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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Don't let Google fool you that coverage of Archdiocese trial is wide

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With all the news coverage you find with a Google search of the pretrial hearings in Philadelphia, when you click "Home" at the site of any of these news outlets, all the news you find about pedophiles and the Catholic Church are stories lauding Coach Joe Paterno and bemoaning the closing of Catholic schools, no promoted coverage of the criminal trial to take place in March regarding the four priests in the pedophile priest scandal is found on Page One.

Letter from 1968 could show abuse pattern, prosecutor says Philadelphia ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - ‎7 hours ago‎
By John P. Martin A letter written by a Philadelphia priest four decades ago about teenage brothers on a sadomasochistic outing could help prove that church officials endangered children 30 years later, a prosecutor contended Wednesday.

Lawyer: Pa. church official threw peer 'under bus'
Fox News - ‎15 hours ago‎
PHILADELPHIA – An indicted Catholic church official is showing signs he won't take the fall alone for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, with his lawyer saying Wednesday that a successor threw him "under the bus." Monsignor William Lynn, 61, ...

Philly prosecutors want to use dozens of old priest-abuse cases at monsignor's ...
Washington Post - ‎Jan 25, 2012‎
PHILADELPHIA — Will a Catholic monsignor be left to defend the sins of the Philadelphia archdiocese in the child sex-abuse scandal? A judge Wednesday may rule on whether prosecutors can use dozens of old priest-abuse allegations at Monsignor William ...

2 sides contest using past responses in priest trial Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - ‎Jan 25, 2012‎
By John P. Martin Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the forthcoming child endangerment trial of a Philadelphia cleric sparred for a second day Tuesday over whether jurors should hear how the monsignor and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia responded to ...

Lawyers: Gov't hanging Pa. church abuse on 1 man
Atlanta Journal Constitution - ‎Jan 24, 2012‎
By MARYCLAIRE DALE AP PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors are trying to hold a single Roman Catholic church official responsible for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, defense lawyers argued Tuesday at a key hearing in a novel clergy-abuse case.

Lawyers: Prosecutors hanging blame for Philly church abuse on 1 monsignor ...
Washington Post - ‎Jan 24, 2012‎
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors are trying to hold a single Roman Catholic church official responsible for the priest abuse scandal in Philadelphia, defense lawyers argued Tuesday at a key hearing in a novel clergy-abuse case. City prosecutors want to ...

Priests' past conduct is an issue in sex-abuse case
Philadelphia Inquirer - ‎Jan 24, 2012‎
Msgr. William J. Lynn is accused of recommending parish assignments… (ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer) One by one, the assistant district attorneys walked to a courtroom lectern Monday to tell, at times explicitly, different versions of what ...

Philly judge weighs church sex abuse evidence
Newsday - ‎Jan 24, 2012‎
Nation Newsday > News > Nation Philly judge weighs church sex abuse evidence Published: January 24, 2012 9:07 AM By The Associated Press MARYCLAIRE DALE (Associated Press) PHILADELPHIA - (AP) -- A Philadelphia judge could decide Tuesday if prosecutors ...

Prosecutors, lawyers spar in priest sex-abuse case Philadelphia Inquirer ...
Philadelphia Inquirer - ‎Jan 24, 2012‎
Edward V. Avery, seen here leaving the Criminal Justice Center on Oct. 7, is accused… (Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer) By John P. Martin INQUIRER STAFF WRITER One by one, the assistant district attorneys walked to a courtroom lectern Monday ...

Pa. archdiocese named 'unindicted co-conspirator'
CBS News - ‎Jan 23, 2012‎
(AP) PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors on Monday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of being an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a clergy sex abuse case and said the Roman Catholic Church fed predators a steady supply of children.

More Shocking Allegations Emerge in Philadelphia Priest Child-Sex Scandal
CBS Local - ‎20 hours ago‎
(Msgr. William Lynn walks with his attorney after pleading not guilty on Friday to child endangerment and other charges. Photo by Steve Tawa) By Tony Hanson PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge today heard more disturbing ...

Dr. Anthea Butler On Church Abuse Case
MyFox Philadelphia - ‎Jan 25, 2012‎
PHILADELPHIA - Prosecutors in the church abuse case will be in court Wednesday morning pushing to include some 30 child endangerment cases as part of the trial against Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn is accused of keeping priests around who were suspected ...

Prosecutors: Archdiocese Financially Motivated To Cover Up Sexual Abuse By Priests
CBS Local - ‎Jan 25, 2012‎
Edward Avery, Charles Engelhardt, James Brennan, Bernard Shero, and William Lynn are charged in connection with sex crimes against children in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. By Tony Hanson PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The prosecution presents evidence of ...

ALLEGATIONS PILE ON PRIEST Philadelphia Daily News 2012-01-25
Philadelphia Daily News - ‎Jan 25, 2012‎
BY MENSAH M. DEAN CITY PROSECUTORS yesterday continued to pile on the allegations that a former high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia facilitated the sexual abuse of church children by repeatedly looking the other way when confronted ...

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Hidden Truth Revealed in Words of Msgr. Lynn Defense

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Attorneys for Monsignor William Lynn are admitting that all the way up to 2002, it was Church policy and practice that priests who rape children remain in ministry, with ongoing secrecy and coverup of their crimes, in defense attempts to get some of the guilt off Lynn in the criminal trial coming in March in Philadelphia.

"Lynn, [his defense attorneys] said, was doing his job as ordered in the era before 2002," per several news reports on pretrial hearings in the criminal case against four Philadelphia Archdiocese priests for sex abuse of children.

Read the AP story here at Newsday.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

I didn't ask the story to go this way, it just did

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A couple people think SNAP is being attacked by church lawyers for its decades of work, through the recent Kansas City depositions and subpoenas. I think SNAP is self destructing because their work is done. By destructing in a very public way, they are keeping control of the story even as they self-destruct.

Of course the "Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests" is not really self destructing, but they could.

Because their work is done here.

SNAP ran damage control over the pedophile priest story as it broke in city after city, they intercepted and garnered all the contact information for the media and victims and stashed it away, not even sharing contacts with local leaders, rarely connecting new victims with other victims who live nearby. One by one SNAP discouraged activists who came forward around the country and would have created a real movement. Now people are starting to figure them out here and there, so SNAP should get out while the getting's good. Their work is done here.

Meanwhile all hundred thousand victims in the USA are isolated and discouraged, in the same vacuum we were in before this whole thing started.

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People point out nice phrases SNAP gets in the news here and there as proof of SNAP's good works. Problem is, I believe SNAP and the Church are one and the same at the executive level.

So any public disclosures by SNAP are actually orchestrated by the bishops to in the end make the church look like the good guys, and the victims look like money grubbing unsatisfiable malcontents.

Keep paying attention, look closer.

For me, today, any time SNAP stands in front of the cameras, the news is being manipulated by the church. So I read every item both the Church and SNAP releases with skepticism.

Release of the current Clohessy deposition story and the nun whistle blower in Kansas City just before its release are part of SNAP's hidden agenda.

I didn't ask for the story to go this way, it just did.

Meanwhile the cover story of being a national support organization is very effective, for finding out who the victims are and what they intend to do. Only SNAP knows what victims have said where and when, and they share almost none of that information. A dozen stories have been released through SNAP, in a very controlled fashion.

The people in the pews have no idea how many victims there are or the extent of the sexual violence that was propagated on children. If they did, the people would not still be in the pews. SNAP has run damage control on this issue very effectively.

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The only ones who knew in the 1980s that there would be a need for control when a hundred thousand victims came forward were the American bishops. I think SNAP was born at the 1985 bishops conference where Tom Doyle wrote the founding documents. SNAP's real purpose was to keep us all from being able to really create a movement.

And they succeeded.

Just think, why Clohessy? Why Blaine? Out of all hundred thousand pedophile priest victims in the USA, why do we only see two-three survivors wherever the story breaks? Why haven't they changed the adjectives they use in twenty years? It's all been under control from above.

Intuitively, a genuine victims group in crimes like these would be inclusive and transparent. Instead we have SNAP.

I had a very unique perspective doing CofA blog, that allowed me to interview victims around the country and see what SNAP was doing to people, repeatedly. They really did not want me to see that and did all they could to stop me.

It has not been a fun experience.
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I wrote about the whole weird experience at City of Angels 2 in a lot more detail.
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These Days

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I am doing a lot of posting at the Victims of Silence message board, using "Muckraker" as a moniker.
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-kay
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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Clohessy hypocrisy makes all pedophile priest victims look bad

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Just like with priest personnel files, a judge can review subpoenaed SNAP files "in camera" and decide what information should not be released, in order to prevent damage to persons involved. The same rules should apply to SNAP as apply to the Catholic Church. No Secrets. Clohessy's current intransigence on this issue makes me wonder, what is SNAP so determined to hide?

It amazes me how SNAP can make "survivors" look bad by issuing press statements, claiming they speak for survivors, when I don't think SNAP has ever taken a poll or asked survivors to vote on where they want the "movement" to go, or even conducted a vote on who should be the leaders. For example, to me and a lot of survivors, leafletting about pedophiles outside Mass at churches is insensitive and makes victims look as "callous and reckless" as SNAP calls the church. Yet SNAP ignored me and other survivors who tried to point out this insensitivity and asked for the activism to have a different focus. Clohessy just answered to me, "This is what we do." Then SNAP continued to leafet outside churches, making it clear, at least to me, that SNAP was taking direction from some invisible entity, not survivors at the grass roots level.

This situation where Clohessy released information that was under a gag order in a press statement, then was ordered by a court to turn over documents and refused, has opened up a can of worms, and made victims look so unfair that, once again, I get the feeling SNAP is working surreptitiously for the church. I know most people think I'm paranoid for believing SNAP really works for the church, but look at how this stance Clohessy has taken makes pedophile priest victims look hypocritical and opens the door for suspicion and criticism.

SNAP is claiming the church is too secretive while SNAP carries out the same secretive tactics as the church, refusing to answer questions in deposition and refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents- It's as if SNAP's goal is to make victims look like hypocrites.

I might feel compassion for David Clohessy's current dilemma if SNAP had Ever shown concern for individual survivors, or demonstrated any real advocacy and support for the pedophile priest victims. But instead SNAP seems to mainly work to get the SNAP name in the news connected to every story about pedophile priests, to make sure the only thing anyone reads about this issue from "survivors" is a prefabricated press statement from a corporate spokesperson at SNAP.

So SNAP assures that all communication about these crimes everywhere in the country goes through SNAP, where details of the crimes then rarely get publicly reported again, other than a meek sound byte in response to stories that are already in the news.

That's damage control, not advocacy, and in the case of accused priest Michael Tierney of St. Louis, Clohessy seems to have gone too far, and now he's asking for the rules that apply to everyone else not to apply to him or the survivors' "network."

Maybe Clohessy made a big mistake, or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing all along.

In other words, this whole thing stinks, and this is yet another layer in the cesspool of the "survivor movement" self destructing while SNAP runs the show.

I'd like to see SNAP have to open its files for investigation. We might finally find out who they really represent. It might cause the news media to report something other than whatever pre-approved statement comes out of a SNAP spokesperson's mouth and instead start asking some probing questions.

For instance SNAP claims to get "hundreds" of calls from new victims each week. But where is the evidence? Where are the hundreds of new victims and their stories? Where is the support and comfort for victims? Why do only one or two people show up for SNAP events when there are about a hundred thousand pedophile priest victims in the USA right now?

Where is the advocacy? Other than in SNAP press statements...

This latest chapter with Clohessy avoiding deposition questions has provided a whole bucket of manure for Catholic Church defenders to use in their endless efforts to make the pedophile priest victims look like we are in it for the money and that many of us just made up our stories so we could file lawsuits.

Clohessy wants it both ways. By calling himself a spokesperson for survivors, he makes all pedophile prist victims look like we want to operate under a separate set of rules.

SNAP has played right into church defense hands with this latest incident, and by continuing to refuse to turn over their documents and answer questions in deposition, SNAP continues to make the victims look like opportunistic hypocrites.

I can't help feeling that the purpose of SNAP all along was to make victims look bad, otherwise, why weren't activists like Jay Nelson and me and Michael Baumann and so many others across the country taken in and made part of the "network" so that it would operate as a genuine network? The opposite happened. Anyone with new and innovative ideas to contribute to the movement has been trompled on and silenced by SNAP. Now the movement consists of one or two people in St. Louis and Chicago representing "us" to the world.

And look at the negative image of "survivors" that they are creating.

I have watched the way the news media go only to SNAP to get "sound bytes" that say almost nothing at all, then reporters publish SNAP press statements and think they are including our side of the story. I've watched one activist after another across the country get shot down while Barbara and David insinuate themselves into the middle of every story on this issue, blocking out everyone else. Now with this new development, I can only observe, as I've developed a strange case of ennuie about the whole issue of pedophile priests, a reaction eerily similar to that of other survivors who tried to do something with this "movement" and instead of encouragement, got shot down by SNAP.

Activists end up defeated and give up: Hmm. Seems SNAP creates the exact result the Catholic Church would want, and would go to any length to make happen.

So now I'll sit and watch Crusaders, such as David Pierre with his mediareport and Bill Donohue from the Catholic League, use this latest debacle from SNAP as ammunition to shoot us all down. Believe me, it pains me to find myself agreeing with The Catholic League, but you have to tell the truth as you see it, no matter how unpopular it makes you.

Someday someone with some influence will take time to figure out what really happened here. For now I just sit here on the sidelines where SNAP made sure I ended up, observing.

And again wondering: Who put these people from SNAP in charge to begin with and what is their real motivation?

Sick and tired of the whole damn thing, I am,
Kay Ebeling

Read the story about this latest hypocrisy at Boston dot com:

Priest-abuse victims group ordered to open its files

December 31, 2011
By Jim Suhr and Rachel Zoll

ST. LOUIS - An advocacy group that has relentlessly pressured Roman Catholic leaders to reveal the scope of sex abuse in the church has been ordered to disclose records to one priest’s defense lawyers that could include years of e-mails with victims, journalists, and others.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has so far failed to block the ruling by a judge, which requires the organization to produce the documents and also allows defense attorneys to depose the network’s national director, David Clohessy...
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I've written a lot more on SNAP- its secrecy, its insistence on control of the message, and its questionable treatment of victims- at City of Angels 2 in the past two years. I write from my place on the sidelines, marginalized and almost silenced, where SNAP wants the more vocal survivors to stay.

I've learned that if a survivor criticizes SNAP, they end up ostrasized and blacklisted, in good old Catholic Church historical tradition.

So go figure.
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