IS THE CLERGY SEX ABUSE CRISIS OVER?

Not according to The Rev. D. Paul Sullins, Ph.D. Listen and learn.

 

IGNORING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM...YOUR ROOM

By Tim Rohr

In a recent self-described "rant," Kandit News host, Troy Torres, "ranted" about how "the church" systematically used its power and influence to cover up decades of sex abuse within its ranks. 

In my opinion, and as the one primarily to blame for uncovering this "coverup," Troy gives "the church" too much credit and the people and culture of Guam not enough.

To illustrate this we need look no farther than what has continued to occur in Guam nearly a decade after the church's sins were exposed.

According to a 2021 story in the Guam Daily Post, the Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Family Violence, a local organization, "the percentage of minors sexually assaulted on Guam has risen from 69% of reported cases in 2018 to 71% in 2019, and to 75% in 2020," and  "about 1,000 child abuse cases were referred to Child Protective Services in 2020, an increase of nearly 5%."

According to the same story, the rate actually decreased a bit in 2020, but according to Governor Lou Leon Guerrero, that dip was an "anomaly" which the governor credited to underreporting due to the Covid lockdown at the time. 

Remember now, Apuron had already been ousted in 2016 and was found guilty and permanently banned from Guam by 2018. Given the "scare" we put into the church leadership, there have been no reported cases of child sexual abuse since then (other than old claims), but meanwhile, the local population has continued to abuse its own children at an increasingly devastating rate.

Despite there being an occasional clergy abuser from the outside (e.g. Louis Brouillard), they were only "occasional." The majority of abusers over all these decades were local clergy from local families. In my opinion, what happened in the Church, and especially why it was never exposed, is because it was just an extension of what was already happening in local families for generations, and, as the above facts demonstrate, is still happening. 

(Note: This observation should be no surprise. I've lived in Guam for nearly 40 years and have heard of this sort of thing happening many times. Guam isn't unique. Most sex abuse cases, especially of children, no matter where, are by someone known to the victim, and almost always a family member.)

Of course, this excuses no one, and I am glad we've at least been able to get rid of some of the more cancerous clergy. However, aiming only at the mostly past sins of the church and crediting its leadership for masterminding decades of coverup when all they were really doing was stumbling along is ignoring the elephant in the room...your room. 

And then there is one final fact that the governor loves to ignore: A culture which slays its own while still in the womb is more likely to abuse them once they leave it.

LINK

 

THE TRUTH ABOUT CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE

LINK to online version. Links to references added.

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League, has written a book titled “The Truth About Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and Causes.”

Donohue does a good job at not letting the Catholic Church (“the Church”) off the hook, rightly criticizing its leadership all the way up to the popes.

However, Donohue also lays much of the blame on the media, lawyers, the culture, and particularly the sexual revolution.

Not that he isn’t right about how all of that contributed to the problem, but like many who have theorized about this mess, Donohue, for the most part, misses the mark.

I say “for the most part” because he bumps into it in a late chapter, but doesn’t see it as the root cause. I do. I shall explain.

The clergy sex abuse crisis, as it came to be known, began in the late 1960’s, peaked in the 70’s, and began to taper off in the 80’s.

Those years coincide with the greatest period of cultural revolution in modern times, so it’s easy to see why defenders like Donohue claim that the Church, at least in America, was swept up by the times.

However, such a view would hold: “As the World goes, so goes the Church.” And that’s not true. The truth is: “As the Church goes, so goes the World.” This is based in Christ’s own words “you are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth.”

In other words, the Church has all the grace needed to “overcome the world” because Jesus has already done it. So it’s a slap in our Redeemer’s face to blame “the world,” the sexual revolution, the times, the culture, whatever.

1968 is the year most agree is when the aforesaid revolution exploded. So the Church cannot say “the world made me do it” because there was already a revolution happening in the Church since the close of Vatican II three years earlier in 1965 - as evidenced by the beginnings of a mass exodus of priests and nuns and the collapse in vocations which continues to this day.

Aside from what the Council promulgated, the real problem is what the Council created: an expectation of change. And nowhere was this expectation more fevered than the possibility of separating sex from progeny: artificial birth-control - specifically “the pill.”

Interestingly, birth-control, by order of both Pope John 23 and Paul 6, was not a topic on the table at the Council. A separate commission, the Birth Control Commission, had been instituted, first by John and then expanded by Paul, to address it.

For Pope Paul, the commission was a disaster. Its members voted 64-2 to permit married couples to contracept. I say “disaster” because the prohibition on contraception is something no pope or commission had or has the power to change. So what was Paul to do?

Well, he wrote the encyclical Humanae Vitae. But HV did not once and for all condemn contraception as most Catholics think. Nope. The pope left it up to a vote and a future commission. Here’s what he wrote at the outset of the encyclical:

“…the conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain…because, within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed…”

In fingering the fact that the commission was “not (in) complete agreement” (even though the vote was 64-2), the pope outright implied, whether he meant to or not, that the teaching could have changed had there been “complete agreement,” and more significantly: one day there might be.

Moreover, why would a pope establish a commission to study the issue if there was no possibility of change? So there was the expectation of change right from the start.

Donohue bumps into this inconvenient fact in Chapter 11: “…had there been no commission…there may have been some discontent but the convulsions that followed would have been avoided.” (By “convulsions,” Donohue is referring to the explosion of clergy sex abuse.)

It mattered not that the pope, in Humanae Vitae, went on to restate the unchangeable teaching of the Church on the matter, he had already let the horse out of the barn.

And that’s all the wild-eyed revolutionaries needed. The sexual revolution in the Church was off and running a whole year before Woodstock; and “the convulsions” - the “filth in the church,” as Pope Benedict labeled it - is exactly what followed.

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses, and is active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications, and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com   

MORE ON "WHERE IS TONY?"

By Tim Rohr

On June 16, I published the post "Where is Tony?" and linked it on the JungleWatch Facebook page. A day later, Facebook removed the post. The following day I posted a follow up story about why I thought Facebook had removed the post. 

I didn't start out the June 16 post with Apuron's whereabouts in mind. The post was supposed to be about Cardinal O'Malley's neocat connections and activities, as inspired by his own post on his own blog. However, in writing the post I had one of those aha moments and speculated that Apuron may very well be residing (hiding) under O'Malley's wing. 

I've never had a JW post removed from Facebook before, and this one was removed within hours of my posting it. Thus my suspicion that I had stumbled upon the truth and that either the Kiko-police or O'Malley's were quick to try to kill the story. There really is no other explanation. Why would Facebook care about mere speculation about where Apuron is?

In doing some research through old posts today I came across a post from 2018 where the following was reported by the Catholic News Agency:

"...in 2009 or 2010, after receiving reports of habitual sexual misconduct on the part of McCarrick, Pope Benedict XVI had ordered that “the Cardinal was to leave the seminary where he was living..."

The report goes on to say that McCarrick was: 

"living at that time in Washington's Redemptoris Mater Seminary."

As we now know, McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington D.C., and a huge power broker for the Church in the U.S., has been found to be one of the worst sex abusers in the entire sordid clergy sex abuse scandal. 

So it's interesting why McCarrick chose a Neocat seminary to shelter in after the scandal broke. And why wouldn't Apuron do the same? There's a nice big, comfortable Neocat seminary in Boston, and it is protected by the most powerful Cardinal in the United States, if not one of the most powerful in the world: Cardinal Sean O'Malley.

As a side note, after McCarrick was forced to leave the RMS in D.C. he took up new residence at a Capuchin Friary: St. Fidelis Friary in Kansas. He was eventually forced from there too. But why would they take him?

O'Malley, like Apuron, is a Capuchin.

SACKING ROME - FROM THE INSIDE

By Tim Rohr

I previously opined about why I believed it took so long to get the Vatican to act on the Apuron case, and why, when the Vatican did act, it had to create a legal apparatus to address clerical sex abuse by a bishop. 

The Vatican had to do this because the usual offenders were almost always priests and they were dealt with by their bishops. 

But who deals with an offending bishop? At the time, no one - which is probably why Apuron became infamous for whispering "no one can get me" to people he thought were his confidants. 

As we know, it was only due to pounding public pressure (more than a year of pickets, almost daily news stories, the millions of visits to this blog, and ultimately the enactment of a law which enabled victims to sue the archdiocese) which brought the Vatican to Guam in the person of Cardinal Raymond Burke in February 2017. 

A year later, March 2018, Pope Francis removed Apuron as Archbishop of Agana and prohibited him from physically returning to Guam. 

It can be assumed that before the Pope forcibly removed Apuron that he most likely asked or even begged Apuron to resign. 

Francis - at the advice of his legal counselors - most likely hoped Apuron would resign because by forcibly removing him, Francis (i.e. "the Vatican), in effect, would be acting in the capacity of an employer and thus opening the door for institutional liability to the Vatican.

Prior to the Apuron affair, popes removed problem bishops from their dioceses but it appears to have always been via a request to resign (and probably promises of a cushy Rome pad and other perks). 

In Apuron's case, we can assume that he refused to resign due to the support of the second most powerful person in the Vatican at the time, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who was the Neocats' inside guy. 

The Neocats had a lot to lose if Apuron fell. So they propped him up and created conspiracy stories. (One such conspiracy was reportedly led by "Tim Rohr and Associates," and it's still "a thing.")

Given the pressure from Filoni and the legal realities of liability, the pope most likely did not want to forcibly remove Apuron. And, the fact that he did anyway, is a sort of silent witness to just how serious Apuron's crimes were, especially after the pope himself denied Apuron's later appeal. 

Nevertheless, removing Apuron opened the door for lawyers to paint the Vatican as an employer, and we've seen several lawsuits here in Guam naming The Holy See (the Vatican) as a Defendant. 

But probably because Guam is a distant and small diocese, and because Apuron's crimes were so heinous, there is little support to sue the Vatican. Most people are quite thankful that the pope stepped in.

However, the same is not true in Tyler, Texas where the pope has forcibly removed a bishop from his diocese and named no crime. And according to Catholic writer John Zmirak, the pope has really stepped in it this time.

During the clerical sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, the Holy See deftly escaped direct criminal liability in US courts — for potentially hundreds of billions — by arguing, amongst other things, that a pope doesn’t have the power to remove a bishop against his will.

This was necessary to demonstrate that bishops aren’t employees of the Vatican. Many years later and [Francis ] has just done precisely that by sacking the holy Bishop Strickland.

Read more at: Pope Francis May Have Just Accidentally Saved My Church … by Bankrupting it.

NOTE: Speaking of Filoni, I came across this JW post from 2017 about Filoni himself exposing the Vatican to liability due to his micromanaging of RMS - which was exposed after the Laity Forward Movement banged on the RMS front door. 

ALL WANT TO TELL ME STORIES THEY NEVER TOLD

By Tim Rohr

Theodore McCarrick (born 1930), ordered in 2018 by Pope Francis to a life of prayer and penance.[1] Found guilty of sexual crimes against adults and minors and abuse of power, he was dismissed from the clergy in February 2019.[2] He is the most senior church official in modern times to be laicized and is the first cardinal laicized for sexual misconduct.

Today, I happened to meet up with a friend on regular business. We spoke a bit about the business at hand. However, he soon asked me if I was in a hurry. As my following appointment had been rescheduled, I said "no." 

Given the very public role I played in exposing the worst clergy sex abuse, per capita, in the western world (Guam's), it is not uncommon for friends, or sometimes strangers, to say "have you got a few minutes?"

All want to tell me stories they never told. And it's pretty much the same story. 

"Father so and so..." And it gets really graphic - grotesquely graphic - from there. 

Since a law was enacted in 2016 in Guam giving victims of sex abuse, clergy or otherwise, to sue both their perpetrators and certain institutions, many, many victims have come forward to tell their stories to attorneys. 

Almost all of those victims, in their public filings, hid behind their initials. 

Given that I was intimately involved with the first victims who put their names and faces to their accusations (of Apuron) before there was a law to protect them, I did not like subsequent victims hiding behind mere initials.

But the conversation with my friend today helped me to better understand. 

The real reason these victims hid behind their initials was not out of any fear of repercussions from the accused, nor even public embarrassment, but fear from their own families, especially their parents.

The usual narrative is that parents were so respectful of The Church and the clergy that child victims knew they would not be believed. And indeed, that was the testimony of the few that we publicly heard from: that their perpetrators said "nobody will believe you."

But my friend, today, a local boy who grew to manhood in Guam in the 50's and 60's, and specifically a Catholic "boy" during the reigns of Bishops Baumgartner and Flores, under whose episcopates most of the legally-alleged clerical abuses occurred, helped me understand.

The real issue - if not the real culprit - was "a culture" which curried favor with elites (especially clergy) at the expense of their own children. 

In other words (at least per my friend), these parents KNEW there was "a problem" with their fave priests. 

But because having a priest (or a nun) in the family or being in anyway closely associated with a priest or a nun was such an elevation of status in local culture, it was a grave sin - not against God's law - but against "the law of family status" to admit or permit the mere mention of any clerical or religious peccadillo.

Sorry, if that's too esoteric. Here it is in shorter form.

Status, in Guam Spanish and post-Spanish culture, was radically elevated by either having one's own family members admitted to the states of clergy or religious (monks and nuns), or being closely associated with anyone who was (a clergy or religious), and wherein such status accrued to the family name. 

You don't have to think too hard to figure how this false sense of status played into the figurative - and sometimes real - slap down of children who dared tell their parents what Father or Sister so-and-so had done to them. 

To be continued...maybe.

ANALYSIS AND QUESTIONS , FOLLOWING A WEEK OF TESTIMONIES AT BANKRUPTCY TRIAL

 Posted by frenchie.

Preamble

The Cathedral Basilica of Agana, was rebuild after two destruction in a row, caused first by the Japanese invasion and subsequent fighting to regain control from them, the other from natural disaster which befall our beautiful island from time to time.

On both occasions the people of Guam, and the strong Catholic community which has been the backbone of its civil society, found the courage and determination to rebuild bigger and better.

The latest major catastrophic event to strike the Guam Catholic Community was the decades of corrupt and devious leadership of Anthony Apuron, which led waste to the moral fiber of our Church, and allowed for the development and expansion of weak and corrupt civil leaders, who unlike their forefathers have lost almost all moral bearings in how they handle themselves and the trust of people who put them in office. This is what  some have called, a perfect storm.

This is nothing new. World History is replete with examples of decadent moral teachers who have led their community down the path of personal weakness, questioning of their system of values, loss of self-respect, and contempt for the other....

The latest plandemic was the revelation of the many evils that have slowly percolated through our civil system of responsibility or lack thereof. It has revealed how a few manipulative actors, used fear and lies to advance their narrow agenda at the expense of the general good. This should not surprise us Catholics. We have been warned from times immemorial about the fractures that allow for the fumes of evil to envelop us. We are at this cross in the road, where inaction and personal timidity could lead us to very dire consequences. 

After almost a week of testimonies in the Federal Court in Agana, we would like to decrypt what has transpired from these hearings. We shall also pose several uncomfortable questions about the path chosen by the Chancery representatives.

Analysis

Over the last week, which you can follow with our day to day reports, several major facts have been revealed.

First : the previous ruling that was taken in the summer of 2021, by Judge Tydingco-Gatewood, allowed the plaintiffs aka the Committee for the Creditors, to include parishes and school assets in their quest for a financial settlement.

The hearings are taking place to identify the validity of some of the statements that were brought forth by the defense team for the Archdiocese.

What we have observed is the slow, grinding painful teeth of questioning of the people who filed written declarations in favor of their parish and/or school.

Before the trial the main hammer for the creditors, lawyers from the large legal firm of Stinson LLP based in Minneapolis MN had successfully argued that elements of the Canon Law of the Catholic Church were not allowed to be presented.

The main strategy of these lawyers is to question each individual, in order to strike out  all or part of their declarations. In order to achieve said results they have a very boring, and crude, but highly efficient method.

Establish the credential of the interviewee, establish that they are the author of the statement, try to take out part of their testimony as hearsay, for not being first hand personal knowledge. Finally trying to impeach the whole statement based on the testimony given

The defense strategy is to apparently redirect the conversation to the original narrative, and try to weasel in some factors they were not able to include earlier .

The plaintiffs' attorneys have been very aggressive and contentious, as they should be. Objecting to many of the questions by the defense. The result being that even if they end up being overruled by the Judge, it gives an impression that the defendants are trying to hide facts.

Overall results so far:

We are coming into the last day of testimony, before both parties are allowed to present their closing arguments to the Judge, apparently on Monday morning at 9.00am.

The testimonies so far have been laborious. Some witnesses have been better at presenting their story than others. This is not surprising, if you consider the diversity of people called.

The attorneys for the "creditors" have been diligent, aggressive and for the most part successful in their endeavor. They have avoided some of the cultural mistakes from the first day of testimony, and have navigated around these obstacles quite well.

The attorneys for the defense, looked like deer in the headlights on the first day. They were fully unprepared for the first cross examination. This was addressed the following days. Mr Andersen doing a very effective cross examination with the Archdiocese CFO Josephine Villanueva (who had several flippant moment) Yet they were totally passive regarding the repeated infringements of the plaintiffs' attorney into the Canon law domain, never calling an objection to the scandalous use by both attorneys of liturgical approach into a civil matter. An issue that they had the judge ruled on their favor.

The attorneys for the creditors consistently using the phrase "one body" which is of the canonical domain, as a civil argument. This should have been raised as an issue from the get go, and it was not at any time in the process. How can we justify paying six lawyers to be so passive in court?

Today the last witnesses shall be called, to include Archbishop Byrnes, who still appear to be very tired  and distracted.

 

Overall things are not looking up for the defense, their lackluster performance, their choice of strategy have given the plaintiffs a strong opportunity to add properties that were in existence well before the Archdiocese incorporated itself in the mid 1970s. Yet they also never made that argument to the court.

It really does not look like the millions of dollars spent to defend the Archdiocese from excessive demands have not been money well spent.

TANQUAM NON FUERIT - Part 3: "I THOUGHT THEY LIKED IT."

Per Parts 1 and 2 of this series, blaming "The World," and in this case, "The Sexual Revolution," for the latest installment of clergy perversions (it's definitely not the first time - see Book of Gomorrah), is not just wrong, it lays bare the real problem.

And here it is: 

The refusal of our Church leadership to own the fact that "As the Church goes, so goes the World," ... and NOT the other way around. 

And this fact ("As the Church goes...") is never clearer than in the facts which led up to the so-called "Sexual Revolution" - which our Church leadership apparently now wants to blame!!

Long before Woodstock (1969), and "The World's" orgasmic lust for "The Pill" - which essentially precipitated the sexual nirvana of sex without babies (i.e. consequences) - our Church (specifically Pope John 23) opened the Box (Pandora's) which led to both Woodstock and the Western World's rabid rush to contracept and abort itself out of existence.

In 1963, the now sainted Pope established The Pontifical Commission on Birth Control to examine the question as to whether or not Catholics could morally use The Pill to avoid pregnancy. 

It was an absurd proposition to begin with. 

The Church could never change GOD's design for the union of the procreative act with its procreative ends.

But it was the 1960's, and it appears Papa John wanted to show that...well, at least he "cared."

It's easy to see that John never intended the Commission to go anywhere. He only commissioned six non-theologians as members and separated the Commission from the Council (Vatican II), keeping personal control over it.

However, within weeks of opening both the Council and the Commission, something happened that John didn't plan on.

HE DIED. 

His successor, Paul VI, had the opportunity to close what should have never been opened. But it appears Paul (now also sainted) was even more eager to show the 1960's that he too "cared."

Instead of shutting down the investigation into a question that could only have one answer:

NO!

Paul expanded the Commission membership from the original 6 members to 72!, and included several secular members who cared little about THE CHURCH.

As you might imagine, the then-progressives in The Church went wild with glee. Paul's continuance  and sudden exponential expansion of the Commission could only mean one thing:

Catholics would soon copulate without the "threat" of babies,  just like everybody else! 

In fact, Paul all but sealed the deal, when, upon expanding the Commission in 1964, he said THIS:

"We say frankly that so far we do not have sufficient reason to consider the norms given by Pope Pius XII on this matter [of contraception] as out of date and therefore as not binding. They must be considered as valid, at least until We feel obliged in conscience to change them." - Paul VI Acta apostolicae sedis (AAS) 56 (1964) 588-59, 1964 address to the special papal commission on the use of contraceptives.

Anyone familiar with "pope-speak" will recognize that Paul isn't just giving his personal opinion (as Francis is so prone to do on airplanes), Paul is using the Papal "We," meaning, he is speaking magisterially, doctrinally, even dogmatically, and in the name of The Church. 

Amazingly, Paul cast his comments as a response to a previous Pope (Pius 12), and then lets us know that said "opinion" is subject to change if "We" (the papal We) feel obliged in conscience to change them." 

Read that again:

"until We feel obliged in conscience to change them." 

That one phrase opened the door for Catholics to, "in conscience," contracept, abort, divorce, engage in fornication and homosexual sex, vote for pro-abortion polices and politicians (i.e. the Kennedy's) and ultimately, for the Church's own priests and bishops, to rape and molest trusting young boys (and some girls) at will, in the name of "conscience" and "born that way." 

The now-dead, "Mass-Molester" (literally) of the Archdiocese of Agana, Fr. Louis Brouillard, even testified in a deposition:

"At that time, I did believe that the boys enjoyed the sexual contact and I also had gratification as well," 

Brouillard said in his affidavit. 

I.E. "IF IT FEELS GOOD, DO IT." 

Paul 6 even further cemented the idea that Catholics could make up their own mind about contraception in the very document he wrote to refute it: Humane Vitae:

6. However, the conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain, dispensing Us from the duty of examining personally this serious question. This was all the more necessary because, within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed, and especially because certain approaches and criteria for a solution to this question had emerged which were at variance with the moral doctrine on marriage constantly taught by the magisterium of the Church.

Read that highlighted part again. 

Paul tells the Universal Church that the only reason what has always been "intrinsically evil" must remain "intrinsically evil" is due to the lack of a "complete agreement" (i.e. a unanimous vote) by something called a "commission."  

Well it was almost unanimous. Only 7 member of the 72 dissented. The majority voted in favor of lifting the Church's "ban" on birth control.

Paul tried to put the horses back in the barn on July 29, 1968, the date he promulgated Humanae Vitae. 

Woodstock would begin on August 15, 1969. 

No. It ain't the "sexual revolution...:

And NOTHING will change until we, the LAITY...call our leadership to account. And Guam has a good beginning.

CONTINUED

CLERICALISM? .

From a culture of silence to cover-ups: How Guam ended up with 280 clergy sex abuse claims

A 9-year-old boy confided in his grandmother on several occasions that the parish priest was sexually abusing him.

The grandmother spanked the boy, identified in court documents only by C.B.D. to protect his privacy. She lectured him that the priest was "God's representative and not capable of such actions."

CONTINUED

PDN: "Capuchins...more Guam sex abuse claims"

Many Catholics on Guam want to grant an exception to the Capuchins. "We have an 'Capuchin' parish," they say. But they forget. Apuron was a Capuchin. And he learned his filthy trade early. And he was NOT ALONE. 


Capuchins, Boy Scouts offer confidential amounts to settle more Guam sex abuse claims

Capuchin Franciscans and the Boy Scouts of America offered confidential amounts to settle additional Guam clergy sex abuse claims, which are still subject to court approval. CONTINUED

ARCHDIOCESE SEEKING BANKRUPTCY REORGANIZATION

Guam Daily Post
Mindy Aguon, November 7, 2018

The Archdiocese of Agana is seeking bankruptcy reorganization as it faces more than 180 claims of sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated primarily by certain former Catholic priests on Guam.

The move will allow the archdiocese to maintain normal operations while also establishing a process to sell some of its assets so that money will be distributed equitably to the victims and survivors of clergy sex abuse, who filed lawsuits on Guam, as well as other creditors. CONTINUED

THE COMING STORM

There's a storm coming.  Not to Guam, but to New Jersey, the home of the nation's first Redemptoris Mater Seminary and to many of Cardinal McCarrick's shenanigans.  From NorthJersey.com:

New Jersey attorney general to investigate sex-abuse allegations among Catholic clergy

New Jersey will investigate allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, following a report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania that found more than 1,000 victims there over 70 years.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said he's forming his own task force, which could use subpoenas and other investigative methods to uncover evidence that it would present to a state grand jury. The task force is to look into allegations of abuse as well as attempts to cover up incidents, Grewal's office said in a news release.  Read more.

---

Meanwhile, Pope Francis tells us in his homilies that "truth is silent" and that his accusers are "wild dogs".

Maybe New Jersey Attorney General Grewal will find out, as will his peers in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Illinois, New York, Nebraska, and Missouri.

ARCHBISHOP BYRNES: 'DRIVE OUT EVIL BY THE POWER OF GOOD'

ILLINOIS AG LAUNCHES AN INVESTIGATION

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
(Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

Following on the heels of the scathing Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced she was contacting the six dioceses of the Catholic Church in Illinois requesting to review all records relating to sexual assault and abuse.

Madigan, by the way, is the sister-in-law of our own Archbishop Michael Byrnes.   Church Militant reports:

"Madigan is married to Pat Byrnes, brother to Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Michael Byrnes, sent to Guam to replace Abp. Anthony Apuron, who was removed in 2016 over allegations of homosexual assault of altar boys."

PDN: Expert: Apuron verdict tied to child sexual abuse charges

Expert: Apuron verdict tied to child sexual abuse charges

Vincent P. Pereda, who's also a licensed mental health counselor with specialty in evaluating and counseling sex offenders, believes the victims' disclosures were "very strong and they were credible."

FULL STORY

SKELETONS?

On December 3, 2013, I wrote the following post, but chose not to publish it. 
In a comment to the post CHANCERY VS ROHR: TWO STORIES, Anonymous gives some rather lurid details regarding the activities of a certain Father Louis Brouillard. 

The name caught my attention because the priest was recently mentioned in the U Matuna, (here and here) recognizing him on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of San Isidro Parish as its first pastor. 

The U Matuna, in the past at least, has not been hesitant about publishing stories about clerical sex abuse in other places. I'll leave it at that…for now. 

NOT GOOD, RYAN. NOT GOOD.

Ryan A. MacDonald has left a new comment on your post "FR. GORDON MACRAE: "On the Island of Guam, Is the ...": 

Nowhere in Father MacRae's post did he suggest that all accusers are lying. He said that efforts must be made to distinguish the real from the fraudulent when large amounts of money change hands. Who could disagree with this? Those who do simply raise a cloud of suspicion above their own points of view. As for MacRae himself, this has been written about extensively. The Wall Street Journal thoroughly investigated claims against him and declared them to be fraudulent. I have research this case extensively, so before another stone is cast, you might consider some of my results documented and itemized here: http://araminthethicket.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-father-gordon-j-macrae-story.html 

Dear Ryan, 

HERE'S TO MUD IN OUR EYES

posted by Jose M.

Last week, an op/ed penned by a Mr. Pat Olivia was published in the Pacific Daily News.

In that essay, he wrote (emphasis mine):

I understand members of both esteemed organizations [CCOG & LFM] want retribution for those who may have done wrong. But do they realize that each time they picket and each time they speak up in the media or are seen out in public as a group, they are nourishing that same division in our church that they themselves are praying to heal? They drag the face of our Catholic Church — the whole church — in the mud in the eyes of everyone, even in front of the Protestant churches and their members.

I won't be writing a seething retort in this post (Although I did respond to him on the comment section of the page of said op/ed - see link above) but I am reminded of John 9: 6-7 and offer this:

Our Church has been tainted by the heinous sins of those clergy who not only engaged in sexually abusing innocent youth in their care, but also systematically hid known abuse by shuffling these priest around, suppressing any reports of abuse, and intimidating anyone who dared expose the molestation and rapes.

THUS WE MARCH ON

posted by Jose M.

All too familiar to us.

Wednesday 1 March 2017 14.33 GMT 

'It is devastating': abuse survivor quits Vatican child protection body 

Resignation of Marie Collins, commission’s last remaining member who had suffered sexual abuse, is a setback for Pope Francis 

A prominent survivor of clerical sex abuse has resigned from a special Vatican commission that was created by Pope Francis to tackle the problem, saying the church’s most senior clerics continue to put “other concerns” before the safety of children and vulnerable adults.

. . . . .  

Collins said one of the reasons she decided to resign was the Vatican’s failure to establish a tribunal recommended by the commission to hold negligent bishops to account when they ignored reports of abuse.

Thus, we march on . . .

SAIPAN TRIBUNE: SUIT FILED VS BISHOP CAMACHO

Sex abuse suit filed vs Bishop Camacho

A Guam resident filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against bishop emeritus Tomas A. Camacho yesterday regarding allegations that date back several decades ago, making Camacho the first clergy member from the CNMI to be embroiled in a controversy that has hounded the Roman Catholic Church. CONTINUED

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