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I am in the process of updating The Worthy Adversary site. Please excuse any hiccups. I majored in English, not computer science.

Here are a boatload of questions for you:

Last week, Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Speak Out Act.

According to PBS Newshour:

President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed legislation curbing the use of confidentiality agreements that block victims of sexual harassment from speaking publicly about misconduct in the workplace.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden had acted on the bipartisan Speak Out Act, which bars the use of nondisclosure agreements that employees or contractors are required to sign, often as a condition of employment.

The new law, among the workplace changes pushed in the wake of the #MeToo movement, applies to any nondisclosure agreements, also known as NDAs, signed before a dispute has occurred. (emphasis mine)

Now, let’s look at the bylaws of the lay review board for the Diocese of Knoxville (specifically requirement g on page two):

Hmmm … an NDA? The diocese is a workplace, no? Sexual abuse of children and vulnerable people by clergy is sexual assault at the workplace of the clergy member, right?

And … what happens if a board member breaks the NDA? What kind of teeth does this document have?

Now, let’s not confuse confidentiality with an NDA. Tennessee is a state where EVERY CITIZEN is considered a mandatory reporter. Reporting abuse to law enforcement is not breaking confidentiality, it’s reporting a crime. But reporting to law enforcement evidence of criminal activity that is discussed in a review board meeting IS breaking an NDA.

So who’s side are the board members on? Once they sign that NDA, they are no longer on the side of victims of abuse.

And … Now, I think that little NDA is against the law. Certainly the spirit of the law.

That’s dirty pool, Bishop Stika.

First CA diocese ducks for cover as a result of AB 218

It was inevitable. And there is SO MUCH to unpack.

In a statement last week, Diocese of Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa said that the northern California Catholic Diocese plans to declare bankruptcy due to “more than 130 child sex abuse lawsuits” filed since the opening of AB 218, the one-year window for survivors. (I had the honor of being the survivor to testify on behalf of that bill in 2019.)

The Santa Rosa bankruptcy filing is no surprise. It’s a tried-and-true dirty tactic used to HALT pending sex abuse cases in their tracks, avoid very embarrassing public civil child sex abuse and cover up trials, and hide evidence of sex abuse and cover-up away from the public, parents, and Catholics.

And Santa Rosa has a lot to hide: There’s everyone favorite bishop, G. Patrick Ziemann. Accused of abusing kids throughout his career (a career that included three years of teaching at Mater Dei High School … barf), he was elevated to bishop and assigned to Santa Rosa. There, it’s alleged he continued the abuse of kids and young men, and even allegedly had a “sex slave” (there’s a book about it).

The Diocese of Santa Rosa is also home of the Napa Institute. (For those of you in the know, this is where former St. Paul-Minneapolis Bishop John C. Nienstedt hid out after his diocese was criminally and civilly charged with covering up child sex abuse. Nienstedt has also been personally accused of abuse.)

But I digress … the Napa-area retreat/education center was founded by lawyer Tim Busch, who … ironically … is also the mastermind behind the “foundation model” of diocese finances. That nifty little model is the whole reason we can expect most, if not all, of the Catholic dioceses to declare bankruptcy.

The foundation model, put in place in light of the 2003 California civil window for survivors, placed individual California dioceses’ finances into nonprofit “diocese Catholic foundations.” Money, real estate, and other assets in the foundations are reportedly “protected” from survivors of child sexual abuse seeking damages.

These foundations also allow bishops to say that their dioceses are effectively “broke” (because they have “no money” … it’s all in the “foundation”) and make the process of declaring bankruptcy (almost) seamless.

Ugh.

Filing Santa Rosa’s bankruptcy first is an excellent trial balloon for the California Catholic Conference. The wine-country diocese is small, not very wealthy, and their bishop, Robert Vasa, is not terribly high profile. This is the kind of news that can “sneak in” without much notice. If a larger diocese, say Los Angeles or Orange, tried to file first, the news would make international headlines. (and what would OC Bishop Vann do with his beloved Christ Cathedral and its organ, Hazel?).

(As a note, the Diocese of Stockton declared bankruptcy in 2014 in light of a slew of child sex abuse lawsuits. As a result, they have escaped this current civil window relatively unscathed).

So, I’ll keep following this story and posting here. It will only get nastier before it gets better.

Yesterday, five women sued Bill Cosby for sexual in New York State under that state’s new “Adult Victims Act.”

The law, which gives adult survivors of sexual assault a one-year window to use the civil courts to expose sexual assault and get accountability, took effect on Thanksgiving. It’s modeled on the highly successful Child Victims’ Act, which gave survivors of child sexual abuse in the state a two-year window to come forward. That window closed in 2021.

Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski, Warren Beatty, Marilyn Manson, Woody Allen, and other well known showbiz predators are in for a world of civil litigation hurt: a similar law in California opens on January 1, 2023.

I anticipate a lot of VERY NERVOUS celebs are “lawyering up” as I write this.

I was asked to contribute a chapter in an upcoming book on healing wisdom for survivors. Pre-orders on how to break the “victim mentality” coming soon! Be sure to check back.