USA sided with pedophile priests, and soon after, the nation fell Chapter 4
(This chapter will start with "listservs" in 1990s where the first victims on the Internet found each other and realized, "I was not the only one as my local bishop / pastor told me" and started comparing notes. However, I have to dive through some storage boxes to get those early conversations, which I saved on floppy disks.... The end of this chapter is phone conversations and weird experiences I had as I interviewed victims and advocates for stories such as these on CofA12) https://cityofangels12.blogspot.com/2013/07/pedophile-priest-true-crime-series.html
By Kay Ebeling (Not final draft editing in progress)
A deeper injustice reveals itself as patterns emerge in pedophile priest victims' stories.
***
Matt Drudge started his Drudge
Report just blocks from where I lived in Central Hollywood in 2007, when I started
City of Angels Blog, and I thought that was kind of cool. My phone was ringing all
day long in 2008 and I got into conversations so intimate, so passionate, with pedophile priest survivors who found the blog, revealing so much
illicit if not felonious activity by Catholic church hierarchy.
Here is some Dialogue
!!!
The damn church lawyer was supposed
to review certificates of merit and he didn't so the judge stayed the case two
years, two more years.
!!!
Caller: (As he speaks his voice gets faster and more high pitched and I imagine him sweating close to a heart attack) The church claims clerical errors, TYPOS! that happened when they split the L.A. cases in three and someone in Orange County typed the wrong words or numbers and now the orange diocese is claiming “non compliance” and they're filing a motion to dismiss. !
!!!
Another caller: I'm reading to you from this document
I got from my lawyer Katherine Freberg here it is, this: For interrogatories 1
through 8 which seek information regarding other perpetrators within the
archdiocese, the archbishop refused to answer, and cited only objections.” Why the
fuck do they bother, these fucks will never answer a question.
Me: Well at least we can document that they respond to questions
like Mafia guys trained by million dollar lawyers.
Him: They Are!!!
!!!
Another plaintiff on phone: They're
arguing against my case based on the religion clause in the First Amendment, do
you believe that?
!!!
Another plaintiff on phone:Listen to this: INT No. 5: Describe with particularity ALL efforts taken by YOU to identify EMPLOYEES who were sexually attracted to minors.
ANSWER: Responding party objects:
For each accused individual identified describe each report made to any law enforcement agency by YOU RELATING TO alleged or suspected SEXU
 |
| survivor art |
ANSWER: Responding party objects: religion clause, clergy privilege, psychotherapist-patient privilege -blah-blah-blah, describe each report made to any law enforcement agency by any person other than YOU,
Caller and Me at same time: Responding part objects
Caller raging: -re clergy privilege work product. It's like they're taking our First Amendment and using it for their twisted defense of priests raping children
!!!
Another phone conversation:
Caller: Listen to this,
G. Patrick Gordon, Director of Human Resources & Defendant’s counsel
Fresno? What a strange combination. The personnel director is a defense attorney?
Me: Oh I see now, you
get the attorney client and work product claims for protection all at
once. Sounds like something in a Martin
Scorsese movie
Caller: They're already
planning in advance the refuse to turn over personnel files game.
Me: In Fresno the office is The Sensitive Claims Board, hmm.
 |
| Mahony in Court 2007 NYT photo |
Caller: [Reads] Interrogatory
7 and Interrogatory 8 G Patrick Gordon answers No and Not Applicable about any
document ever seen relating to sexual contact with plaintiff and Herdegen.
Me: Yeah I see that, Casey
H. Johnson attorney for defendant Roman Catholic Bishop of Fresno
Caller: [shouting] This is what caused a lot of evidence from even being entered in the March 2009 trial.
!!!
A lawyer who I catch unexpected on his cell, walking from a hearing, shouts at me in my hovel apt: Talk about repressed memory. These “witnesses” have forgotten times they walked in on sodomy, or screams coming heard from a rectory, during periods of time when they lived in close quarters with these perpetrator priest fucks, don't quote me on that.
!!!
Lizzie: Mom, why are you swearing
at your computer screen.
Me: It's this sentence, I can't get the phrase in the right place, oh oops- [My hand twitches making me hit keyboard keys that cut and paste as if the hand is out of my control.]
Me: Shoot, I, oh wow, that works.
[on screen I hit publish and the repaired paragraph appears on City of Angels Blog] hmm. Wow. I'm not imagining this.
Lizzie: What happened?
Me: My angels, they edited it to make it work. I swear, there's some kind of spiritual entity driving this blog, I mean look at the subject matter, it stands to reason...
Lizzie rolls her eyes.
***
Whenever possible, I’d ride the
Metro downtown and attend hearings, then back home I’d be trying to make sense
out of quotes such as this spoken by Donald Steier defense attorney for pedophile
priests:
Steier: [in as arrogant a tone of voice as the line implies] While plaintiffs have made facile arguments in their moving papers regarding their claimed intent to have had the court retain jurisdiction to appoint a referee to disclose the priests’ private files, they utterly failed to take the legally requisite steps to accomplish that goal. Now, with legal sleight of hand that would make a shell-game con-man proud, they seek to finagle this court into making orders that would be entirely ultra vires.
 |
| Steier defending George Neville Rucker 2002 |
As I hit keyboard keys on my home desktop in that East Hollywood
apartment, the news was often playing on another screen nearby, and one afternoon
I heard this clip on CSpan I think, about a RICO settlement concerning catholic
bishops letting priests molest children. So I stopped, opened another Microsoft
Window, and started tapping in what the attorney and plaintiff were saying,
then according to my notes I tried to track them down before publishing and never
heard back here is what I transcribed as the news played their press conference
read the one news article I was able to find in 2024 about this 2025 RICO settlement
against U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. I think as a blogger in a slum in
East Hollywood, I tried to contact attorneys to find out more and then when I didn't
hear from them, I dropped the research. Found yesterday in my emails from 2005:
Newscaster: Hower's attorney, Ivan Abrams, made this statement as he
left the courtroom:
IA: "After years of litigation, opposition, and frustration,
plaintiffs Philip A. Hower and his mother, Meta Hower, settled their
racketeering, RICO, lawsuit against the Dioceses of Tucson, Harrisburg,
Columbus, and others, as well as against a number of prominent bishops,
including Keeler and Kicanas.”
People in the small crowd on screen react audibly, I stop typing a second
as my mouth drops open, and say out loud, RICO is what they use to go after organized
crime. Abrams continues:
"The Roman Catholic Church in North America conducted itself for
years in a pattern of racketeering activity, based upon fraud and obstruction
of justice. The bishops as a group designed their activities to, according to
the lawsuit, to protect the Church from the ramifications of the sexual
perversions and assaults committed by some of its priests.”
[I'm typing as well as I can mouth open amazed at what he’s saying: ]
AI: [rousing up a crowd] Bishops transferred these pervert priests from
diocese to diocese, provided them with stipends, and never turned the known
criminal sex offenders over to the police or civil authorities.
"When these criminals were discovered, according to the lawsuit,
the Church further hid them and all records of their activities.
Whistleblowers, of whom Mr. Hower was allegedly one, were condemned and exiled.’
A reporter calls out, “Does this mean the bishops are guilty?”
Abrams: "The defendants did not admit wrongdoing. That is typical in settlement of a civil lawsuit. Also Mr. Hower was denied ordination because he informed at least two bishops of his observations of illegal activities within the Church.
"He asked me to read this statement to anyone outside court:
Abrams reads= the words of plaintiff Philip Hower:
"We reached a settlement. On what, you may ask? Well, you watched
me grow up from a young boy, to a teenager in love with God and His Church. You
watched me lovingly serve at God's table and minister to his people, both young
and old.
"You watched me fail, and you helped pick me up and learn to try
and see God’s presence in even the meanest of people. You taught me to hope;
that people can change, if they open up their hearts to Jesus.
"You, dear friend, watched as I entered the mysterious world of the
seminary. You wrote to me faithfully and waited for me to visit you on my
breaks and holidays from seminary.
"The world of the Church exploded for me. I learned that bishops
and priests lie, sin, and are in fact all too human. You know that I wanted
them to be on a pedestal, like Padre Pio, Mother Teresa, Gerald Majella,
Elizabeth Ann Seton or John Neumann.
"I settled, dear friends, a legal case calling the bishops, priests
and dioceses of America the Mafia; not only encouraging immoral behavior, but
practicing it themselves.
I dragged my 82-year-old mother through this war; she is heartbroken
with her Church, our Church. You see, dear friend, I stood up against these
wolves in shepherd's clothing both personally and in the press. Mother and I
spent our own money, as no one would contribute to the cause for purification
financially -- only verbally.
"Time after time, she and I went to the lawyer's office, educating
this good Jewish man on the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the
tradition of the Church, and telling him that money was not my objective;
rather, my goal was to obtain the gift of ordination.
"The weeks grew on to months, and then to years. Bishops lied,
twisted and hid behind their lawyers. Finally, it became very clear that the
shepherds were not new to devious and malicious attacks.
"There was no spiritual direction in this endeavor; it was to
protect the patrimony and deviant clergy, bishops and priests, at all cost. Use
all the monies, power and influence --- and call in all of the favors owed
them, at their disposal. Never for a moment did they consider that David was
challenging Goliath. Perhaps they read this story somewhere while beginning
their own journey toward their priestly vocations?
“We agreed to end our lawsuit against them, and to put away our beliefs in
a good shepherd. They offered not my ordination, but money. I was made to
understand that David never had a chance against Goliath in this story. It was to accept what
was offered, regardless of how small the amount, have it as aid for mother in
her twilight and infirm years, and allow God and his saints to carry out the
campaign against the wolves in shepherd's clothing.”
News story about the RICO settlement: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2005_07_12/2005_09_05_Abbott_SettlementReached.htm
!!!
As I typed one day my next door neighbor knocked at my door, which she had never done in 1.5 years we’d lived there. She needed help with her computer and needed it now don’t stop to lock the door. I followed her into her apartment and she sat me in front of her computer turned it on and there was nothing wrong I could see. “No,” she actually pushed me back in the chair as I tried to leave, and clicked around on her monitor, then said see? And I didn't see anything.
Instead from my apartment next door my cat was howling Loud in a way I never heard her before. I took Helga’s hands off my shoulder and as I left her apartment, I saw the feet of a guy running down the stairs; he could have come from my apartment. My cat stood tense outside our door snarling.
Next time I interviewed a pedophile priest survivor on my phone, there was an audible LOUD click click click which made me laugh and say, wow no wonder they call it tapping a phone. Then I'd purposely repeat some shocking detail of one of the crimes, hoping whoever was being paid to listen might reconsider whether he was working for the right side.
-ke
(Work in progress to be continued)
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