November 3, 2017 To: Dr. Jeffrey Docking, President Adrian College @JeffreyDocking, @AdrianCollege cc: Ms. Bridgette Winslow, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, Title IX Coordinator Dr. Seth Knox, President, Adrian College Association of Professors The dam has broken: You can no longer blame a fifteen-year-old victim for the fact that one of your professors, […]
The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Plan is not perfect. But because of it, last week, victims were able to expose two, decades-long hidden priest perpetrators. One of the predators—Casper Wolf—taught in a Bronx high school for 27 years. The Archdiocese knew about allegations entire time. And said NOTHING. If you were sexually abused by a […]
Do I have proof of the scandal? Yes. Do a simple Google search on the Sugar’n Spice Photos of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields. You’ll read about the Playboy photos her mother approved and for which the photographer said the child felt “totally comfortable posing.” (That’s not comfort, BTW. That’s the product of grooming.) Fortunately, the […]
UPDATE: The board of The Weinstein Company has fired Harvey from the company he help found. Hollywood’s deafening silence this week in the case of Harvey Weinstein should be telling to everyone: It tells us a story about power. It tells us a story about morality. It tells us the story of fame’s fickle friendship. […]
The Catholic Diocese of Rockville Center, NY has announced an Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Plan. These plans, administered by Ken Feinberg and funded by the individual dioceses, aim to compensate victims for abuse. You can read more about them in my four-part series here. Victims of sexual abuse in the Long Island Catholic diocese of […]
A Vatican priest and diplomat under suspicion for violating US child pornography laws wrote his 2003 doctoral dissertation on church laws addressing how the Holy See deals with clerics accused of molesting children. Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella, recalled by the Vatican last week, wrote The criminal protection of ecclesiastical celibacy in the canonical laws of 1917 […]
Even I was guilty of assuming that Archdiocese of Agaña (Guam) Archbishop Anthony Apuron was charged with child sexual abuse in his current and highly publicized Vatican Tribunal. But then I learned: Charges in a Vatican Tribunal are secret. Apuron’s replacement confirmed it. From The Tablet (UK): Asked if [Guam] archbishop [Anthony Apuron] was also […]
Rita Milla had a horror story. It was a story that no one could believe. It was 1978. The California teenager said she was being sexually abused by seven priests from the Philippines. She was 16. Who would believe a horrible story like that? The abuse continued. Then she got pregnant. One of the priests, […]
A former vocal coach for Orange County’s All-American Boys Chorus—and a member of the FBI’s Most Wanted List—can be sent back to California from the UK, a judge there ruled this week. Roger Alan Giese, 42, according to KABC: has been charged with five counts of lewd acts upon a child under the age of […]
In February 2017, Al Jazeera’s 101 East produced this 25-minute documentary feature about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the Philippines. It’s a great primer for anyone interested in learning more about the clergy sexual abuse crisis in this VERY Catholic country. Here’s a peek at what you’ll see: The Catholic Church in […]
In the introduction to this series, I called the Philippines the “Holy Grail” of cover-up. Simply put, it’s the place where priests accused of abuse can hang out and still be priests. In fact, it doesn’t matter whether or not the priests abused in the Philippines or elsewhere. The Philippines is a place where treatment […]
August is usually a very quiet time in my line of work. Not so much this year. There are currently more than 100 cases of child sexual abuse and a now controversial canonical trial on the island of Guam. Hundreds of sex abuse cases are winding through the courts in Minnesota. The Keepers controversy has everyone on […]
Fr. Justin Wachs was hiding out. After getting caught sexually harassing a parishioner in 2014—touching her without permission and leaving her suggestive notes— he quit his job as pastor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Church officials thought the “geographic solution” would be best: get him as far away from Sioux Falls as possible. They even […]
This week, a lawyer for the Claretian Missionaries announced that Bruce Wellems was forced to petition the Vatican to give up his collar. That’s right. He can’t be a priest. For those of you who have been following this blog, that’s huge news. But for this person, it’s vindication: That’s Eric Johnson. Bruce Wellems was […]
To register, or not to register? That is the question. For those of you just catching up, the IRCPs, or the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Programs, are programs for certain survivors of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn. If victims qualify, they may get financial compensation. But the […]
Update 5/20/18 PLEASE NOTE: This story is from 2017. I have since separated from SNAP. There are new issues surrounded the organization, about which I have not commented publicly. When I decide to do so, I will link here. ******* I have remained quiet on the subject of the changes in SNAP, the Survivors Network. […]
Sorry for the gap since Part 2. I was on vacation. Then I ended up on the news. He’s been called The Master of Disasters, a brand unto himself, and the Compensation Czar. Kenneth Feinberg (pictured above), the man who, with his assistant Camille Biros (read this recent New York Times article about her), […]
Part two of this series was originally going to be a little about IRCP plan administrator Ken Feinberg, but since the Diocese of Brooklyn has posted its official IRCP website (full of legalese), I thought I would go over some of the details here. * Brooklyn IRCP Bishop DiMarzio and the Diocese of Brooklyn […]
Brian Toale just sent me this regarding his work in New York on the CVA. I asked if I could publish it here. There was so much rawness here. It shows that the survivors who went to Albany were very different from the paid lobbyists who went on behalf of the NY Catholic Conference. ***** […]
~PART ONE OF A MULTI-PART SERIES ON THE IRCP~ I had planned on talking about the Archdiocese of New York’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP) in this blog, but I wanted to wait until after the end of the current New York legislative session. My hope was that the plan would be rendered redundant—that […]
