Paid Too Much (reposted)

I wrote this exactly one year ago today. Here it is, once again. Enjoy!
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Samuel Barber, 1910 to 1981. Well, those are the official dates. But Barber poses a question. What happened to him from the fiasco of his opera Antony and Cleopatra in 1967 and his death in 1981?

“His last years were beset with depression and alcoholism,” says WikiPedia.

Right, the last fifteen years of his life—and what should have been the culmination of his creative life.

My impression was that he had created most of his work early, and then burned out. But in fact, it’s not true. Up until the early 60’s, Barber composes steadily, slowly, and richly.

Richly being the operative word in at least two senses. The guy didn’t seem to need money. Yeah, he taught for a couple of years at Curtis, where he had studied. But he hated it, so he quit!

Why doesn’t that sound familiar?

He was what used to be called comfortable—an amorphous term that might mean anything from loaded to able to slide by to the end without having to worry. Parents were from West Chester, and Gian Carlo Menotti, with Latin volubility, described it as a cesspool covered with a thin but unbreakable layer of gentility. Drinking, incest—the old story.

At age 9 or so, he writes a letter to his parents, saying “don’t tell me to go play football.” He’s already sure that he’s a composer.

Or was he? At Curtis, where his parents sent him as a high school student (guess they got that message…), he also excelled as a pianist AND a baritone. But composition won out.

He also was good with languages, which is why Curtis asked him to befriend Menotti, who knew Italian and French, but no English. So they spoke French together.

Well, I wonder about all of this because Eric, a Facebook friend, posted a clip of Leonard Slatkin conducting the famous Adagio for Strings. If you have a quarter of a century to spare, I recommend it; it’s about as slow as evolution.

Still, it was a thing to hear, this morning at four AM, when I arose with the violent urge to eat…yes, coffee ice cream. 

Later in the day, I began to worry myself about Barber. The Adagio is the most famous by a light year of his work. It’s the only piece most people will ever know. Yet it’s comparatively early. What would it be, to be known for this single piece, and have the rest of your work ignored?

Well, I was forgetting Vanessa, his first opera, which was a spectacular hit. Right—not on the order of Les Miz, but the operatic equivalent. The piano concerto was well received, the violin concerto as well.

And then came the fiasco of Antony and Cleopatra. The production was terrible; parts of the score were written almost hours before the performance; the orchestra and chorus was unprepared. Apparently, the performance, which was to celebrate the opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s new home, was filled with hotshots (Imelda Marcos was there!) who couldn’t have cared less. It was broadcast on radio live, and you could hear stage hands shouting “go” or “move it.”.

Here’s Rudolf Bing, the Met’s general manager, on the ordeal:

“Not one of the stronger plays” (!) he wrote. The production was staged to gaudy excess by Franco Zeffirelli, who had also adapted Shakespeare’s play into a libretto. The opera’s huge sets broke the stage turntable in the new theater during the rehearsals-the weight of the pyramids and the sphinxes literally crushed the new stage, and in all this chazerei, Barber’s luscious music got lost (Leontyne Price was trapped inside a pyramid and her displeasure is evident in a TV film made during rehearsals).

Savvy readers of this blog will pick up a little fact more important—sorry, Leontyne!—than Price being trapped in a pyramid. Go back, and check that little fact thrown away in a relative clause.

Zeffirelli wrote the libretto.

What?!

Franco Zeffirelli?

Why did Barber permit it? His reputation was secure, and his finances as well. Why did he accept this commission when he knew that Vanessa had taken him five years to write, and he needed to produce Antony in two? What was he thinking of—the sharp, gifted man who was, by the way, acutely sensitive to text?

It almost seems a death wish, in fact, it all but literally was. He ended his decade-long relationship with Menotti, he drank heavily, he fell into depression. A friend who was in musical circles in the 70’s in New York told me that his parties were, well, both famous and infamous.

As I read about the Adagio, I came across a perceptive article entitled “The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.” The author disputes the common theory that Barber’s homosexuality had anything to do with his deep melancholy. Menotti was welcomed by Barber’s parents, friends, associates. They lived together for many years. Why should it matter, then?

But I wonder. A highly sensitive man, who has fought and suffered and lived a quiet, seemly life—a life worthy of West Chester, Pennsylvania—hits the 60’s and what happens? His world, for which he has paid dearly, collapses. Women are burning bras, not taking Valium washed down with vodka. Blacks are demanding jobs other than porters on the railroad.

Gay men are holding hands on the street.

He had paid too much, gotten too little.

Wouldn’t you reach for the bottle?

"Strange, but the Adagio in the string quartet version becomes both more personal and almost redemptive at the end...."

Musactivism

Well, I found out about the site just as everybody else did—by watching a man named Matt confess that he had killed a man by driving drunk, and he was going to plead guilty and pay the price. And so I went to the website and checked it out. And there was Matthew Cordle, 22, starting right out by saying, “I killed a man.”

Then, his pixilated face appears, and he tells the story—he struggles with depression every day, and sometimes he drinks just to get out of his head. So on 22 June of this year, he was out drinking with friends, go shitfaced-drunk, and was driving on the wrong side of the highway, causing a direct collision. Vincent Canzani, 61, the driver of the other car, lost his life.

Half way through the video, Cordle introduces himself and shows his face unpixilated. And he admits that he consulted attorneys, who told him that they could manipulate the system enough to get him either a reduced sentence or off the hook completely. But Cordle says no, and then writes his promise on the little promise cards that the website provides, “I will take full responsibility for what I’ve done.”

So why is he doing this? First, in order not to disgrace the memory of the man he killed. And second, so that he can beg everyone—don’t drink and drive.

Well, the video got over two and a half million hits on YouTube, one of which was I, and then the news came out.

Cordle pleaded not guilty.

Because of a technicality. It turns out that in order to get a random judge, Cordle needed to plead not guilty initially. Later, he could change his plea—and he promised he would.

And in fact he did, on September 18. And here’s what CNN reports:

Cordle will be sentenced October 10. Ron O'Brien, the attorney who is prosecuting the case, told CNN that Cordle faces a maximum sentence of 8½ years in prison for his charges.

All right—that’s Cordle. Now—what’s the deal with the website, becauseIsaidIwould.com?

It was set up by Alex Sheen, as a tribute to his father, who died of cancer, and who had a particular talent—he kept his word. And so Alex gave up his day job, and started doing various projects. He decided to send fifty kids with cancer to Disneyland—instead, he was able to send one hundred kids. Then there was the decision to walk across his home state of Ohio. Why? As a tribute to the three victims of Ariel Castro—who had been held in captivity and sexually abused for ten years. And then there were the two guys he ran into, who were actually walking across the United States, to raise awareness of human trafficking. According to their Facebook page, the two—Shannon Sprowal and Jay Atlas—are today in Colorado, but expect to get into New Mexico tomorrow. Here’s the link to their page.

Alex hit on the idea of promise cards—here are some samples:

So here’s the deal—you make a promise, you write it down, and you give it to someone who will care for it. Then, after you’ve fulfilled your promise, you ask for your card back, as a reminder that you are a person of your word.

Alex, by the way, will send you ten promise cards free; alternatively, you can print your own from the site.

Well, I made a promise, and I feel bad about not keeping it. I said that I would play an hour of Bach suites and ask for donations to four wonderful charities, which the philosopher Peter Singer has identified as the most efficient and effective. And best of all, by contributing to these charities, you can make a tremendous difference. Here’s what Singer has to say:

However, it is also possible to make extremely effective donations towards the world's poorest people. Because they have so little money, every dollar you give can make a tremendous difference — especially if spent on the world's most efficient aid programs. Read on to see just how much you could achieve and how little it would really cost you. 

And here are the charities:

Against Malaria Foundation. Why? More than a million people die each year of malaria, 70% of them are kids under 5. A 3$ net can prevent the disease—and 100% of your money goes to the nets. Best of all, you can see where your nets are distributed. Here’s the website: http://www.againstmalaria.com

Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. The initiative aims to control and then eliminate the parasitical disease schistosomiasis, which afflicts more than 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Untreated, schistosomiasis leads to kidney, liver, and spleen damage; 76 cents will provide a dose of the drug needed to treat and cure. Here’s the website: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/schisto

Deworm The World. 600 million kids around the world need to be dewormed; less than fifty cents is all it takes to treat one kid. This organization has treated 40 million children in 27 countries. Best, treating kids leads to significantly improved school attendance—a nice added benefit. Here’s the website:   http://www.dewormtheworld.org

Project Healthy Children. The project aims to confront malnutrition by food fortification, essentially supplying the vitamins that you and I take for granted. But a child goes blind every minute—80% of them because of vitamin deficiency. Zinc deficiency kills 800,000 children a year; Vitamin A deficiency kills 2.5 million children under age 5 every year. Here’s the website:  http://projecthealthychildren.org  

And here’s the promise I made in that blog post of 30 June 2013.

I’ll play Bach suites once a week in the café where I am spending so profligately my money. I’ll put up a little sign announcing the charity of the week, and ask for donations.

Let’s call it musactivism….

Ritorna, Ritorna

It hit yesterday, not Tuesday. On Tuesday, I had been remarkably buoyant about the government shutdown; yesterday, I was completely in the dumps.

Nor has it been a particularly good week for anyone who cares about the arts, especially music. The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra lost its conductor, who had taken the orchestra to Europe in his first season, and where they were received with raves. Carnegie Hall shut down, due to a strike by stagehands, one of whom makes more than $140,000. Lastly—and this one really hurts— New York City Opera closed down. No—not temporarily, for good.

I lived only briefly in New York City—perhaps two months—and I don’t recall ever going to City Opera. But I knew the story, here told in Slate magazine:

Many of my friends were culture vultures, and culture, high culture, nosebleed high, was being made here. … The Metropolitan Opera, across Lincoln Center's plaza, was stupid. It was stodgy. It was fat, old people with fat, old money. At the New York State Theater you saw hot guys in full leather gabbing about Bev's Violetta in La traviata, or Samuel Ramey's naked chest in Boito's Mefistofeles. You met your friends there at intermission, sometimes a dozen of them. There were no cellphones, so you talked to people. Opera was high art that sometimes dickered with the dirt, but it had to remain high. It was where kings and the common people mixed, under the eyes of Phoebus Apollo, god of light and music.

It was also where young singers got their break; here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

During its nearly 70 year history, the NYCO has helped launch the careers of many great opera singers including Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes, Plácido Domingo, Maralin Niska, Carol Vaness, José Carreras, Shirley Verrett, Tatiana Troyanos, Jerry Hadley, Catherine Malfitano, Samuel Ramey, and Gianna Rolandi. Sills later served as the company's director from 1979–1989.[4] More recent acclaimed American singers who have called NYCO home include David Daniels, Mark Delavan, Mary Dunleavy, Lauren Flanigan, Elizabeth Futral, Bejun Mehta, Robert Brubaker and Carl Tanner.

It was also a company that took risks. Let the Met put on as many La Bohemes as they needed to make rich bored businessmen remember their first loves at Yale—City Opera caused talk and suspicion, championed new and American works, wasn’t afraid to get scrappy. In 1991, in the very worst of the plague years, how did Violetta die in La traviata? How else—of AIDS, of course.

Or consider the last opera that City Opera put on—typically, it was a new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage, a British composer about Anna Nicole Smith. Take a look—it’s about as far away from traditional opera as you can get….

It was always an opera house that was just getting by—but it was also an opera house for people who were just getting by. Which meant that a guy who was working in a record store, and living in a cockroach-infested studio apartment as he dreamed of making it on Broadway or writing the great American novel could go and watch stuff like this. (Warning, it starts off boring, but wow—does it heat up!)

OK—time to come clean: opera is an art form that, like ballet, inherently appeals to gay men. Is it the theatricality, or the artificiality, or the long and arcane history? Who knows, but if you hear two men arguing about who was better, Callas or Tebaldi—you can be sure. There’s probably a boa along with the jeans in their closet.

So what happened? That old devil—mismanagement. The old City Opera was in City Center. Then they moved to Lincoln Center, which was too expensive, and didn’t feel right. The Met—after all—was 60 feet away. And then the management decided they wouldn’t have a home, but use varying stages around the city.

It didn’t seem to work. As well, the opera had run deficits for years, as their new manager, George Steel, eventually realized. And then, they needed to raise 7 million bucks, and only got to one or two million, improbably through a Kickstarter campaign.

“Vienna spends more on its opera house than the US does on ALL of its arts funding,” went a line that was often repeated forty years ago when I was in high school. If it wasn’t literally true, it was metaphorically true. And when we do spend on the arts, we want to get something back, to make it pay. Mozart is good for the brain—all right, we’ll plunk down 18 bucks for a Mozart CD to play to baby.

But I think other cultures do it better, and smarter. I think of a story that—I believe—Frances Mayes wrote about. It was of an American soldier just after World War II had concluded. He thought he really should go to the opera, just to experience a taste of Italy before he returned home. He had, after all, spent the war seeing death, torture, carnage, deprivation, ruins, bombed-out buildings and shell-shocked, homeless civilians walking like zombies through the devastated cities. So he went to the opera…

…and had never seen anything so beautiful, or heard anything so magical. At the end of three hours of magic, he sat in his chair and wept.

And the Italians?

They quietly walked past him, each one of them stopping to place a hand gently on top of the young man’s head.

City Opera, ritorna, ritorna!

Cara sposa, amante cara,

Dove sei?

Deh! Ritorna a' pianti miei!

Del vostro Erebo sull'ara,

Colla face dello sdegno

Io vi sfido, o spiriti rei

Beloved spouse, dearest heart,

Where art thou?

Woe! Return to him who weeps!

O guilty spirits from thy Erebus beneath the furrows,

My face one of complete contempt,

I defy thee!

House of Turds

Well, the forts that guard the entrance to the harbor of the city of San Juan—those forts that have been open and operating for centuries—are now closed. Why? Because the national government is in a shutdown, and 800,000 people are stuck without a paycheck, all but essential services are cut, but guess what? Check out the cover of the Daily News:

Yes, the same congress that gave the middle finger to the 90% of the country who favor universal background checks for gun ownership has decided to hold the nation hostage. But let’s be real. What’s happening here?

Well, we can start with the fact that we’ve had gerrymandering of congressional districts. And what has that brought? The number of strongly Republican districts has increased, and the number of Democratic districts has decreased.

Then there are the various voting laws, the effect of which is to make it more difficult for young people, students, are minorities to vote.

But these are the symptoms—what really is going on?

“Is this about race?” asked Lady, the owner of the coffee shop I write in.

So I told her about José Serrano, who came out and said it frankly: there are people who have never accepted the fact that Obama is our president. And why is that? Pure racism. This is what Serrano told WKAQ 580, a radio station in Puerto Rico:

“‘Este grupo nunca ha aceptado que Barack Obama es un presidente legítimo, sí hay racismo, te lo dejo ahí. Hay un pequeño grupo que nunca pudo aceptar que él es un presidente legítimo y si les dolió que fuera elegido en el 2008, más les dolió la reelección’, subrayó el representante demócrata por Nueva York.”

“‘This group has never accepted Barack Obama as a legitimate president. There is racism involved there, I’ll tell you that. There’s a small group that has never accepted he’s a legitimate president, and, if they were upset by his election in 2008, his reelection upset them even more so,’ stated the Democrat for New York.”

There’s no ideology here. What is this? The terrified reaction of a bunch of rednecks who know that their world is vanishing and cannot cope with a world in which the straight white male is no longer supreme.

They know something else.

They know that they can get away with this. Why? Because the people back home will think them heroes, and the big money from special interest groups will keep flowing. In fact, they love the fact that they have shut down the government. Why? Because that’s exactly what they want—a minimal federal government that won’t interfere with them as they foul the environment, enrich the already too rich, and screw the poor.

The corporations and special interest groups have bought the statehouses.

And now they’ve shut down the federal government.

Not Your Average 11-Year Old....

I decided not to let it in. Yes, it’s totally stupid; yes, it’s destructive; yes, it’s unnecessary. But this pretty little head decided not to stress out about the government shutdown. And guess what? I also decided that if all the wise heads in Washington couldn’t avert a shutdown, then I might as well shut down too. So I went to the beach this morning, lolled in the water, and watched green palms float against an azure sky. Shutdown!

And yesterday? Well, I discovered the first opera that Mozart ever wrote—a 70-minute affair all in Latin on the story of Apollo and Hyacinth by Ovid. Mozart wrote it when he was eleven, but as the conductor, Ian Page, pointed out, you stop thinking about that. Why? Because, as you can hear in the clips below, the music is terrific. 

I came upon the opera because I had spent part of the afternoon with Philippe Jaroussky and Nuria Rial, two tremendous young singers who work remarkably well together. Jaroussky, at age 35, is in his prime as a counter tenor—and he’s thoroughly in charge of his voice, which is gorgeous. And he seems to be one of the golden boys for whom everything came easy: he started singing when he was 18, and by 20 he was a professional. And his career has soared. And just to prove how spectacularly unfair the gods can be, Philippe happens to look like this….

OK—full disclosure: all of this would be enough, ordinarily, to make me hate him. But I’m over it—I told you about that beach, didn’t I? And in many ways, not to have struggled and flopped—as I certainly did, and both—is to have missed out on some good lessons.

And yes, for anyone wondering—Jaroussky sings on my team….

And Nuria? Well, she’s Catalan, and is utterly expressive in renaissance and baroque music. And with that Jackian sense of fairness that increasingly is coming out, here she is:

At any rate, I spent yesterday afternoon busy with Rial / Jaroussky, listening to this really smashing concert. And why not? The world was spinning out of control, crisis was imminent, the wolves were howling at the door. Why not spend the afternoon with some extraordinary musicians playing some ravishing music?

In fact, I’m giving you, dear Reader, permission right now. Cancel your life for the next hour and a half, put your index finger on that arrow, and surrender to some of the most beautiful music I know. And no—don’t feel guilty! Call the boss and lie outrageously—invent an excuse. Consider all the time Victorian ladies spent having sick headaches—whole days prostate! You can take an hour and a half….

You know what? In the scope of things, not much matters except for art and music. In a hundred years, no one but a few scholars will know about the great shutdown of 2013—and very few will care. But people will still be listening to Mozart and Monteverdi, and reading, of course, Life, Death and Iguanas.

And you know what I like? These musicians just don’t force it—their playing is as free and effortless as it looks. It’s the best thing about baroque music; you don’t have to work that hard, you don’t have struggle to be heard over 100 musicians behind you, twenty or thirty of whom are blasting brass players, as you labor away at the Dvorak concerto.

Which is what I felt yesterday, as I toddled my way through a Bach suite. I remembered Joyce DiDonato working with a young singer, and telling him, “don’t worry about making a big sound, just think about creating the conditions to make a big sound….”

Right—as a very bad Buddhist, I got that. Which is why yesterday I was listening to the resonance of the instrument, and not trying to make any sound louder than that resonance. Why? Because as long as the instrument is resonating, the sound is free, and is just as loud as it needs to be. 

I played half an hour, and then put the instrument down. I’m halfway to where I was in my prime—in a couple of weeks I’ll be there. Let them buzz and do, as the poet said—I’m shutting down!
 

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.

The Clerics and the Choir Boys

Where’s Wesolowski?

The best answer is that Jozef Wesolowski, the former papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic, is somewhere in the Vatican, after he was recalled in August before reports of his alleged pedophile crimes were made public.

Right, you are saying. Another pedophile priest—ho-hum! Get on with it, Marc—find something new!

Well, here’s what’s new. First of all, the papal nuncio is an ambassador—he is the pope’s personal ambassador to—in this case—the government of the Dominican Republic. So? He’s got diplomatic immunity.

Second, Wesolowski is the highest Vatican official to be charged with sex abuse crimes, and more importantly, he’s a Vatican employee. Why is that important? Because for years, the Vatican has held that individual priests and bishops are not Vatican employees. Therefore, American courts cannot haul the Vatican into court, or force the Vatican to reveal documents or files.

This, of course, is a little screwy because when a priest is defrocked, or asks to leave the priesthood, or is accused of sexual abuse of minors—what happens? The bishop sits down and writes to the Vatican, and waits for an answer.

Well, the Vatican is on God’s time—and God, it appears, moves slowly, majestically, and without care for the hustle and haste that the rest of us spin out our lives with. So that means the bishop is down checking the mailbox every morning for years on end, and the pederast priest is still in business. No wonder the bishops were shuffling the pederast priests around—what else could they do?

Ah, but wait! Because in July of this year, Pope Francis…well, here’s a quote from The Huffington Post:

Francis in July also signed off on legislation criminalizing child sex abuse and other sexual crimes, with punishments ranging up to more than a decade in prison – laws that apply to Vatican employees as well as diplomatic staff. Those new laws, however, can't be applied retroactively in this case, officials say.    

The same article goes on to say:

The Vatican's own rules for conducting sex abuse investigations under church law calls for cooperation with civil authorities and reporting of abuse allegations to police where such laws require it. Those norms were crafted in the wake of the explosion of sex abuse cases in 2010, where thousands of people came forward in Europe, South America and elsewhere detailing abuse by priests who were never reported to police even though their bishops knew they were pedophiles.

Attorney General Francisco Domínguez Brito has said if the government finds any concrete evidence against Wesolowski, it would seek his extradition. He noted, however, that the Dominican Republic has no extradition agreement with the Vatican.

Hey, wait—the Pope was told in July of this year about Wesolowski, but did anyone run over to the police headquarters to fill them in? They had, after all, a couple of months—easily—to do so, before the Vatican withdrew its ambassador.

The article was written on September 12 of this year. Five days ago, Brito announced that the case against Wesolowski is nearly complete—he was putting the finishing touches on it. The article then goes on to quote a cardinal in the Dominican Republic:

En ese sentido, el cardenal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez reiteró que esa situación le “avergüenza” y manifestó que destituido embajador del Vaticano será juzgado en la Santa Sede por un tribunal especial que conoce esos casos.

“El nuncio tiene que ser juzgado en el tribunal del Vaticano. Allá hay muchos tribunales, pero el que conoce el caso es Doctrina de la Fe”, puntualizó.

Agregó que Wesolowsky no puede ser extraditado por su condición diplomática y conforme a lo establecido en el tratado de Viena, del que la República Dominicana es signataria.

“Los diplomáticos tienen que ser juzgados en los países que representan, según la convención de Viena”, resaltó López Rodríguez.

What’s the cardinal saying? “The nuncio has to be tried by a Vatican court. There are many courts there, but the one which has knowledge of this case is the Doctrine of the Faith.

“He added that Wesolowski cannot be extradited do to his position as diplomat as established by the Treaty of Vienna.”

Right—that’s not Brito speaking, but a cardinal, though one could ask how he got into the picture. So it’s unclear—what’s Brito thinking?

Several other questions come to mind. According to one report:

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

I won’t translate except to say:

obstaculizó—hindered

decena—dozen

sacerdote—priest

Hmmm—just a second. Wesolowski was on American soil, hindering investigations of sexual abuse by priests. Hey, guess what! Wesolowski may have the privilege of being the first Vatican official on a witness stand in an American court. 

Next on the list—Wesolowski was not the only Polish guy running around in the Dominican Republic. There was also a priest… but let El Nuevo Día tell the story:

Precisamente, el jueves, las autoridades dominicanas le solicitaron  a la Interpol que ayude con la captura de otro sacerdote de origen polaco, Wojciech Gil, quien presuntamente también cometió actos sexuales contra menores en el vecino país.

And why do the Dominican authorities need the help of Interpol to find Wojciech Gil? Because at about the same time that the Vatican recalled Wesolowski, Gil got it into his head to return home to his beloved Poland.

So we have the perfect storm for the Vatican. It says it cooperates with local authorities—does it? And why is it that they pulled Wesolowski, and didn’t report to the local authorities, as their own policy dictated? Will the Vatican allow for extradition of one Polish priest but not another—an ambassador? Its new laws allow for up to ten years in prison—but will it loophole Weslowski? As it is—the worst thing that could happen to him is to be defrocked.

Two things come to mind. First, whatever the legality of the situation is, the morality is—to this old atheist—pretty clear. A guy was screwing around with kids—he should be punished, and punished by the laws of that country. If the Vatican insists on diplomatic immunity, the whole world will be laughing. Or at least those of us who have no illusions about the Vatican. The faithful will be seething.

Second, get ready, both of you guys, for a taste of the Dominican legal system. As I understand it, it operates on the belief that the defendant is guilty until found innocent. Oh, and guess what? Dominican jails are notorious—filthy, dirt floors, rats, no food or provisions unless provided by family. Puerto Ricans will remember dear Laura Hernández….

But look at the bright side.

Won’t be cold!

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…..    

La Guerre, Jean-Claude!

Whew—what a relief!

News flash—according to Laura Mills of the Associated Press, Jean-Claude Killy, Chairman of the International Olympic Committee Coordination Commission, is “fully satisfied” that the draconian Russian laws that impose sentences for anyone—even a straight person—who speaks out for the rights of LGBT folk….

…those folk who are getting treated like this: 
 


OK—those are the LGBT folk in Russia, and that’s what happens to them when they try to speak up and protest. But that’s OK—because now, Jean-Claude Killy has determined that what you just saw “doesn't violate the Olympic charter's anti-discrimination clause, and pronounced Russia ready to host the 2014 Winter Games.”

Yeah?

Well, the same article quoted above has a different point of view, in this case from the head of the Human Rights Campaign:

"If this law doesn't violate the IOC's charter, then the charter is completely meaningless," HRC president Chad Griffin said in a statement. "The safety of millions of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Russians and international travelers is at risk, and by all accounts the IOC has completed neglected its responsibility to Olympic athletes, sponsors and fans from around the world."

So what’s going on? Well, in Russia, Putin has a problem: his government is racked with corruption, his election was a dubious affair, and there isn’t much of the transparency that people would like to see. What to do? The old, old story—find a scapegoat, knock off a few heads, and whip up the masses with nationalism and the Mother Church. Which is exactly what he’s done—making the issues of LGBT community into a foreign poison going against sacred Russian values. And not just the LGBT community—remember the Pussy Riot?

Right—so where we once had witches, we now have gay people. Nothing new here.

And nothing really new about the Olympic Commission, either.

For all the talk about how the Olympics are devoted to bringing together young athletes to an international forum to foment good will and sportsmanship—well, can we say it at last?

It’s about money.

And when there’s an unpalatable government that pops up in a place where it had been decided the games would be, what does the International Olympic Committee do?

Remember the 1936 Olympics? By good fortune, Jesse Owens won—which was one in the eye for Adolf Hitler—but if he hadn’t, it would have been a complete international public relations coup for Hitler. As the Sochi Olympics are supposed to be for Putin.

It’s obvious—these games are the most expensive in history; according to the BBC, and may end up costing 50 billion bucks, thirty-billion of which has been stolen in fraudulent construction schemes. And where is all that money coming from?

Or—to ask another question first—where is all that money going to? According to critics of Putin, businessmen close to…guess who.

Jean-Claude Killy dominated the field of skiing in the 60’s; he now is busy assuring the world that all is OK in Russia, and that “the IOC doesn't have the right to discuss the laws that are in place in the country hosting the games, so unless the charter is violated we are fully satisfied."

Well, Jean-Claude may have hit one too many rocks tumbling down those mountainsides, because according to Keith Olbermann, in the clip you see below, all may not be so fine in the marketing department. For it seems that Gerhard Heiberg, a gloomy Norwegian—they tend to be, you know—isn’t liking what he’s hearing, especially from his US and European sponsors. Have a listen:

Right—you know, Heiberg may know a thing or two. Because if gay people can risk getting the shit beaten out of them in Russia—as well as Uganda and Jamaica and a host of other countries where homosexuality is an invitation to a death wish—gay men and women can absolutely walk into their local supermarket.

Walk in with stickers….

Stickers like this….

Feel free to save this image and print on 2.68" x 2" stickers (15 per sheet @ less than 20 bucks for 100 sheets)!