from troubled or impoverished families as part of the charitable arm of the Catholic church. 

The latest lawsuits were filed in four weeks in January and February. Six lawsuits were filed shortly before Hurricane Katrina. 

The concentration of complaints against Madonna Manor is far higher than anything the Archdiocese of New Orleans has seen with regard to any other single institution or person in its experience with allegations of child sexual abuse. 

Archdiocesan spokesman the Rev. William Maestri said the archdiocese is looking into the latest allegations. 

"We take these seriously," he said. "Once again the archdiocese is in a position of delicate balance, between being responsive to the allegations with all the seriousness they deserve, while at the same time wanting to be ever mindful of the reputations of those who are named in the allegations." 

Records are sparse 

After the first wave of lawsuits, Maestri said researching the charges was proving difficult. He said the relevant records were four decades old, and in many cases seemed comparatively sparse by contemporary standards. In addition, he said, the details behind some allegations were so scant they were hard to research. 

However, flooding by Hurricane Katrina seems not to have damaged those archives and should not further complicate the research, he said. 

All the suits name a single defendant, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, the successor to the archdiocesan agency that ran Madonna Manor at the time the alleged events occurred. 

Several plaintiffs name priests, nuns or civilian employees whose names are not in the institution's records, Maestri said. 

All the plaintiffs in the new lawsuits allege that they had no clear memories of the abuse until other former residents began to air similar allegations last summer. 

The new plaintiffs are Richard J. Anderson, 58, of Bridge City; Louis Cantero, 53, of New Orleans; Anthony Dixon, 54, of Pearlington; Nolan Franz, 46, of Gulfport; Karl Lamprecht, 48, of Mandeville; Raymond McDonald, 51, of New Orleans; Albert Miller, 48, of Pearl River; and Richard Paul Pete, 49, of Kenner. All the men said they were sent to Madonna Manor as children. 

Harsh environment 

Collectively, their lawsuits describe a harsh psychological and physical environment in which children were sometimes told they were unloved, sometimes severely beaten, and sometimes sexually abused. 

Pete, who said he arrived at the institution at age 11, said one nun, Sister Mary Omer, once split his scalp with a flashlight. 

Several plaintiffs described a common childhood humiliation of having nuns closely inspect them as they emerged naked from showers. 

In addition, all the plaintiffs said they were sexually molested by nuns, priests, or civilian staff workers, sometimes named in the suits. 

In many cases they described specific incidents of abuse but said they did not know the names of their abusers. Attorney Roger Stetter, who filed all the suits, said the plaintiffs hoped to identify them as the plaintiffs collected records in the litigation process. 

Nuns, monsignor named 

At the time of the allegations, Madonna Manor was staffed by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Nuns named in the latest suits are Sister Mary Omer; Sister Gertrude Marie, Sister Alvin Marie, Sister Martin Marie and Sister Laurdette. After the first wave of litigation, Maestri said officials in the order informed him that those named were either dead, aged and incompetent, or had left the order and could not be located. He did not assign names to those categories.

In the new suits, Miller, now a New Orleans police officer, alleges he was repeatedly raped by Monsignor Raymond Hebert, who served as chief executive for the agency that ran Madonna Manor. Hebert, who was accused in two earlier suits, retired several years ago as one of the most respected priests in the archdiocese. He retired as director of the department of clergy. 

Maestri said earlier that the archdiocese believes Hebert is the victim of a misidentification. He said Hebert denies the allegation, as he has denied the earlier charges. 

"I've never abused a child in my life," Hebert said of the earlier accusations. 

The earlier accusations were taken before an archdiocesan review board. It found insufficient evidence to remove Hebert from ministry. 

The plaintiffs charged that several unidentified priests and others abused them. 

In some cases the plaintiffs named specific people as abusers at Madonna Manor or elsewhere, even though church records do not link those persons to the sites, Maestri said. 

In addition, the plaintiffs charged that several civilian staff members molested them in various ways. Citing privacy concerns, Maestri declined to confirm civilian employment at Madonna Manor. Many of the staff members have common surnames that make them difficult to trace after more than 40 years. ******

Stories copy and pasted from bishop accountability 

-ke

Coming Friday Aug 29

Part 2 of Parallel Hells 
Ted 1 - Preview: 

 “As soon as he said hello, as soon as I heard his singsong voice, I knew it was him." 

Ted Lausche says that when he called the Archdiocese hotline in the 1990s, the monsignor fielding calls from pedophile priest victims was the same man who, as a young priest, had sodomized Ted in a Confessional at a New Orleans orphanage forty years earlier. 

"I said, do you know who this is?  

"He says in that faggy voice, 'Have we ever met?'

“I said I'm coming down there and I'm going to do to you what you did to me, I'm on my f---ing way."

First segment coming Friday
-ke

RIP Ken Kosiorek

.

I can’t really blame Ken.  I went along eagerly to the church in Pasadena where he and I wreaked havoc one Sunday as pedophile priest survivors and police were called.  The story and photos I posted on Examiner about the incident helped get me fired from that job.

Ken Kosiorek, who died July 29, had a contagious mania, a frenetic response to everything in life. Ken grew up in a Catholic orphanage in upstate New York and apparently his internal rage and passion about children's rights originated with abuse he survived at the hands of nuns in that institution.  When Ken found City of Angels Blog online in 2009, he drove up from San Diego to take me to a Catholic Church I went to as a child so I could take pictures. I'm not sure how, but the incident accelerated to Ken being detained in the street by local PD while I wandered the church grounds trying to find something I recognized (turned out it was the wrong church).  Instead I stumbled on a nun coming out of the sacristy with her dress halfway up her thigh.  I took pictures of her and posted them on my Examiner site saying, wonder what she'd been up to with the priest coming out looking so flushed just before Mass, and, well, I lost that job. 

Ken is infamous among pedo-priest survivors for producing the purple t-shirt that says "I was molested by Dirty Filthy Catholic Clergy." On the back it reads, "Would you let a nun / priest babysit your kid?"  A big hit among many of us. 

He's remembered with joy in the community that's grown up around off-road motorcycle competitions.  One Facebook obituary said:

Racers Who Care was in the midst of planning a Quick Tips on Winning in Life presentation for Ken Kosiorek to make to kids in the greater El Cajon area near where he worked when news arrived that Ken Kosiorek had very sadly passed away.

His message to kids was: "Dream it, Then Do It. Value yourself, value your time. Value that time to teach others. Always be nice to everyone and never litter the earth." He recently designed and published a comic book/coloring book for kids describing his racing experiences entitled "Las Aventuras de la Tortuga in Baja."

He was one of the founders of the Baja Cancer Foundation, through which funds are raised and gifts collected for kids suffering from cancer.

Ken worked as a sales engineer for Airgas, which distributes industrial, medical, and specialty gases, welding supplies, safety products, and tools. He studied marketing and sales at San Diego State University, and served five years in the U.S. Navy.”

He often came in last in competitions and heartily embraced the nickname given him, The Baja Turtle!

Ken Kosiorek died while on a motorcycle trip near San Diego July 29.

His t-shirt lives on forever.

In honor of Ken’s take on life, City of Angels Blog feature “We Are All Made Of Stars” by Moby as the best song we can think of to play to remember Ken. 

We are all made of stars, so, Ken, see ya around. 

-ke

Phew. Just had to cut Parallel Hells Part 2 into 2 parts as it's such a huge involved story. I'm posting the first 2 parts of it Friday Aug 29 with a TV style thing at the end, "Next month, the Hebert incident with R-Rated outtakes." If I try to finish it all by Friday I'll deconstruct my own self. I think this one post is book length, if you were to print it out, but who wants to touch paper anymore. (Posted just now on Facebook, click my name to connect)

Kay Ebeling

1 min

Video: Australia Royal Commission, Cardinal Pell et al testimony Here Aug 2014

New videos at bottom, more testimony added 8.27
Pell's Infamous Truck Co. Reference
Below: Cardinal George Pell likens priests raping children to a truck driver raping a hitchhiker, in that the trucking company is no more responsible for sexual predation of its employee than is the Catholic Church for sex crimes of its priests. You can hear the horrified crowd.

. . .

VIDEOS: Royal Commission Hearing Testimony
(See bottom of post for most recent videos, including testimony from 8.25-26 Archbishop Denis Hart)
George Pell "Truck company" reference begins in video below at 10:40 (due to "Audio problem" from Vatican for six minutes, testimony starts at 9:44) 

Official word was the files were "too long" to post on the Commission website, but John Brown is downloading, digitizing, and uploading these videos of testimony in progress from his garage.

More Pell Evidence
 

Once again, in order to get the truth out, Guerrilla Journalists are doing the work that paid journalists don't have time to do, Brown will be posting testimony from The Royal Commission on his YouTube channel and City of Angels Blog will be embedding the videos here, like the ones below, over the coming weeks.  
(Support this work by clicking the PalPal button on the left with high fives, please) 
More from Cardinal Pell

 
**
From his suburban garage, Brown is posting all Testimony on the Melbourne Response, which both CNN and the Royal Commission refuse to do. 
More Testimony: Richard Leder I:




Richard Leder Testimony 2
Support this work by clicking a PalPal button on the left with high fives, please 


******** 
From Abuse Tracker on topic:

The Vatican refuses to release files of Australian priests accused of abusing children

AUSTRALIA news.com.au AUGUST 22, 2014 - THE Vatican has refused to hand over the files of Australian priests accused of sex crimes to the child abuse royal commission. Claiming the internal documents were the property of the Holy See, the Vatican argued the commission’s request was “neither possible nor appropriate”.

-posted by Kay Ebeling, producer CofA Blog.



From his suburban garage, Brown is posting all Testimony on the Melbourne Response, which both CNN and the Royal Commission refuse to do. 

More testimony:



ABOVE: August 25 Session 1, Unable to post Session 2 as it came in with no audio.  
Session 3 from 8.25.14  is below:

:

BELOW: Denis Hart from August 25




More from Archbishop Hart



More Denis Hart testimony:



More Denis Hart testimony


More videos coming

John Brown just sent this email (Aug 27, 2014 5 PM PST)

Tomorrow's forecast is for a light sprinkling of sanity and secularism in Canberra clearing by early morning. The winds of change will be stopped in their tracks through the mental processes of George Brandis and Tony Abbott resulting large degrees of introversion and reliance on Pell as a guide to further obscenities.

A low pressure system in the cerebral cortex of Abbott accompanied by momentary mental flashes of Joe Hockey will bring the nation to its knees by mid afternoon leading on to a dreary night reminiscent of the dark ages and the Catholic Inquisition.

All common sense will be deeply repressed by early morning resulting from a combined front of Jesuit thinking and a full frontal justification for child sexual abuse will be left to high altitude processes as a result of an earlier inculcation.

There is little in the long range forecast that indicates any progress towards progressive thinking and equality. In the meantime the PM implores the population to adore human sacrifice and to drink the blood and to eat the flesh of a long dead mythical preacher who talks to Tony via similar connections to those his brain has in relation to his sphincter.

*****

-ke

Background, work in progress

Coming Aug. 29
Posts on Madonna Manor victim 
Part 2 of Parallel Hells

Background

Madonna Manor Rocked by New Wave of Sex Suits, by Bruce ... 

... Madonna Manor Rocked by New Wave of Sex Suits By Bruce Nolan The Times-Picayune [Louisiana]
March 14, 2006 http://www.nola.com/news/tp/frontpage/index.ssf?/base ... 
www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/03_04/2006_03_14_Nolan_MadonnaManor.htm - 8k - 2006-03-15 - Cached

Archdiocese of New Orleans Settles Sex Abuse Suits for 5 ... 
... Madonna Manor in Marrero was designed to shelter young children from dysfunctional
family conditions. The building was photographed in 2000. Photo by Susan Poag ... 
www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/09_10/2009_10_20_Nolan_ArchdioceseOf.htm - 11k - 2009-10-21 - Cached

We have written about Ted before here: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2009

Gauthe forced a gun in my mouth and said what he was going to do. He was at our orphanage for the summer- Louisiana Plaintiff

By Kay Ebeling
Almost forty years after Father Gilbert Gauthe stuck a gun into his mouth and forced him into a violent sex act, Ted Lausche is part of the $5.1 million settlement for twenty-one persons this week in Louisiana, because of abuse at the hands of priests and nuns in and around New Orleans Archdiocese and Lafayette.   The charges from 1971 push the years of reported sex crime activity by renowned pedophile Catholic priest Gilbert Gauthe forward by several years.  "I woke up and Gauthe was doing me in the ass," says Lausche. "I couldn't breathe, because he had the pillow over my head. Then he said he’d kill me if I told." ... 

Gauthe Forced a Gun in My Mouth and Said What He Was ... 
... Gauthe, but before he got the word "gun" out of his mouth, the nun at Madonna Manor
was beating the anally injured thirteen-year-old in the face with her fist ... 
www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/09_10/2009_10_22_Ebeling_GautheForced.htm - 9k - 2009-10-25 - Cached
[ More results from www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/09_10/ ]

6 Allege Abuse at Catholic Home Suits Claim Rapes and ... 
... humiliated 40 years ago by nuns, priests and civilian staff members at Madonna
Manor, a Catholic home for troubled children in Marrero. The six lawsuits ... 
www.bishop-accountability.org/news2005_07_12/2005_08_25_Nolan_6Allege.htm - 13k - 2005-12-15 -Cached

Story coming shortly

They got away with it, guys, so far they got away with it. The Church controlled release of this story and interactions between victims at the critical time when the story was breaking. Now we have to pick up the pieces but truth is, so far the Church has gotten away with it.  CofA Blog will keep covering the pedophile priest story here one month at a time, trying to uncover what really happened. -ke

Parallel Hells

Crimes of pedophile priests 
in Australia and USA 
too similar to be coincidence 
(More Parallel Hells Here and Here )

By Kay Ebeling

“Hello, John it's C from the Royal Commission here, how are you.  John: Good, thanks.”  John Brown agreed to let me transcribe and publish his submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia. 

The commission report released last week shows that when a nation looks into child sex abuse at an institutional level, "well over half" took place in Catholic Church properties. Why Can't the USA do an inquiry like the one just completed in Australia?  

As I transcribe John’s testimony, he says, "“I found myself in a school that the teacher happened to be the nun who sexually interfered with me before ... and I was groomed by Kevin O’Donnell who’s a pedophile priest.”  I realize that's eerily similar to Ted’s story from the USA, which I'd been working on in Chicago, but then he'd said, don't publish it. In that case the perpetrator was Gilbert Gauthe, who like O’Donnell, is a prolific and now-infamous pedophile priest in his region. Both boys were sexualized by nuns who then were party to the crimes of the priests. I got back in touch with Ted Lausche, said, you have to let me publish your story along with John’s, because they're so much alike. Ted said, yeah okay go ahead. 

So below is John Brown's story from Australia, in the form of a transcript of his Royal Commission testimony, illustrated with memes John created about the subject. Next month City of Angels Blog will publish Ted’s story from Louisiana (Ted now lives near Chicago) and because the two men’s stories are so alike, this project is titled:   

Parallel Hells: Crimes of pedophile priests in Australia and USA too similar to be coincidence, Parts One and Two.

The combined posts are at least the length of a book brought to you totally free here at City of Angels Blog, but you can financially support this effort by sending me high fives through the PayPal buttons on the left, using any credit card. I report it as freelance writing income, think of it as a magazine subscription.  

Thank you. 

Similarities in these two stories is, to me, more proof that rape of children is an inherent product of the secrecy and power of Catholic Church practices, many of which still have not changed, but instead as these crimes have been revealed past two decades, the Church has successfully found ways to deflect guilt, bypass accountability, thwart most efforts by victims to publicize the crimes, and manage public opinion of themselves.  

So we bloggers plod on.  

*****

TRANSCRIPT

(edited a bit for clarity)

Q       :        It's Tuesday January 7 2014 and I'm an officer with the Royal Commission into Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.  Also present is [DELETED] another officer for the Commission, can you state your full name and date of birth. 

J        :        John Anthony Brown, 27 December 48.

Q       :        Is this the way you want to engage with the Royal Commission?

J        :        Yes it is.

Q       :        You can come in person and speak to a commissioner in private.

J        :        I understand that yeah. 

[TRANSCRIBER: WHY CAN’T WE DO THIS IN THE USA????? ]

Q       :        At first, tell us the story from the beginning.

J        :        Okay. I was born into a very Catholic family who lived directly across the road from the Catholic Church and I was inculcated into that religion without any choice in the matter.  In hindsight, I realize that I was a sexualized little boy at three and a half years of age.  I realized that that had come from being used by people of religion to satisfy whatever their ills appeared to be.  And that included rape and- and just [HESITATION] in that early period I see it- to me it's just insane.  And it's insane to get back into somewhat, still today.

Q       :        If you're getting emotional we can stop.

J        :        I'm well aware of that, I understand that and I'm okay.  [OVERLAPPING] that's right, I understand, the emotions.  They're there and they happen. . . . As a four year old I found myself in a school that the teacher happened to be the nun who sexually interfered with me before I’d been of school age.  And I had some issues on the day my mother took me to school and gave me a hiding and forced me back into there. 

The culmination of that I suppose came when I was eight years of age.  I was groomed by Kevin O’Donnell who’s a pedophile priest who was, from what I understand, located in Seymour, and he came across to my home town of Yea on occasion, to fill in.  He groomed my family. My mother fed him, because he was the local priest and that was part of her responsibility being married to a Catholic.  She wasn’t born that way.  She converted for the sake of my father. 

Q       :        Oh, okay, yep.

J        :        My mother took on the obligation of raising her children within the Catholic Church.  So she was blackmailed, in effect, to hand over her children to this cult.

[TRANSCRIBER: Hmm, THAT'S ONE WAY TO PUT IT]

J        :        I wasn’t the first of her children to be sexually abused by Catholic clergy and I wasn’t the last in my family.  My own experience with Kevin O’Donnell set off [SIGHS] I have a horror period between starting school and reaching eight years of age.  There's a lot of stuff went on in there. [TEARS]

But, I've got to go this way. 

I was raped by Kevin O’Donnell [LONG PAUSE] and I had been, I had a refuge.  My mother arranged for me to go to a friend’s house named H, I even live there at times.  That was my safe place, safe from my brother predominantly, to begin with.  

My mother went to H when I came home from being raped by O’Donnell that day.  H intervened with the church on my behalf or on behalf of my mother, because he was a member of the Knights of the Southern Cross, which were a secretive men’s organization that's part of the Church.  [PAUSE]

That entailed H making some sort of arrangement to have my experience documented with the church with the Bishop in Melbourne at the time.

*****

When I was fourteen, there was a new priest there, a fellow by the name of Des Cameron a newly ordained priest, came to Yea.  And on St Patrick’s day in 1972 around eleven or twelve o'clock in the morning my sister came running home from across the street and this Cameron in his black robes was standing there across the road.

She ran in to my mom and she was crying. I ran in after her, and she told mom what had happened. I headed out and I pitched rocks at this bloke and I hit him with a couple.  Mom went to H about it and he spoke with the priest.  He came back and mom talked and he went back several times. 

At some point the local police were involved, there were four or five cars parked on the street by that stage.  H tried to go into the presbytery and it finished up in a fight.  He was a seventy two year old man.  And [TEARS] they hit him and kicked him and they dumped him on the veranda at that presbytery and left him there for a long time. 

Q       :        Hmm. 

J        :        They took him to hospital and he spent eight days there and he was taken to Melbourne by that priest, Cameron.  And he died in Melbourne that day. 

With regards to Cameron, I found his number several years ago and I  spoke to him.  And he remembered me and he remembered H and he told me that H left all his money to the church.  He began to lie to me so I just hung up. 

*****

I took another whipping off my father, I’d already taken a whipping when I was eight from my father at the direction of, uh, uh, of, uh, oh I can see the bloody face, um, my own abuser O’Donnell who instructed my father to whip me with a stalk whip. 

I was whipped because I was the designated spawn of the devil.  I was the son Hitler had spawned as well.  Because I spoke out or I simply shouted about what they were doing to me.  And at that age, I didn't understand what the hell they were doing but anyway [SIGHS] um, [SNIFFS] I know that my mother spoke to the policeman and he ceded everything back to the church. 

My father was threatened with excommunication and there were other threats, I only heard that.  My mother took it seriously though, and I don't know what it was the threat that was made against my father. 

*****

Meme by John Brown

At school I was, as I said, the designated spawn of the devil.  I was the one who was taken by the ear up to the front of the class and in the church, in front of the entire congregation as the example of a child who is designated for hell.  I was fourteen and this was not long after H died. 

At the school I was set up for special attention, because of what I’d been saying about H’s death and my sister and the priest and what had happened to me and what I’d experienced with the nuns in the convent.  On one day the nun directed three or four, I can’t recall, of the bigger kiddies- we were in mixed grades so some of those kids were pretty big boys- they were to catch me in the classroom, so that this nun could beat me with a T-square. 

I punched her in the stomach and knocked her down and I clambered up over the desk and kicked the window out and took off. 

They transferred me, made the arrangements for that, to transfer me to the high school, and to ensure that I was given a regular beating, to keep me in line, and to inform the school of quote bullshit that I was talking. 

[AGAIN: Watch here for Ted’s eerily similar story from the USA here next post at City of Angels Blog]

*****

In the rape by O’Donnell, I injured my foot.  I had my right foot slammed repeatedly in the locking mechanism of the car door.  And that was not to be spoken of publicly or directly.  It was to be spoken of as my being pigeon toed.  It entailed me wearing special boots made by the local boot maker, and H paid for them.  But I took a beating every time referred to that day I was abused by O’Donnell. 

And I still every day of my life, I wake up and the first thing I do, before I step up, is to see how that foot’s going to treat me.  Gets to piss me off sometimes [LAUGHS] I tell you. 

Q       :        Do you recall the names of those nuns?

J        :        No.  Not in that way.  I only recall a few names of nuns.  And I don't- I've never closely explored that period to [STAMMERS] to that extent to where I could try and identify someone. 

Q       :        If you feel uncomfortable answering a question, please let me know. 

J        :        That is to my knowledge the only part of my life where I have that.  And if need be with the right support I'll go there [VOICE SHAKES] if it becomes important. 

Q       :        What actually happened with the nuns? 

J        :        I have more recollection about events where I was abused.  I did detail with a counselor that I saw here in Toowoomba events about being tied and raped by- tied by a nun and raped by a priest in the convent.  [VOICE SHAKING] I have an experience of being tied and buried in a woodshed to silence me again.  Buried under wood and having to promise to be silent and being given cigarettes when they let you out to make sure that you were going to shut up and don't say anything. 

[AGAIN: Next month you will read similarly horrible details of Ted’s life in a Catholic orphanage in Louisiana)

Q       :        Did these incidents occur before your experience with Father O’Donnell? 

J        :        Yes, before.  [SHAKING] I have- that is one of my horror moments, and the other was, I was the chosen one to do the eternal chores.  They were the daily things you went and you toted their groceries and their grub from the shops.  You collected their eggs.  You dug the garden, you watered the garden, you lit their fires in the winter time, you stoked the fires, you carried the wood in.  And much of this is done during school hours as well.  Once while carrying an armful of wood into the convent, I bumped a handle of the sauce pan  on the stove and splashed it and the nun took to me with a block of that wood and beat the shit out of me. 

I, well I have a way of laughing about it now.  I fell and knocked most of the bloody pots off the stove, and so I then didn't get any dinner.  But they made me kneel on the blocks of wood for hours. 

Q       :        This was while you were living across the street from the church and convent but before the incident with Father O’Donnell?

J        :        Yes.

Q       :        Any other incidents from that early period? 

J        :        I have a couple of sort of glimpses of a priest in the nuns’ sleeping areas.  And nothing- that's not- no, not like that. 

Q       :        You said you were tied down by a nun and raped by a priest, did you tell anyone about that? 

J        :        I don't know.  I don't know.  I know that I shouted about them touching me, but I, in looking back, I didn't have the words. 

Q       :        How old were you at this time?

J        :        In the five six seven bracket.

*****

FATHER KEVIN O’DONNELL

C        ;        You were eight when you met Father O’Donnell? 

J        :        Yes.

Q       :        Are you able to tell us a bit more about that? 

J        :        He was a visiting priest and he had arranged to have me show him the way to a little church called Cheviot, or Caviot, in the Cheviot Hills, which was sort of in the similar direction from Yea. 

He told my mother that he had never been that way before, and it still just-

Driving has been my livelihood for a great deal of time.  There’s a difference when somebody drives and they know where they're going. That trip that day I never gave O’Donnell any direction as to where he was going.  And so that was bullshit that he had never been that way before.   

Meme by John Brown

He drove out about two miles to what's called the Gin-Gin turnoff and from there he began to masturbate, and he stopped at  the Reserve, at the- [TEARS] river crossing and then he raped me on the side of the road, not that far from the church.  He then drove to the church and did his ceremony thing and when they were coming out, I took off and ran into the bush.  Oh- [SIGHS] They sent other kids after me to bring me back and they dragged me back, and then as soon as they let me go, I ran again.  And they pulled me back and I ran again, and then the men came and I got away from them, and I hid in what they call a grotto thing.  It had a statue in it and I hid behind that. 

They pulled me out of there, I lost my shoes there, and three or four men pulled me out of there, and they kicked me and punched me and kneed me and forced me into the car.  I hit and tried to get out, and that's when they kept just slamming the door on my foot.  [TEARS] 

He drove away from there and he came back a different way.  When the car was coming down towards the river flats, it had to go slow, and I jumped out of the car.  I ran across the road and tried to hide, I was a little kid. 

[OH, MAN this sounds, again, so much like Ted’s story from Louisiana, coming in August at City of Angels Blog]

I went back and realized there was nowhere to hide. But I tried to run away, and I tripped and nose dived into the road and knocked myself out, or I got knocked out, I don't know which. 

I came to in the car in the little lagoon park in Malswroth another couple of miles further on across the river and he was forcing me to give him oral sex.  [LONG PAUSE] Are you there?

C        ;        Yes I'm here.

J        :        Sorry.  There was a person came and talked with him and then he waited there- I don't know how long, it seemed to be a long time.  He stopped again at the little entrance park to Yea, by the Yea River.  The trees there were planted in the Second World War to spell out the town name, Y-E-A. 

*****

O’Donnell was running on about what I should say.  And then he drove me home, and it's a steep little hill, when we got up there I jumped out of the car again, while it was going.  I tried to hide in a culvert that ran under the road and he threw rocks into the culvert to try and drive me out.  Eventually he put my shoes on the road and left.  I grabbed my shoes and ran home and told my mother. 

Q       :        What was he telling you you should say to people? 

J        :        [SIGHS] [LONG PAUSE] uh, it was about just going a different way in driving all the time. 

Q       :        To explain the time?

J        :        I guess so.  I, I, I guess so. [TEARS]

Q       :        Like I said if it's getting to be too much.

J        :        I don't know, I don't know, I never thought about that before, so I have no- I'm only guessing. 

Q       :        Did you tell your mum everything that happened?

J        :        Yes, ah yes, I was, I was bleeding and she put me in a bath.  And even though it was summertime, I know- I was shivering, I must have been in shock.  And she wrapped me up in a blanket and set by the kitchen stove and talked to me. 

Q       :        Did she believe you?

J        :        Yeah, yes. 

Q       :        What happened next. 

J        :        Well that was- she- she she went and talked with- [NAME DELETED] and that's when he got involved and it was all quote taken care of by the church.  O’Donnell was to not be in touch with children again, the church was going to see to that. 

I know my mom was shocked later to learn that he was in another parish near [INAUDIBLE] or somewhere like that not long after, he was there.  And I know she went back to –NAME DELETED and that caused issues for a while.

I know that a bishop came up to Yea because of it and he took away boxes of documents, from what I understand, for him to take care of. 

Q       :        Do you know who this bishop was? 

J        :        Oh yes.  Yes, There have been a number of meetings.  They met through the Knights of the Southern Cross. 

Q       :        I'm not aware of this group, were they attached to the church?

J        :        They were just another one of their secret men’s organizations doing their quote good work is the myth.  They were all probably people inspired to do good.  And yeah been deceived by the system of it, what it was, into protecting the good name of the church, that was part of their role. 

It was all very secret. 

*****

Q       :        In 1962 at age fourteen the situation occurred with your sister and Cameron?  Can you tell us what happened?

J        :        Not a great deal.  I know she spoke to mum and I wanted to know what was going on.  And she pushed me out of the kitchen and closed the door on me.

Q       :        How old was she?

J        :        I don't know probably nine or ten, something perhaps. 

****

FEAR while hiding from his perpetrator:

It was a gutter that had eucalyptus saplings growing in it. I hid in there and I ran down the hedge line between the church and the presbytery, there was a gate there and I could look quickly, keep running, go over the bank, under the fence and hide in a big cypress tree. 

That's where I heard the fight.  I could hear them punching H [TEARS]

Later when it got quiet I ran past to have a look and they were dragging him onto the tile veranda of the presbytery under the window of the first room there.  That's all I saw and I kept running.

Q       :        After all this what kind of contact did you have with the Catholic Church, something in Melbourne? 

[DELETED PARTS ABOUT JOHN’S MARRIAGE]

*****

When I went to the police [about another issue in the 1990s], what set it off the rails was the fact that I had acknowledged that I was a survivor of abuse by Catholic clergy.  That was the first of I don't know ten or fifteen attempts at taking up this and other stuff with police here in Toowoomba. 

Somewhere in that process I had realized that my own abuse hadn’t been properly addressed and I sought out counseling.  It was a bit of a journey. 

I finished up with a psychologist in Toowoomba and I began to see her on a weekly basis and did so for several years. 

It was during that time I learned that the fact that the Catholic Church was effectively advertising healing and compensation, and I was advised to- I went to see a fellow, the precursor to the Toowoomba Advocacy Service Cast TASC and I explained some of my life to him, and he was about to retire and hand the organization over to someone else. 

He was a lawyer I think of some sort and he offered to take my case on for me in his retirement, he had an interest in doing that.  But it didn't really get off the ground, because in the process of doing that, his own childhood abuse at the hands I believe of an Anglican priest surfaced and brought him problems and he also encountered health problems. 

Some years later, I encountered him in the local Kuala store and I made a point of walking across in front of him and nodding to him and he just, he didn't recognize me at all.

I made the contact with the church Melbourne thing, Peter O’Callaghan from there came to Toowoomba and he acknowledged that I had been abused and claimed that he would expedite my case through the system and that he would seek to get me the maximum, whatever. 

He tried to get me to see a psychiatrist and I'm not sure if my research is right, it showed that he was part of the [SOUNDS LIKE]  Deep Sleep fiasco.

Q       :        Oh yes. 

*****

ACTIVISM

J        :        By that stage I’d started to have contact with other survivors around the world and getting a bit of a picture of how the system operated, I suppose, little snippets of it anyway.

O’Callaghan came and there was a lengthy time and then S came to Toowoomba and identified herself as a psychologist for the Catholic Church Care Link system.  She was going to expedite this really bizarre conversation. 

I've only been suicidal on three occasions to my recollection in life, bordering that on several occasions, and she was the cause of one of those.  I had a copy of the recording, they promised me a transcript.  The tape was more than half an hour and the transcript only took three pages.  It read predominantly in brackets ‘UNDECIPHERABLE’ that word was repeated over and over again.  I don't know what went wrong. 

I rang and tried to ask for a transcript as they’d promised and they deemed me to be off my meds, a threat, I was a danger and risk to her. 

Whatever. 

That effectively derailed any process that I was doing with the Church, although around that time I’d written to O’Callaghan and I’d asked him a number of questions, and he wasn’t forthcoming with answers.  My questions were mostly to do with his independence and what the qualifications and experience was of S and a number of things that are important to know when you're dealing with this sort of stuff on a personal level. 

I’d begun to publish a little bit of stuff online and that was causing O’Callaghan a great deal of concern.  I wasn’t able to get any information on which to progress through to a solution or whatever. 

S when she arrived in Toowoomba, if you listen to the conversation, she's very good in the beginning, this was about dealing with the stuff in my way, how I needed to deal with it, blah-blah-blah, but when you got down to the nuts and bolts, it was this way or the fucking highway and you can piss off. [LAUGHS] They only did it one way. 

Q       :        Anything else about how the Church representative dealt with you?

J        :        I was- I didn't like being put into a position of take it leave it.  And I didn't like the fact that despite me having identified who my abuser was by name, and despite her supposedly having that information that she hijinked some sort of story about trying to think who it possibly was for a while in the conversation.

And I realized how she asked me whether the guy was circumcised or not. I realized what sort of impact that had on me, having to journey there in that, and what pissed me is my recollection of the smirk on her face while she was doing that. 

To the point where it stuck in my head and I had to even that score and I know that I played a stupid game, but I sent her an email saying to the effect that it's very difficult to tell whether an erect penis is circumcised or not.

[JOHN WAS 8 YEARS OLD, THAT'S NOT A DETAIL AN 8 YEAR OLD SEES]

I suggested that I had a friend who would like to put evidence in her hand and I followed that up with an email to say that I hoped she didn't mind that he had a show and grow tattoo on it as well.  I thought, fuck you, to beat me up psychologically like that. 

*****

Q       :        And the Melbourne response?

[Refers to Melbourne Response and independent commissioner, Peter O'Callaghan, QC  ]

Background:  ]

J        :        My relationship I suppose you could call it with the Care Link system was chaos.  My wife was involving her extended family.  My abuse became her gossip and that went to her extended family and it went to neighbors.  With the neighbors, one was a designated hitter after a little meeting of righteous Christians got together and determined I was not being a good Christian, so he was designated to set me on the right track. 

They had issues with the fact that I wasn’t raising my son as a Christian and that it was because I had a tiff with the school over giving them the official note to say that he was not to be in religious instructions and they put him in the back of the classroom.  That culminated with a row with the headmaster on another occasion. 

*****

[STUFF ABOUT WIFE’S FAMILY LEFT OUT]

[Back to John’s problems with the designated Christian assigned to save him. ]

He stormed into my office one day, I told him to fuck off.  They quite openly told me that they would do everything that they possibly could to destroy me and my business and I've had similar stuff from my wife’s extended family. 

[because he didn't want to raise his son Christian]

I had a thriving business that was sabotaged largely from the inside.  There's a fellow who will be able to tell you his views at the time, a computer programmer I hired.  We sought to go into a partnership as a way of stabilizing my circumstances.  My business had won a small grant from the government, my business was going to go global. 

Q       :        What was the business?

J        :        I developed a contact management system and I was selling it to premier research organizations here in Australia called CRC’s, community research councils.  They were the premier research organizations in Australia, an ideal long term niche market, high value, and yeah. 

Q       :        Your business suffered because of the threats?

J        :        Badly, yes. 

Q       ;        What happened with Melbourne? 

J        :        With the Melbourne response? Really that had come to a standstill, I wasn’t getting any response from O’Callaghan and I received a phone call from a fellow who identified himself as a private investigator who was brother or uncle or some such of H from a crowd called In Good Faith and Associates in Melbourne.  And he in that conversation convinced me that these people had a very-very good knowledge of my circumstance, and I never questioned how they came about that. 

I think I had sold my business, because I was just not able to deal with it, I might be out of sequence there, this might be before I got to that point. 

But, well, I was- it must have been after I sold my business, because I went to work for the people who bought my business.

I had a lot of conversation with a therapist and the major part of that conversation was that I was not a believer in religion in any way and in fact I was probably the Church’s world’s worst enemy. 

Picture ID of "Buggered"

I think at that time I was identifying myself online at Buggered by a Priest.  [LAUGHS] I think that's the name, I was the world’s most despised Catholic for talking about the clergy abuse issue. 

[OH MY GOD! THAT'S when I contacted John, I know it, I remember seeing that identification and thinking, I've got to see who this is] 

There was supposed to be no religion involved with this organization In Good Faith and the program was entirely separate. 

That effort started to come apart when they had a teleconference meeting. During the introduction to that meeting that H introduced a priest from [INAUDIBLE] who was part of the program.  During my conversations with H she disclosed to me that she was employed with the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese prior to 1996, her role was dealing with survivors of abuse, and that she had access to a large number of what she referred to as victims’ records.

She told me that she had done a settlement with the Catholic Church for wrongful dismissal, though it wasn’t until sometime later that I came to understand that there was in fact truth to what she said with regards to leaving that Archdiocese program with the private confidential records of many abuse survivors, which she claims to have photocopied before being- having to return the originals, I believe that's the way it would have worked. 

I didn't realize until later that somehow I don't know how she found details to connect, so that her brother, a so-called private investigator, could contact me.  The only place I'm aware of, I don't know whether this is right, potentially my records would have been from H’s time would have been part of files on survivors.  I don't know.

Otherwise, the only other way that they could have found my details was through, I believe she had at that time a relationship with S in dealing with other survivors.  And it was one of those on again off again relationships, she belonged to a different sect within the church.  They're all working for a common cause, looking for more victims. 

It gets messy there, I know. 

Q       :        We need to go into this further.

J        :        We need to, because this woman has spoken to me of dealing with people attempting suicide and the like.  And my dealings with her, as I said, I've not very often been suicidal in relation to this and I can recount occasions. 

On another of those occasions was after a phone call with H, and I had given this woman every piece of knowledge and information and ability to abuse me, or use it against me, and she did. 

[HMM: Reminds me of some in the “survivor movement” in the USA]

Q       :        This is an issue that we maybe need to come back and speak to you about again

J        ;        Yes, this is incredibly important because it goes to people being, the way I see it, people who have lost any faith in the religion side of it being introduced to this thing [CONTACT WITH THE CHURCH FOR HELP] by people who want to bring them back into the religion.  And that's a case of come back here and let’s abuse you with this stuff again. 

Q       :        Were the group In Good Faith separate from the church but still faith-based?

J        :        Well I was in Queensland, I was under the impression that they were not.  As I said, when I took part in that teleconference and this priest was there involved and we had prayers, then H, for probably the longest period of my life I've been silent-

H rang me here to apologize for whatever she might have inadvertently done wrong [LAUGHS] which is a good my hands are tied Catholic response.  My case according to her was pivotal, she had a so-called class action that was going to take place, and that's what drew me in to be involved.  I had a discussion with her and I turned off the web services when I realized how much religion was involved. 

I had up until then I’d really not gotten myself involved with local Australian survivors, I’d mostly done quite a bit of stuff in the United States, doing phone calls from Australia.  My thing was to try and understand how the thing works. 

In Good Faith was going to put my case through the Melbourne process and that was going to entail going through their lawyers.  I didn’t progress that, some of it I didn't feel good with the fellow who ran the service, P, and then I had an unfortunate experience with R and not her fault in that. 

She was going to do a timeline of my experience and she was in Brisbane and I drove down to stand with her.  I walked in the door and it took me weeks to work out what the hell happened to me. 

And all I can explain is that she had a reasonably, not low cut, but she had a- I think it ran straight across, I don't know.  But she had a complexion that reminded me of one of these nuns.  Moreso there was a small- the skin on the bone part had a wrinkle that moved and I was just locked onto that and that was taking me back into the abuse as a kid in the convent.  [TEARS]

Q       :        That triggered your memory?

J        :        Yah.  And it didn't go well there, because, yeah it didn't go well. 

Q       :        Was this group charging people? 

J        :        Oh, these are the only organization I know together with P who are lawyers, they'll turn around and write off a thirty-fifty thousand dollar debt, never heard of one.  I don't know. 

One of the things I had done, as I said, I used to do phone calling to the United States and I came to understand that there was a considerable amount of double dipping going on between lawyers over there. 

Q       ;        Was there discussion about what In Good Faith would provide you?

J        :        It started out as being my case was to do with this proposed class action, which appeared to fizzle off. 

[HMM: That happened in the USA too]

Then it was in the production of a document called- what do they call it, it was Always Forward, or Always Toward, it was another towards healing sort of name thing.  And this was a major production, it was whittled down to I think around fifty five pages and then it went to the lawyers and came down to fifteen pages, I think.  But it was going to be the fait accompli and my support was sought because I had- they had an understanding or whatnot.

I had contact with other survivors and I had a group.  And I had never gone that way with any earnestness but I had contact with others.  I think that was a big attraction, because it got fairly serious in the marketing game.  It was all about new victims.

Q       :        Did you ever receive any money from the Catholic Church?

J        :        No.  I had heard, I had contact with other survivors who had received assistance at different times and then I read where they had offered survivors three hundred dollars. 

On one occasion I did attempt to get some assistance with school fees for my son, I was putting him through school here.  I was having trouble meeting the payments and I’d heard that the [INAUDIBLE] service had paid for education for other survivors’ kids.  So I thought I would see if that might be an avenue. 

The fellow from grammar school here contacted I believe S and yes they did do that on occasion.  But they wouldn't do it on this occasion because my son was not going to a Catholic school.  If I was to send him to a Catholic school, they would certainly help. 

*****

I had to have some interaction with Relationships Australia and I simply came away from that thinking it was another number to add to ten or twelve psychologists I’d sampled. One I’d already decided not to go back to.  

Q       :        You haven't received any money or formal conclusion?

J        :        No, not from O’Callaghan.  I had an email apology from George Pell and bits and pieces like so, but nothing beyond that, that's it, that's yeah- it's, it's-

Q       ;        When did you get from Pell?

J        :        I just sent another- that three hundred dollars would be very handy to me, so I sent an email just the other day to [SOUNDS LIKE] John Usher out of Sydney. That was a reply to his email to me offering an apology from Pell. 

Q       :        You haven't received the apology yet?

J        :        Well he says, Cardinal Pell has asked me to respond to your email on his behalf, he's presently away from Sydney.  He expresses his sincere regret about your abuse by Kevin O’Donnell.  I've referred the matter to the Melbourne Response who will ascertain what the archdiocese is doing to assist you.  Could you let me know if your contact with the archdiocese of Melbourne has been unhelpful, and did I told him yes it had been entirely unhelpful and destructive.

IRREVERENCE

Q       :        When was your interaction with Melbourne?  

J        :        The first of December 2009 they replied to an email I sent out, so whatever the date of my email was, I don't know how long before that it was.  I could probably find that, I can tell you. 

Q       ;        And you were offered an apology by George Pell, right?

J        :        Yes, yes. 

Brown in infamous t-shirt

Q       :        Why were you contacted by Melbourne? 

J        :        Well I sent an email around to probably several thousand Catholics across Australia to say that I had the wording to go on a t-shirt or something.  The t-shirt basically said that I’d been fucked over by the Catholic Church and the police commissioner and the minister for police. 

In the email I asked if they could help with the font.

And they responded to that. 

******

THAT'S IT!

That's 

THE END

John’s email to several thousand Catholics, identifying himself as "Buggered by a Priest" in the "from" box, tells you the level of disrespect with which he holds their hierarchy, and I agree.

*****

Post Note:

The Commissioner conducting the interview with John asked him:

IS IT OK TO USE YOUR STORY?

J        :        I put my flag up there really high if there's any opportunity to use me, I particularly want to convey the understanding of what it's like to be raised in an environment that's based on psychological blackmail and intimidation and threat and how that leaves you in a perpetual state of fear and terror.

*****

John Brown runs this Facebook page which keeps up throughout the day with Royal Commission events

https://www.facebook.com/groups/279409375480701/ 

VIDEOS FROM Australia Royal commission:

http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/media-centre/videos#contents

  

On July 7 The Vatican refused a royal commission's request 
to give them all internal documents on abuse in that country.
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=21938

John Brown’s ongoing work:

http://www.molestedcatholics.com/

More:  Australian Child Abuse Inquiries Roundup

http://paper.li/f-1387091175

READERS: SURVIVORS:

Feel free to send me digital recordings that I will transcribe and post here as your story about a pedophile priest in your life.

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM documents John Brown submitted along with his testimony:

1956

# Age 8 raped by Kevin O'Donnell (On record with my counselor MH).

I was instructed to direct O'Donnell to a small church in the surrounding hills outside of yea at a location called Cheviot/Caveat. I was raped on the way to the Church which was called the something of seven sorrows. I have detailed this in other writing as well.

When I ran home barefoot to my mother she put me in a bath of warm water and washed me and soaked my underwear off me as I had been bleeding and they had stuck to my body. She talked to me and asked me to explain - I was not able to tell her much. She wrapped me up in a blanket and sat with me on her lap by the kitchen fire and she talked to me - she did this often.

My mother went to H to see what he was able to do. He set in place a number of events that included a number of meetings of the Knights of the Southern Cross and the eventual arrival at Yea of the bishop. My mother was assured that O'Donnell would receive medical help and that he would never be allowed near children again. She learned some months later that all they Church had done was to relocate him. I accused the priest of doing things to me.

Whipped by my father under direction from O'Donnell (On record with my counselor MH).

The priest came to my home and spoke with my father who was chopping wood. He called me and asked me to tell him what had happened. I told him. The priest denied it and instructed my father to whip me. He whipped me with a stock whip 3 times on each arm. I was asked again to tell him what had happened. I told him again and again the priest instructed my father to whip me - this happened several times - I cannot remember how many times. He told my father that I was to receive special attention as I was the spawn of the devil and that had to be beaten out of me.

Pigeon toed - foot problem - built up boots (On record with my counselor MH).

My right foot had been seriously injured on the day O'Donnell raped me on the way to the little church and again on the way home via Molesworth. The damage to my foot was explained by neighbors and members of the parish community as my being pigeon toed. I was required to wear special built up boots made by the local boot maker. H paid for the boots. I got into trouble often because I refused to wear them. I often had to put them on before going to school, I would walk out the front door and go to the corner of the fence and take my boots off and stuff them in the hedge and then go to school in bare feet. My brother Robert reported me on every possible occasion. I received many beatings as a result of his "telling on me" often for things he or others had done. I learned around tat time how the confessional was used to learn about my activities and that fact that information told in the confessional was passed on to nuns and other priests.

I was said to require special treatment as a result of my behaviour - this most often took the form of cruel punishment - pinching, punching, pinching fingers under the desk lid, being hit across the face with the strap, being brought to the front of the class and humiliated and then strapped as an example to others.

Publicly humiliated in from of congregation at Church (On record with my counselor MH).

H makes arrangements for my future via Church - ensures there is a file with my records (On record with my counselor MH). # H changes his will - explains to Mum and I (On record with my counselor MH).

Many problems at school (On record with my counselor MH).

Too numerous to detail. Was regularly required to "run up to the convent" to do some chore - put wood on the fire, bring in firewood, start a fire, clean out the fire or stove, take a message to someone, take out the rubbish, someone was delivering something, run to the shops, collect eggs for the nuns or the priests during school times.

1962

Clash with nun and kick out window (explained to Sandy & ALB some of it)

When I was around 13 or 14 I had a clash with the nun who was teaching. At recess time she kept myself and several of the older bigger boys in; their job was to catch me as she intend to beat me for some reason. I was not up to it as she was hacking at me with a T-square. I got him several times with it until I rushed at her and hit her in the stomach and knocked her to the floor. I jumped up on to the desks and on to the window ledge and kicked out the window and escaped.

High school - involvement of Bill Ellison Bully Buck Aldous - paper round - compass attack History teacher ignored (On record with my counselor MH).

Problems at High School with bullying (On record with my counselor MH).

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

I realized, as I was transcribing, that there are parts of John’s story that are almost exactly like the story of Ted Lausche, from another interview I did with another survivor in the United States two years earlier.  So next month [August 2014]  I'll run Ted’s story here at City of Angels Blog.

-posted by Kay Ebeling

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