Tsunami of survivors' testimony will drown child abusers

We Are Coming

My Twitter friend Harrison (@Harrison7R) is a survivor of clergy abuse who was silenced and bullied by Chichester Diocese, Church of England. He is a very creative person. 

It is an original poem, in his own words.  He also did the artwork using a phone app to design it.

Harrison says, “I wanted to express something about the fury and determination to stop abusers, the feeling of hurt/being silenced, the total revulsion of what they do to us, that makes us survivors... And a future where they are stopped.”

We talked about the abusers and why many of them get off without some real jail time. I said that the courts are way too lenient and this sets an example so other paedophiles keep up the abuse.  We all know that these abusers can never be cured.

Harrison says about the abusers: “They gave no solution, no option but to stand against them, seek the answers, join the dots, deny their lies - wrest out of the ashes and horror some hope, and hold on to all that is good”

So that is what we do on Twitter and on this blog:  we will hold on to the good and share our stories so that more people will know how prevalent the evil is. Shining the light on them in every dark hole in which they hide will make it so they cease to exist - and we are part of that.

Harrison said, “There is only one response to threats which prey on kids that makes any evolutionary and survival sense: eradicate it. Utterly. If it can't be cured, or rendered harmless, kill it. Children are not sex toys or objects for adults’ lust. It is not normal nor procreation.”

Join us on Twitter or on this Blog and help us save the children.

Christian Brothers: Not Christian and not brothers

Dave Sharp 

I talk to Dave Sharp on my Twitter site @georgebarilla.  Like me, he suffered at the hands of catholic clergy. These “brothers” are not anyone’s brother and if being Christian means doing good in the name of God then they are far from being Christian.

Dave, after 40 years of fighting his abusers received a settlement decades after he was repeatedly raped and beaten at St Ninian’s residential school in Fife.  He is the first person in Scotland to win a payout from the Catholic order, who ran residential schools for children across the world.

Because of his successful fight, it is likely that hundreds of other Scottish victims will be able to win compensation for historical abuse at various organizations.

Dave, said: “I hope my payment is the first of many the Christian Brothers are forced to make to those men whose lives have been wrecked because of the treatment they received as children in Scotland’s residential homes and schools.

Dave says, “If I can win, then so can they. They must come forward and tell their stories. There is help and support out there for all survivors, men and women, regardless of the institutions they were abused in. They will be believed and helped.

Dave’s tormentor, former headteacher Brother Gerry Ryan, has since died. Dave tells how he was tied up, abused and hung by the neck in a freezing basement shower room repeatedly between the ages of 10 and 16.   Abuse like this and worse is a pattern with all catholic residential homes. I was abused in the shower and my breathing was cut off –in my case with a pillow instead of a rope at St. Agnes in Sparkill, New York.  Child abuse by the catholic church is the same in every country in the world.

Dave told me recently:

“I’m finally giving my testimony at the Scottish child abuse public inquiry next Friday 7th.. I will be talking about how I and many other boys were taken out of the homes and taken to houses around Scotland where we would be put in coffins for long periods of time and also trafficked over to Ireland to be put into Satanic parties to be raped by up to 10 men at a time.

What I want to talk about after to the press is the need for a national discussion on Historical child abuse in Scotland and the name of discussion would be HOW SAFE ARE OUR CHILDREN. Let me throw this at you. Statistically over the last 50 years between 60/75% of homeless people and people on addiction in Scotland were abused in childhood or suffered childhood trauma. Most of these people take their abuse to the grave. These stats have never changed because no one in authority will do anything about it. The scary thing is that the only stat that has changed is that the average age of deaths is getting younger and younger. 

We need to have a discussion and ask the questions like: Has anything really changed since I was kicked out onto the streets over 40 years ago? I am not saying that nobody is doing anything but we have to ask. Why are so many kids falling through the system and what more can we do for our care leavers?”

Let’s hope that Dave and others like him keep talking about the abuse so that all the abusers are brought to justice. There are many of us survivors talking on
Twitter, come and join us. 

Child Abuse Victims caught between two New York Senate Bills

Advocates for Child Victims Act

Child sexual abuse must be stopped, and the abusers punished. No one disagrees with that statement.  Right now, many victims cannot get justice because of the statute of limitations – a time limit on when a lawsuit can be brought against the abusers. We need a law to get rid of the statute of limitations in New York.  According to constitutional scholar and Cardozo Law School Professor Marci Hamilton, New York is one of the worst states in the nation for child sexual abuse statutes of limitation.

But what is the best way to do this? There are two bills up for approval in New York State -- but only one will become law. Why should we be concerned about which child abuse bill becomes a law?  Advocates for abused children have been trying for many years to get the Child Victims Act (CVA) to be law. Sponsored by democrats, the CVA has never passed the republican senate in New York.  Recently, a new bill was introduced by a republican senator and has met with quick approval by other republicans. Is this because the true sponsors are overjoyed with a bill that lets all the offending institutions evade their responsibility as abusers? 

Will one of these bills be more helpful to child abuse victims than the other? The rules proposed for each bill need to be looked at closely.

The Child Victims Act (CVA) is New York Senate Bill S809, sponsored by Senator Brad Hoylman (D). This bill does away with statutes of limitations for prosecuting child sexual abuse crimes and for filing civil lawsuits for damages against individuals, public institutions, and private institutions. Importantly, it also creates a one-year period during which victims who were abused and missed the statute of limitations reporting time period can seek the justice they have been denied.  This is easy to understand: no statutes of limitations and a window for those who missed out on getting justice.

The other bill is more complicated, will have financial consequences for New York taxpayers, and will allow some of the abusers to avoid any responsibility for their horrendous actions.

New York Senate Bill S8736  sponsored by Senator Catharine Young (R) sets up a fund that will be used to compensate victims that file an application and who meet requirements determined by officers chosen by lawmakers.

Some facts from Young’s bill:

The bill states that due to the amount of time that may have passed since the abuse took place, the claim can’t be pursued as a regular lawsuit.  Who is deciding this? Such a decision should be based on the individual case and discussion is between the victim and his/her lawyer.

Young’s Bill may help some people in cases where their sexual abuser has no money, can’t be found, or is dead. Many others will not be helped such as those whose abuse happened a long time ago and where the perpetrator was from an institution like the Catholic church. Institutions can be sued even if the perpetrator is dead.  Marci Hamilton said on Twitter: “Sen Young's bill is actually a New Joke for child victims  It should be called the Institutional Subsidy Act  Lets all institutions off the hook  Loved by Dolan and insurance companies.”

Young’s Bill would allow people who were abused to be represented by a lawyer. But the requirements of the bill decrease the chance that a lawyer would really be interested in the case.  The lawyer would have to conform to the rules of Young’s bill. 

Because institutions like the Catholic church, Boy Scouts, yeshivas, and insurance companies would not be financially responsible, compensation would be limited to what the rules allowed. It’s a fact that lawyers want to get paid for their services and with this bill, with its fixed compensation, they will not want to take these cases. Then the victim will be dependent only on NY State rules.

The CVA would open a one-year window for people who missed the statute of limitations, but each person would have an interested lawyer and a better chance of success.   

In Young’s Bill the claims cannot include punitive damages. Punitive damage awards are meant not to compensate the victim but to punish the offending party for reckless or shocking conduct*. Courts have held that punitive damages can be awarded only where the conduct to be punished approaches criminality.  

*This bill will not help me.  After being raped by a Catholic priest along with my brother, I was tortured for months by Dominican nuns. I was smothered with a pillow by a nun with intent to kill me.  I was in a coma for many months and left with brain damage that affects my speech, vision and hearing. My brother killed himself because he couldn’t accept what they did to both of us.  I personally know of others who were abused in New York and who were crippled or died. The perpetrators need to be forced to stop abusing and murdering children and hitting them in their pockets is an effective way to do it.

The process of choosing the decision makers and what the victim has to go through is unacceptable. It is open to prejudiced interpretations by those who make the decisions – the victim would have to “go through the mill” and be re-victimized.  The victims, if they want a lawyer will most likely have to pay the lawyer’s retainer fees unless they qualify for free help.  Will the victims have to go through a financial evaluation, another stress on already abused person?

The chief administrator of the plan is selected by the NY state comptroller along with leaders of the senate and assembly.  So, this means that lobbyists and others with their own agendas can influence the “leaders” and the comptroller.  We will then get a chief administrator who is under the influence of those who chose him/her.  Then, like a domino effect, the people chosen down the line are also suspect.

The chief administrator then appoints the Hearing Officers who will decide the merits of each victim’s request. 

The chief administrator is authorized to accept contributions by individuals, businesses, or “other entities” to add to the $300 million compensation fund. The fund money comes from the more than $700 million in asset forfeiture funds controlled by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.'s office.  These forfeiture funds come from money taken from terrorist activities, drug related crimes, and other criminal and civil offenses. Again, here is the opportunity for special interest influence on the outcomes of victims’ requests.  Who are these “other entities”?  Do they include for example the Catholic Archdiocese of NY, other religious denominations, schools and universities?  So the abusers can control the money.  Do you trust them?

Senator Hoylman questions whether it is legal to take funds from Vance's office. Even if it is legal, it is taking money from worthy criminal justice programs like the purchase of rape test kits and cameras for public housing at the expense of protecting "child sexual abusers and institutions who harbor them."  So more people are abused by the mis-use of the money. It is not clear whether any of the processes and the use of money allocated for other things will put some type of tax burden on New York residents.

When the victim files a claim he/she must say why they are eligible for compensation and how much money they want.  These are people with complex histories and multiple disorders – even difficult for teams of experts to understand. Some of them, like my husband have complex post-traumatic stress disorder, others have psychological damage or physical disabilities.  Will the Hearing Officers have the qualifications to really understand whether a victim is eligible? Will they have to hire “experts” – also of their choosing and spend more taxpayers’ money. 

Will the amount of money in the fund be enough?  Will these Hearing Officers or their superiors change limits on the amount of compensation if the money runs out?  Even with the 5% allotted to the fund yearly and possible contributions the administrators of the fund will necessarily be frugal with the amount. Will they award victims what they deserve?

Members of the clergy will have to report to the district attorney any information they have that a child was abused by a clergy member within 20 years prior to the bill becoming law. My husband was abused 70 years ago. Or they must report if they know that a clergy member who is still active in the institution has abused a child.  My husband’s abusers are all dead, but the Church is still in business. The clergy member does not have to provide this information if came from confidential communications (like confession) or was under privileged law or if the abuser is dead. It seems that the clergy member would not have much to say – the designers of the rules appear to want it that way.

I know that all the abusers and especially the institutions would like to see the victims die off before they get justice or fair compensation.  Everyone – voters, lawmakers, child abuse advocates, victims and their families should work together to ensure that the best Bill – the one that will help the most victims gets passed this time. We are hoping it is the Child Victims Act.

In Memoriam: Earl Baker Wert, M.D. (1913-2001)

Earl and me cooling down after a race

Earl and me running on track

Earl was my closest friend, the best one I had in my life. I think about him often and wanted to let you know that there are good people in this world.  When he walked on I was very sad.  He was also a great person who made a lot of contributions to humanity.

 

Earl was a star on his high school track and football teams. He went to the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and became a doctor in 1940. Earl served in the United States Army (1945-47) as a pathologist at the Army Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC.  In 1947, Earl taught pathology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. 

In 1948, Earl and his wife moved to Mobile, AL.  (where I later met him in 1983). Earl was elected Mobile County Coroner and held that position for three decades.  He used to tell me that I had a lot of muscle and that he would give me a free autopsy anytime I wanted it!

Earl was an expert in clinical and forensic pathology. He was good at finding the cause of death in homicide cases and he was a pioneer in the study of vitreous humor of the eye to help determine causes and time of death.  He was Director of Pathology at the Mobile Infirmary until he retired in 1986.  He was also a Past-President and Founding Fellow of the Association of Clinical Scientists.

Earl’s scientific presentations were always timely, informative, practical, and he used gentle humor. He used to talk to me about his work and he brought me to his birthday party at the Mobile Infirmary. We walked in wearing our running clothes, he blew out the candles on his cake and then we went back out to finish our usual run.

Earl played piano and sang in a barbershop quartet. He knew foreign languages (he was fluent in French, and proficient in German and classical Greek). He loved to travel (he and wife often toured Europe, sometimes with their children).  He liked history (he studied the naval blockade of Mobile during the Civil War and the Battle of Verdun during World War I). He liked athletics (he was good at tennis and was an avid runner). He took up running again at age 65, often competed in the Boston Marathon, and held five age-group records for the Pike’s Peak Race in Colorado. He was 30 years older than me.  He had many State running records.  I just had one State championship at age 47 for the two miler.

I met Earl in 1983 at running races in Mobile, AL.  We felt like we were friends for life the first time we met.  We ran races together, he took me to the Blue Angel Marathons in Florida, sleeping in a tent.  We went to New Orleans races. We biked together for 10 miles at a time.  He had birthday party races at his home in Dog River every year.  He paddled a canoe for miles on the river and once heard a thump – it was an alligator! He was twice president of the Port City Pacers, a large running club in Mobile.  We ran on the track together many, many times. Once when we were running I fell and hurt my finger.  Earl went in his shed and made a splint for my finger out of a piece of aluminum. 

When I moved away from Mobile in 1992, I came back to visit him several times. We remembered the good times we had running together. 

Because of all his athletic activities Earl was always strong and healthy right to the end of his life. He was a true doctor of medicine and human nature. 

Russell Means: a Native American legend walks on

Russell Means 1939-2012

Russell Means  was an activist, a musician, an actor, politician and a writer and  led protests that called attention to the nation’s history of injustices against Native Americans. Russell – named  Wanbli Ohitika by his mother, which means "Brave Eagle" in the Lakota language-- was born in Porcupine, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. His mother was a Yankton Dakota from Greenwood, South Dakota, and his father was an Oglala Lakota.

Russell was active outside of the United States helping other indigenous peoples in Central and South America, and worked with the United Nations for their rights. In 1992 he appeared on numerous television series and in several films, including The Last of the Mohicans, and released his own music CD. He published his autobiography: “Where White Men Fear to Tread” in 1995. Russell walked on in 2012, less than a month before his 73rd birthday.

When Russell walked on ABC News said he "spent a lifetime as a modern American Indian warrior, railed against broken treaties, fought for the return of stolen land and even took up arms against the federal government, called national attention to the plight of impoverished tribes and often lamented the waning of Indian culture."   The New York Times said Russell " was as well-known a Native American as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse."

Being famous didn’t prevent him from being mistreated like many other Native Americans.  While at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in south-central South Dakota, he developed severe vertigo – he couldn’t walk straight. Doctors at the reservation clinic thought he was drunk. They refused to examine him for several days. Then they said he had a concussion probably due to a fight in a saloon. A visiting specialist later found that the reservation doctors missed the real diagnosis: a common ear infection. This stereotyping and neglectful behavior cost Russell the hearing in one ear.

The ashes of Russell Means were sprinkled throughout the sacred Black Hills, SD. Ruth Hopkins writing in the Indian Country Media Network (2014) about the Black hills: “To say that the Black Hills hold special significance for the Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation) is an understatement. They’re not only our traditional homelands, where our ancestors once lived, they’re sacred. The Black Hills (K?e Sapa) are the birthplace of our Nation, where we rose from Mother Earth’s womb. Our legends took place there. The Black Hills itself is a terrestrial mirror of the heavens above and thus forms the basis of our ancient star maps and Lakota astronomy. The entirety of K?e Sapa is a sacred site. Our rituals observe the natural cycles of the planet and our Universe. There are ceremonies that we must conduct at specific locations within the Black Hills. These ancient ceremonies benefit the whole of humanity. No, we aren’t talking about dirt protected by ‘No Trespassing’ signs. K?e Sapa is holy ground. It is where we are meant to pray.”

Listening to Russell Means talk about his people (http://tinyurl.com/gs5smcw) can only put some humanity in our hearts – it should go viral; share it with everyone you know.

 Russell Means

Pope Francis creating a child abuse scandal

Be careful what you ask for Pope Francis

Back in December 2016 the Pope told the world that bishops should enforce a zero tolerance policy for any priest who sexually abuses a child. The hidden truth is that Francis doesn’t treat all priests who abuse children equally.  Some are punished, some are not.  What happens depends on whether the priest has friends in high places.

According to Gilion Dumas, an Oregon attorney for abuse survivors: “In this Pope we have a master communicator who knows how to offer the right sound bite and the perfect photo-op. When the surface is scratched, the picture isn’t so pretty.” 

In an article published in The Week magazine, writer Michael Brendan Dougherty says that “cases of priestly abuse in Rome are now known to have two sets of distinctions. The first is guilty or innocent. The second is "with cardinal friends" or "without cardinal friends."  An example is a priest, Mauro Inzoli, accused of sexually  abusing children and defrocked by Pope Benedict in 2012. However, in 2014, Pope Francis restored Inzoli to the priesthood after Inzoli’s cardinal benefactors Cardinal Coccopalmerio and Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto both intervened on behalf of Inzoli. Pope Francis, reversing the defrocking, invited Inzoli to a "a life of humility and prayer."  I won’t bet that is what he has and will be doing while he is loose in the streets. Pedophiles are never cured, but what does Francis care?  His clergy buddies are more important.

Dougherty couldn’t believe that after giving in to the unjust requests by Coccopalmerio and Pinto that the pope then handed over authority for some child abuse cases to Pinto.  So Francis thinks that a pedophile enabler like Pinto is a good choice to protect children.  That makes Francis the chief enabler and the enemy of the children.

Civil authorities tried Inzoli, convicting him of only eight offenses because another 15 crimes hit the statute of limitations wall. Civil authorities knew what was going on with the old boy network and slammed the church for their dishonesty. The Italian press hammered the Vatican, specifically the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), for not sharing the information they had found in their own trial. “Of course, the pope himself could have allowed the CDF to share this information with civil authorities if he so desired,” said Dougherty. But he didn’t.  Of course, the pope can’t be held in contempt of court.

Remember, it is not what Pope Francis says, it is what he does – and for the abused that is worse than nothing because he is putting criminals back on the streets.

Pedophile in Argentine church killed by parents

Pedophile killed by victims' parents

Why did these people take the law in their own hands?  Was it because the law failed them?

About six years ago, in Buenos Aires  a preschool music teacher, Marcelo Fabián Pecollo, 42, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually abusing five of seven children, ages 3 to 5.  Four years later, his sentence was reduced (reason not stated), and he was released from prison. He joined a local orchestra group as a trumpeter.

Pecollo, 42, was playing the trumpet in a church on October 30th when a mob of angry parents stormed in. “There is a pedophile and a rapist in the church and he is playing in this orchestra!” they yelled. He tried to run, the parents caught him and beat him and he may have been hit with his own trumpet. The parents had hung posters and wore T-shirts saying “With the children, no!”

Pecollo was hospitalized  — later falling into a coma — and died last week, according to Argentine police. A priest in the church, Jorge Oesterheld said: “I think they came to kill him.” No one has been arrested as yet. A witness said that the orchestra members did not know about Pecollo’s criminal record.  What about the church who hired him – did they ever check the background of those they let into the church?

What did he do to the children? According to complaints from several parents, the teacher organized a game for his class called “al que le toca, le toca,” which translates roughly to “whoever’s turn it is gets touched.” On other occasions, boys in the class reported the teacher would lower his pants in front of the students and inappropriately touched some of the boys.

Some Argentines tweeted and posted on Facebook in solidarity with the parents in recent days, applauding their attempts to seek justice. Others reluctantly admitted they would likely do the same, if they were in the parents’ positions. “Justice does not work like this, but if they touched my daughter I think I would have done the same thing,” one father wrote.

As far as protecting children from sexual abuse or stopping it when it happens, justice rarely works.  There are too many children in situations where they are isolated and can be abused: day care centers, schools, orphanages, churches – and by people who are considered trustworthy: teachers, coaches, scout leaders, nuns and priests.

Until this society, everywhere in the world, starts to value children and protect them and take the perpetrators off the streets permanently it will be left to us to keep them safe.

New York is a wicked state: Cardinal Timothy Dolan where is the Child Victims Act?

Cardinal Dolan - Who Cares About the Victims?

The catholic church, its lawyers and its supporting politicians think that victims of child abuse have short memories.  But we don’t  - here is a report of “Don” an 80 year old man who says, “the pain is fresh.”  Just like my pain is fresh – I relive it every day: rape by a catholic priest, beatings and being smothered by catholic nuns, the suicide of my brother who couldn’t live with the abuse we suffered. 

Don told a priest who ran St. Michael’s Home for Children on Staten Island that one of the church employees had molested him repeatedly for two years. All he got was a lecture about damaging the man’s reputation.

Don was beaten with a thick paddle: “He beat the back of my legs like he was really mad. I thought he would never stop,” Don told NY Daily News reporter Michael O’Keeffe. 

Even though Don reported the abuse to the Archdiocese of New York a few years ago it’s unlikely that he will receive any compensation or justice any time soon. Archdiocese officials told him they were not responsible because a religious order, the Sisters of Mercy, operated the orphanage during the seven years Don lived there in the 1940s.  The Dominican nuns who abused me ran the St. Agnes Home and School in Sparkill, NY in the 1940s.  This is the same old story from the Archdiocese – that they or the Pope have nothing to do with the actions of nuns.  The Vatican regulates what nuns do – how they pray, how they spend their money, how they conduct their lives.  But they are all of a sudden “not responsible” for nuns who are facing lawsuits.  

New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan set up an Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP) supposedly to resolve the abuse scandal of the last 40 years. But there are strings attached:  only those victims who already reported the abuse are eligible now – others may be eligible sometime next year. The claim can’t be against a member of a religious order. The claim can only be against a priest and only a priest from the NY Archdiocese. There must be no previous settlements. It is up to the diocese to say the allegations are credible. The victim has to agree to never talk about the abusers, or ever bring another claim.  

So Don’s case was forwarded to the Sisters of Mercy. Because New York’s statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases bars victims from pursuing litigation after their 23rd birthdays, Don has no case with them.  Archdiocese Church officials said that Don was not eligible because he was sexually assaulted by a lay employee, not a priest or deacon.

 The Archdiocese says, “The IRCP has been established only to cover cases of abuse by clergy (priests or deacons) of the Archdiocese of New York. It does not cover members of religious communities, priests from other dioceses, or lay people.”

I made a report to the Archdiocese of the state where I live.  They said that since my abuse took place in New York, that it was New York’s problem.  The New York Archdiocese told me that unless I know the name of the priest who raped me and the nuns who beat and smothered me that they would not help me.  I was three and a half years old when I became a victim – too young to remember names.  The same run around and denial of responsibility.

Don’s case and my case shows that the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program is not the answer to child sexual abuse in New York. Getting rid of the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases in New York by passing the Child Victims Act is the only answer.