The Worthy Adversary

Tag: Archdiocese of los angeles

  • Bishop Jaime Soto has some explaining to do about Uriel Ojeda

    If you are in the Sacramento area, I hope you can join us. I think that Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto has said, “Report abuse to the Diocese,” so many times, that he thinks it’s the right thing to do. (P.S. Even the Pope says to call the cops first)

     

    For immediate release: June 6, 2012

    Contact: Joelle Casteix (949) 322-7434, jcasteix@gmail.com

     

    NEWS EVENT: Victims say Sacramento bishop hinders prosecution

    He won’t disclose report of predator’s confession

    Such secrecy keeps other victims silent, group says

    It urges Sacramento prelate to attend court hearing on Friday

    SNAP to Soto: “Teach your flock how to back cleric without hurting victims”

    “Stop telling victims to report to the church, tell them to call cops instead,” they say

     

    What: Holding signs and childhood photos, child sex abuse victims and their supporters will try to hand-deliver a letter to Sacramento’s Catholic bishop urging him to:

    • attend Friday’s hearing for an accused pedophile priest,
    • make public a church staffer’s report of that priest’s admission of the crime, and
    • insist that his flock quietly support accused clerics and stop scaring their accusers.

     

    The group will also blast the bishop for continuing to ask victims to report crimes to church officials instead of law enforcement.

    When: Thursday, June 7 at 12:45 pm

    Where: Outside of the Sacramento Diocese headquarters, 2110 Broadway (at 19th) in Sacramento

    Who: Two-to-three victims of child sex abuse who are members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a California woman who is the group’s Western Regional Director.

    Why: Fr. Uriel Ojeda, a Redding-area priest, was arrested in December. He faces criminal charges of sexually abusing a child under 14 and will be in court on Friday for his preliminary hearing.

    SNAP says that Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto is not doing enough to help victims and witnesses in the case and is hindering prosecution by his “continued secrecy.”

    According to press reports and the prosecutor, Ojeda confessed his crimes to a church-paid private investigator.

    SNAP wants Soto to make the investigator’s report public to help enable more victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to speak up, help police, get therapy, protect others and start healing. Disclosing the report would also protect kids, since some parents still believe Ojeda is innocent.

    At earlier court hearings, dozens of Ojeda’s supporters filled the courtroom, said they disbelieved the charges and released helium balloons to “celebrate” the admitted predator’s release on bail.

    “These parishioners are unintentionally scaring and silencing victims and witnesses,” said Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, SNAP Western Regional Director. “Soto should insist that these confused Catholics back accused predators quietly, so no other victims, witnesses or whistleblowers are hurt more or scared into staying silent. By his inaction, Soto is hurting law enforcement officials in this case and others.”

    SNAP is urging Soto to attend the Friday hearing and personally show Ojeda’s supporters how to show respect for victims and survivors while quietly supporting the priest.

    The group also asking Soto to post on diocesan and parish websites an educational pamphlet “What to do when your priest is accused.”

    Finally, the group is blasting Soto for telling victims to report crimes to church officials.

    “Even Pope Benedict has said that victims should report crimes to civil authorities,” Casteix said. “Our experience has shown us that victims and witnesses must report to law enforcement in order for predators and enablers to be prosecuted and kept away from kids. By telling victims to call the church, Soto is recklessly endangering kids by delaying criminal justice. It’s not the Bishop’s job to determine what is or isn’t a crime. That’s why we have police and prosecutors.”

    Copies of the letter and the educational flier will be available at the event.

     


  • Plead guilty to sexual assault? No worries! Brom has got your back!

    **Updated with correction and Diocese Reponse**

    File this under: “What the hell are they thinking?”

    Diocese of San Diego priest Fr. Jose Alexis Davila, who in April pled guilty to to battery and “engaging in an unlawful touching of an intimate part of the victim’s body,” is back at work at his old parish. You know, the one with the state-funded preschool. (The preschool, I am told, has been shut down)

    If you don’t know the whole story, Davila went to a parishioner’s home on New Year’s Eve (she was a 20-year-old woman) and forced himself on her. We don’t know if more happened. But really, the guilty plea is enough, n’est-ce pas?

    Yeah, say San Diego Bishop Robert Brom and his successor Cirillo Flores (who is a licensed civil lawyer), it’s enough to get you your job back! You WIN!

    It gets worse: Davila has been put right smack in the same place where parishioners formed a “lynch mob” and went to the victim’s home in an attempt to get her to recant her story. They kicked her mom out of Bible study. They badgered her family.

    Did Brom or Flores step in and say, “This is not what Jesus would do?” Did they try to hold listening sessions at the parish so that parishioners could hear from other victims? Hell, no. They sat back and allowed their flock to descend into a mob mentality and engage in pseudo-criminal behavior in order to thwart the justice system. Um, excuse me … anyone home on Paducah Drive? You have a big problem here. Don’t you have a Charter for this very thing?

    I could go into how these kinds of actions alienate survivors, scare victims into silence, discourage reporting, enable criminals, put kids in danger, etc. I could say that this flagrant and dangerous act defies common sense, Christianity, and the New Testament (which really frowns upon lynch mobs, endangering children and awarding criminals who show no contrition).

    But let’s look at the bishop’s own rulebook: Davila now has a record. Davila works in a position of power at a parish with a STATE FUNDED CHILD CARE CENTER. Davila will not pass any Church- and common sense-mandated background check.  THEY ARE BREAKING THEIR OWN RULES.

    The solution is simple, Most Revs. Brom and Flores: Let Davila work in a remote and secure facility where he has no contact with kids. Reach out to hurting confused parishioners. Embrace the victim and invite her and her family back to church (All those “Catholics Come Home” brochures? They don’t work when you allow your flock to form angry mobs and go after victims and their families and put offenders in nice jobs at parishes.)

    Below is the press release that SNAP sent out earlier today. I would go to the parish, but I’m afraid that I’d get killed. Nice.

    Here is the statement by Rodrigo Valdivia, Chancellor of the Diocese of San Diego:

    The Diocese of San Diego and Father Alexis Davila have fully cooperated with law enforcement and all legitimate and pastoral concerns have been addressed as regards his case.

    Consequently, we have no reason to believe that women or children are at risk because of his return to ministry. He returned to St. Jude at the beginning of May.

    I’m speechless. I welcome your comments …

    ******************************

    Convicted predator quietly put back in SD parish

    He pled guilty to unlawful sexual touching

    Yet, months later, he’s back around kids, teens

    Victim and her family were subject to “lynch mob”

    SNAP: “Bishop breaks promises & endangers parishioners”

    A Catholic priest who was convicted of trying to sexually assault a 20-year-old woman earlier this year has quietly been put back to work in a San Diego parish.

    Clergy sex abuse victims want him removed. They fear he may assault other vulnerable young women.

    According to the parish website, Fr. Jose Alexis Davila is now the Associate Pastor at St. Jude’s Catholic Church (3785 Boston Ave, San Diego, CA 92113, 619-264-2195). A concerned parishioner alerted a support group called SNAP, (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) to the assignment.

    Today, leaders of SNAP are writing San Diego Bishop Brom and and his successor Bishop Crillo Flores, urging them to oust Davila.

    “These Catholic officials are basically telling employees that ‘If you try to rape a woman, we’ll still give you a job – but quietly – even if you’re convicted in court,’” said Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, SNAP Western Regional Director.

    Fr. Davila was arrested in January 2012 for attempting to sexually assault a 20-year-old woman who attended church at St. Jude’s Shrine of the West in Southcrest.  He pleaded guilty to battery and “engaging in an unlawful touching of an intimate part of the victim’s body” in April and was sentenced to three years’ probation. He was also ordered to stay away from the victim.

    Last week, SNAP learned from an anonymous source that Davila was back at the St. Jude’s. Calls to the parish confirmed that Davila is currently on the job. As best as SNAP can tell, there was no public announcement that Davila was reinstated.

    In a letter sent today to Brom and Flores, SNAP is pushing for Davila’s permanent removal

    SNAP is also worried because a state-funded child care center is located at the parish.

    SNAP’s letter urges Brom and his successor to:

    — Immediately remove Davila from the parish

    –Put him in a remote, secure, independently run treatment center where he has no contact with women or children,

    –Apologize to the victim and her family for their “irresponsible” actions, and

    — Disclose Davila’s presence at the parish to the California State Board of Education, which funds the child care center at St. Jude’s parish.

    “We were shocked to hear that a convicted predator is back working in a parish,” said Casteix. “This should have been a slam-dunk: Davila pled guilty to sexually attacking a vulnerable young woman. He should never work in a parish again, period. That’s what the bishops have promised us for the past 10 years. And once again, Brom and his successor Flores have turned their backs on the victims they promised to protect.”

    SNAP’s letter pulls no punches.

    “You are violating both the letter and the spirit of your own 2002 abuse ‘reforms,’” the letter says. “If Davila can go unpunished for attacking a woman, every woman, including others at and near his parish, are at risk.”

    SNAP is also concerned about the treatment of the victim in this case. According to press reports, parishioners harassed her family members, came to her home to try and force her to recant, and kicked her mother out of her Bible study group. Because Davila has been ordered to stay away from the victim, it is unknown if the victim and her family are even able to attend mass at the parish.

    SNAP believes that these actions scare other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers into staying silent.

    “When parishioners lashed out at the victim and shunned her mother from the church, you did nothing,” the letter says. “Because you are not reaching out and guiding your flock, you are supporting a predator at the cost of his victim and her family and the well-being of others.  We hope that the victim is reaching out and getting help and support from organizations and people who care about the welfare for survivors.”

    The diocese of San Diego is no stranger to sex abuse and cover up. In 2007, the Diocese settled with 144 victims of child sex abuse for $200 million. Diocese officials had attempted to hide behind bankruptcy protection, but allegations of fraud on the part of the Diocese eventually led to a settlement. Documents were released in October 2010 that exposed the scope and scale of the abuse and cover-up .

    Contact:
    Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, CA, SNAP Western Regional Director, 949-322-7434, jcasteix@gmail.com
    Barb Dorris of St. Louis, MO, SNAP Outreach Director, 314-503-0003, snapdorris@gmail.com
    David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Executive Director, 314-566-9790, snapclohessy@aol.com

     

  • Notorious former OC priest Michael Harris headed to court on more abuse charges

    A sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit against former priest Msgr. Michael Harris, Mater Dei High School and the Diocese of Orange is slated to go to trial in Orange County Superior Court on June 18.

    Harris, the former principal of Mater Dei and Santa Margarita High Schools, has been smack in the center of the clergy sex abuse scandal in Orange County, with at least nine accusers settling with the Diocese of Orange in 2005, twelve accusers listed by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and a record $5.2 million settlement with victim Ryan DiMaria.

    Frankly put: Harris is a menace. We have seen Harris’ psych reports from the most notorious church-run facility for child molesting clerics (information that Msgr John Urell kept secret), and in 2001, Bishop Tod Brown told the Los Angeles Times:

    The Diocese of Orange has grave doubts about [Harris’] innocence in these matters, taking into consideration the number of complaints made against him, the similarity of those complaints and the apparent sincerity of the persons making these statements.

    The attorney for the victim, John Manly (another Mater Dei grad), is just coming off of a huge win in Stockton, where a jury unanimously decided that Fr. Michael Kelly sexually abused former Air Force pilot Travis Trotter. The Diocese of Stockton refused to remove Kelly from ministry during the litigation and spent four years trying to discredit Travis. After the verdict, Kelly skipped to Ireland. The case eventually settled for $3.75 million on the eve of the scheduled testimony of Cardinal Roger Mahony.

    No one knows Mater Dei, Harris and the Diocese of Orange better than Manly and his team do. There’s going to be a whole lot of Diocese dirty laundry aired. Want a great start off for your research? Start here. Since 2003 Gustavo Arellano at the OC Weekly has covered the story better (and longer) than anyone else.

    If you went to Mater Dei or Santa Margarita, sent your kids there, or donated money to the schools, you owe it to yourself to follow the trial. Although Harris is no longer a priest, his ties to the Diocese and Orange County money are strong. He’s only a free man because Mater Dei and Diocese officials didn’t care enough about any of the kids Harris abused to pick up the phone and call the cops. Shame on all of them.

     

    Disclaimers – I was a student at Mater Dei at the tail end of Harris’ tenure there. I had very limited interactions with him. But then again, he had very limited interactions with most girls. John Manly was my attorney in my 2003 case against the Diocese.

  • Vatican Bank Scandal got you confused? Not any more …

    Interested in figuring out the Vatican Bank Scandal? Jason Berry’s Render Unto Rome is available for the Kindle. If you prefer, here is the Old School hardback.

    Don’t forget: the Pope’s butler has been criminally charged in the Vatican court for leaking documents. Who knows what he knows?

     

     

  • Altarcations debuts at the Hollywood Fringe Festival

    “A bishop. A priest. A woman. A boy.”

    My friend Steve Julian‘s play Altarcations will debut in June at the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival. I met Steve (whom some of you may recognize as the morning host of KPCC‘s Morning Edition) after I “outed” one of his former high school teachers as an admitted perpetrator in the New York Times. When he told me about this play, I flipped (in a very good way). I’ve been lucky enough to see early drafts and talk to him about the progression of the play and the growth of the characters.

    It’s going to be an amazing production.

    Then I found out the play had been accepting into the Hollywood Fringe Festival. I flipped again.

    The play runs from June 8 to 14 24 at The Actors Circle Theater. Tickets are a VERY AFFORDABLE $10 to $15. You need to go. And then you need to tell your friends to go. You can buy tickets here.

    You can also donate to help offset the cost of the production through the Pasadena Arts Council EMERGE Fiscal Sponsorship Program. We all know that ticket sales alone do very little to help offset the costs of producing a play. An added plus: all donations are tax deductible. When you donate, you will sleep better at night and like yourself more, knowing that you contributed to the growth of live theater in Los Angeles.