On Priests and Imams

Here’s what it’s come to: the banner headline in today’s printed version of El Nuevo Día quotes the Secretary of Justice saying, Quedan protegidos los pederastas (Pederasts Remain Protected).

And here’s what’s worse…

My reaction?

That’s news?

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has decided to cave in to the Catholic Church, specifically the diocese of Arecibo, and allow the church to withhold documents requested by the Justice Department related to abusive priests. Why? Because some of the victims chose to tell the church, and all that communication is “confidential.”

Here’s what happened, or at least what I presume happened: some kids got abused, walked around wounded for months or years, and finally got the courage to go to the church and complain. Not surprising, because listening for fifteen minutes to the morning radio shows in Puerto Rico will tell you exactly what you don’t want to have happen to you. And that’s being the topic of the day.

If you know anything about the dynamics of sexual abuse, you’ll know that the victim, paradoxically, usually feels responsible or guilty for his or her own abuse, and that it takes a level of maturity not often seen in kids to have the strength to confront the adult world, especially when that adult world is wearing a Roman collar. So the likelihood is that most of the victims were kids, and most of the victims coming forward were young adults who reported abuse years after it happened.

So the Supreme Court has ruled that a lower court judge has to look at all the documents, determine if the complainant is an adult, and then ask the person if he / she wants the documents released to Justice.

Guys? We’re talking about crimes here.

However, so loopy is our need to “protect” religious freedom, covering up abusive priests may be perfectly legal; here’s Wikipedia on the topic:

A communication is "confidential" if made privately and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.

Yeah? So if I sit in an office and tell the bishop that the parish priest had his hand on my crotch four years ago, that’s confidential?

Yup, and that’s why we have seven priests in Arecibo who have been defrocked, and who are all walking around, or perhaps lurking outside school playgrounds, reenacting all those lurid 1950’s educational films. And does anybody think out there that those priests got defrocked for something that wasn’t illegal?

It doesn’t stop surprising me, the stuff that religious people get themselves up to, because who knew that the largest chain of charter schools is run—maybe—by Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic Imam from Turkey, now living in the Poconos?

Here’s what the website for the chain’s Texas branch has to say:

Our mission at Harmony is to prepare each student for higher education by providing a safe, caring, and collaborative atmosphere featuring a quality, student-centered educational program with a strong emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. 

In Numbers:

            40 Campuses (24 T-STEM schools) 

            25,000 Students

            2,276 Faculty and Staff

            Student-to-Teacher Ratio of 14-to-1

            100 percent Graduation Rate for Seniors

            100 percent College Acceptance Rate

Umm… 100% college acceptance? 100% graduation rate?

Well, if true, that would account for the waiting list of some 30,000 kids—more kids than are currently enrolled in the system. And in the video below, the kids certainly look happy, and the school is a knockout. True, most of the teachers are Turkish, and some of them are substantially less fluent in English than I am in Spanish. Which is odd, since some of them are teaching…English.

And that 100% Graduation Rate? Well, here’s one less-than-gruntled account by a teacher fired by a Gülen school:

When it came time for OATs, as they were called then, testing was a disaster. Several Turkish men arrived and pulled “at risk” students from their classrooms, taking them to the moldy rooms in small groups, despite the lack of written documentation allowing accommodations. The week after testing, I went to school on a Saturday morning in order to keep ahead of my planning, and I saw a dozen Turkish men sitting in a classroom with stacks of OATs on their desks. The current principal brought a cup of tea and a plate of cookies to me while I worked alone in my classroom. He said that the men were simply darkening in the answers for students who wrote too lightly.

Right—we all know that kids have an instinctive bent for delicacy, which undoubtedly accounted for those faint markings….

And there have been questions, as well, about how accountable these schools are. Reports have surfaced that at least the Turkish teachers have to kickback up to forty percent of their salary to the Gülen movement. Oh, and what about the question of immigration? Is there really such a shortage of American teachers?  And do these “teachers” have any formal training?

That said, it’s also true that, bar having done if for twenty plus years, I’m completely untrained too, and that didn’t stop me from fooling a passel of students and the world’s largest company into thinking I knew what I was doing.

Nor is Gülen, apparently, the most virulent of imams. Because his message was / is that the Muslim world doesn’t need more mosques and madrasas, but rather schools that focus on the sciences and math. And though virtually a recluse, his movement carries such weight that, in Turkey at least, his opponents fear that he may be planning a coup. 

And the schools—are they really connected to Gülen? They—some of them—say no, others say yes. Why the confusion, or the secrecy?

Well, would you want to be a Muslim in America? And here, I have to say that however radicalized I might be as an atheist, I’d welcome an imam like Gülen who—if true—is a moderate and condemns extreme forms of Islam. We need these guys….

And the charter schools? With their reports of not accepting some students, of kicking out students who don’t perform, of shifting kids around? That’s the negative stuff. But what about all those kids you see in videos who are solemnly swearing that school is fun, learning is cool, going to school is a joy?

Don’t know. But this I do know: if I were a parent, I’d certainly check out the charter schools in my area….

Lands I'll Never See

OK—this is NOT what I’m going to talk about. I mean, why go on and on about the diocese of Arecibo, which has just been told by judge Ángel Pagán Ocasio that it has fifteen days to hand over the documents about its seven pederast priests and (minimally) twenty victims.

‘It’s old, Marc’ I tell myself. For the last thirty years (or thirty decades?) it’s been the same story. And even though the dioceses of San Juan, Mayagüez, and Caguas have handed over the documents, the bishop of Arecibo is standing firm. He’s not gonna hand them over. The Catholic Church, you see, first has to abuse these kids, and then it turns around and “protects” their privacy.

“I really think men should be barred from running religions,” I told Pablo. It was hardly a felicitous choice, since Pablo is a minister. But he’s gay, so he got it….

I told him because I had told myself—this ranting has got to stop. First you became obsessed with Joyce DiDonato, now it’s the Catholic Church. And besides, the Catholic Church is as open as a Kansas prairie compared to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If memory serves, the video I watched last weekend claims that the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization has a database of 23, 720 reports of sexual abuse of minors, And, like you-know-what, their policy is to report to the Vati…sorry, that’s their headquarters in Brooklyn. Then, the pastor-or-elder-or-whatever is told to handle it internally. But guess what? Church policy requires that for anything to be settled, there must be two—hey, Marc, where’s that famous flare for punctuation?—TWO witnesses.

See what I mean about men in religion?

I knew they were crazy—how crazy I didn’t know. Want an example? Well, Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the denomination, had the really bad habit of announcing the end of the world (added value, Readers: think twice about this when establishing your religion…). He did it several times, and farmers did crazy things like not planting their fields—since why bother? Oh, and some people sold their homes.

So it was all a bit embarrassing when the deadlines passed, but not a problem, because Russell—who must have been quick of feet—came up with an explanation. Jesus had come back—but invisibly! And you know what? It may have been true, because, look—it’s just little me, sitting in a café in Old San Juan. And there are 7.9 million people out there—including two in the plaza right now standing next to a cardboard placard saying “What does the Bible REALLY say?”—who completely believe in the visible return of our savior. So the odds are that Jesus really did come back…

What else do these guys believe?

Well, it may be that my brain was fogged after reading the word—and dimly remembering its meaning—eschatology. (And why am I reminded of Dorothy Parker, just now, who, when asked to use horticulture in a sentence, came up with “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think?”) At any rate, I read the paragraph below three times, and then went off to eat a snicker doodle, just to get the blood sugar up a bit. And guess what? I still don’t get it. For anyone out there who really needs to know, here it is:

A central teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses is that the current world era, or "system of things", entered the "last days" in 1914 and faces imminent destruction through intervention by God and Jesus Christ, leading to deliverance for those who worship God acceptably.[191] They consider all other present-day religions to be false, identifying them with "Babylon the Great", or the "harlot", of Revelation 17,[192] and believe that they will soon be destroyed by the United Nations, which they believe is represented in scripture by the scarlet-colored wild beast of Revelation chapter 17. This development will mark the beginning of the "great tribulation".[193] Satan will subsequently attack Jehovah's Witnesses, an action that will prompt God to begin the war of Armageddon, during which all forms of government and all people not counted as Christ's "sheep", or true followers, will be destroyed. After Armageddon, God will extend his heavenly kingdom to include earth, which will be transformed into a paradise similar to the Garden of Eden.[194] After Armageddon, most of those who had died before God's intervention will gradually be resurrected during "judgment day" lasting for one thousand years. This judgment will be based on their actions after resurrection rather than past deeds. At the end of the thousand years, a final test will take place when Satan is released to mislead perfect mankind. Those who fail will be destroyed, along with Satan and his demons. The end result will be a fully tested, glorified human race. Christ will then hand all authority back to God. 

All I can think is that God—oooops, that’s Jehovah, sorry about that—put these people on earth to make the Mormons look mainstream….

OK—I’ll tell you what you already may know: the JWs prohibit blood transfusions, saluting the flag, joining the armed forces, celebrating birthdays and holidays. In addition, the religion is strongly patriarchal and conservative. Men lead and women are submissive, though men, according to Wikipedia, are encouraged to listen to their wives’ and children’s thoughts—thanks guys!

What if someone goes off the track?

Well, that can be a problem—since, in the first place, contact with any other religion is strongly discouraged. But if it’s really bad, the sinner is disfellowshipped (ah, computer, at last we agree!) and then shunned. So that means your family can talk to you, and any business obligations (especially those with a contract involved) can be done—but that’s it. Oh, and elders can invite you to repent and thus be reinstated (something I was hoping would be called refellowshipped, but no luck).

So the woman in the video of last weekend endured physical and sexual abuse, as did her children, and what was the advice? Go home, be more submissive, and pray harder.

It was, in short, a sort of Sophie’s choice: she could give up everything and save her kids, or she could throw her kids to the wolves, or rather, the wolf. Guess what she chose?

I told myself—I have to step back. This is my sanity, here. No more rants, Marc!

So consider the case of Wells Cunningham, whom YouTube—adept at tracking my history—suggested I watch. Well, I knew the Handel-Halvorsen duo, but what was the story with the man, Halvorsen himself? Is it right to have spent so much time with the JWs, and to know nothing about Johan Halvorsen, 1864 to 1935? Well, here he is, since cute guys have a special place in this blog:

Halvorsen was a Norwegian violinist, conductor and composer of—among other things—incidental music for plays. Oh, and he married Grieg’s—yes, that Grieg—niece. And he’s known for just a few pieces, of which the passacaglia below is one. And another one? The Entry March of the Boyars, which you can find on YouTube, and to which you can listen to the first minute and then safely go off to do something else. Don’t worry, you won’t have missed anything….

And Wells Cunningham, the cellist? Wait—not only is he an amazing cellist, but he also plays the violin—as he does in the clip below—the piano and the guitar. And damn, who is he, and where did he get that amazing technique? With a nod to Malcolm Gladwell, this guy got to 10,000 hours and then decided to do it all over again.

Well, he’s a graduate of the University of Miami and Eastman School of Music, and the principal cellist of the New World Symphony—or perhaps used to be. And he’s done work with popular artists like Jennifer López and Marc Anthony.   

So I listened to the Handel-Halvorsen, and then I listened to Cunningham play the 24^th caprice of Paganini, and was impressed enough to send myself the clip. It arrived in my inbox with the notation: this message has no content.

Absolutely true, I thought, the Paganini certainly doesn’t have any content, so why bother? So I turned to the second symphony of Halvorsen—which actually wasn’t too bad.

There are lands I’ll never get to, and that’s all right, I decided. I’ll never have Cunningham’s technique, for example. I’ll never have faith, or—perhaps—follow a spiritual path. But a nice, Nordic symphony?

Ah, I can go there!

Did an Employee of the Vatican Commit Crimes on US Territory?

Well, let’s start with two caveats. First, it may be that reality—subjected to the blazing light and sopping humidity of the tropics—gets a little warped. In fact, I once hesitantly breathed this theory to Harry, a native of Old San Juan.

“Of course,” he cried, and told me the following story:

A gringo comes to oversee a factory in a small mountain town. The factory is running well, but the workers tend to call in sick a day or two every week. What was wrong? Clearly, the workers were unhappy: the gringo sought to increase morale by giving them higher pay. The result? The workers now called in sick three times a week!

“They weren’t interested in money,” said Harry, “they just wanted enough for their rice and beans and a caneca (flask) of rum. So when they got paid more, they didn’t have to work as much. See?”

It makes total sense, really—it’s just a different way of thinking. And so after living here for over twenty years, and after having written well-past-exhaustively on the topic of priestly abuse, who’s to say that my own sense of reality isn’t a bit warped? 

Second caveat: being a blogger tends to lead to a sort of conspiracy mindset. You read a lot about something, and then go on to the next thing, and then—weeks or months later—the first thing crops up again. You’ve now forgotten most of what you read, which makes it easy to believe that Machiavellian forces are at work.

So now—at long last—let me tell you what I remember.

A lawyer in Minneapolis, Jeff Anderson, has been an early and rigorous fighter for justice for the victims of clerical abuse. And he has had to fight long and hard to get a few dioceses to reveal their internal records. Chicago, for example, released in January of this year a collection of over 6000 documents that exposed what was happening internally in the diocese.

That’s great, but it’s only half the story. Yes, if within the diocese’s records there are Vatican letters, you can get a glimpse of what is going on in the Vatican. But it frequently is the blandest, most opaque glimpse. So the logical thing to do would be to go to court and ask for the court to tell the Vatican to hand over its records. Especially logical since the diocese is required to report all cases of clerical abuse to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) which used to be the Holy Office, and which—more colorfully and forcefully—started out as the Inquisition.

Thus, local bishops were writing off to Ratzinger and the CDF, and guess what? God’s time is infinitely, majestically, gloriously… slow. So the bishops waited and waited, often for years at a time. In the meantime, the bishops were stuck with seriously sick priests; you can—almost—understand why they were shuffling them around to new victims in different parishes. What else could they do?

So what happened when lawyers went to court to ask the court to force the Vatican to reveal its records? Ah, cried the Vatican, but those bishops aren’t our employees! They are paid by the diocese, not the Vatican!

For this, the word jesuitry was made.

Hard shift to the southeast, specifically Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico—once defined by the US Supreme Court as not being the United States but pertaining to the United States (anybody up there get that? Drop me a line, if you do…)—falls within US jurisdiction.

And things have been a little strange in Arecibo. For one thing, six priests have been expelled in three years, and our local newspaper, El Nuevo Día, reports that there have been 20 cases of priestly abuse, as well as a federal lawsuit brought by one of the victims. Here’s what The New Day has to say in today’s electronic edition:

Fuentes de El Nuevo Día indicaron que agentes de ICE-HSI se acercaron al secretario interino de Justicia, César Miranda, y al fiscal general José Capó para colaborar e intercambiar información con la investigación que comenzó el gobierno estatal la semana pasada y así ellos también poder abarcar ángulos de jurisdicción federal.

“Hay mucho interés en indagar sobre los detalles de abuso sexual de menores por parte de sacerdotes y todo lo que ha salido publicado provoca que haya que actuar de inmediato”, dijo una fuente federal.

(“Sources for El Nuevo Día indicated that agents of IE-HIS approached the interim Secretary of Justice, César Miranda, and the Attorney General José Capó to collaborate and exchange information with the investigation which the state government began last week and thus to be able to also cover any angles that are of federal jurisdiction.

‘There’s a lot of interest in investigating the details of sexual abuse of minors on the part of priests, and everything that has come out publically makes it necessary to act immediately,’ said a federal source.”)

Now then, here the waters turn murky, as the runoff of politics surges into the pond.

The highest Catholic official on the island, Archbishop of San Juan Roberto González Nieves, is a strong proponent of independence and rubbed it a little too hard into people’s noses. So the statehooders had him investigated for four things, one of which was covering up abusive priests. And thus, in an investigation that lasted years, the papal nuncio—the Pope’s own ambassador and yes, a Vatican official—came to Puerto Rico, and were did he stay? Not in San Juan, but in…

…Arecibo.

The papal nuncio for the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico was Jozef Wesolowski, and where is he now? Apparently in the Vatican, where he fled—or was recalled—just before investigative news series was about to show him walking the malecón of Santo Domingo in search of something other than lovely seascapes.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have in some accounts asked for extradition: the Vatican has no extradition policy and Wesolowski, as a diplomat, enjoys immunity. But there are reports that Wesolowski didn’t behave much better in Puerto Rico than he did in Santo Domingo. Here’s what the Dominican press said about Wesolowski in Puerto Rico:

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 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 witnesses’ statements broadcast by Burgos in his program Código Calle on channel 29 in Santiago, Wesolowski is accused in Puerto Rico of covering up pederast priests.

Faithful Catholics protested to Puerto Rican bishop Iñaki (former bishop of Arecibo) and in front of Wesolowski himself, but never received the support they expected.

A seminary was closed, but everything was kept silent, and the bishop Iñaqi was promoted, instead of sanctioned.”)

Remember what I said about reality being different in the sun-drench vibrant air of the tropics? We seem to have Wesolowski—a man now accused of pederasty—investigating the archbishop of San Juan for covering up…pederasty. Who’s guilty of what? I sure don’t know.

And am I wrong in thinking that…

…a Vatican official may have committed crimes in the United States? This case is unique, the case we’ve been waiting for. At long last, a US court has the right to petition the Vatican to release its records, its internal documents, its policies and directives to bishops. At last, we can throw open the doors of the Vatican and take a look inside.

Am I the only one who sees that?