Generation of Hopis damaged, Navajo town named for child prostitution, more memories from former Fr. Pious about pedophile priests in New Mexico

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In one of several conversations, Oso Pious told me, “One day, I suppose, the survivors of all this abuse will speak out or maybe not.”

The former special ed teacher has been in touch with City of Angels Blog several times since we last reported on his recollections of the time he spent as Father Pious, working alongside Father Gerald Fitzgerald at Servants of the Paraclete in 1965. Pious says he recently found letters and notes with Fr. Gerald's handwriting, and CofA hopes to scan those papers here soon.

“I just remembered, the Navajo name for the town near where Father McNeill had his school,” Pious spoke breathlessly in the phone a few days ago. “It's Anna’ Task Ai I.” (He spelled the name out carefully). “That translates in Navajo to ‘The Place Where the Little Girls Spread their Legs.’ In other words, there was so much child prostitution there.”

The town is known today as Grants, NM.

Pious emphasized, “Everything I'm telling you is true.”

Today known as “Oso Pious,” he’s emailed and phoned City of Angels Blog several times, and some of the information he’s poured out is reproduced in this post. Oso Pious reports firsthand on a pedophile ring that would meet in locations with easy access to Native American children in New Mexico.

Oso Pious says recent stories at City of Angels Blog have triggered this outpouring of memories.

He emailed the other day:

Kay: In today's Albuquerque Journal on page C-2 there is an article about a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, concerning Father Clement Hageman." [Article is scanned here as Abq Journal is not online, click to enlarge and read.] "I worked as a special education teacher on the Navajo Reservation in the early 1970s when both Father Douglas McNeill and Father Jose Rodriguez were abusing Navajo youngsters in Thoreau and in Gallup. Father McNeill started his own school for Navajo children and in 1994 he was finally caught.”

About the Navajo name for Grants, Oso Pious added: “It's the only Navajo name of a place that refers to a person, a very rare exception. In fact, it was against their religion to refer to humans in names of places, but they were so shocked by what was going on in this town that they called it Anna’ Task Ai I.” He spelled it several more times.

“I'm an expert in Navajo,” Pious said. “I lived with them and went to their college with them, and I just remembered the name of the little town, so I called you.”

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(In another email, Oso Pious said:)

I know that to this very day, the Hopis will not let a Catholic Church be built on any of their three mesas [in New Mexico and Arizona]. They do allow a small chapel at Keams Canyon for the teachers to attend services. I used to go to mass there and i never heard of any Hopi ever becoming a Catholic!

During the 1680 pueblo revolt in New Mexico, every priest was killed!! Like Jay Nelson says, in Sons of Perdition, the Hopis have a "Priest-Killer Kachina" which he has pictured on the back cover of the book {pictured at top of this post).

(From Sons of Perdition by Jay Nelson, page 90:)

“Resentment among the Hopi Indians stayed so strong it manifested itself in myth. One of their sacred protective powers is known as Yowe, the Priest Killer. Like all kachinas, he is shown as a masked and feathered dancer. Uniquely, however, he often carries a cross, and a bloody knife, or sometimes a severed head.”

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The resourceful pedophile Father McNeill started his own school, Oso Pious told City of Angels Blog:

“The Hopi elders said that an entire generation of young children had been molested and that it would take at least 7 generations for their pueblo to be healed. In the meantime, The Hopi elders dug their huge snake pit at that site, where they kept all their rattlesnakes for their snake dances. I think that the snake is somehow related to healing but I don't know how.

“One day, I suppose, the survivors of all this abuse will speak out or maybe not. I don't really know how the Hopis will deal with this! I do know, however, about the 4th mesa pueblo of AWATOBI. I used to go over there often to walk and meditate. This pueblo was the ONLY one to convert to Catholicism.

"The priests at AWATOBI supposedly abused the children at the pueblo.

"Then one day when all the people were down in their underground kivas, singing hymns and praying, the other pueblos got together and pulled up the ladders from the kivas."

City of Angels Blog asked Pious: “This was the one kiva that went catholic?”

Oso Pious: “So the people below couldn't climb out. Then they poured hot coals and pitch into the kivas and burned everybody alive! This actually happened and it is recorded history! Only a few women survived! The other hopis sealed off the ruins of AWATOBI pueblo and the Hopis don't talk about what happened there!

(Pious talks about an entire ring of pedophiles operating in New Mexico, with connections to Servants of the Paraclete, the following is directly transcribed from our phone conversation:)

Father Douglas McNeil was my sponsor when I was studying to be a deacon so I knew him for like five years.

The school that he started was back in the hills, for people with kids a hundred miles from the nearest town. This area is called the checkerboard, because it's not even part of a reservation. A pedophile could go in there and get anything he wanted. So what Father MCNeil did was start his own school.

It was K-through high school called St. Bonaventure’s Academy, he got the absolutely most remote people that didn't speak any English, 'cause he knew he could get away with it, and a lot were special ed, I was the only special ed teacher around there, so I knew about the school.

A RING OF PEDOPHILES

(Transcription of phone call from Oso Pious continued:)

They all got together, not just priests, a ring of pedophiles that included Jose Rodriguez, Hageman, McNeill, a guy named [BLANK] who was not a priest just a pedophile.”

McNeill had summer camps, he was totally evil, and he would bring in other pedophiles. I know this because [BLANK] was one of McNeil’s friends. He came from Holbrook where they had a whole school of kids. This thing was far more reaching than I thought it was at the time.

McNeill had this thing he called career enrichment. He’d take kids in this van he got from the Gallup school district.

He brought the big magic van around to the schools regularly,” Pious said. “He was later caught and convicted of abuse and spent several years in prison at Los Lunas Correctional Prison in NM.

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CofA asked if there was a connection with Servants of the Paraclete in this story.

“I'm sure McNeill went to Servants of the Paraclete,” Pious said. “I know that the Paracletes were treating some of the priests who were molesting Native American children.

"The young boys were so needy that there was an orphanage in Gallup, where almost anybody could adopt them, no questions asked."

I asked Oso Pious, When Did You First Hear The Name of that Navajo Town?

“I already knew this I wanted to make sure I had it right, Remember McNeil’s school for Navajo children. The Navajos were so aware of their children being used as prostitutes, they named this town- “the place the where the little girls spread their legs.” It started in the 1970s.

Q: WHICH TOWN?

“Grants, It's Grants, New Mexico. I just went home and double checked, it's in a book, “Navajo Places: History, Legend, Landscape” by Laurance D. Linford, published by University of Utah press on page 216 published 2000

"I know about the pedophilia in this region for a fact as I was a special ed teacher there (near Holbrook), and nearly every one of the kids in my room had been sexually abused, and I just now put it together, how bad it was with McNeill."

Here is what it says about Rev. Douglas McNeill AT Bishop Accountability:

Ordained 1970 by Gallup. Removed 3/94. Accused in 1994 civil suit of abusing a youth in 1978 while youth was staying with him at St. Bonaventure Indian Mission to finish school year after parents moved. Accuser confronted McNeill in 1993 and he admitted abuse. Offered to pay the man $15K from school funds. Man refused. Suit settled 9/95 for $135K. McNeill still "on leave" per 2002 OCD

(Oso Pious continued with his recollections about McNeill, the following is more direct transcription of Pious' words:)

The school was St. Bonaventure School in the town of Thoreau. It's what's known as a “border town,” towns that border on Navajo reservations, like Shiprock, any towns that surround Navajo nation are border towns.

(UPDATE: A reader corrects Oso Pious a few hours after this post went up, to say that Shiprock is not a border town, but is on the reservation.)

I didn't realize until just today the connection between the kids and the school run by McNeill.

McNeill’s school was back in the hills, people a hundred miles from the nearest town, it's called the checkerboard, because it's not even part of the reservation. Most abused kids, descendents of slaves. A pedophile could go in there and get anything he wanted. So what Father McNeil did was start his own schools.

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(CofA asked Oso Pious:)

Did you think McNeill was weird when you knew him?

“Yeah he was very strange and very gay but I didn't know he was having sex with all these kids,” Oso Pious said. “Then a kid brought a lawsuit and he settled out of court. This guy not only was a pedophile, he had summer camps, he was totally evil, and he would bring in other pedophiles.

“I know that that one Hopi medicine man had to have a special ceremony for all the children who were sexually abused. One Hopi elder told me that a whole generation from 1st mesa had been ruined by pedophiles.”

BONUS AT END OF STORY

Another phone call from Oso Pious:

“Kay, I know you're busy, but in today’s paper is a letter to the editor.”

PICTURED HERE. It says, “I see the Pope has allowed condom use by male prostitutes for the prevention of AIDS. Apparently he does not care if women, or heterosexual men, contract AIDS. I guess women are of little importance to him, and male prostitutes are of considerable importance. Signed Eugene Aronson, Albuquerque.

Oso Pious said:

"I remember my friend Father Gino being thrown out of Jemez Pueblo and I remember a Franciscan priest being thrown out of Zuni Pueblo."

We will be writing more about our interactions with Oso Pious and others with whom he connects City of Angels Blog.
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Here is the entire back cover of Sons of Perdition Read more at Jay Nelson Website Sarabite Dot Info




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