Open Letter to Roberto González Nieves

(Note: this post was written several weeks ago. The most recent news is that Archbishop González Nieves is cooperating with the federal and local authorities. However, the diocese of Arecibo—which has been accused of being the “dumping ground” for abusive priests—is still fighting in court the subpoenas that have been issued against it….)
 

When are they going to get it?

What happens if I go out, take a shine to a 13-year old kid on the playground, offer him candy and the coolest tennis shoes (which his mother won’t buy him because she can’t) and then take him home and rape him? Well, the cops do an investigation, there’s a trial, and if convicted, I go to jail.

OK—what happened when a Catholic priest sexually abused a minor? Here’s what the archbishop of San Juan had to say:

“En una investigación preliminar el sacerdote admitió el abuso al entonces menor. Fue suspendido, quedando relevado de sus funciones ministeriales el 7 de septiembre de 2010. El día 30 de diciembre de 2011 el Tribunal Metropolitano culminó la investigación preliminar y el 4 de enero de 2012, el Tribunal Metropolitano remitió el expediente de este asunto a la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, dando cumplimiento al trámite requerido por el orden jurídico canónico”, aceptó González Nieves.

(“In a preliminary investigation, the priest admitted to the abuse of the (then) minor. He was suspended, being relieved of his ministerial duties on the 7^th of September of 2010. On the 30^th of December of 2011, the Metropolitan Tribunal (a church court) culminated its preliminary investigation and on the 4^th of 2012, the Metropolitan Tribunal submitted the file on this matter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, complying with the process of canonic law,” accepted González Nieves.)

Full disclosure: this quote comes from a blog called Cristianos Bíblicos, which attributes it and the whole post to an article in El Nuevo Día. A cursory search in El Nuevo Día’s website revealed no results for the title of the article, Dinero a cambio de silencio; víctima de violencia sexual en la iglesia católica en Puerto Rico.

Another disclaimer: from my reading of the paragraph, it’s not entirely clear whether the victim was a minor at the time she or he made the complaint, though it’s clear that the victim was a minor at the time of the abuse. And that’s important because, as Telemundo assures us,

De igual forma, González Nieves confirmó que la Iglesia no refiere a las Autoridades los casos de sacerdotes pedófilos si las víctimas ya son mayor de edad.   

(“As well, González Nieves confirmed that the church doesn’t refer to the authorities those cases of pedophile priests if the victims are currently of age.”)

OK—so let’s assume that the quote is indeed by González Nieves, the article did appear in El Nuevo Día, and that the victim was of age at the time of making the complaint. So what? The archdiocese has a sexual predator on its hands—one who has confessed to the crime, by the way, and for which it has taken the church over a year to “investigate”—and they don’t go to the cops? And weaseling out by saying that the victim is now of age is—however legal—questionable morally. If the priest abused some kid once, will he do it again? Very likely.

Oh, and remember this quote from my February 13, 2014 post (extracted from 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.

True—it says “a minor.” But look, González—where’s your law degree? How do you know whether the statute of limitations has run out? Shouldn’t you let the District Attorney figure that out?

You know, González, we’re talking about a crime here. We’re talking about a trial, prison time, “rehabilitation.” And what have you done? You’ve completely usurped the civil authorities, taken off your sanctimonious robes, and turned yourself into the cops, the judge and the jury. And so you let a criminal go scot free—since the “priest” is no longer on the island and no longer a priest. I’m not a lawyer, either, González, but you know what I’d call it? Right—obstruction of justice.

Of course, there’s something else I’d call it: aiding and abetting a criminal. And by the way, did you have the perpetrator under 24 / 7 surveillance all that time? And I don’t care whether the victim was currently of age, because, guess what? Relieved or not of his priestly duties, he could well have been screwing little kids all during your yearlong investigation. He probably had more time to do it, in fact.

You know, I’m so frigging tired of the overwhelming, overweening, arrogance of the Catholic Church. I watched a guy, Colm O’Gorman, on YouTube yesterday describe his abuse at the hands of an Irish priest; I heard the story of how the priest made the fourteen-year old kid feel that it was his fault. I heard the story of how the kid left home before he was 18, and landed on the streets of Dublin: it was better than the abuse at home. And he pulled himself together, went on to make a good career, have a life. No thanks to your church, González.

So some guy on your payroll rapes a kid and you take off his collar and buy him a one-way ticket to somewhere. News flash, González:

The guy—very likely—is still raping kids out there.

Sleeping well these days, González?

Dutch Justice Redux

OK—I have email evidence that at 1:40 AM, I was busy occupying whatever mind I had at that time with the burning question: Was Prince Claus of the Netherlands gay, and if so, was he raping boys in the underground sex cellars of the queen’s personal lawyer, Frits Salomonson. Here’s a jarring excerpt:

I was brought to Salomonson in a black car. His house is decorated with lots of marble details. There was an enormous living room. On the right, a stairway down into the cellars. Leather hats, whips, chains, all that sort of things would hang on the walls. That’s when I saw prince Claus. I was under the influence of drugs and was penetrated. Mister Karel Maasdam abused me in Salomonson’s cellars.

Dear Reader, it has to be said: not everything you read on the Internet is necessarily true, though I can tell you that this blog is ruthlessly and insanely trustworthy. Therefore, I asked Mr. Fernández, who, in regard to the European royal houses, is a walking Hola magazine.

“It’s been rumored for years,” he said. As is the rumor that he had been photographed in gay bars in New York. Oh, and got thrown out of a diplomatic post somewhere or another because of a relationship with a man. And did I mention the rumor that the Dutch government is being blackmailed by Demmink, which accounts for the remarkably relaxed…

Wait, stuporous…

Try somniforesce….

What am I trying to say? That comatose people move faster than the Dutch judicial system when the vexing question of pedophilia strolls into view. Here’s what The Guardian had to say in a report from 2000.

Not just once but repeatedly, evidence had come to the attention of police in England and the Netherlands, that, for pleasure and profit, some of the exiled paedophiles in Amsterdam had murdered boys in front of the camera. Some of the evidence had been pursued. Some of it had been ignored. None of it had led to a murder charge. For a short while, the Bristol detectives thought they might be able to make progress in tracking down the truth; but when two of them flew to Amsterdam in the autumn of 1998 to pass on their information to Dutch officers, they hit a wall.

Terry had described the flat in Amsterdam where he had seen the video; he had named the owner of the flat who was, by implication, also owner of the video; he had provided the name of the man who carried out the killing; he had described events on the video in detail; he had provided the approximate age and the first name of the dead boy.

Dutch police said it was not enough: without the full name of a victim, they would not begin an investigation. Having fought their way through the swamp of inertia which surrounds British policing and prosecution of child abuse, the Bristol detectives had now hit the deeper swamp of virtual paralysis that afflicts its international policing. Within their own jurisdictions, there are now specialist paedophilia detectives - for example, in London and Amsterdam - who will work relentlessly to lock up predatory child abusers.

Yeah? Dutch police won’t investigate a murder without the full name of a victim? And by the way, what’s going on with the Dutch? Here’s the BBC from 2006:

A political party with a paedophile agenda has been registered in The Netherlands, prompting outrage among many parts of society.

The party plans to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and for legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals.

Well, it raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers. But despite efforts to disband the party, a group of judges ruled in April of 2013 that the organization had committed no crimes and could not legally be abolished. Oh, and by the way, guess who was on the board of directors.

A priest!

Yup—here’s Huffington Post:

The order's top official in the Netherlands, Delegate Herman Spronck, confirmed in a statement that the priest – identified by RTL Nieuws as 73-year-old "Father Van B." – served on the board of "Martijn," a group that campaigns to end the Dutch ban on adult-child sex.

Oh, and what do the Salesians—the order to which Father van B belongs—do? Here’s more from Huffington:

According to its website, the Dutch arm of the Salesians has 14 employees and 400 volunteers and aims to help poor children.

Stayed tuned for tomorrow, when I confidently expect to announce the news: man bites dog…..

Dutch Justice

Full disclosure—in the sixties I would have been called a practicing homosexual. I since progressed through the decades from being gay activist to a radical queer to a militant gay radical to….

…you get the picture.

Second disclosure—one thing nobody has ever been able to call me is a pedophile. There are highbrow and lowbrow reasons for this; the high being that I’m in a monogamous relationship, the low being that I’m not into kids.

A further disclosure: I visited the famous red light district of Amsterdam thirty-odd years ago, nor was it a visit that gave me any pleasure. Why? Well, I was in my late teens, and very much in the dark night of wondering about my sexuality. Nor did it help that I was with two couples—my parents, who had a ferocious Midwestern sense of sexual decorum, and a Dutch couple, who were just a bit rubbing their European sophistication in. So we strolled along, my parents rigidly looking straight ahead, the Dutch couple casually looking into the windows and commenting on the virtues or—perhaps more likely—vices of the women displayed there. It was a walk of perhaps three blocks that lasted seemingly hours.

For those of you with insufficiently lurid imagination here’s a photo:

The thinking at that time was that prostitution was an age-old vice; better to legalize it and regulate it and—presumably—make a little money off it. And what are we thinking now? Well, here’s a quote from Wikipedia’s article on prostitution in the Netherlands:

The Netherlands is listed by the UNODC as a top destination for victims of human trafficking.[22] Countries that are major sources of trafficked persons include Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine,[22] Sierra Leone, and Romania.

Or how about this, from the same source?

When the Dutch government legalized prostitution in 2000, it was to protect the women by giving them work permits, but authorities now fear that this business is out of control: "We've realized this is no longer about small-scale entrepreneurs, but that big crime organizations are involved here in trafficking women, drugs, killings and other criminal activities", said Job Cohen, the former mayor of Amsterdam.[

Well, in a city where things got a little out of hand, the most out of handedness may be the case of Joris Demmink, who was or maybe is (my Dutch being rusty) the Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice. Oh, and who may have raped boys in Turkey in the 1990’s, as well as trafficked kids in Amsterdam.

Or maybe he didn’t because, guess what? Despite having six witnesses come forward, despite four police reports naming Demmink as a suspect, despite the statement of a Turkish policeman who was supposed to protect Demmink but instead pimped for him, despite a lawyer—Adele van der Plas—who has dogged him for most of a decade—well here’s what she said:

“There has never been a credible investigation into his behavior.”

She said the investigations simply are halted.

“The Dutch Ministry of Justice doesn’t take any child abuse case seriously at all,” she said. “All the pedophile rings in Europe have been investigated and some have gone to jail. Not in the Netherlands. The Dutch have been cited by the U.N. as a center of child trafficking.”

Nor was it just van der Plas who thinks so: here’s what Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey said in a congressional hearing last year:

That investigation has never happened – the investigations that have taken place have been a travesty and have done nothing to clear Mr. Demmink’s name. Rather, they have raised further questions,” he said.

So Demmink is or isn’t a pedophile. What do we know about him?

He’s the head of the Dutch judicial system….

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? (reposted)

Talking about the Catholic Church, I leave you with this post originally published on May 22, 2013....

Well, a new statistic—there are some 315 million people in the USA, and 750,000 sex offenders. So that means that one person in 420 in the United States is a sex offender. And there’s a little problem—where do you put these guys?

I know about this because the New York Times had a video this morning about a sex offender village in Florida. And I can also tell you—nothing reveals the deep prudery of the United States better than this video. One man, living with his mother, had sex at the age of 18 with a girlfriend, age 16. Another guy was in “gay rehab”—wow, didn’t know we could do that, have to check it out—and mentioned to his counselor that he had touched a boy inappropriately. Still another “computer solicited a minor”—whom he never met.

Granted, no criminal comes right out and says, “yeah, I sadistically assaulted and tortured a little girl, and hey, I’d do it again, in a flash!” But the Times video does make several points. It shows the church member who says that the church got involved because there is almost nowhere to live that isn’t within whatever state limit has been established from a place where kids congregate. So they found a community that had been built to house sugar cane workers; the workers are mostly gone, but the sugar cane fields remain.

Then there is the public defender of Palm Beach, 35 miles away, who makes the point: there’s a big difference between an 18-year old kid screwing his 16-year old girlfriend and a rapist. But they are both “sex offenders” and they both have a label for life.

There’s also the point that not one complaint of a sex offense has occurred in the sex offenders village.

So there are over 100 sex offenders living in the village of Pahokee, Florida—isolated from the rest of Florida by sugar cane. Right, so who are the people in my neighborhood?  Are kids safe?

Don’t have the answer, but according to the NSOPW website, there are eight sex offenders in my zip code.

OK—anything I need to worry about?

Yeah—a guy who tried to commit rape and sodomy in 1974. Another who intentionally committed child abuse. A couple of men who committed lewd acts, and one who attempted to commit a lewd act. (Sorry, but I can’t quite get my head around that. Was he just about to pull down his pants? Was he intercepted in a grope?) Several have moved in from other jurisdictions, and no details are given.

Mind you, there is a school three blocks away from where I live, as well as a school across the street from where two of the offenders live (if the database is accurate).   

All right—another statistic: one in six women will be raped in the course of her lifetime.

That’s serious—that’s something I’d like to know about. What I’m not interested in knowing is what an 18-year-old kid did with his 16-year-old girlfriend. Assuming it was done consensually, assuming no one got hurt, I couldn’t care less. And the video makes a good point—there’s not a lot of work out there for registered sex offenders. Once you’re on the list, that’s it—you can kiss that promising career in food preparation at Burger King goodbye.

We’ve all gone a little crazy, I think. We have the courts giving sentences to kids having sex with kids two years younger than them. At the same time, we have the Catholic Church, which is reportedly still harboring real sex offenders. And, as well, we have a Catholic bishop who has been convicted of not reporting the case of a predator priest.

Yes, I bring you the sorry case of Robert W. Finn, the bishop of Kansas City, who was convicted last year on one account of failure to report Shawn Ratigan, a priest who had hundred of pictures of the private parts of little girls. The pictures were apparently so shocking that the computer technician who discovered them on the laptop Ratigan had brought in for repair later stated: “my hands were shaking so much, I could barely turn off the machine.”

So what did the bishop do? Transferred Ratigan to another place, and told Ratigan to stay away from kids. And what did Ratigan do? Got right back involved with a youth group. Oh, and went to dinner at a parishioner’s house, and got caught by Poppa, photographing with his cellphone the daughter under the table.

For all of this, the bishop has received a suspended sentence, and has agreed to meet monthly with court officials. But the gay guy—or did the rehab work?—down there in the sex offender village, how much time did he get?

A year in the county jail.

Clothes make the man, it’s said, and it’s evidently true. Who knew that a Roman Collar was a pass to touch any child anywhere at any time?  

Grant Wood Doesn't Live There Anymore

Guys, guys—you’re making it too easy today!

Usually I have to scrounge to find the issue on which to build up, enjoy thoroughly, and vent explosively the moral outrage that—growing up Norwegian-American in the Midwest—I seem to need so much. Today it just hopped out at me.

I bring you—ta-DAH!—the case of one Brent Girouex, a 31-year old ex-pastor of the Victory Fellowship Church, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Take a look:

“OK,” I can hear you saying, “what has he done?”

Oddly, it isn’t what he’s done that so annoys me. Although that was bad enough—Girouex turned himself in on February 16, 2011, and confessed to having had sex with four teenage boys. Later, eight additional boys would come forward with similar stories.

And what prompted the sex? Simple lechery?

It was more twisted than that. Girouex would tell his victim that they would both pray while Girouex entered him, and that through ejaculation, “the gay would be driven away.”

Nor was this an isolated event—Girouex confessed to having had sex 25-50 times—why do I think the 50 is closer to the mark?—with one of his victims, who was, by the way, 14 at the time of the first encounter / attack.

Here’s a description from one source:

Apparently, Girouex thought he could rape away the gay by “praying while he had sexual contact” with his victims in an effort to keep them “sexually pure” for God.

He then allegedly told police that “when they would ejaculate, they would be getting rid of the evil thoughts in their mind.”

For all of this heinous behavior, Girouex was charged with 61 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor by a counselor and 28 counts of third-degree rape. And since he had confessed, he was convicted, and given a 17-year sentence.

Enter the second—and possibly more vicious—villain, Judge Greg Steensland. Because Steensland presided over the trial, saw the prisoner at the bar, looked at and heard the testimony of the victims, and then “suspended the prison sentence and replaced it with 5 years of probation (the maximum allowed under the law) as well as a requirement for Girouex to participate in sex offender rehabilitation treatment.”

89 counts of rape and sexual exploitation and he gets 5 years of probation? This was, mind you, in March of 2012. What else happened in 2012?

Well, the nation went off on November 6, 2012, to return Barack Obama to the presidency, as well as to take care of state and local matters. And so Greg Steensland was up for reelection. And was he roundly defeated? Nope, he was reelected, by 66.34% of the vote.

So 2 out of 3 voters in the fourth district of Iowa think it’s OK to have a judge sitting on the bench give out a 5-year suspended sentence for 89 counts of rape? Who was the guy running against him—Genghis Khan? Hannibal Lecter? How could this guy get elected?

And here I will put my regional chauvinism fully bared for public view. Look, guys—we all know the tired joke about the Tennessee virgin. (Right, you’ve been orbiting earth in a space shuttle for the last twenty years, OK…. Question: what’s the definition of a Tennessee virgin? Answer: any girl who can run faster than her uncles….) I might expect this from Tuscaloosa, Alabama…. But Iowa?

Well, some people must have snorted around, but it wasn’t enough. The judge got reelected, and is now still on the bench. But here’s Judgepedia again:

This case gained a second round of national attention in September 2013, following outrage over Montana judge G. Todd Baugh's sentence of a high school teacher who raped a student. Judge Baugh also suspended the defendant's prison sentence in that case--requiring him to serve 30 days in prison. Many have expressed disappointment with both the Montana and Iowa rulings, arguing that the judges were too easy on the criminals.

No remarks from Judge Steensland were found. 

No remarks were found?

Geee…I wonder why?

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

Well, a new statistic—there are some 315 million people in the USA, and 750,000 sex offenders. So that means that one person in 420 in the United States is a sex offender. And there’s a little problem—where do you put these guys?

I know about this because the New York Times had a video this morning about a sex offender village in Florida. And I can also tell you—nothing reveals the deep prudery of the United States better than this video. One man, living with his mother, had sex at the age of 18 with a girlfriend, age 16. Another guy was in “gay rehab”—wow, didn’t know we could do that, have to check it out—and mentioned to his counselor that he had touched a boy inappropriately. Still another “computer solicited a minor”—whom he never met.

Granted, no criminal comes right out and says, “yeah, I sadistically assaulted and tortured a little girl, and hey, I’d do it again, in a flash!” But the Times video does make several points. It shows the church member who says that the church got involved because there is almost nowhere to live that isn’t within whatever state limit has been established from a place where kids congregate. So they found a community that had been built to house sugar cane workers; the workers are mostly gone, but the sugar cane fields remain.

Then there is the public defender of Palm Beach, 35 miles away, who makes the point: there’s a big difference between an 18-year old kid screwing his 16-year old girlfriend and a rapist. But they are both “sex offenders” and they both have a label for life.

There’s also the point that not one complaint of a sex offense has occurred in the sex offenders village.

So there are over 100 sex offenders living in the village of Pahokee, Florida—isolated from the rest of Florida by sugar cane. Right, so who are the people in my neighborhood?  Are kids safe?

Don’t have the answer, but according to the NSOPW website, there are eight sex offenders in my zip code.

OK—anything I need to worry about?

Yeah—a guy who tried to commit rape and sodomy in 1974. Another who intentionally committed child abuse. A couple of men who committed lewd acts, and one who attempted to commit a lewd act. (Sorry, but I can’t quite get my head around that. Was he just about to pull down his pants? Was he intercepted in a grope?) Several have moved in from other jurisdictions, and no details are given.

Mind you, there is a school three blocks away from where I live, as well as a school across the street from where two of the offenders live (if the database is accurate).   

All right—another statistic: one in six women will be raped in the course of her lifetime.

That’s serious—that’s something I’d like to know about. What I’m not interested in knowing is what an 18-year-old kid did with his 16-year-old girlfriend. Assuming it was done consensually, assuming no one got hurt, I couldn’t care less. And the video makes a good point—there’s not a lot of work out there for registered sex offenders. Once you’re on the list, that’s it—you can kiss that promising career in food preparation at Burger King goodbye.

We’ve all gone a little crazy, I think. We have the courts giving sentences to kids having sex with kids two years younger than them. At the same time, we have the Catholic Church, which is reportedly still harboring real sex offenders. And, as well, we have a Catholic bishop who has been convicted of not reporting the case of a predator priest.

Yes, I bring you the sorry case of Robert W. Finn, the bishop of Kansas City, who was convicted last year on one account of failure to report Shawn Ratigan, a priest who had hundred of pictures of the private parts of little girls. The pictures were apparently so shocking that the computer technician who discovered them on the laptop Ratigan had brought in for repair later stated: “my hands were shaking so much, I could barely turn off the machine.”

So what did the bishop do? Transferred Ratigan to another place, and told Ratigan to stay away from kids. And what did Ratigan do? Got right back involved with a youth group. Oh, and went to dinner at a parishioner’s house, and got caught by Poppa, photographing with his cellphone the daughter under the table.

For all of this, the bishop has received a suspended sentence, and has agreed to meet monthly with court officials. But the gay guy—or did the rehab work?—down there in the sex offender village, how much time did he get?

A year in the county jail.

Clothes make the man, it’s said, and it’s evidently true. Who knew that a Roman Collar was a pass to touch any child anywhere at any time?  

One More Corrupt Archbishop

Why me?

Look guys, there are three major newspapers in Puerto Rico—El Nuevo Día, Primera Hora, and El Vocero. The first two are owned by the same company, but maintain separate staffs; the third is privately owned. All three have journalists, who are supposed to do stuff like sniff around, dig a bit of dirt, ask some questions, try and get some answers.

I, however, am not a journalist and know nothing about the profession, though I was exposed to many a breakfast / dinner rant by my father, who believed that the press was railroading Dick Nixon out of town. (Think the jury’s in on that…) So why do I have to step up to the plate? Isn’t that your job?

OK—here’s what I find seriously screwy. Two or three days ago, I reported that the archbishop of San Juan, Roberto González Nieves, had released a copy of a letter he had written to the Vatican. The letter expressed horror that he—González—had been viciously accused of four things, which he came right out and listed. They were:

1.     Protecting pedophile priests

2.     Investigating Reverend Edward Santana with no jurisdiction to do so

3.     Shared residences

4.     El Altar de la Patria

Right—I knew about the Altar, but what was the deal with the other three charges? I turned very trustingly to the press, and guess what?

You guys let me down.

Say whaaa?

We got the highest religious (stet) on the island coming out and saying that the Vatican is accusing him of protecting pedophile priests, and all you guys do is print the letter, state that González Nieves has said all he’s going to on the matter, shrug your shoulders and say, “yeah, whatever…?”

Guys—are you the church bulletin?

If not, maybe you should be making some calls, doing so digging, worrying about something other than—no idea who she is but I see her name all the time—Shakira.

All right, let’s do the unknowns in reverse order.

Despite what I initially thought about “shared residences,”—no, it doesn’t mean that González is living with anybody (though the rumor a decade ago was…OK, never mind). No, González came out in favor several years ago with a proposal that would make people living together under one roof eligible for three things: inheritance, hospital visitation rights, and inclusion in the medical plan of one of the partners. And no—it could be a straight couple or anybody, but the reality was that a whole lot of gay people would be, had it been approved, coming in the house por la cocina / through the kitchen (as we say down here)….

Right—so that was easy.

Now then, charges 2 and 1 are linked. But first, let’s do a little background.

González was born in 1950 in New Jersey, but went to school here in San Juan. He became a priest in 1977, worked in the Bronx until, in 1988, he was appointed auxiliary bishop for the See of Boston. Which at the time—and bells should definitely ring here—was under the head of Bernard Law.

Right—so you didn’t hear the bells. Let me spell it out—Law has cost the Catholic church tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in sex abuse payouts, and, though retired, he’s still very much in the church.

Right—so this morning at 3AM, when I woke craving jellybeans, I began to look up (OK, google) “González Nieves pederast priests.” And there’s nothing much there, except for one survivor network website that says, given Law’s heinous actions, that it wouldn’t be surprising if Gonzalez didn’t have some mud on his white Cossack (if that’s what it is)….

OK—brushed the teeth, went back to bed. And I resumed the search today, this time doing “Puerto Rico pedophile priests” or rather “sacerdotes pedófilos Puerto Rico” (always helps to know a little Spanish)…. And there I ran into a website encouraging, well, here’s a quote:

Aunque hay muchos obstáculos legales para poder procesar a los responsables del abuso, los abogados de Jeff Anderson & Associates están haciendo un llamado especial en Puerto Rico para los casos de abuso sexual cometidos por sacerdotes en la Isla, ya que este equipo de abogados ha trabajado por más de 25 años para superar estos obstáculos.  

Hey, Jeff Anderson up in Minnesota speaks Spanish, too! In fact, Avid Reader, we all ran into Anderson some time ago, when considering the curious case of Maciel, an old buddy of Benedict’s. So here is Anderson, making a special call for abuse victims in Puerto Rico to come forward, and saying his team of lawyers has more than 25 years of experience.

The real find came later, when I was invited to see a list of priests reported to have committed pedophilia, just by clicking, as you can, here: http://www.abusadoenpuertorico.com/Sacerdotes_Acusados.aspx

OK—do that, and I get the list of 14 clergy who have been accused of abuse. And one name in particular caught my eye: The Reverend Edward Santana.

Go back to the list of the four charges so wrongfully slung at the archbishop. Then put a checkmark next to number 2.

Right—some of the clergy have just one PDF file next to their name. Santana has 16. None of which are linked to an active file; I got this when clicking on each one of them:

404 - File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Right—so what would happen if I googled “Edward Santana sacerdote Puerto Rico?” Well, I come up with not much, and so I turn to a website with, perhaps, an axe to grind. Read it, in Spanish, with the box of salt in hand…

OK, here’s the report: Edward Santana was accused in 2001 before the archbishop of Caguas, a city in the center of the island. A mother charged Santana with sexual harassment of her daughter, and the church, reportedly, balked, saying there was no eyewitness. Eventually, however, the diocese offered a deal—a certain sum of money and the removal of Santana from his position, if the claimant would drop the matter. Allegedly, the diocese didn’t come through, and the claimant went up one level, asking the papal nuncio over in Santo Domingo to intervene. Apparently he did, though not before the news gets splashed over the front pages of the papers.

Now it gets murky—Primera Hora, in an article dated 18 May 2002, states that the Archbishop of Caguas had relieved Santana from his duties, and would be sending him off for rehab. Santana could, however, say mass and hear confession.

The website labuenaventurapr.com has a different, or perhaps fuller story. In this scenario, Santana—get ready—got transferred to Arecibo, where he was given a parish and was in contact with kids. Oh, and the goat that calmed the cup (la gota que colmó la copa)? The archbishop of Arecibo named Santana an ecclesiastical judge.

Things got hotter than usual, which is to say very hot indeed, and then the day came when Santana announced he had cancer; he had to go up to gringolandia for treatment. He did, remaining—allegedly—on the payroll.

Well, the sunny skies of Florida had a rejuvenating effect on Santana, and guess what! He’s now cured, connected with the Archdiocese of Miami, and also serving as…

…yes, yet again, an ecclesiastical judge.

Guys, I could call the archdiocese of Miami, or even just look it up.

But isn’t that your job?  

The Case Against Cardinal Ratzinger

I had read about it in my days at Wal-Mart, when I spent a lot of time on the Internet, ostensibly cruising for articles for the students to read, really just killing time. Everybody could see the train hurtling towards us, and most of us were tied with fear to the tracks. I would run through the office at class-time, rounding up the students, who promised to come to class, and variably did. It left a lot of time for reading.

So I had stumbled across the Minnesota lawyer, Jeff Anderson, who has made it his business—in both senses—to represent victims of sexual abuse. And today, he’s telling, via CNN, the next pope the sensible steps that need to be taken to protect kids from their priests.

Anderson, of course, comes at the question with—if not bias—at least a definite point of view. But even so, I was surprised by this statement:

He issued Vatican orders directing cardinals, archbishops and bishops to keep credibly accused priests in ministry, to move them to a different parish or to keep them in the priesthood because they were too young, too infirm or their removal would cause too much scandal for the church.

Well, that’s pretty strong. The question, of course, is whether it’s true.

Short answer—yes.

The church’s own evidence hangs them.

The paper trail begins in 1981, when the Church of the Good Shepherd writes a letter to the then head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (strongly thought about omitting capitals, as well as putting in quotes…) concerning a priest who wants out. Seems he had—remember that old demon?—a dominant, and very Catholic mother, who pushed her kid into the seminary, and then gloated about and basked in it in social circles.

The son, Stephen Kiesle, had a curious habit. It was almost impossible, the letter states, to get him to do stuff like visit the sick, counsel families or individuals, or any of the other little jobs that priests are supposed to do. Instead, he wants to…

…do I have to finish that sentence?

Right, so he was working in the CCD program with children and teens. But curiously, it’s only mentioned in the sixth paragraph that he’s committed some “improprieties” with the kids.

Two weeks later, the Diocese of Oakland writes, also recommending that the priest request for dispensation from his holy vow of becoming a priest. In this letter, the same “improper” behaviors are mentioned, as well as the fact that they were publicized and attracted great attention.

A month later, the bishop writes to the pope, and for the first time drops the news—in 1978 he was arrested and charged with “having sex with at least six young men between the ages of eleven and thirteen.”

Young men? How about teenagers, minimally, if not children?

So Kiesle fights nails and teeth (uñas y dientes) to clear his name, right? Wrong—“like Jesus,” he decides not to answer the charges against him, and pleads nolo contendere. So he’s given a three-year suspended sentence, and told to go into therapy.

Remember—there’s no evidence that anyone writes to the Vatican in 1978 with this news that has been so widely reported. The diocese first writes—apparently—when Kiesle decides he wants out.

Well then, the letters send the Vatican into a fluster of activity, right?

You’re not batting too high, today. In November, the Vatican writes back, asking for documents, but not, if my aged Latin serves me, anything more than ordination papers and the like.

Well, it’s a new year, 1982—four years after his conviction—and nothing is happening. John Cummins, Bishop of Oakland, writes first in February, then in September.

No response. Oh, except that in an interoffice memo it seems that the Vatican did write, saying that the “matter would be addressed at the appropriate time.” More damning, the Vatican apparently has received the case of the sexual abuse filed against Kiesle, which Oakland had sent on July 15, 1983.

So it’s another new year and Cummins writes again, mentioning the case and asking for “any information you can give.”

For eighteen months, nothing happens. Then Cummins writes directly to Ratzinger—who had, you remember, requested those documents four years ago—asking what’s up. And in November of 1985—eight years after Kiesle’s conviction, four years after the matter was brought to the attention of the Vatican—Ratzinger writes back:

Most Excellent Bishop

Having received your letter of September 13 of this year, regarding the matter of the removal from all priestly burdens pertaining to Rev. Stephen Miller Kiesle in your diocese, it is my duty to share with you the following:

This court, although it regards the arguments presented in favor of removal in this case to be of grave significance, nevertheless deems it necessary to consider the good of the Universal Church together with that of the petitioner, and it is also unable to make light of the detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the petitioner.

It is necessary for this Congregation to submit incidents of this sort to very careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time.

In the meantime your Excellency must not fail to provide the petitioner with as much paternal care as possible and in addition to explain to same the rationale of this court, which is accustomed to proceed keeping the common good especially before its eyes.

Let me take this occasion to convey sentiments of the highest regard always to you.

Your most Reverend Excellency

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

(Text of 1985 Letter From Future Pope Benedict)

Following is the text of a November 1985 letter in Latin signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to Oakland Bishop John S. Cummins. It was translated for The Associated Press by Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department.

Well, the boys in Oakland are scratching their heads over this one, but as an interoffice memo in the diocese states, it seems that “they (the Vatican) are basically going to sit on it until Steve gets quite a bit older.” So what to do?

Let me not make the same mistake as Ratzinger.

And that is, you ask?

Lose sight of the fact that we’re talking about kids. The good of the Universal Church is considered, his Excellency mustn’t be lacking in giving a child molester “pastoral care,” the common good is invoked, but none of them can get it into their heads—we got a priest fucking around with kids.

Oh, wait—finally someone does. And guess what? It’s a woman.

Who doesn’t write so much as snort and snarl.

She tries to be civil: “I need to inform you of my concern that a convicted child molester is currently the youth ministry coordinator at St. Joseph’s Parish in Pinole.”

She loses it, however, when she considers that she has been waving the red flag for eight months, and now Steve is planning his participation for Youth Day NEXT YEAR (her caps, not mine). 

Finally, in 1987, Kiesle was defrocked. In 2002, he was again arrested and charged with 13 counts of child molestation. In 2004, he was again arrested, and convicted to 6 years for a molestation in 1995.

He’s now living as a registered sex offender in Walnut Creek.