Pop Quiz, Boys and Girls

Pop quiz, boys and girls. Get out your No. 2 pencils and get to work!

1.     The statement below is _______ true / ________false

The Vatican said Friday that Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in recent days, and sentenced to the harshest penalty possible against a cleric: laicization, meaning he can no longer perform priestly duties or present himself as a priest.

If you answered “true,” you got a zero on the quiz, but guess what? You’re also not alone. Here’s a sweet little description of “the harshest penalty possible against a cleric:”

Poor prisoners are called "ranas" or frogs. They sleep on the floor with mice and vermin around them. They have no private rooms or baths and they must use latrine-type holes in the jail patio and openly evacuate. These prisoners all shower together and fight for the last drop of water, while the goleta owners enjoy private baths. Every morning at about 9am there is a "conteo" or prisoner count where they are asked to walk out of the cells into the hallway to be counted.

Wesolowski was the papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and had the habit of strolling, beer in hand, the malecón and contracting the local boys to do you-know-what. And he was so open about it that the local news picked up on the story. Before he could be investigated and /or arrested, however, the archbishop of Santo Domingo went off to tell the pope that they had a little problem. The pope did what they always do: refused to turn the pedophile over to the civil authorities. Instead, for the last ten months, Wesolowski has been sitting in the Vatican, where he enjoys—or enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

So Wesolowski has two months to appeal the decision, and then faces a criminal trial in the Vatican. If convicted, he’ll be jailed there, presumably under conditions a bit more humane than the ones in Dominican Republic.

Isn’t it time to say it? The “state” of Vatican City is a joke—it not only is the smallest nation in the world, it also is just 108.7 acres, making it smaller than the average American farm. And I had assumed that the nationhood that everybody accords it was an ancient thing, from the times with the Vatican had real states. Wrong again—it dates from 1929.

OK, you say, so it’s bogus, but who cares? What difference does it make?

Well, for one thing, the Vatican denied the Dominican Republic’s extradition request, on the grounds that Wesolowski was a “citizen of Vatican City,” which has a policy of not extracting people.

There’s more. Allegations have been floating around the Internet that a common dodge for bishops is to give the files on abusive priests to the papal nuncio, since in several dioceses, victims of abuse have successfully sued to have the files made public.

And so Wesolowski may still have diplomatic immunity. What no one is saying is that he allegedly committed crimes, yes, in the Dominican Republic, but also here, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. And since the FBI, reportedly, is looking into the situation of priestly abuse, are they also looking at Wesolowski? Because Wesolowski made frequent trips to Puerto Rico, and stayed in the parish of a now defrocked priest, José Colón Otero. More, the parishioners were doing everything short of standing outside the church with cardboard placards, so desperate were they—the parishioners, not the placards—to get some church official to do something. They wrote to the bishop, then Wesolowski, and finally the Vatican. And what did Wesolowski do? Nothing.

There is something fishy going on in Arecibo. Consider the fact that the current bishop, Daniel Fernández Torres, is being investigated by the FBI for abuse. Oh, and he came out and said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had cleared him of the whole thing. But the lawyer representing the victim? She came out and said the Vatican never talked to her client.

Guys? It’s hard to know which is greater: the arrogance or the shamelessness.

Throw the Bishop in the Slammer

OK, let’s copy and paste from the website childwelfare.gov:

Puerto Rico
P.R. Laws Ann. Tit. 8, § 446(b) (LexisNexis through Dec. 2009)
Any person who has knowledge of or suspects that a minor is a victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect shall report that fact through the hotline of the department, to the Puerto Rico police, or to the local office of the department.

I bring you the above because the bishop of Arecibo, Puerto Rico went to court yesterday, and explained why he has been unable to provide nothing except five pages in response to a subpoena issued last week. And the reason? Well, he has an obligation to protect the confidentiality of the 20 victims, all of whom had chosen to go to the church, not to the civil authorities. Oh, and also, every one of those minors from the years spanning 2011 to the present is now magically an adult. So there was no obligation to report.

And the bishop goes farther, alleging that the state is intruding on the traditional and constitutional separation of church and state. So he’s asking for a preliminary and permanent injunction against the state.

Well, I can tell you all this because The New Day’s headline is shouting Colisión entre la Iglesia y el Estado—and yes, that means exactly what you think. So I plunked down the 54 cents to buy the print version of the paper, which would cover the affair more thoroughly than the electronic version. (For the electronic version, click here.)

What’s interesting about this situation is what people aren’t seeing. Yes, journalistic ethics demand that the church be given the chance to present their case. But why aren’t we asking the following questions?

1.     Why didn’t the bishop of Arecibo follow the Vatican’s protocol on reporting sexual abuse of minors to civil authorities? That protocol was contained in a letter of January of 2011. Here’s a direct quote:

Sexual abuse of minors is not just a canonical delict but also a crime prosecuted by civil law. Although relations with civil authority will differ in various countries, nevertheless it is important to cooperate with such authority within their responsibilities. Specifically, without prejudice to the sacramental internal forum, the prescriptions of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the designated authority should always be followed. This collaboration, moreover, not only concerns cases of abuse committed by clerics, but also those cases which involve religious or lay persons who function in ecclesiastical structures.

2.     Why didn’t the diocese of Arecibo release the names of the six priests who have been removed before the current scandal erupted?

3.     How much, if anything, has been paid to abuse victims in Puerto Rico?

4.     How many abuse victims are there in Puerto Rico?

5.     How many abusive priests have been removed?

6.     Lastly, what about the case of the papal nuncio, Jozef Wesolowski, who traveled to Puerto Rico during his investigation of archbishop Roberto González Nieves? As I quoted in a previous post, a Dominican news report alleges that the nuncio may have covered up priest abuse in the diocese of Arecibo. Here’s the quote:

Según los testimonios difundidos por Burgos, en su programa Código Calle, del canal 29 de Santiago, Wesolowski es acusado en Puerto Rico de encubrir a los sacerdotes pederastas.

Los fieles católicos se quejaron ante el obispo puertorriqueño monseñor Iñaqui [Sic.] y ante el propio Wesolowski, pero no recibieron el apoyo que esperaban.

Un seminario fue cerrado, pero todo se mantiene en silencio, y el obispo Iñaqui [Sic.] fue promovido, en lugar de ser sancionado. 

(“According to testimony of Burgos, in his program Código Calle, on channel 29 of Santiago, Wesolowski is accused in Puerto Rico of covering up pederast priests.

The Catholic faithful complained to bishop Iñaki and to Wesolowski as well, but never received the support they expected.

A seminary was closed, but everything was kept secret, and bishop Iñaki was promoted, instead of being sanctioned.”)

To my knowledge, Wesolowski is the first and only Vatican official who may have committed illegal acts in the United States. Does the Justice Department plan to subpoena the Vatican to determine what part, if any, Wesolowski played in covering up pederast priests?

It can’t be clearer, guys. The six priests who had committed abuse were criminals; the bishop had an obligation to report them. Instead, they were removed silently, and never faced the criminal sanctions they should have faced. Not only must the diocese of Arecibo hand over all their records to the district attorney, but the Department of Justice should be demanding that—at long last—the Vatican hand over all their internal documents as well.

I agree with one assertion that the diocese of Arecibo is claiming. By instigating their own investigation and sanctions of priests who had committed criminal acts, and by failing to notify civil authorities, the church had indeed…

…violated the separation of church and state.

The News Out of Arecibo

News flash—things are getting seriously weird in the Diocese of Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

It all started last year, when a parishioner came forward and said there was some funny business of a sexual nature in the San Martín de Porres. The priest, José Colón Otero, fought the charges nail and teeth, as we say down here, and appeared under the hot Puerto Rican sun in front of his church. What happened a few days later? Somebody vandalized his church.

What happened next? Well, here’s the word from the New Day:

Tras una pesquisa que duró cerca de tres años, El Vaticano emitió un decreto en el que expulsa del sacerdocio al cura de la Diócesis de Arecibo José Colón Otero, eje de denuncias de índole sexual y violaciones al sigilo sacramental que sacudieron la Diócesis de Arecibo y a la parroquia San Martín de Porres.

Con esto, Colón Otero se convirtió en el sexto sacerdote de la Diócesis de Arecibo en ser expulsado por El Vaticano desde el 2011.

(“After an investigation that lasted almost three years, the Vatican issued a decree in which it expelled the priest of the Diocese of Arecibo José Colón Otero, the source of accusations of sexual misconduct and violations of the sacraments which shook the Diocese of Arecibo and the parish of San Martín de Porres.

With this, Colón Otero became the sixth priest in the Diocese of Arecibo to be expelled by the Vatican since 2011.”)

Um—six priests in three years?

Well, Colón Otero isn’t taking it lying down—he has several months to appeal, and he says the Vatican cleared him of the charges of sexual misconduct. Instead, all he did was violate the confidentiality of the confessional. No big deal!

Right, so the island was absorbing all of that yesterday, and woke up to the news that the Vatican is now investigating the bishop of Arecibo, Daniel Fernández Torres, on charges of…the usual. Here is the florid response of the bishop:

Jamás imaginé que las cosas pudieran llegar hasta el punto de la calumnia y de la vil mentira, pero sé que si al mismo Jesucristo lo crucificaron y lo humillaron por ser Él mismo la Verdad, el escarnio es parte de los seguidores de Cristo”, detalló en declaraciones escritas.

(“Never in my life did I imagine that things might arrive to the point of calumny and vile lies like this, but  I know that if even Jesus Christ they crucified and humiliated for being the very Truth, the ridicule is part of the followers of Christ, detailed the bishop in written declarations.”)

So the island scratched its head and thought about that for awhile, and then the news hit at lunchtime: the bishop of a neighboring town, Rubén González of Caguas, has been asked to... well, let him explain:

“En un caso como este, a mí se me ha pedido un servicio... El servicio implica que yo dialogue con unas personas y que hable con unas personas, que dé mi parecer. Pero eso no es hacer una investigación. Estoy en búsqueda de la verdad”, manifestó.

El obispo de Caguas fue cuidadoso en hablar sobre la tarea encomendada por el Vaticano. Se limitaba a exponer que su función es solo “dar un servicio” y no “juzgar el hecho”.

(“In a case such as this, from me they have requested a service… The service implies that I dialogue with various people and talk to various people; that I offer my opinion. But this is not the same as conducting an investigation. I’m only seeking the truth,” he maintained.

The bishop of Caguas was cautious in speaking of the task asked by the Vatican. He limited himself to saying that his function was only to ‘give a service’ and not ‘judge the fact.’”)

Um—we got the bishop of Caguas walking around talking to people and trying to figure out what went down, and that’s not an investigation?

Boys?

Oh, and by the way, where’s the archbishop, who is the highest church official on the island. Isn’t he the bishops’ supervisor, or did they change the hierarchy without letting me know? But no, he too is being a model of discretion:

Ante esta denuncia contra el obispo de Arecibo, el arzobispo de San Juan, Roberto González Nieves, prefirió guardar silencio.

“Desconozco si hay algo oficial”, fue lo primero que señaló el líder de la iglesia católica en la Isla.

Luego, expresó que “de momento, yo prefiero no opinar sobre ese tema”.

(Forget the translation—González denies knowing if there’s anything official and prefers not to comment. Raise your hands, Readers, if you believe that!)

In the movie The Queen, the Tony Blair character says about the Royal Family, “somebody has got to save these people from themselves….”

Exactly!

A Free Pass

“He got a free pass,” said the journalist whose name of course I can’t remember. But I do remember thinking, “wow, so somebody agrees with me.”

Readers of this blog will know—I never wasted much time, or indeed any time, thinking up nice things to say about Joseph Ratzinger, the guy whose one unconventional move was to resign and become Pope Emeritus. But Ratzinger took it on the chin all during his papacy—and however much he kicked and clawed to get there, it must have given him little joy.

Yet the journalist cited above wasn’t talking about Ratzinger, but about John Paul II—and I couldn’t agree more. Because what did he have?

Call it the Ronald Reagan effect—it didn’t matter what he said, he looked the part. In fact, playing president of the United States was Reagan’s biggest role. And John Paul did exactly the same.

“He never listened to anyone—he was always talking,” said the journalist. “He had some 100 speeches, and he went around the world making them. But he never listened to anyone. He was theologically conservative, and he let the curia rule—and nearly ruin—the church. And after doing nothing about the priest abuse scandals, then the whole thing erupted during Benedict’s watch. But it was mostly John Paul’s doing. And the press never challenged John Paul, never questioned why he wasn’t acting more decisively. They idolized him.”

Oh, and speaking of the press—where is our press? Because though I’m not a journalist, I did grow up around them. And so when the news came out that Jozef Wesolowski, the ex papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic now being investigated for sexual abuse of minors, hung out in Arecibo and may have engaged in illicit activities—well, I sat back and expected the press to tackle the story.

What did they do?

They acted as press agents for the Catholic Church. The New York Times, in contrast, asked some difficult questions of the Vatican. Questions like why did the church recall Wesolowski, when in 2010 it established new rules that said that anyone—Vatican employee or a member of the diplomatic corps—accused of sexual abuse would be turned over to the civil authorities in the country in which the abuse took place? Had the Dominican Republic been notified? Yes—by the press, not the church.

Here’s what the Times said:

The Vatican’s own rules for conducting sexual abuse investigations under church law call for cooperation with the civil authorities and reporting abuse allegations to the police where laws require it. Those norms were shaped after an explosion of sexual abuse cases in 2010, when thousands of people came forward in Europe, South America and elsewhere detailing abuse by priests whom church officials had not reported to the police.

To my knowledge, nobody locally picked it up. Why not? Is the Times too difficult to read?

Or what about this tidbit, which I quoted yesterday:

El ex nuncio Josef Wesolowski obstaculizó investigaciones de pederastia en Puerto Rico contra más de una decena de sacerdotes de la diócesis de Arecibo.

So Wesolowski hindered more than a dozen pederast priest cases in the diocese of Arecibo and nobody is going after that?

And is anybody aware that this case is unique because it is the first time a Vatican official may have committed crimes in Puerto Rico? And Puerto Rico, by the way, falls under US jurisdiction. So that means that for the first time, after years of trying, a court can challenge the Vatican directly—instead of whatever diocese the bishop or priest belonged to. And that might lead to a mother lode of information.

Is anybody asking our justice department if they are conducting an investigation of the more-than-dozen cases that Wesolowski may have obstructed? Is our justice department cooperating with the Dominican Republic? Are they considering pressing charges? And by the way, are there any abuse victims out there? What’s their story, and are they considering pressing charges?

Is anybody poking around Arecibo, trying to figure out why the Catholic Church had to close down an entire seminary? Was it that full of gay men?

Or we could ask—what about the rumor that there was a close relationship between Wesolowski and the former bishop of Arecibo, Iñaki Mallona? Oh, and where is the former bishop? Is he still in Puerto Rico? Because an odd thing seems to happen in the Catholic Church—clerics tend to be curiously out of sight. I have just consulted the website Switchboard.com and learned that there is a Marc Newhouse, age 57, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Oh, and I got my number, as I did for five of my friends. But frequently, when I try the same thing for a member of the clergy, I can’t track them down. They are living in rectories or parish houses or retreats or somewhere; they tend not to have phones in their own name, except, of course, for cell phones. So they’re hard to find. 

The New Day, our local paper, has a large staff of reporters. But does it have a religion editor? Most papers do. And on an island where 80% of the population is Catholic, shouldn’t there be at least one reporter who’s on top of issues affecting the church?

Just as John Paul got a free pass, so, in Puerto Rico last week…

…did the Catholic Church.

A Bad Smell Coming Out of Arecibo

I only caught the last three minutes of it, but it was arresting.

José Colón Otero, a Catholic priest from Arecibo, 50 miles west of San Juan, was on page 4 of the printed version of The New Day, our local rag—and no, not in the way he or anyone would want to be. Why? Well, the headline tells the story—Sacudida la Diócesis de Arecibo or Shaken, the Diocese of Arecibo.

Yes, shaken and not stirred. For the diocese has been hit with allegations of covering up abusive priests, persecuting victims who attempted to go public or press for reforms, and attempting to inhibit lay people calling for investigations.

And just now, Colón Otero has walked into the very sunny and even hotter plaza del pueblo to defend his name.

Among other things, one of his detractors, Luis Jaume Andújar, alleges that he saw Colón Otero kiss a seminarian and touch his genitals. Jaume Andújar confronted Colón Otero, and the two ended up in a fight, which landed them in court. So Jaume Andújar was found guilty, and paid fifty bucks rather than apologize to the priest.

Let them come forward, Colón Otero was saying in the plaza just now—I’ve come forward and met the press, let those who have allegations come forward and let’s submit this to an ecclesiastical court.

Well, perhaps one who will come forward is the vicario parroquial José Pío González Garavito—who wrote out a 27-page sworn declaration stating, among other things, that boys stayed overnight in the parish house, and couldn’t look him in the eye the next morning.

There are other allegations—supposedly, an investigation in 2010 resulted in the dismissal of at least four priests, the expulsion of nine seminarians, and the closure of the Jesús Maestro Seminary in Arecibo. In fact, one seminarian, Daniel Collazo Rivera, said that some of the teachers in the seminary were making advances, and others were in established long-term gay relationships. This, he alleges, was known but covered up by the high hierarchy.

And who is that high hierarchy? Well, the former bishop of Arecibo, Iñaki Mallona and an old friend, Josef Wesolowski, the archenemy of the Archbishop of San Juan and the man who is being investigated for various sexual abuses in Santo Domingo, where he was the papal nuncio. And it seems that Wesolowski was a frequent visitor to Arecibo. Both, alleges the seminarian Collazo Rivera, knew about what was going on.

And so did Rome, or rather the Vatican, since he and six other seminarians sent a letter to the Vatican complaining of what was happening in the seminary. They complained of Colón Otero—whom they say was booted out of Spain for kissing a seminarian—and three other priests who were engaging in moral misconduct. Oh, and Collazo Rivera alleged that there is a mafia in the church. Supposedly, he was offered a stipend of $500 monthly plus books to study at another seminary, but declined. Why? He’s lost his faith.

These sentiments—or similar ones—are echoed by Mayra Méndez Toledo, a Catholic lay person who appeared in the electronic version of the New Day holding a binder full of correspondence—supposedly related to these charges. She too alleges that there has been secrecy, cover up, and threats against those speaking up.

In the meantime, the archbishop of San Juan is speaking up, defending the new bishop of Arecibo, Daniel Fernández Torres, and denying that there is any “mafia” in the church. He also let the interesting fact drop that he has dismissed 32 priests in his time in Puerto Rico for various charges, some including sexual improprieties.

Yeah?

I wrote about this issue in May of this year, after happening on a website that listed not 32 but 14 priests accused of abuse in Puerto Rico. So what about the other 18 priests that the Archbishop alleges he has dismissed? What were they doing—using the Holy Host in Satanic rituals?

Colón Otero may be innocent—I hope he is. But whether he is or not—something is smelling very bad under the hot Puerto Rican sun…..    

You're Safe There!

“You’ll never leave Puerto Rico,” said Ilia, my mother-in-law. “You’ll just stay here and laugh at it.”

I decided to take offense.

“My dear madam,” I said, “I would never, as you say, ‘laugh at Puerto Rico.’ Rather, I pay homage to Puerto Rico through laughter. It’s quite a different thing.”

“You love it here,” she said.

“I do. I spent decades finding a country that matched my internal landscape.”

“And that is?”

“A land of absurdity dotted with ridiculous….”

She got the point and we moved on; she’s really a very good mother-in-law.

I thought of the exchange yesterday, when I was busy reading the news about the water park in Arecibo, perhaps the ugliest of our large cities on the island.

The New Day, you see, had found the perfect story for a Monday morning. Do you seriously want to contemplate Syria, the loss of privacy, landslides and death on your way to work, presuming you still have such a thing as a job? Of course not, so the water park was the perfect story.

Now then, Reader, let me show you a lovely photo; a photo that you must clutch in your memory:

Never forget, Reader, the joy of these children, the innocence, the unfettered pleasure of these children, here in the Parque Acuático de Arecibo.

Ooooops, sorry, that’s the Arecibo Water Park.

It’s one of those wonderful things about Puerto Rico, where politics invades everything, language included. When the party favoring commonwealth, our current status, is in power, everything becomes nacional. You get Parques Nacionales, El Equipo Nacional de Puerto Rico—you get the picture. When the party favoring statehood takes over, all of the stuff above becomes territorial. Oh, and of course in English….

And now, sour individuals with their acid tongues are speaking snakes and toads (sapos y culebras) about the Arecibo Water Park! How dare they! What manner of creature could possibly criticize a facility giving such pleasure to children!

The matter of the lack of a permission permit from the Office of the Inspector General of Permits? Pah—a technicality, snorts the mayor of Arecibo, the honorable Carlos Molina, who inaugurated the park last July 15. Besides, they did apply for one, and I can give, any doubting Readers of this blog, the case number: 2013-197731-PUS-44034. Here’s the link—look it up yourself!

Right—got that taken care of! Now let’s get down to the matter of the electricity, which is supplied by 7 generators. Yes, of course they solicited the light company to install the light, but it seems that without that pesky use permit….

And what! You accuse me of stealing the water? Nonsense—the water company itself said that we could just hitch on to the water supply for the Parque Julio Rodríguez Olmo, for which we pay. How low, how dastardly—unleashing on me a swarm of technicalities, when all I was trying to do was to bring a moment’s joy to children!

So rants the mayor, who is stuck with a debt of $500,000 to pay the project contractor (his brother in law, perchance?). And to add insult to injury, now the water company is charging him a fine of $2000 dollars and the permit agency is socking him with a fine of $4200. Outrageous!

Predictably, the opposite party is standing on the high moral ground, looking down contemptuously at this cesspool of devious, underhanded crooks. Here’s what they say:

Ya es hora de que el presidente del PNP diga algo en contra de un líder de su partido que descaradamente se roba el agua y la luz, y engañó a los ciudadanos inaugurando una obra sin permisos”, manifestó Suárez Cáceres en declaraciones escritas.

“Este es el momento para que Pierluisi demuestre si tiene alguna voluntad de combatir la corrupción, o es cómplice de las acciones ilegales de Carlos Molina”, puntualizó.

I won’t, Reader, or rather I can’t. There are some things that can only be said in Spanish—English just won’t do it. Though I will say that descaradamente se roba el agua y la luz does mean shamelessly / brazenly robbing the water and electricity….

Well, the mayor isn’t taking this excrement hurled at him lying down. He points out, very legitimately, that he has a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. Oh, and guess what! He has another one, as well.

Anxious Reader, tranquilize yourself (tranquilícese). The Arecibo Water Park? That park, at which there is water, water, water everywhere, splashing water, flowing water, gushing water? The water park? It does indeed have a permit, an important permit, a necessary permit from…

The Fire Department!

Bijte! (see?)