Saturday, November 30, 2013

CHANCERY V ROHR: TWO STORIES

Cardinal Timothy Manning d. 1989

Seriously, I was about to give the blog a rest. Fr. Paul's case is going to Rome. Things will be decided there. But then I get things like this:

Tim we all need to just relax, let go and let God. You are trying to retaliate at something that has wronged you, but in the end how will you benefit from this? (See comment under this post)

And, well, I just get motivated.

No one has wronged me. This has nothing to do with me. The Archbishop's going to the Grand Master of the Equestrian Order  to bully me into silence means nothing. I was quite clear upon being invited to join the Order that I did not want to join, but would join if it would be of benefit to the priest who asked me to join. He said it would, and so I did. That's that. 



I find it interesting though that the Grand Master has never responded. He could easily kick me out of the Order if he so chose. He has not. Maybe it's because of what I told him (and the documentation I provided), especially in my second letter, the letter I haven't posted yet.

How will I benefit from this??? Do you think that I even think that? Benefit? Do you think I am looking for something from this? Funny beyond measure! But then you don't understand so it's not your fault. 

For now, let's just say that I am dismayed at the reign of terror.  I am sick of watching the non-neo priests live in fear,  and I am appalled at the lies.  I'm not ready to reveal those just yet, so let me tell you a story, two stories actually. 

First Story
In 1976, I was working for the pastor of our church doing small construction jobs around the church and rectory.  I was painting in the hallway when I overheard the pastor in the next room sexually proposition another man. I knew the man. He lived next to the parish, in a house owned by the church. Many had their suspicions that something was wrong. There was. 

The affair had been going on for quite awhile. People suspected but they couldn't nail it. I was there. I nailed it. I didn't want to believe what I had just heard. I froze. My stomach sank. I had spent, upon his invitation, several months with this priest, traveling Europe, Greece, the Holy Land. I had gone with him as his companion. My parents were so proud that I was invited by our pastor to accompany him. They didn't know...and I didn't either. 

We went to Rome with Cardinal Manning's party, the Cardinal of Los Angles. He and my pastor had been classmates at St. Patrick's in Menlo Park. Because they had been classmates, I got to be in the inner party. I even played the piano while Cardinal Manning sang Irish tunes at a dinner in a converted catacomb. 

But I knew something was wrong. The pastor kept touching me in ways that made me uncomfortable. Not sexual, but he would hold on a little too long, a little too close. I had no idea what was going on. But my instincts made me pull away. And now that I had heard what I heard, I knew why I had felt what I did. 

As it turned out, in addition to living free at the parish owned house and having sex with the pastor, the man in the next room with the pastor was also helping himself to parish funds. I had the evidence. I told my dad. We went to the chancery office in downtown Los Angeles. We thought the Archbishop should know. We were told to go away. 

Twenty years later, the Los Angeles Archdiocese had to cough up half a billion dollars of our money, half a billion dollars to pay not just for the damages done to the young men and boys like my pastor had molested, but paying for all the people they had silenced, the people they sent away, the people they wouldn't listen to. The bishop had spoken. "Go away". We obeyed. Children suffered. Billions were spent to keep the SILENCE! 

Second Story
In 1981, I was teaching at a Catholic high school in certain U.S. territory. A student came to me one day after school was out. He was in terror. He was going to be killed if he didn't come up with a certain amount of money by the next day. He told me why. 

A drug ring was operating in the school. A certain homeroom teacher was a member of the gang which was extorting the kids. One student had already been tortured and murdered. We knew that. It was recent news. Big news. The dead kid had been the godson of the principal. And it was the principal who had been blackmailed into allowing the ring to extort the students.

He was blackmailed because he was the town drunk and the town prostitute. The place was small. Everyone knew this. He used to help himself to boys in the showers in the gym. People feared him. He had been reported to the bishop several times. But the bishop had his back. He told the fearful parents to go away. He was the bishop. They obeyed.

I decided to help the boy. It was a horrible couple of days.  I called the cops. The cops were in on it, paid off by the ring. I told one of the priests who taught at the school. He shrugged. He was buying marijuana from the teacher who killed the kids. 

But my "talking" had turned the light on and for a time the cockroaches scampered into their holes. I lived under the threat of death for months, and in the end, had to leave the school and move away from the island to save my life (and the life of my wife and son). But, with the help of another priest, a very brave one,  I  was able to get rid of the principal and broke up the ring. It would take a few more years before the bishop was replaced.

Apuron

Archbishop Apuron can easily check my story.  There are only two other Capuchin bishops in the U.S.: Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia and Cardinal O'Malley of Boston. O'Malley was the bishop who replaced the one I helped to get rid of. He was sent there to clean up the mess. 

Curiously I was able to recount this whole terrorizing episode several years later to the bishop who replaced O'Malley, Elliot Thomas. After he retired, Bishop Thomas came to Guam to visit his friend, a Navy chaplain. They both came to my house, here in Guam, one afternoon. I have never told anyone else, till now. 

If I had kept my mouth shut, that boy who came to me that afternoon would have been dead the next morning and many others after him. Let go and let God? Yah, well, sometimes God says "Do something!" 

Today, another man's life hangs in the balance. He won't be shot in the morning. But he's finished as a priest, at least in this archdiocese and probably every other diocese in the United States. Blackballed. And for what? We know "for what". We ALL know for WHAT. That's why there are 40,000 plus views on this blog in 4 months. And that's why you want me to "just relax". Too late. 

5 comments:

  1. Dear Mr. Rohr:

    Do not be silenced! In my opinion, you are a Watchman as that word is defined in the Bible. Your role is to speak about the sins and problems of our society and to proclaim the Good News. The Watchman speaks the Truth, or allows the Truth to be filtered and seen. You have done that with your blog and with all the unpaid efforts you have expended to fight the evil of abortion and other sins.

    The Catholic Church in Guam should thank you for what you are doing, not try to silence you. Despite the grave and enormous social problems Guam has experienced these past 25 years, the leaders of the Church in Guam seem incompetent or indifferent to them. The sheep have scattered and the shepherd is nowhere to be found, except in his Neo cultic haven. When you have the top three Church leaders in Guam spent more time and effort to accommodate a very small percentage of the Catholic population(the Neo), then the Church has a crises in governance. Our Archbishop has had more than 25 years to tend and lead his flock, and he has not done so. It is more than time that Rome gives Guam a new shepherd.

    I am glad you have disclosed your experiences in Los Angles and the Virgin Islands. It helps me understand why you are a Watchman and why you must continue to be one.

    Speaking of silence and sexual abuse, I heard through the grapevine that there was one priest in the 70s and 80s who molested and abused boys especially boys in the boy scouts. I heard it was rampant. I heard he was part of the Mangilao parish and even taught at Father Duenas. I heard that he was sent to the States, to stop him, but the Church did nothing for the victims. I heard that the Chancery is aware of these alleged crimes and has done nothing about them. I know that it happened over 25 years ago but a sin and stain remains, and it needs to be cleaned! If these stories are not true then the Church has nothing to fear, but if they are true, then the Church needs to come clean!

    They say that the only way a body can recover and rejuvenate completely from an illness is to remove the toxins from the body. Perhaps you have begun that detoxification process. I hope that people will now acquire the courage to come forward and to disclose these past sins(and current sins) so that we can heal. I think your blog is a critical part of that process.

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  2. In 1992 archbishop apuron shut his door to the victims of abuse on Guam . Seminarians were damaged because Archbishop Apuron failed in his leadership.
    Archbishop Apuron was asked, in his capacity as metropolitan Archbishop of Agana Guam , to help bring a close to the reckless leadership of Bishop camacho. Archbishop Apuron failed in his leadership. The list goes on for twenty years.

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  3. Why did archbishop apuron allow his God mother a certain religious nun of Guam to perm his hair. This was a mystery to us. His nephew also he was named randy always around the cathedral with the archbishop. Just going over the past preparing for the future.

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  4. Thank you Tim. I thank you in behalf of Fr. Paul. His would have been a long and painful and arduous journey as promised by somebody if not for what you did, do and continue to do. I hope all those who visit this blog, even those in denial that something is wrong with the church in Guam, know now that this not about you. It is about Fr. Paul. It is about Joe Lastimosa. It is about Msgr. James. It is about people who have been wronged. It is about the Church in Guam that has been wronged. God bless you.

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  5. It is right that this should be in sharp focus this November 2017. I think this is the background to a lot that goes on in the UK too, to this day. Even what is splashed in the papers is heavily filtered, distorted, dumbed down and toned down.

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