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| As far as Us Catholicism is concerned, Wild Bill owns this award. TEPCO owns Japan's. |
Catholic League: Shifting blame on sexual abuse
By Joe Conelly - Seattle PI - 4/11/2011
The conservative, contentious Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights on Monday bought a full-page ad in the New York Times to attack “those who are distorting the truth about priestly sexual abuse.”
The lengthy letter from League president Bill Donohue argued, talking about priests: “There is no other group in the U.S. which is subjected to such abuse.” (Bill, Barack Obama gets his share precisely because of the groups he is purported to represent.)
“What accounts for the relentless attacks on the Church? Lets face it. If its teachings were pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and pro-women clergy, the dogs would have been called off years ago,” Donohue wrote. (On the other hand Bill, if the bishops hadn't been caught moving sexual predators around like pieces on a chessboard, maybe these Church sex and gender teachings would be met with more credibility.)
The letter contrasts with recent expressions of repentance heard in the Seattle Archdiocese. A recent commentary at Seattle’s Jesuit-run St. Joseph Church talked of “a communal responsibility, a responsibility too often avoided in our culture and in our church.”.....
.....“Where would we all be, for instance, had not many voices, including those of victims and of people in the pews, spoken up and told the awful truth about clergy sexual abuse and the way the Church handled it, when speaking up was regarded by many as an act of disloyalty,” Fr. Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral, said in a recent homily. (Fr Ryan also led the write in campaign to delay implementation of the new Mass translation.)
Donohue, by contrast, charged that “some are exploiting this issue for ideological and financial profit.”
(Bill, you are exhibit numero uno.)
He also took issue with allegations of widespread child rape from victims and their advocates.
“Lets get it straight — they weren’t children and they weren’t raped,” Donohue alleged. “We know from the John Jay study that most of the victims have been adolescents, and that the most common abuse has been inappropriate touching (inexcusable though this is, it is not rape). (Bill, as an attorney, you should know secular law determines what is and is not prosecutable sexual behavior and all of those acts you consider merely 'inexcusable' are also criminal.)
“The Boston Globe correctly said of the John Jay report that ‘more than three-quarters of the victims were post pubescent, meaning the abuse did not meet the clinical definition of pedophilia.’
“In other words, the issue is homosexuality, not pedophilia.” (Bill, you left out the part about the John Jay researchers stating the John Jay data did not prove the issue was homosexuality. The vast majority of abusive priests claimed to be heterosexual. That would mean the issue must be heterosexuality as it's expressed in the Roman Catholic priesthood.)
He was referencing a 2004 study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was paid for by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
Using the study, Donohue argued that claims being litigated are “almost all old cases,” and that “most of the abuse occurred during the heyday of the sexual revolution, from the mid-1960′s to the mid-1980′s.”
(I suspect we might find that those acting as predators in the 60's - 80's were the prey of those clerics acting as predators in the 40's and 50's. This issue is a generational family issue.)......
........But Donohue on Monday took aim at other critics, namely The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). He called it “a professional victims’ group, dogmatic in their convictions, their hatred of the Catholic Church is palpable.” (Bill, you are a real piece of work. I am truly beginning to wonder about your own childhood and what dark little secrets it might contain.)
The Catholic League is self-described as “the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization.”
***************************************
There are days I despair of sanity ever returning to religion or politics, but then I remember that when old energy pardigms are on their way out, those who live and die by those paradigms get fueled to even greater heights of mindless attack. The fuel is fear. Bill Donohue is either one scared man, or one well paid scared man. In either case, he represents old energy screaming out it's death rattle. I have to keep reminding myself that this kind of bigoted angst is really a good sign. If Bill and his followers were secure in their version of truth, they wouldn't have to scream out their truth, they could just quietly live it.
Bishop Tobin of Rhode Island represents the other tactic taken by old energy--the appearance of reasonable compromise. In his case it's about gay marriage. He is now willing to concede some secular benefits to gay couples:
Tobin declined to elaborate on exactly which legal benefits and rights he thought unmarried couples should have—saying that’s a question for legal experts. “People deserve human rights whether or not they’re gay,” Tobin said. “Now the reciprocal benefits [bill] recognizes some rights and some privileges irrespective of their orientation and that’s the key I think.”
What Tobin is really saying is that whether people are gay or not, they deserve some secular rights. He wishes us to think it's some sort of generous compassionate compromise for a Roman Catholic bishop to concede secular authority can give some rights to it's citizens--even if they are gay. How generous of Bishop Tobin. Tobin defines these rights as the same kinds of property and medical decision rights brothers and sisters might have for each other if they are living together or any other human living arrangement which may or may not include sex. Thank you Bishop Tobin for your immense generosity in giving away some secular benefits. As for gays and Catholicism, the closet is still operative which means gays as gay have no rights. Maybe that has something to do with all those 'homosexual adolescent predators' of Wild Bill's imagination maintaining they are in fact, heterosexual adolescent predators.
One last observation, and this one has nothing to do with Roman Catholicism, but a lot to do with old energy paradigms. The Japanese nuclear regulatory body has elevated the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster to a level seven. That makes it another Chernobyl like event. The difference is only in the time frame necessary to release the required level of radioactive contaminant. For four weeks I have sat back and been stupefied by the half truths given out by government agencies, news casters, and supposed knowledgeable talking heads. Anyone who has worked in any kind of complicated chemical or nuclear plant knew that TEPCO was not going to be able to bring these four plants back on line. All the babbling about bringing power back into the plants and how that was going to be the golden bullet was bull shit from the get go. There was nothing left in the way of workable equipment in these plants for electrical power to bring back on line. Control rooms do not pump water. They monitor and control the system that do pump water.
The powers that be knew all this. They also had to know it would be months and months before anything meaningful could be done to replace all the pumps, pipes, and valves because you can't replace these pumps in any kind of reasonable time frame when your mechanics can only work for fifteen minutes at a crack. The last four weeks have been a cruel exercise in manipulating hope with half truths. Now we know the truth, and the Japanese people have every right to be furious with TEPCO and their government. Eventually the truth always comes out, and yesterday it did. Maybe now Japan can move forward because there is now no longer any reason to hold things up with half truths.
In my personal opinion, the only real thing they could have done in the first week was to blow plants 1-4 into the ocean and then covered over the site. The initial radiation dump would have been huge, but the fuel rods would have been very effectively separated and the reactions stopped. The thing about radiation is once the critical level is reached in which life is no longer viable, it doesn't matter if that threshold was exceeded by a little or by a lot. Or if it happens from short term or long term exposure. TEPCO chose the long term route and led us all down a path intended to obscure that fact and how damaging this disaster would really be. Now the truth is out. Maybe they can hire "Wild Bill' to argue their case. He's pretty good at spinning half truths and no truths.
The lengthy letter from League president Bill Donohue argued, talking about priests: “There is no other group in the U.S. which is subjected to such abuse.” (Bill, Barack Obama gets his share precisely because of the groups he is purported to represent.)
“What accounts for the relentless attacks on the Church? Lets face it. If its teachings were pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and pro-women clergy, the dogs would have been called off years ago,” Donohue wrote. (On the other hand Bill, if the bishops hadn't been caught moving sexual predators around like pieces on a chessboard, maybe these Church sex and gender teachings would be met with more credibility.)
The letter contrasts with recent expressions of repentance heard in the Seattle Archdiocese. A recent commentary at Seattle’s Jesuit-run St. Joseph Church talked of “a communal responsibility, a responsibility too often avoided in our culture and in our church.”.....
.....“Where would we all be, for instance, had not many voices, including those of victims and of people in the pews, spoken up and told the awful truth about clergy sexual abuse and the way the Church handled it, when speaking up was regarded by many as an act of disloyalty,” Fr. Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral, said in a recent homily. (Fr Ryan also led the write in campaign to delay implementation of the new Mass translation.)
Donohue, by contrast, charged that “some are exploiting this issue for ideological and financial profit.”
(Bill, you are exhibit numero uno.)
He also took issue with allegations of widespread child rape from victims and their advocates.
“Lets get it straight — they weren’t children and they weren’t raped,” Donohue alleged. “We know from the John Jay study that most of the victims have been adolescents, and that the most common abuse has been inappropriate touching (inexcusable though this is, it is not rape). (Bill, as an attorney, you should know secular law determines what is and is not prosecutable sexual behavior and all of those acts you consider merely 'inexcusable' are also criminal.)
“The Boston Globe correctly said of the John Jay report that ‘more than three-quarters of the victims were post pubescent, meaning the abuse did not meet the clinical definition of pedophilia.’
“In other words, the issue is homosexuality, not pedophilia.” (Bill, you left out the part about the John Jay researchers stating the John Jay data did not prove the issue was homosexuality. The vast majority of abusive priests claimed to be heterosexual. That would mean the issue must be heterosexuality as it's expressed in the Roman Catholic priesthood.)
He was referencing a 2004 study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was paid for by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
Using the study, Donohue argued that claims being litigated are “almost all old cases,” and that “most of the abuse occurred during the heyday of the sexual revolution, from the mid-1960′s to the mid-1980′s.”
(I suspect we might find that those acting as predators in the 60's - 80's were the prey of those clerics acting as predators in the 40's and 50's. This issue is a generational family issue.)......
........But Donohue on Monday took aim at other critics, namely The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). He called it “a professional victims’ group, dogmatic in their convictions, their hatred of the Catholic Church is palpable.” (Bill, you are a real piece of work. I am truly beginning to wonder about your own childhood and what dark little secrets it might contain.)
The Catholic League is self-described as “the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization.”
***************************************
There are days I despair of sanity ever returning to religion or politics, but then I remember that when old energy pardigms are on their way out, those who live and die by those paradigms get fueled to even greater heights of mindless attack. The fuel is fear. Bill Donohue is either one scared man, or one well paid scared man. In either case, he represents old energy screaming out it's death rattle. I have to keep reminding myself that this kind of bigoted angst is really a good sign. If Bill and his followers were secure in their version of truth, they wouldn't have to scream out their truth, they could just quietly live it.
Bishop Tobin of Rhode Island represents the other tactic taken by old energy--the appearance of reasonable compromise. In his case it's about gay marriage. He is now willing to concede some secular benefits to gay couples:
Tobin declined to elaborate on exactly which legal benefits and rights he thought unmarried couples should have—saying that’s a question for legal experts. “People deserve human rights whether or not they’re gay,” Tobin said. “Now the reciprocal benefits [bill] recognizes some rights and some privileges irrespective of their orientation and that’s the key I think.”
What Tobin is really saying is that whether people are gay or not, they deserve some secular rights. He wishes us to think it's some sort of generous compassionate compromise for a Roman Catholic bishop to concede secular authority can give some rights to it's citizens--even if they are gay. How generous of Bishop Tobin. Tobin defines these rights as the same kinds of property and medical decision rights brothers and sisters might have for each other if they are living together or any other human living arrangement which may or may not include sex. Thank you Bishop Tobin for your immense generosity in giving away some secular benefits. As for gays and Catholicism, the closet is still operative which means gays as gay have no rights. Maybe that has something to do with all those 'homosexual adolescent predators' of Wild Bill's imagination maintaining they are in fact, heterosexual adolescent predators.
One last observation, and this one has nothing to do with Roman Catholicism, but a lot to do with old energy paradigms. The Japanese nuclear regulatory body has elevated the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster to a level seven. That makes it another Chernobyl like event. The difference is only in the time frame necessary to release the required level of radioactive contaminant. For four weeks I have sat back and been stupefied by the half truths given out by government agencies, news casters, and supposed knowledgeable talking heads. Anyone who has worked in any kind of complicated chemical or nuclear plant knew that TEPCO was not going to be able to bring these four plants back on line. All the babbling about bringing power back into the plants and how that was going to be the golden bullet was bull shit from the get go. There was nothing left in the way of workable equipment in these plants for electrical power to bring back on line. Control rooms do not pump water. They monitor and control the system that do pump water.
The powers that be knew all this. They also had to know it would be months and months before anything meaningful could be done to replace all the pumps, pipes, and valves because you can't replace these pumps in any kind of reasonable time frame when your mechanics can only work for fifteen minutes at a crack. The last four weeks have been a cruel exercise in manipulating hope with half truths. Now we know the truth, and the Japanese people have every right to be furious with TEPCO and their government. Eventually the truth always comes out, and yesterday it did. Maybe now Japan can move forward because there is now no longer any reason to hold things up with half truths.
In my personal opinion, the only real thing they could have done in the first week was to blow plants 1-4 into the ocean and then covered over the site. The initial radiation dump would have been huge, but the fuel rods would have been very effectively separated and the reactions stopped. The thing about radiation is once the critical level is reached in which life is no longer viable, it doesn't matter if that threshold was exceeded by a little or by a lot. Or if it happens from short term or long term exposure. TEPCO chose the long term route and led us all down a path intended to obscure that fact and how damaging this disaster would really be. Now the truth is out. Maybe they can hire "Wild Bill' to argue their case. He's pretty good at spinning half truths and no truths.
Women, You are on a role... I AM TIRED OF THE SPIN!... The Gospel Needs to be Lived/Proclaimed - and - They're holdin us up...
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