http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/050420053609.nnix7s4b.html
http://www.snapnetwork.org/news/otherstates/ri_filmmaker_holywatergate.htm
(see previous blog entry and extracts of above links in comments)
Let us note this date
To some a sacred mandate
New head a divine dictate
Enlightened ones celebrate
Fools like me contemplate
How come a noble state
Despite all that ingratiate
Low its guardians degenerate
Harbingers of great faith
Prone to such mistake.
Those who dissect
Do not demand respect
Nor only what delect
Otherwise reject
But take in perspect
Like why those young so perfect
Abused by nearer God prefect?
They say man is imperfect
Let’s forgive and forget
Great generosity of neglect
Not likely so if the same theirs beget.
Such detestable palate
Even me who seem inanimate
and soul-less would not imitate
Haunts me inordinate
Excuses used to placate
Reasons indeterminate
No insult intended mate
Just cannot appreciate
Won’t submit to such fate
Or those quotes you gyrate.
Greatest gift Nature bequeathed
That of the intellect
Should make us all suspect
That such man-made sect
Are also used by insects
But somehow I don’t expect
Some to come clean with circumspect
To all Gods I willingly subject
But cannot put this with respect…..(CCK 05:4:20)
(CCK 05:4:20 - Nice numerals & ditty to quote, divinity it does not denote)
2 comments:
I got this after reading the AFP report on new Pope's election which also reported comments by people from a support group called SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests)
http://www.snapnetwork.org/
R.I. filmmaker had to put aside 'Catholic girl mindset'
Holy Water-Gate, a documentary that premieres Monday in Brookline, Mass., took a personal toll on the woman who made it.
BY JENNIFER LEVITZ - Providence Journal Staff Writer
Saturday, January 8, 2005
As a filmmaker documenting the far-reaching sexual-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, Mary Healey-Conlon had scored a coveted interview. She and her camera were inside the Chicago mansion of Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of the third-largest diocese in the nation. After numerous requests from Healey-Conlon in 2002, Cardinal George had agreed to an interview.
But as the Warren filmmaker met with the church dignitary in his lakeside residence, where nuns served tea and cookies, she had two instincts: one, as a journalist who believed in hard questions; the other as a Catholic who had grown up believing in the church.
"It was utterly intimidating," recalled Healey-Conlon, 37, a lecturer in film studies at the University of Rhode Island. "I had to keep reminding myself not to fall into the sort of Catholic girl mindset, and continue to ask the questions I had prepared."
These questions are part of Holy Water-Gate: Abuse Cover-Up in the Catholic Church, a 56-minute documentary directed by Healey-Conlon and premiering Monday at the Coolidge Corner Movie Theater, in Brookline, Mass. Last month, the documentary won a CINE Golden Eagle Award, which recognizes excellence in professional filmmaking; past recipients include Steven Spielberg and Ken Burns.
Filming the documentary took Healey-Conlon from vigils outside the Diocese of Providence through the snowy plains of the Midwest and to Rome to interview victims, clergy and even a perpetrator.
The project also exacted a personal toll. Healey-Conlon refinanced her house and borrowed money from friends and family -- she amassed $180,000 in debt. Also, the stress contributed to the breakup of her marriage to Timothy C. Conlon, a Providence lawyer and part of the legal team that won a $13.5-million settlement with the Diocese of Providence in 2002. The settlement over 36 sexual-abuse lawsuits ended what was believed to be the longest stretch of litigation over clergy misconduct in the nation.
Mary Healey-Conlon, of Warren, who is a lecturer in film studies at the University of Rhode Island, has made a film about sex abuse by Catholic clergy.
"We're very dedicated people," Healey-Conlon said. The church crisis "was something neither one of us was going to walk away from. At various points, I could have and maybe should have walked away from this project, because of the financial strain that it put on me, the emotional strain, and the sheer enormity of the project."
"The intensity of this certainly would put a strain on any relationship. . . . I'm proud of what we accomplished as a couple," she said.
Healey-Conlon started her project in 1999 after working as a legal assistant to Conlon, who had sued the diocese, alleging abuse by priests and a coverup by the church hierarchy. She had worked on sexual-abuse cases before, but these were different. She knew one of the accused priests from her childhood in Warwick. The priest, the Rev. James Silva, had ordained Healey-Conlon's grandfather as a deacon. Father Silva had been convicted of abuse in 1995. Healey-Conlon learned that the Providence diocese had transferred him to 12 different parishes in 16 years.
The filmmaker, who had studied her craft at Emerson College and had worked professionally as a filmmaker, started documenting the stories of plaintiffs, believing that nothing would come of the cases.
"There would be this kind of sense that people, be they reporters or people talking on talk radio, just didn't believe the victims," she said. "They would be characterized as looking for money or making up the story, because frankly some of the stories are so unbelievable. It's really hard to frankly think that they're true."
She originally envisioned a Rhode Island film, but found compelling voices throughout the country, including many in the Chicago area. In the film, Barbara Blaine, who founded a national support group for abuse survivors, recalls being molested during the summer after seventh grade by a priest who told her she possessed "a special level of spirituality that other people couldn't understand or wouldn't understand."
"There was a cycle that Father Warren would go through in a sense," Blaine says. "He would molest me and feel extreme remorse and tell me that it wouldn't happen again."
One of the most interesting interviews is with a purported abuser,"Father William C," a former parish priest from Oak Forest, Ill.
Healey-Conlon learned about him from an alleged victim. "The victim had exchanged e-mails with him, and he basically admitted to a lot of things in his e-mails," she said.
The film shows Healey-Conlon calling the former priest -- he had left the priesthood in 1993 -- from a pay phone on a snowy Illinois corner. At his house, after engaging in chitchat about his rose bushes, he confides to the filmmaker about his history of abuse -- and how boys 14 and over were considered fair game.
"As long as you didn't get caught -- and you learned various behaviors so you didn't get caught . . ." he says.
"I don't know why he felt so comfortable with me. I have no idea," Healey-Conlon said.
He told her about one specific night, in 1979, at his retreat cabin, 100 miles south of Chicago. He said he'd brought some teenagers, who were drinking. He said he'd approached one, but hadn't gotten anywhere, and that he'd masturbated with another boy, whose parents reported the priest to the police.
Healey-Conlon didn't believe the former priest was telling the full story. She looked for a police report but couldn't find one. Through a source, she found the Pullman County police officer who'd written the report, and camped outside his house for four days until he talked to her. The officer told her he'd stayed up until 5 a.m. writing the report back in 1979. The next day, the diocesan officials had met with the police chief. The police officer said he was told the case would be prosecuted in Pullman County. Healey-Conlon learned that it never was, that the priest was sent for treatment for depression. The police officer had saved the report in a safe. The boys were 12 and 13. One had said he was trapped in a room and raped.
"From what I understand about perpetrators," Healey-Conlon said, "very few of them will be able to really accurately describe and undertand what they have done."
In the film, Cardinal George responds to criticims that bishops had not reacted with a sense of outrage. He says he does not believe it would be right for a bishop or priest "to put himself forward as sign of hope."
"Just the opposite -- I mean, it's priests who have done this, and bishops who have neglected to correct it," he says. "I think a certain decent modesty in these circumstances would prevent one from saying well, I can set it right. The Lord will set it right in ways we don't fully understand but we can hope for, because he is Lord and we are not."
The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a church legal expert, who served at the Vatican and has spent 19 years advocating for victims of clergy abuse, said the documentary is "very honest and blunt about the gravity of the issue," and does not "worry about being politically correct."
"She managed to get people to interview that no one else has . . . Cardinal George. She also got a perpetrator. No one else has been able to get a perpetrator to speak, that I've seen," said Father Doyle, who lives in Maryland, and who will speak at the film's premiere on Monday, at 7:30 p.m..
Healey-Conlon said, "I thought that I had something really special in the stories in the film, and I felt a sort of obligation to the people that I had met, and I honestly felt that it was a lot bigger than any challenge I'd had. . . . I knew I would finish the project."
Coproducer Louise Rosen, of Brookline, Mass., sold the film to TV channels in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Spain and Denmark, and is negotiating with two U.S. outlets, Healey-Conlon said.
Healey-Conlon said some in her family were uncomfortable about her doing a film about the church scandal, but they have come to appreciate her work. She said the film raised questions for them, which is what she had hoped for.
"What does it mean? I knew that it would be sort of a lot of spiritual questions for me and for others."
Some sensitive fellas may say whoever wrote this report have no respect.
And as to the kids, ‘screw them’ is basically what the Vatican said. Imagine, men supposedly of godly mandate dare not face the truth openly? And who do you think will dispense justice ’10 years after the kids turn 18’? May be they consider the kids more ‘fortunate’ than Galileo or Darwin – at least they don’t have to wait for centuries for justice to be dispensed. May be they should start having popees and bishopees (female ones are usually more caring & less sick lah).
You should also note the ‘no comment’ statement by the Vatican. Can you believe this? They do not want to talk about something they wrote supposedly because it was ‘secret’ (since when are truths secret? And these are fellas that constantly lay claim to great/profound truths). Perhaps, the Gods also allow the use of the ‘5th Amendment’ (not in the book yet? May be you are reading the wrong version. It happens. Actually, you should read the first version. Don’t know which is first? That’s another topic for another day.)
Or may be it is some kind of sick reward for the priests involved (let’s see how the sick logic goes: 10 more years to go before you face the music if you ‘tinker’ the 18 year olds but 18 years to go if you go for the 10 year olds. So, may be the younger the better?)
Lastly, may be the reason why the Vatican found the need to issue instructions to its bishops to keep things quiet was because too many people were having a field day while hiding behind the mask of foolishly proffered respectability
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1469055,00.html
Pope 'obstructed' sex abuse inquiry
Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret
Jamie Doward, religious affairs correspondent
Sunday April 24, 2005
The Observer
Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.
The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.
It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.
Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a 'clear obstruction of justice'.
The letter, 'concerning very grave sins', was sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that once presided over the Inquisition and was overseen by Ratzinger.
It spells out to bishops the church's position on a number of matters ranging from celebrating the eucharist with a non-Catholic to sexual abuse by a cleric 'with a minor below the age of 18 years'. Ratzinger's letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been 'perpetrated with a minor by a cleric'.
The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years.
It orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'.
'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.
The letter is referred to in documents relating to a lawsuit filed earlier this year against a church in Texas and Ratzinger on behalf of two alleged abuse victims. By sending the letter, lawyers acting for the alleged victims claim the cardinal conspired to obstruct justice.
Daniel Shea, the lawyer for the two alleged victims who discovered the letter, said: 'It speaks for itself. You have to ask: why do you not start the clock ticking until the kid turns 18? It's an obstruction of justice.'
Father John Beal, professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America, gave an oral deposition under oath on 8 April last year in which he admitted to Shea that the letter extended the church's jurisdiction and control over sexual assault crimes.
The Ratzinger letter was co-signed by Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone who gave an interview two years ago in which he hinted at the church's opposition to allowing outside agencies to investigate abuse claims.
'In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offence of paedophilia is unfounded,' Bertone said.
Shea criticised the order that abuse allegations should be investigated only in secret tribunals. 'They are imposing procedures and secrecy on these cases. If law enforcement agencies find out about the case, they can deal with it. But you can't investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10 the priest will get away with it,' Shea added.
A spokeswoman in the Vatican press office declined to comment when told about the contents of the letter. 'This is not a public document, so we would not talk about it,' she said.
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