From 2009, notes found in a file

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Three times it’s happened now since I’ve been doing stories for City of Angels.  This image pops into my head that is so evil and obtrusive - the image usually comes when I'm talking to one of the former altar boys, or guys who were in early adolescence when the priests found a way to get to them. 

Pant pant pant, the guy is breathing hard and eyes, like a maniac.  Rolling eyes, with a jeer in them that says pure evil.  Then just off screen in my head is the rest of the body and it’s bouncing bouncing bouncing, obviously the guy is humping and getting lots of sexual pleasure from it.  What adds to the madness of the whole image is that he is wearing a priest collar, in fact as I describe it now, I see one of those rimmed black hats the priests wear in Europe. 

The image intrudes, not surprisingly, when these men are describing the actual sex act that took place.  Usually in the interview, we've been talking about how the priest groomed the young boy, and so often it’s the same - Joy Juice of one kind or another, alcohol sometimes with something in it, then the boy is wheezy maybe passes out then wakes up, suddenly realizes, “Father Horney is banging me.”

And into my head pops this panting panting clergy collared creature, his face twisting with extreme pleasure and extreme evil combined.  Panting over the tiny undefended child’s body.  Inevitably if this image continues in my head it will bring in scents - that salty sweet smell of semen and sweat.  It will include sounds, for me it’s wind in the trees.  But what makes me stop, bring everything to an immediate halt, is that panting panting panting combined with that corrugated mixed up face.

Guys who I’ve interviewed may have even noticed.  Usually before I know it I’ve taken the interview to a totally different topic.  It happened when I was interviewing Michael Baumann a few months ago.  He said, “It was like a monkey on my back,” when he was describing the memory of what Fr. Robert Gibson of Scranton did to him as a young teenager.  Michael was faltering, just about to get into deeper description, in fact he was READY to go into deeper description and probably needed to describe it for his own healing.  He repeated, “It was like a monkey on my back-“

In a split second I chimed in “Oh you know what I’m right in the middle of reading that book right now, isn’t that an amazing coincidence?”


Michael went, “Uh, huh?”

And babble away I did, that book The Man with the Golden Arm, I'm reading it right now, don't you know about it, Frank Sinatra was in the movie, he played this junkie, well he’s a returning World War two vet who got addicted to heroin in the hospital when he was endured, and in the movie, he’s trying to kick heroin walking around the city  - it’s Chicago, I think it’s Chicago - but he is walking around saying, “I got a monkey on my back, monkey on my back.”  That's the first time the saying came up, or maybe even sooner and Algren just used the expression and maybe it’s not in the book just in the movie but I'm pretty sure that's where that expression comes from.

And by now the mood is broken, there’s no way Michael is going to continue into that dark place he was about to enter, as now we're talking about the Nelson Algren revival going on in Chicago…

A while back I tried to get therapy, because I realized, while I'm doing City of Angels, some of the stories I hear are going to make me go insane if I don't have therapy.  But then I tried it, and realized the therapist was not in any better shape than I was, and it just felt awkward sitting in a waiting room then sitting in a room with a person and talking, I mean what is that going to do to solve the myriad problems I'm facing.  It seems silly to pay all this money for therapy when what I need is new teeth…

Anyway.  I don't go to therapy anymore.  I'm still writing City of Angels stories,

So better write the insane stuff over here in City of Angels 2, knowing someone will read it.

Somehow journaling works better as therapy if someone reads it.  If you just keep writing and writing to yourself, the message doesn't go anywhere.

The funny thing is, I started City of Angels blog originally because I wanted to do something about the isolation.  See, when you tell someone you're a priest rape survivor and it’s kind of taken up 90 percent of your life, they don't really want to spend time with you. I’ve lost so many friends since I started writing this blog.  Well, I can pretend the reason I lost the friends was the blog, even though I know it’s really something inherently wrong inside of me.

I’ve always felt that way, something inside wrong.

And I see it reflected in people. 

A kind of nausea, revulsion, when they look at me. 

I think I wear my damages out where everyone can see them.  I don't have the right kind of mirror to tell me where they are so I can apply some kind of concealer. 

It happens all the time though, people meet me, they look at me for the first time, and a kind of revulsion washes over their bodies, flashes through their eyes.  In polite company it will only last an instant, and the person recovers and smiles and acts polite, but still you sense they are looking for the quickest way to make an exit. 

What's really upsetting is when I found out the cause of the disgustingness, it did not make it go away or even get any better.  The damage is so deep inside, it’s just part of who I am.  That's why I really wish I could have gotten a settlement, as I’d like to just become a hermit, live somewhere that I never had to leave the premises, have things delivered, walk just a few feet for laundry, have enough yard space I don't need to go onto city sidewalks ever again. . .

Because I'm tired of seeing that reaction in people, and now that I know it’s never going to go away, I just want to find a way to avoid it. 

Funny thing is I’ve seen that same kind of damage in the few survivors I’ve met.  Truth is I haven’t really met that many survivors.  I started the blog out of frustration that SNAP wouldn't start an L.A. meeting, and wouldn't let me start one.  So I figured, I’ll meet people through City of Angels blog, there have got to be some other people damaged like me in Hollywood.  I mean, I ended up living in West Hollywood in the 1980s just because it was the only place a person of my sexual proclivities could be accepted.  When I brought a football team home for the night, my neighbors did not get outraged, they just got jealous.

Drip Drip, something about these memories involves dripping, leaking.  Body fluids exiting your orifices after a night or orgiastic sex, the smell of it in the rugs and couches. 

Thing that's not funny is writing the blog did nothing at all for my isolation.  I still have no one to call, no one comes by to pick me up and take me places.  I can’t understand how there could have been 500 plaintiffs in L.A. and not one person shows up when SNAP does hold an event downtown.  The three or four people you see all the time at local SNAP events have all traveled in from far flung  suburbs,  other counties, even other states.

Where did all the L.A. plaintiffs go?  Plus now and then I’ll read about a settlement in another city and it says so and so from Los Angeles, and I think where the hell are they? 

I thought there was supposed to be a community of survivors, I counted on there being a community to help me get through this.  After three years writing City of Angels, I still don't know how to get in touch with one other survivor in Los Angeles.  A couple breezed through my life for a day or two, a week or two, then disappeared.  Left no forwarding phone number… the illusive world of lost cell phones and people moving away…

If I got a settlement, first thing I’d do is move away too.  Some hermit place.

But I didn't.  So I'm still here.  And I don't know where everybody else went.  I spent those two years homeless, 2003 to 2005, and at the beginning of that period, there were SNAP meetings in L.A. where I understand hundreds of people came.  I didn't go to those meetings, because they were announced as being about the lawsuits, and I wasn’t part of the L.A. lawsuits.

Then we became homeless for two years and lived in utter chaos, forget lost cell phones, try lost roof over your head…

Anyway.  We get back in an apartment, I connect again with SNAP, and there’s one sleepy meeting out in the hills of Glendale that it takes me three hours to get to, including a hike or two between transits.  And then I get there and there are three people, two of them aren’t even survivors, but I think may be spies from the church…

Okay.  So I see now that probably the reason there is no SNAP meeting in L.A. is I am probably the only person here who wants one.  And since I'm doing City of Angels blog, I'm not the right person to run a meeting, and who would come?  I don't know where anybody is to find them…

So I start City of Angels thinking, I’ll meet other survivors in L.A. that way, and ???   I’ve met dozens of people, who I can call on the phone almost any time and they're there to talk, but they're in the Midwest and Boston and New Mexico, no one is in L.A.? 

Where did everybody go? 

I have this part of me that wants to put up a post and say, “I'm done.”  Because I'm not really getting out of it what I wanted.  But I'm getting something else.  There are all those people in other places writing to me, there’s the occasional PayPal click that gets me through a crisis and all of a sudden I'm able to pay pay the cable bill. 

I wish I was more exploitive.  I mean, all the people who’ve clicked my PayPal, I have their addresses and phone numbers, as usually that information comes to me with the Notice of Payment Received (God I love seeing those in my email).  If I were a wily person, I’d gather those names and addresses and have a regular mail out, fund raising campaign. 

If I were wily.  But I don't like fund raising.

So I have to leave it all in the hands of the Tao, the perfect Tao that I know is in the middle of all the chaos.  Again, be grateful I'm not in Iran or Darfur, if there are human beings in anguish, it’s not the ones in the slums of L.A. as bad as they are. 

I didn't get what I wanted out of the blog, but to drop it now would be suicidal, as it is giving me a launching pad, a platform from which to begin something better than City of Angels 5.  Maybe it will happen at City of Angels 6.   

See how well I changed the subject?

Sleep Disrupted to post these comments at Philly Abuse Trial Blog

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Here is a dialogue from this post at Philadelphia Abuse Trial Blog last night (after a guy sat in front of me where I pecked at my laptop and said, "You've got to not give a f--- what people think of you."  I said, "You are right," hit the send button, and began this stream):  

Kay EbelingJuly 20, 2012 8:04 PM

You know what, Ralph, I have so much respect for you.

But:

After all that's been said in comments here, I'm surprised you would still resort to a press release from SNAP to get the survivors' side of a story. That's what mainstream reporters do, in the charade that is today's news coverage. Instead of going to a nonprofit spokesperson, why not take the time to find individual victims who have something to say. Most of us never get a voice. No matter how much SNAP claims to "give voice to victims," you never hear from anyone except the two or three people from SNAP in the news.

I'm just disappointed, Ralph, that you don't realize how much the corporate control of information, which you claim to be defying, is connected to nonprofits that claim to speak for a group of persons, the way SNAP claims to speak for pedophile priest survivors.

Someone is approving those press statements before they get released. SNAP press statements are edited and cleaned for public consumption... by someone.

I'm not saying call on me. I don't claim to speak for anyone.

But, Ralph, it's just too easy and, I hate to say it, kinda lazy, to go to SNAP and copy and paste one of their press statements to get the survivors' side of a story. SNAP has been using the same adjectives for years over and over, and a lot of us do not feel SNAP speaks for us.

I'm surprised you would not realize that, Ralph, since you are part of the non-corporate media world. SNAP is part of the problem, and they do not move the story forward with their statements. Most of the time their press releases are a collection of subjective adjectives that really don't say very much. SNAP rarely reflects the rage and frustration and sense of "justice interruptus" of the victims, especially those of us who have been systematically ejected from SNAP for being too vocal.

Please do a little more footwork, Ralph, and find someone who is not getting their statements cleared and edited for safety in advance when you want to get the survivors' side of a story.

Thanks
-Kay Ebeling

( http://cityofangels12.blogspot.com )

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Replies

jim robertsonJuly 20, 2012 8:11 PM

Ditto!

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Kay EbelingJuly 20, 2012 8:39 PM

"Callous and reckless" ad nauseum.

Someone decided about two years ago SNAP should keep using those two adjectives. Look it up. They've used those two words about a thousand times since 2010.

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Thomasina MonahanJuly 20, 2012 9:00 PM

As a parishioner and school parent, I can say that the "rigid Safe Environmental program" WAS NOT instituted by Lynn, but by the Archdiocese. It was a mandate!
If he comes back, I am out of the parish and school! And I know that I'm not the only one. Unfortunately, his main supporters are the bigwigs/money people of the parish & school and no one wants to speak up for fear of a backlash -- especially if it could be directed at our children.

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Archie FrancisJuly 20, 2012 9:54 PM

Thomasina, I agree with you about "Safe Environmnent." It was and is a mandate of the AOP. I'm a member of another church in Chester County, and a Volunteer, so I have to keep up to date on all my clearances and education.

Msgr. Lynn will never be coming back to St. Joe's. The man, the priest, has lost everything. Do you understand what the loss of one's reputation and ability to continue in their chosen profession does to a person? He is serving his sentence now, has been serving it since he was on trial, and will serve it for the rest of his life.

Maybe you should leave your Parish and your School for other reasons, but not for the reason that, Oh my God!, Monsignor Lynn might come back! Run for the hills!!! Let's be serious now, he's not a threat to you or your children.

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Carlos AbreuJuly 20, 2012 9:56 PM

Who will speak for the children and the direct link to health failures ,premature death and suicides ,murder from abuse by the clergy.
catholic cemeteries?,catholic hospitals?

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Kay EbelingJuly 20, 2012 10:36 PM

Archie writes re Monsignor Lynn:

"The man, the priest, has lost everything. Do you understand what the loss of one's reputation and ability to continue in their chosen profession does to a person?"

Get real.

Lynn will never have to worry where his rent or food will come from, he will probably always have servants and drivers, access to cars, and luxurious vacations, plus a stipend that is higher than most people's Social Security check, and he won't have any real living expenses. He will never have to get up and commute and go to a real job where layoffs and outsourcing could make him homeless.

Priests are priests for life and even the ones known to have committed horrendous crimes live out their lives in luxury.

Don't kid yourself. The priests who serve a little time do not suffer. They are coddled 'til they die, and the Monsignor, now that he's taken the bullet for the cardinal, may kick back in a cell for a year, but he won't suffer.

Not anything like the victims suffer our whole lives.

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Archie FrancisJuly 20, 2012 11:06 PM

Kay, I am not minimizing the victims and the horrors they have suffered! I pray for the victims every day, and am thankful that I, and my two brothers and sister are not among them!

I met Msgr. Lynn just once, but one of my best friends is best friends with him. And, he was a HUGE help to her family when her brother was sick, and eventally died. You never forget kindnesses to your family, and Msgr. Lynn was the King of Kindness to this particular family.

Death is so painful, sad, hard on everyone. Monsignor Lynn was an Angel. That particular family will always be grateful and never forget his tireless efforts, and friendship and love and tenderness.

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Kay EbelingJuly 21, 2012 12:03 AM

I just popped awake knowing I have to write this:

That statement above from SNAP is exactly the same as every statement they've made in every city about every priest for at least the last five years, almost to the word.

They say the priest is "reckless and callous" and that (INSERT CLERGYMAN NAME HERE) compromised the safety of children.

That's it, city after city, the story breaks, the reporter goes to SNAP and SNAP makes that same comment, the reporter dutifully copies it down and publishes it and ... that's the news, folks, and now let's see what the Kardashians have been up to.

I would never deign to comment on the cases in Philadelphia, I've never been to Philadelphia, and I'll bet Barbara Dorris, SNAP spokeswoman, never has either, but she will release that same generic statement about Philadelphia or Des Moines or Boulder or wherever, and reporters- even you, Ralph, dammit- will dutifully write down what she says and publish it as the survivors' point of view.

And the true and total story NEVER GETS TOLD!!!!!

Ralph, go to the plaintiff attorneys, get the names of victims in Philadelphia, interview them. No, they won't be picture perfect on camera, we are not corporate spokesmodels.

The real victims swear, lose our tempers, maybe even foam a little at the mouth. I've interviewed maybe a hundred victims over the past five years, and we are some of the craziest, most dysfunctional, messed up in weird ways persons you'd ever imagine to find on the planet.

That's the story. Not Barbara Blaine looking perfect on camera. The damaged dysfunctional victims whose quotes you will have to bleep out for all the raging expletives that explode out of us, that's the story. The permanent damage that cut to us down to our very nervous systems so we twitch, and make strange noises, and erupt like we have Turret's Syndrome.

That is the story. Not the corporate spokespersons with sanitized statements that can be applied to any city in the country and never really say a thing.

PLEASE stop quoting SNAP's press releases and get out there and find the real story.

If anyone can do it, it's you, Ralph, and I have a feeling I'm not the only person who wants to say this to you.

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Kay EbelingJuly 21, 2012 12:17 AM

Kay popped awake, Continued:

Weird CNS diseases that perplex our doctors. Strange boils and hives, protrusions on our bodies that make us look... strange. Scars and permanent damage from self-mutilation and botched suicide attempts. Extreme obesity or extreme skinniness from a life of eating disorders. The 65 year old man who blurts out he's had bleeding hemorrhoids since age five when the priest sodomized him.

Those are the stories that have never been published.

Wake up, Ralph, wake up.

Goodnight.

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Kay EbelingJuly 21, 2012 12:22 AM

Mark Bukowski has a police record? That's nothing compared to the levels of dysfunction you find all over the country when you track down the pedophile priest victims.

Our screwed up lives are the main part of the story that has not yet been told. Yes, pedophile priest victims do not make good witnesses in the courtroom. Because of the deep visceral permanent unprecedented damages we live with.

That's the story!!!!!

Please write it. I need to be able to sleep.

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Kay EbelingJuly 21, 2012 12:43 AM

One quick edit:

"That's the story. Not Barbara Blaine looking perfect on camera as she says, 'Kids need to be safe.'"

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Ralph CiprianoJuly 21, 2012 6:41 AM

Well, we're really letting it rip today, aren't we? Listen, I didn't get the prosecution's filings until a little while ago (I will put them up this weekend) so I couldn't quote all those defense documents and not look for something to shall we say balance it. But we have a lot more to cover, so stay tuned.

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Ralph

Ralph CiprianoJuly 21, 2012 7:23 AM

It was easy, I admit it, reaching for that SNAP bottle that's always on the shelf, and drinking an all-too familiar concoction. I blame it on the prosecutors, who were no-doubt hand-delivering their latest filings to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and couldn't get to me in time for deadline. But we will regroup!

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Link to story from yesterday where these comments ran:  http://www.priestabusetrial.com/2012/07/defense-team-says-monsignor-poses-no.html 

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That's not the first time I got brave and posted what I feel after convincing myself I had to stop caring what people think about me:  

On July these comments came out of me at this post at Philadelphia Abuse Trial Blog: 

Kay EbelingJuly 6, 2012 3:24 PM

Criticism of SNAP by survivors is not a case of hating the advocates at all. It's questioning the legitimacy of the professional advocates, questioning who is really behind them, and what is their real agenda.

Why do the same two people always show up, always have all the travel budget they need to appear and make a statement wherever this story is breaking, and the statement is then always published as "speaking for victims"?

Look at how widespread these crimes are and how many victims there are. Then look at the size and effectiveness of the only advocacy group that has survived.

Something does not add up. Where did the rest of the activists go? A lot of us got silenced, not by the church, but by SNAP itself.

It's very hard to explain this to reporters and friends of the movement, as they always see it as some kind of infighting or jealousy. That's not it. Many of us have been trying for years to get someone to realize:

Something stinks here.

Otherwise there would be much more activism and much more being accomplished for and by the thousands of victims of pedophile priests. Instead we get the same 2-3 people making the same press statement over and over again.

It does not add up. Something is not right here.

My theory: Only one group knew in 1985 that there were about a hundred thousand victims, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and they knew something had to be created to control the victims and manage the outflow of information about the crimes. So they created something similar to "sweetheart unions" during the early 20th Century labor movement, groups that appeared to be advocating for the workers but were really working for the owners. They always showed up, always looked just right, and always stomped down the genuine demonstrators while appearing to be part of them.

So by the mid-1990s Linkup got wiped out and SNAP rose out of the ruins.

Something is not right here. Too many really active people got shot down and shut up when they were in the middle of creating something on their own after giving up on SNAP. Like me.

The victims of pedophile priests do not have genuine representation, there is no real network, and except for a few exceptions on a local level, there is no advocating organization.

Those of us who have seen what's going on from the inside Really Wish that some reporter with an investigative nose (like Ralph Cipriano?) would start looking into what some of us see as a counter-intelligence group that says it's one thing but is really another and the end result has been a nullification, so to speak, of any genuine victim advocacy.

Of course individuals like SarahTX and Judy Jones are sincere. The stink comes from the very top. Just ask one question. Who is the "we" referred to in Barbara Blaine's press statement above? When has SNAP ever done any kind of survey or asked the thousands of survivors what we want an advocacy group to do?

Never.

They operate in a cocoon out of reach or communication with the victims. They seem to have a preconceived agenda and be taking orders from someone somewhere. It's a very eerie experience for those of us who have had it, and we keep wondering when, oh when, will some reporter dive into this yet untold part of the clergy sex crime cover-up story.

I know, from my own experience, what happened to me while I was doing City of Angles blog. I wasn't harassed or stifled by the church, per se, I was silenced by SNAP.

What appears in SNAP press releases is not the same as what the victims at the grass roots level experience.

Sorry to have to write this again. I wish the story had not gone this way. I've written my whole experience with SNAP as best as I could describe it at City of Angels 2.
Suffice it to say, pedophile priest victims do not really have an advocacy group at all. We have a hologram that is run by someone, but not by the survivors.

Wonder who is really in charge ...

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Kay EbelingJuly 6, 2012 3:25 PM

City of Angels 2 is at http://cityofangels2.blogspot.com and it all really happened.

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jim robertsonJuly 6, 2012 7:26 PM

Kay that was the truth thanks. Thanks.

SarahTX2July 6, 2012 8:54 PM

Kay, I've read through many of your blogs in the past and, in fact, I tried hard to understand what the claims are against SNAP. I think I was actually on your side in that for awhile and I became disenchanted with SNAP because of things you said. But upon reflection, it seemed like it was really just different viewpoints as to how to go about getting things done. Some personality types are better with group-think and some are better with individual action.

I think your City of Angels blogs are marvelous. I didn't see why City of Angels couldn't co-exist alongside SNAP's efforts and bishopaccountability's efforts and Catholics4Change's efforts, and One In Four in Ireland, etc. Did anyone really think that all victim/survivors' issues and hurts and endgoals could be lumped into one great big group where everyone gets represented exactly the same and every issue is equal?

I'm just trying to say that in this effort to stop this church abuse, the more the merrier. I have absolute respect for your investigative journalism and your City of Angels blog.

Kay EbelingJuly 6, 2012 10:00 PM

It has nothing to do with personality types, Sarah.

Imagine what could have been accomplished if there had been a genuine network from the start. Over the last twenty years, there have been way too many survivors who tried to do things and were shut out.

As a result, no bishop has been prosecuted and most of the public still think there were only a handful of priests committing minor crimes.

Some of this marginalizing and stirring from within was being documented at the old SNAP message board around 2006. Then SNAP deactivated the board.

Consider the Hague hoopla last year. There was a group in Germany working in Spring of 2011 on contacting The Hague to prosecute the Pope. Then in the fall of 2011, SNAP did its own version of contacting The Hague prosecutors' office, and, well, what ever happened to that? Meanwhile the project in Germany got swallowed up in the SNAP media blitz.

Too many survivors got discouraged by SNAP's being unresponsive and noninclusive, and just quit. So those 2-3 persons who run SNAP guaranteed that the "movement" fizzled and was never more than the bare minimum it could be.

There are a few sturdy souls who were able to keep on going, like the SNAP group in Northern California, who, from what I've been told, keep going in spite of the national SNAP office.

A network is supposed to involve many, share resources, help people find each other... network. SNAP does the opposite, but the public only sees press releases and a website.

Think for a minute who the bad guys are here, before you think what I'm saying is not possible.

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Kay EbelingJuly 6, 2012 10:19 PM

At the same time they are silencing the more vocal survivors, they are releasing press statements that say, "We give voice to victims."

Who does that?

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Kay EbelingJuly 6, 2012 10:25 PM

PS, Sarah, thank you for your compliments about the work I did at City of Angels Blog.

I needed a network and shared resources to continue to do it, and got the opposite. The support was never there.

Never.

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Kay EbelingJuly 7, 2012 8:08 AM

They fly in wherever the story is breaking, take a position front and center for media and new survivors coming forward, then fly out taking all the contact information with them, leaving whoever originally broke the story at a local level in the dark, out of the loop.

The end result is damage control and as little of each story gets out as possible.

Who would do that?

Ralph CiprianoJuly 7, 2012 2:47 PM

Sometimes the readers write a better blog than the writer.

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Entire July 5 post where these comments appeared is is here:  http://www.priestabusetrial.com/2012/07/judge-denies-house-arrest-for-monsignor.html 

Phew.

Justice Interruptus continues in PA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One blog at a time

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-kay ebeling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is not for the judge to judge?  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Philadelphia: 

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

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

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

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

It seems nothing works in this country anymore.  

***

By Kay Ebeling, in Limbo 

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

RE How Ugly This Print Looks?

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

I really do not know what happened

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


But I can't. 

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


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


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


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

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

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