Email to Kay:

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For Sale 20 Pages of religious babble - full copy of papal bull along with apology. Full of magical powers, able to heal 50 years of trauma and discrimination at the hands of Catholic faithful and Catholic hierarchy. Can be used to replace broken childhood family, broken family, loss of family home, loss of business, murder, childrens education, employment, car repairs, gas electricity and phone bills as well as other financial difficulties along with PTSD and the need for some anger management.

Will trade for 2 Big Macs and a Pepsi

-Signed TFYQA

'We Contacted Pope When He Ran CDF Years Ago, He Ignored Us,' Write Crime Victims of Pedophile Priests

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(Originally posted at AlterNet) While the Pope apologizes today and promises that "tribunals" will seek justice in the pedophile priest epidemic that is now proved to be global not national, those of us who have been trying to get justice for years are astonished at the difference between the truth and press statements coming out of the Vatican. Because the Pope ran the office in the Vatican that investigated pedophile priest crimes for two decades, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Two of the adult victims of pedophile priests sent City of Angels letters that document their efforts to get the Pope, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, to do something about the crimes in the U.S. Joey in San Francisco sent a copy of a letter he write directly to the Pope at the CDF in 2005, which we have published in full below. Bill in Massachusetts sent a copy of a letter he wrote recently to the New York Times outlining his efforts to get the Pope to step up and take action years ago.

The Office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Ratzinger was prelate, took in reports of priest sex crimes (written in Latin, from what I understand). CDF has “judicial review” of all criminal activity in the Catholic Church, much of which is clergy sex crimes.

Still today the Pope can say with a straight face that he is shocked and dismayed at hearing about the crimes that emerged in Ireland last year and Germany last week, and that he will take action immediately (see stories linked below).

"I can tell you from my experiences, the CDF never even acknowledged the elaborate case I presented to them," writes Nash. "I filed my case to two congregations, the CDF and the Congregation for Religious. I sent four follow ups to each over a several month period.

"Meanwhile I exposed to both the American media and the Italian media explicit details of the case: a criminal record from the state of Wisconsin on the priest; my financial settlement with the order; and an explicit letter from a high ranking official from the order that specifically described Father Tully as an ephobophile."

Bill Writes CDF, Gets Run Around, Finally Told to Write CDF

"Eventually, I heard from Cardinal Rode, who told me he knew nothing about the case and I should refer this to the CDF (which I already had done). The CDF never acknowledged my case. It was only because of the media attention the story got, that the order was so embarrassed, they quietly moved him again from his post in Vicenza, Italy, back to New York."

Today James Tully is a former priest living somewhere in New Jersey. (He is not on any sex offender registry, no one is monitoring him, he could be anywhere.)

"Ratzinger led that congregation for the longest time. Currently it is led by (former San Francisco Archbishop William) Levada with Sicluna in charge of the disciplinary section," writes Nash, from Massachusetts.

JOEY IN SAN FRANCISCO wrote the CDF begging for action in 2005

Here is his letter:

Mr. Ratzinger,

As you already know, from my prior complaints and active lawsuit, I am a victim of child sexual abuse by one of your disturbed Priests, Fr. Steven Whelan, whom you placed in ministry as a Pastor with access to children in San Francisco.

Have you no shame, or sense of decency?

Do you not care about the safety of children? The safety of children in San Francisco and elsewhere should be the most important issue on your agenda. I suspect that you care more about the welfare and security of your abuser priests than that of innocent children, which is a disgrace. To harbor and promote an accused molester to the position of pastor is completely irresponsible.

THIS PART GETS EERIE:
Joey's letter to Ratzinger continued:

If this is your policy in California, I am sure that you have probably done the same thing in Italy and Germany, and elsewhere that you have been located. It’s probably just a matter of time that you will get caught yourself, and Karma will catch up to you.

If, and when that happens, I hope you will remember me, and all of the others that have demanded that you protect children instead of sexually abusive priests.
Your ignoring of my demands to remove the predator that abused me is completely irresponsible, but you already know that. If there is a God, I am sure that he is ashamed of your behavior, and that of all the abusive clergy who are in the Catholic Church.

Joey Piscitelli, Martinez, California

(Recently our "victim advocacy group" SNAP sent out a notice for survivors to send stories of their attempts to contact the CDF in the past, so they could help a reporter with an article some time in the future.

NOTE: As soon as City of Angels finds out a new fact about crimes of the Catholic Church and its pedophiles, that fact gets published within hours, no filtering.)

********

Missing from most news stories and press releases the past few weeks, both from the Vatican AND from crime victim advocacy groups, is this critical information about the Pope’s involvement in these crimes from the start. CNN was one news organization that noticed it and seems to have tacked it onto this one news story. CNN STORY

Focus on Germany Still Steers Attention from True Global Nature of these Crimes

Transfering pedophile priests and covering up their crime sprees was international policy that came directly from the Vatican, through Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

Fatuous spinmeistering from the Vatican today is even more astounding in that news media around the world are repeating the Roman Catholic Press Releases as if they were true.

Here is what I picked up this morning from Abuse Tracker (what a way to wake up).

Pope blasts Irish bishops, orders Vatican probe
VATICAN CITYYNet News (Israel)
Pope Benedict XVI has rebuked Irish bishops for "grave errors of judgment" in handling clerical sex abuse and ordered a Vatican investigation into the Irish church to wipe out the scourge.
Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:56 AM

Pope Apologizes to Irish Catholics for Sexual Abuse Cases
VATICAN CITYBusiness Week
March 20, 2010, 7:22 AM EDTBy Sara Gay Forden and Jeffrey Donovan
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI apologized to victims of child sex abuse in Ireland and said “grave errors” of leadership were committed by Catholic authorities in the country after scandals involving priests emerged over decades.
“You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry,” the pope said today in a letter to Irish Catholics, his first apology to them over the abuse cases. The letter was distributed to reports at the Vatican today.
The pontiff has struggled to contain the damage to the church and its reputation from the Irish scandals, which have been followed by similar cases in his native Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Benedict has been accused by Irish victims of being slow to respond to investigations that documented “endemic” abuse of children by priests since the 1930s.
Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:54 AM

Pope 'truly sorry' for Irish sexual abuse - Update
VATICAN CITYEarth Times
Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday apologised to victims of sexual abuse by priests in Ireland, saying he is "truly sorry" for what they have endured.
"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," the pontiff said in a letter to be read out in churches and parishes throughout Ireland.
The pastoral letter is the first public statement by the Vatican on the long-brewing scandal.
Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:51 AM

Pope voices 'shame, remorse' for Irish child abuse
VATICAN CITYSydney Morning Herald
Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday expressed in a letter "shame and remorse" for episodes of child sex abuse, saying "serious mistakes" were made by Irish bishops in responding to allegations.
"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," said the pope in a letter to Irish Catholics signed on Friday and published on Saturday.
The pope said priests and religious workers guilty of child abuse "must answer" for their crimes "before properly constituted tribunals."
Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:48 AM

Why criticize the pope?
HOUMA (LA)Houma Today
Johann Christoph ArnoldPastor, Church Communities
The attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the scandal surrounding pedophile priests in Germany should stop.
As head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope naturally bears some responsibility for the actions of the authorities under him. But this campaign by the media and anti-Christian liberals is hardly a righteous one.
Its real aim is to drive God out of the public sphere and to undermine an institution that, despite its many problems, is one of the few remaining pillars of reverence and respect in society.
Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:46 AM

Pope 'sorry' over abuse scandal
VATICAN CITYBelfast News Letter
THE Pope has personally apologised to the victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.In a pastoral letter and posted on the Vatican website, the leader of the Catholic Church said he was "truly sorry" for their suffering.
In a direct message to the priests who abused children, Pope Benedict said those involved "betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals".

(Abuse Tracker is an ongoing news feed filtering stories about the clergy abuse crisis from all over the world, which are then fed into the database at bishopaccountability.)

'I was a victim of abuse. This is what the Pope must do to stop it'
IRELANDThe Independent (United Kingdom)
By Colm O'Gorman
Saturday, 20 March 2010
It was not being raped by a priest at the age of 14 that shattered my faith; it was the horrifying realisation that the Catholic Church had wilfully, knowingly abandoned me to it, the knowledge that they had ordained the priest who abused me despite knowing he was a paedophile and set him free to abuse with near impunity, ignoring all complaints.
And so it is difficult not to be cynical about the likely merit of the pastoral letter that Pope Benedict XVI will publish today.

(Posted By Kay Ebeling March 20, 2010)

NOW WHO HAS JURISDICTION
to prosecute the Pope?
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Is It a Memory Lapse, or As You Age, You Start to Think in Terms of Different Space-Time

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Often lately I get the years wrong, not just the dates, the entire years. I had to check three internet sources to be certain when the Pope visited the U.S. It was the same month this horrible herpes sore broke out on my lip, and the scar is permanent. The moment he stepped on U.S. soil, the sore broke out and it went away the moment he got on a plane and left. It was April 2008, but I was so certain that did not happen until after I went to the snap conference Summer 2008. But no the pope was in the U.S. Spring 2008. I had to confirm it three times.

Another post recently I referred to San Francisco meetings in 1995, when they were actually in 1996.

It's so weird, my brain works so well in some ways, then totally flakes out in other ways, and for me, numbers are really bad. They have no meaning in my head. I like to type out numbers one two three, not 123... Totally Right Brained, I am.

I think the thing with years and time comes with aging, and for me, it's almost cool. I think I'm connecting with where I was before, maybe where I am going next after Earth, wherever it is, it is on a different space time continuum than we are here on Earth.

I think as you get older, your sense of time lessens, because it starts to have less and less meaning. Perfectly normally, something to be embraced, not feared. So far I love aging, and really look forward to wherever it is we go after Earth...
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VIDEO: Jon Stewart on Vatican Handling of Pedophile Priests, on Comedy Central Last Week

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Tuesday, time to check in on organized religion in new segment, Holy Sh--, at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central "A Vatican choir singer ran a gay sex network providing sex to Vatican Ushers:"

STEWART: I'm Shocked! The Pope has ushers? I think it's pretty obvious which seat is his, he really needs an usher?"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Holy Sh*t
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

More quotes from the above clip:

The choir member would provide men to Vatican ushers, discovered during an investigation of a totally different corruption issue at the Vatican in April 2008

CHOIR SINGER: If you are free, three or four situations are good, very-very good, two black Cuban men, really tall, tall, tall.

STEWART: Maybe at the Vatican the good China is up high? ...

It only took 20 years for the Munich Diocese to remove the priest the Pope transferred, as Stewart says, "The fastest grievance address in Catholic Church history."
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Pope Set Stage for Sex Scandals, Then Worked to Restore Secrecy, per Research Released Today

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Before becoming pope, Joseph Ratzinger accidentally helped set the stage for the sex scandals, and later worked hard to restore secrecy, a historian claims, writes researcher Jay Nelson.

This is text from release Nelson sent out today:

Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 16, 2010 – There is much more to Pope Benedict XVI’s role in the clergy sex scandals than is universally believed, declares one researcher. Jay Nelson, a historian and survivor who has written extensively about clergy abuse, says that his studies show that Joseph Ratzinger bears a great responsibility for the scandals, well before becoming pope.

“I was as surprised as anyone,” Nelson claims. “But in some ways, both the scandals and their eventual fading away is largely his doing. And it all has to do with the Inquisition.”

During the Boston scandals in 2003, he says, instructions for bishops on conducting secret trials of priests for sexual offenses were found among church papers. It was the first clue that the Inquisition – now called the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” or CDF – was ever concerned with priestly abuse.

A Speech Written By Young Theologian Joseph Ratzinger

Nelson says he began investigating Ratzinger’s involvement for his recently published book, Sons of Perdition. “I soon discovered that the Inquisition had been secretly suppressing clergy sex crimes for 400 years,” he states. “Their interest itself became secret, but the system endured until unintentionally broken during the Second Vatican Council by a speech written by a young theologian named Joseph Ratzinger.”

Nelson claims that the resulting inability of the CDF to deal with sexually active priests led to bishops transferring and treating offenders. “By the time Ratzinger himself became head of the CDF, he apparently wished to undo all his ‘mistakes,’” he says.

“With Pope John Paul II, they secretly reestablished the Vatican’s control over clergy sex cases in 2001. That’s why the number of cases is decreasing.”

“It’s incredible,” he admits. “But the documents are out there, the proof is in my book and the paper I’m circulating.” When asked why come out with this information now, Nelson asserts, “The people should know that Joseph Ratzinger helped fix the cover-up, stronger than ever, before he even became pope. What, then, will he do next?”

Joseph Ratzinger helped fix the cover-up, stronger than ever

Link: “Ratzinger’s Responsibility for the Sex Scandals” http://www.sarabite.info/ratzi-responsible.pdf

# # #

Jay Nelson
PO Box 40676
Albuquerque, NM 87196

Email: author@sarabite.info

RECENT BOOK

SONS OF PERDITION: New Mexico in the Secret History of the Catholic Sex Scandals Website: http://www.sarabite.info/sp-index.html
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Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels
The City of Angels is Everywhere

11 Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk and live in Your truth; direct and unite my heart [solely, reverently] to fear and honor Your name.

17 Show me a sign of [Your evident] goodwill and favor, that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame, because You, Lord, [will show Your approval of me when You] help and comfort me.

-Psalm 86 (English Amplified version of Bible)
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Pope at Helm of Pedophile Priest Scandal. As Cardinal, He Ran CDF with Judicial Review of Clergy Sex Crimes

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By Kay Ebeling, also posted at AltnerNet

The office that handled clergy sex crimes was run by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict, the same office that once carried out the Inquisition. "The public has not recognized that connection," writes scholar Jay Nelson, because "It had become a closely guarded secret." At the end of Vatican 2 "Paul changed the Office name to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). It was to be a kinder, gentler Inquisition," Jay writes.

John Paul II named the Bavarian Bishop Ratzinger Prefect of the CDF two decades later.

"Most ominous but overlooked, the CDF would have a say over all issues that touch on faith and morals, even those traditionally reserved to other Vatican departments," Nelson writes. The CDF now had "the crucial power of judicial review over the entire Roman Catholic Church." I.E., Judicial Review over all Pedophile Priest Crimes.

Ratzinger drafted a new set of secret instructions for handling priest sex crimes:

"Signed by John Paul II in 2001, the decree clandestinely replaced the old Crimes of Solicitation document, as if the latter had remained in force all along. This new policy seems even more repressive than the old one. Whereas the earlier document detailed instructions for a D-I-Y inquisition, this simply mandates the CDF to do its thing.

"It still covers sexual solicitation in the confessional and associated offenses such as priests granting absolution to their lovers or having sex with minors of either gender. But the 'worst crime' of clerical homosexuality is no longer even mentioned at all – perhaps because now, according to some experts, almost half the clergy is gay and probably sexually active?"

So Pope Benedict can't really be "shocked and dismayed" by the Pedophile priest epidemic in the Catholic Church, as he said on his trip to America in Spring of 2009 and again last week. It's more like he has been at the helm of the Church's handling of the crimes for decades, no matter how many times his Office declares him "cleared" of any crimes, in the handling of one pedohpile priest in his Munich diocese when he was a Bishop. Pope Benedict and Bishop Ratzinger's connection to the whole cover-up is much more blatant.

"During the Boston scandals, which brought the crisis to national awareness, (2002) a curious document was found among diocesan legal papers. Known in English generally as Crimes of Solicitation, it was a typed translation of instructions from the Holy Office. Sent secretly to all the world’s bishops with the blessing of Pope John XXIII mere months before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the document revealed an entirely unsuspected aspect to the ongoing crisis.

"It was nothing less than a guide for bishops on handling clerical sex crimes, laying out a set of do-it-yourself directions to hold secret trials. Though reassuring them that troubling cases could always be sent to Rome."

POPE BENEDICT IS GUILTY:

"Only the pope himself now had more power. In Ratzinger’s hand, this whip to enforce the Council’s decrees would serve to sharply rein them in. Vatican II thus planted not only the seeds of the clergy sex scandals but provided a means for their conclusion. Yet the signs that the council had inadvertently mishandled perpetrator priests did not become apparent until a generation later, when the bitter tree bore its first fruits."

Pedophile priest crimes are not new to the Catholic Church, writes Nelson: "In the mid-seventeenth century, the Roman Inquisition even took down an entire religious order for child sexual abuse. The Piarists, an honored, successful teaching congregation of priests with schools for poor boys across Italy, had been taken over by a pedophile ring. This was largely due to the founder, St. José Calasanz, the ascetic patron saint of Catholic education, covering up molestation like so many later prelates would by quietly promoting and transferring the offenders."

Vatican 2 documents were argued over until the end of the very last session. "When it was done, a single easily-overlooked paragraph buried in the Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests proclaimed an enormous change:

Finally, … priests … are obliged in a special manner toward those priests who labor under certain difficulties. They should give them timely help, and also, if necessary, admonish them discreetly. Moreover, they should always treat with fraternal charity and magnanimity those who have failed in some matters, … and continually show themselves as true brothers and friends.

"Simply put," writes Jay Nelson, "priests caught acting out sexually would henceforth be given therapy, not punishment. Hard to believe, but this coded bit of pious banality is therefore the smoking gun of the Catholic sex scandals."

***

Jay Nelson, a writer whose research on the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church is at his Renegade Catholic Website, is also one of the tens of thousands of adult victims of pedophile priests, living in New Mexico.

Jay Nelson's Website: Renegade Catholic

Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer of City of Angels Network

Cut Paragraph: Young Ratzinger was initially a liberal, but "the upset of student rebellions in 1968 decisively spurred his defection to the conservative camp," writes Nelson. "By the time the Polish Pope was elected a decade later, now-Cardinal Ratzinger’s reactionary transformation was complete.

******
PLUS

It’s “no surprise” that the Pope knew about pedophiles before last week

(We got this letter yesterday from Joey Piscitelli about his attempts to reach the Pope about his pedophile priest case in San Francisco:)

I told Pope and Levada About SF Perpetrator, and They Ignored It, Says San Francisco Victim of Salesian Pedophile Priest

It’s “no surprise” that the Pope knew about pedophiles before last week, says plaintiff Joey Piscitelli, who won a long-drawn out civil case in San Francisco last year regarding Fr. Steven Whelan. He writes:

In 2006, I was involved in a lawsuit against a molester Salesian San Francisco Priest, Fr. Steven Whelan, who was Intentionally placed in ministry by Cardinal William Levada, at St. Peter and Pauls in San Francisco. Fr. Whelan was kept in ministry with children, for 3 years, all the way up to the verdict in my jury trial against him.

I met Levada for the first time on the sidewalk across the street from the San Francisco Chancery. Cardinal Levada called me a "fucking idiot".

He then continued to leave Fr. Whelan in ministry, knowing Whelan was being sued as a child rapist.

I wrote a letter to Cardinal Levada, and also to the Pope, who then promoted Levada to the "Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith," so Levada was placed with the Pope at the Vatican.

I reiterated to the two of them that Fr. Whelan was a child molester and a rapist, and the Pope and Cardinal Levada still refused to remove the abusive Priest from the Church, and they ignored me.

I also told Bishop John Wester, who also refused to remove the Priest. Another letter was left at the Chancery with the Diocese, to be forwarded to the Pope, and the Pope again refused to remove the molester Priest from ministry.

As a result the predator was left with access to children as a church Pastor.

The Pope and the Cardinal had knowledge of the court case, and the details of the abuses, and I won the case.

It comes as no surprise that in Europe, the Pope had knowledge of similar circumstances.

The Pope was made aware several times that the abusive Priest in San Francisco should not be left in ministry, and he, and Cardinal Levada cannot claim they were unaware. The current disgrace in Europe is no surprise to me.

Catholic worldwide should wake up to the negligence of these two men, who do not have the safety of children at the forefront of their agenda.

Sincerely, Joey Piscitelli

San Francisco Bay Area Adult Victim of Pedophile Priest (Survivor)
**
This story also posted at AltnerNet on Page One under SoapBox
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Priests Play Doctor: Pedophile MO Passed Down for Generations at St. Anthony Seminary in Santa Barbara

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He shaved his pubic hair as a seminary student to prevent sexuality from starting, his development was so arrested. “I prayed that my penis would remain small like a boy’s. I thought men’s genitals were ugly. I did whatever I could to resist the inevitable arrival of puberty,” writes ex-Franciscan Robert Van Handel, trying to plead for compassion at his sentencing in 1994.

He poured out a single spaced tight 27-page “Sexual Autobiography” that indirectly reveals a lot about the environment where young priests lived that germinated the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church.

An old Friar at St. Anthony’s saw young Van Handel’s confusion, he writes, and, as an act of apparent alcoholic kindness, the priest came to Robert’s bed in the night and performed a sexual assault, masturbating the high school student, “to make the boy perspire and thereby rid him of his ‘fever.’” So writes the MSW in Van Handel’s probation report for his August 1994 sentencing hearing.

Physical exams “by men with no medical training” were approved and used to abuse students at St. Anthony’s seminary over decades, reads First Amended Complaint for Damages and Relief, for Case #1338070 filed in Santa Barbara Superior Court November 3, 2009, where a victim came forward with charges that Van Handel and other Franciscan brothers performed a similar bogus medical exams on him, twenty years later when he was a seminary student at the Santa Barbara site.
“Plaintiff believed Van Handel, so when the second Franciscan told Plaintiff where to stand and to drop his pants, Plaintiff complied without question. The man then approached Plaintiff, grabbed Plaintiff’s testicles, and instructed Plaintiff to turn his head to cough as if he was conducting some sort of hernia exam. This ploy was utilized repeatedly during sexual assaults by Father Mario Cimmarrusti, the abuser of at least twenty-three (23) St. Anthony’s students in the 1960s.”

When Robert Van Handel got arrested, he went through a period of soul searching, and poured out his entire “sexual autobiography” for the police, the DA, his court appointed doctors and social workers, everyone.

***************
He wanted to tell his story to the world.
*************************

As a result the sexual autobiography of Father Robert Van Handel is a public record, which we are quoting in depth below.

He reveals an insular and oppressive environment that, at least in part, caused the epidemic of pedophilia in the Catholic Church to flare up among the Franciscans of Santa Barbara.

“All but 2 of 27 Franciscan perpetrators have escaped criminal prosecution in Santa Barbara despite assaulting at least 63 Santa Barbara children since 1936,” writes attorney Tim Hale in a lawsuit filed last Fall.

As a teenager, Van Handel even tried to prevent his own wet dreams, he was so repressed as a young seminarian. In the “sexual autobiography” written in the period between arrest and sentencing, he remembers himself as a young boy, “fighting against any enjoyment and compulsively trying to mutter some holy words” to prevent nocturnal ejaculation.

One of his counselors wrote about Van Handel for his sentencing hearing:

At age 15 Robert’s anxiety and confusion escalated when he was molested by an alcoholic priest at the seminary.

“The priest entered his room, pulled down his pajamas, rubbed his chest until he got an erection, then played with Robert’s genitals for about ten minutes. Robert states he was embarrassed and ashamed. The priest reportedly told Robert ‘the rubbing exercise’ was designed to make the boy perspire and thereby rid him of his ‘fever.’

(From p. 47 of Probation Report part of the statement of a Goleta MSW who worked on the Van Handel case.)

Van Handel “recalled falling ill and reporting to the infirmary where he was allowed to rest. At that time, a priest (Father Martin McKeon) came into the room, put a towel on the defendant’s chest, and then started to rub his stomach and chest area. The defendant stated he subsequently obtained an erection when Father McKeon rubbed the defendant’s penis.

“The defendant remembered being alarmed as to what was happening, and also recalled being very concerned-

“That he would ejaculate in that he felt it was a wrong thing to do.

“The defendant was very confused and embarrassed about the situation

“The defendant (as an adult) added, ‘I have trouble dealing with the idea that I, myself, was molested. But I don't want to switch the blame for what I did to Father McKeon.’”

Van Handel says he didn't have another sexual experience with another person until college.

“The defendant admits that now at the age of forty-seven the molestation still affects him.”

For the sake of total truth and transparency, here are direct quotes from:

RVH SEXUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY:

“Our family was one in which there was a minimum of demonstrable emotion. We did not hug or say endearing things to each other. Never were voices raised. No one ever yelled.”

At one point “My dad came to me and announced he no longer loved my mother, and instead was going to live in Germany with a woman he loved there. As it turned out my dad stayed, but I am sure in the back of my mind I always feared abandonment.”

Remembers playing doctor with neighborhood kids and “getting in trouble for pulling down the pants of a smaller boy in our apartment complex.”

(He, like me, remembers when Orange County, California was full of orange groves.)

“We all went to Catholic schools. My father is a great believer in quality education and he felt the nuns were the best available.”

“We were a proud Catholic family, and my father would put us on parade. We would march down the front aisle on Sundays and sit conspicuously in a front pew. During summer we brought home school books and dad assigned work daily. There was no doubt who ruled our lives. None of us could envision rebellion. My dad drank at the time, and developed into an alcoholic.”

At the sight of his sister’s short skating dress, “He ripped the skirt from my sister and tore it to shreds. He was in a rage. My mother tried to stop him and then he turned on her.”

************
How Perpetrator Priest Robert Van Handel learned about the Birds and the Bees: A Book Recommended by Priests that was ‘Anti-Sex’
********************

“My father sat me down and together we read through a sex education book which had been recommended by the priests. They could not have chosen a worse source, because it was very anti-sex, and I believed every word.

“I remember verbatim one section when the book dealt with wet dreams. There were events that were unavoidable but nevertheless to be resisted. Consider the pleasure one might realize to be poison to the soul.

“Wet dreams were like poison candy, they tasted sweet but would kill the immortal soul.”

**********
(The Dysfunction Germinates)
*************

“I swallowed the instruction hook, lie, and sinker. I would resist sexual pleasure forever. Every night I prayed that I would be spared a wet dream for fear I would fail to resist. I wanted to remain pre-pubescent. I didn't want to grow up into the confusing world of adolescence.

“When I began to grow public hair, I secretly used an electric shaver to remove it. I was terribly ashamed.

“I prayed that my penis would remain small like a boy’s. I thought men’s genitals were ugly. I did whatever I could to resist the inevitable arrival of puberty.”

“Fitting well into the fear of sex, women, men, and my father was the idea of going off to the seminary to be a priest. My father encouraged it and probably would not have accepted any other profession for from me. I was glad to be going away from home and some of my friends from eighth grade were going to St. Anthony’s in Santa Barbara also.

“I remember being disappointed that my father would not let me go to my graduation dance with my school friends. He said he didn't think the fathers at the seminary would approve of dancing with girls and such.

“I never protested, but did what I was told. At the age of fourteen, I was off to boarding school."

***
MORE FROM VAN HANDEL SEXUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY

What kind of upbringing produces a serial sex offender priest

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

(No quotation marks needed, these are all direct quotes)

St. Anthony’s was a small school of 230 students housed in large stone buildings behind Mission Santa Barbara. Most of the students were from middle class families and all arrived with hope of becoming priests and Franciscans. The dormitories were really barracks. There was very little privacy, which was difficult for me at first.

I adapted quickly to life at the seminary. I thrived. I loved the camaraderie.

I mourned that I was not chosen for the choir. For three years I tried to join and was only accepted as a senior. This experience affected the way I constructed choirs many years later.

St. Anthony’s was very demanding academically. Discipline was enforced through the ranks and many older students abused that privilege. But basically the school ran smoothly. It was a microcosm and the outside world had little to do with our lives.

Sex had very little to do with anything else in my life in the first year at seminary.

I never masturbated and I often wondered what other boys confessed. I had reached puberty by the time I was a sophomore and had some wet dreams, but I was still afraid of ay sexual thought or act.

Actually I remember my first wet dream during the summer after my freshman year.

I recall fighting against any enjoyment and compulsively trying to mutter some holy words so I would not do so.”

“I wished I could fantasize about girls but I was afraid to do so. I lived a very pure life. When I was a junior in a sex education course, I was afraid to ask questions.”

(Van Handel graduated in 1965 and went south to seminary college in San Luis Rey, 40 miles above San Diego. “This was the day of Peter Paul and Mary,” he writes. Sometimes groups would end “with holding hands and swaying to Indian chants by candle light. There were encounter groups started and talk of ‘getting out our feelings.’)

“I was frightened by much of this and tried to avoid ‘touchy feel-y’ sessions.”

**************
THE MEDICAL EXAM THAT purportedly started Van Handel’s later reign of perpetration in the Santa Barbara Boys Choir and St. Anthony’s seminary:
***********************

From Van Handel Autobiography continued:

“One night when I was in boarding school I was sleeping alone in the school infirmary because I was running a fever. I must have been a sophomore or a junior. I woke up in the night to find a priest sitting on my bed and ready to take my temperature, which he did.

Then he took off the covers, lifted my pajama tops, and lowered the bottoms. I tried to stop this, but he gently moved my hand out of the way.

Then he placed a folded towel on my chest and began to rub my stomach and chest. I became erect from the stimulation and his hand did rub against my penis several times. I remember feeling some distress at this because I did not know how much of this it might take to cause ejaculation. Before this did happen, he stopped, covered me up, and left.

The whole thing lasted, I suppose, about ten minutes. The next morning he asked me if I had been awake when he came in. When I said ‘yes,’ he said that he was trying to lower my temperature by making me perspire.”

****************
HE SAID HE WAS TRYING to lower my temperature by making me perspire.
**************************

“I thought all this a bit odd, but I never told anyone about it, and pretty soon it faded from my memory.
“While I don't think it is of crucial importance in my life, it is curious that this is nearly the exact activity I would perform ten to fifteen years later.

***************
“THIS IS NEARLY THE EXACT ACTIVITY I would perform ten to fifteen years later.”
**************************

About the Sexual Autobiography of Robert Van Handel:

“After being informed that the document was, in fact, going to be made part of the Probation Report, in that it had been submitted as part of the statement made by Detective McGrew of the Santa Barbara Police Department, the defendant agreed to discuss the sexual autobiography.”

(ME: Seems men in authority are easily able to intimidate RVH.)

BIO INFORMATION:

RVH was in Santa Barbara County as a student 1961 - 1965

Then again as a Franciscan 1975-1991

Born 1947, his parents are still alive up in Oregon. Portland, Oregon (a 500 or so mile drive, close enough for visits.)

High school grad (St. Anthony’s 1965)

San Luis Rey College 1969 BA philosophy

Graduate Theological Union College 1972, MA Theology and Master of Divinity 1975

UCSB 1991 MA History.

(However, a source tells City of Angels that Van Handel used to tell people he had a degree in child psychology.)

“A lot of his friends in the high school left prematurely because of the rigidity of the academic program.

“Robert experienced anxiety when four of his friends were expelled for talking to girls. At age 15 his anxiety and confusion escalated when he was molested by an alcoholic priest at the seminary.

“The client states he was confused by the experience which did not affect his academic or social performance.

“Throughout his high school years he was perceived and treated by peers and faculty as ’boyishly naive’

(And he grew up to molest hundreds of little boys who were members of the Santa Barbara Boys Choir, yes, Van Handel is the perpetrator in this story:)

Friday, February 5, 2010

Priest Abused a Boy a Month in Santa Barbara Boys Choir. With 150 victims, he serves time for one. Now living in Santa Cruz
“Not a month went by that Defendant did not molest members of the Santa Barbara Boys Choir,” reads the Probation Report. The MO of Fr. Robert Van Handel in Law enforcement language: “Defendant first started giving Victim what he viewed as a ‘regular’ back rub so he could fall asleep easier. However, the defendant then started touching his stomach, thighs, legs, and eventually worked up to the point of" [SEX ASSAULT]..

****************
POSTED
By Kay Ebeling
The City of Angels is Everywhere
.

Why Media Spin Does Not Work in L.A.

.
I think the real reason most survivors who live in L.A. do not go to SNAP events is this is a company town. Media Spin was born and developed here. So even if you don't work in the business, your friends and neighbors do. In L.A. we see 'Spin Doctoring' for exactly what it is, and when we don't agree with it, we don't participate in it.

After talking to several local people over the phone last night, and knowing my own gut reaction to things, I think that is the real reason for low turnouts for events in L.A. A 'genuine' quality is lacking, a problem that could easily be repaired by letting the local survivor leaders develop relationships with the local media and decide what to put into the news, based on local beliefs and sensitivities. For some reason SNAP says to that suggestion for years, "That's not how we do it."

The result is something not quite real. And Spinmeistering just does not work in L.A., we can see it from the minute it starts, all of us who live here, it's in our DNA, our cells are developed to detect it.

Internationally and Nationally, the Catholic Church spin on pedophile priests right now is to point at all the pedophiles in other Churches. I'm not going to participate in their PR spin. I AM going to point out the Spin anywhere I see it.

Did anyone else notice the word "dismay" was used by both SNAP and the Vatican last week to describe reactions to new allegations coming out?

Everybody needs to pay more attention and, just like in the TV series V, which is very prophetic-

(And returning to ABC Tuesday March 30!),

"Trust No One."

AND Please Don't tell me your feelings have been hurt. The issues and people with which we are dealing require us ALL to have to put personalities and sensitivities aside and deal with what is genuine and real and in front of us.

Only.

THEY use guilt and fear of hurting feelings to keep us down.

Just tell the truth, don't worry about the outcome, as that part is not in our hands.

BLOGS:

.
How can pedo-priest epidemic be due to "pansexual American culture" of the sixties, when it was in Munich and Italy and France and Austria and Australia and England and Canada and Alaska and .....?

"I wonder if the Roman Curia still think clergy sex abuse is an American cultural problem and an exaggerated creation of the American secular media," blogged at Journey to a New Pentecost March 14

Quote from the L.A. Times dated 4.23.2002: ” Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos portrayed the scandals as the product of an American “culture of pansexuality and sexual licentiousness” and noted sourly that most of the questions were in English. “This by itself is an X-ray of the problem.”

*******

Caffeinated Politics:

From: Want Job Security? Be A Pedophile Priest

WHY DO NEWS MEDIA even bother to go to Vatican and Church (and Corporate) Spokesmen? Do they really think the result is news?



Priest Blogs Catholic Talking Points:

Father Geoff Farrow: The Pope, Vatican, Pedophilia and Deception
By Father Geoff
Most cases of pedophilia are incestuous. They happen within the family and most often the pedophile is a parent, sibling, or close relative of their victim. Pedophiles are drawn to careers that afford them access to children/minors. ...

The London Times spells it out:The Pope was drawn directly into the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal last night as news emerged of his part in a decision to send a paedophile priest for therapy. The cleric went on to reoffend and was convicted of child abuse but continues to work as a priest in Upper Bavaria.The priest was sent from Essen to Munich for therapy in 1980 when he was accused of forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform oral sex. The archdiocese confirmed that the Pope, who was then a cardinal, had approved a decision to accommodate the priest in a rectory while the therapy took place.The priest, identified only as H, was subsequently convicted of sexually abusing minors after he was moved to pastoral work in nearby Grafing. In 1986 he was given an 18-month suspended jail sentence and fined DM 4,000 (£1,800 today). There have been no formal charges against him since...

BELOW: L.A. Archdiocese, a corporation sole, in business always, advertising its downtown parking lot. City of Angels joined a national show of solidarity for victims in Europe by going to the L.A. event this morning.

35 show up in Boston rain, in L.A. sunshine 4 demonstrate. Why are pedo-priest survivors here so in-active?

.
In Boston thirty-five (35) people showed up in 40 degree rain yesterday, with speakers and massive local media coverage and there were similar events planned in thirty cities across the country this weekend, to show "solidarity" for pedophile priest crime victims in Europe who have recently come forward, especially in Ireland, to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day.

However, in L.A. today in 70 degree sunshine, four demonstrators and me took part in the Solidarity Demonstration, shown in photo above left (except me, I was taking pictures).

I don't know where I fit in at these events because I'm a reporter but not really, just a blogger. I'm a survivor but not part of SNAP.

Tod Tamberg isn’t going to agree to meet with me after the press conference as we see here, at left. He talks only to "real" credentialed journalists.
***********

WHere THe HeLL Do I FIT into this whole thing?????

When the press event started, I folded my camera to stand with the survivors, as this event was about solidarity. So I went and stood behind one of the signs, and...

GET THIS!!!

After the KTLA 5 guy finished his interview, KNX radio went down the line with his microphone, interviewing the survivors where we were standing there in a line.

He interviewed Carlos, interviewed, John, interviewed the lady on my right who was from Church of Christ, then with his microphone he passed right over me to the woman on my left who was also with the Church of Christ.

Passed right by me.

Reporters asked the Church of Christ women questions about the Pope, but not me...?

So I'm standing there with my mouth open, literally, because I thought when the microphone passed me, that it was going to stop and I’d have a chance to say what I was thinking, which was:

This pope was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict. So this Pope was the person to whom who all the pedophile priest crimes the last 40 years were reported at the Vatican.

Now he and his brother are responding with exactly the same sound byte we've heard now from every archdiocese in the USA and now also from every bishop in Europe:

The Sound Byte The Bishops All Use from Munich to Manhattan Beach:

'I'm Shocked, This is the First I’ve Heard of These Charges. I'm Dismayed. Our apologies to the victims, ahem, but look over there, the Church of Christ has pedophiles too. . . .'

So instead of participating, I'm left standing in the middle of the sidewalk not knowing if I should be over here or over there. Am I part of this group of victims, or am I in the news media because I write this little blog?

Actually I don't fit in anywhere. I'm this oblique entity in skin that just keeps going and going.

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

PICTURE AT RIGHT
Reporters stand around waiting for someone to show up to do the event today in L.A. In the end there were as many reporters there as demonstrators.

I would have been glad to organize and run SNAP events in L.A., volunteered a hundred times.

They won't let me in, because I ask too many questions.

So you figure it out.

Look in the photo at right at the turnout we had in L.A. today compared to Boston yesterday. (Stories from Boston linked at bottom of blog.)

In 2007, 510 pedophile priest survivors in L.A. got settlements from this Archdiocese, plus another couple hundred in Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Riverside, which are all close by.

Where Did Everyone Go?

When something happens for SNAP in L.A., lucky if three people show up.

Carlos Perez and I were the only two actual pedophile Catholic priest survivors at the demonstration this morning in L.A. One woman from Church of Christ was a victim, the other was her mother. John is there in honor of his dead brother, one of the victims.

Two Priest Rape survivors there and reporters interviewed Carlos and passed right by me, refused to even let me say anything when I was begging the guy from KNX. Literally the news guys turned their backs on me.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME????

I can’t help thinking, what? Did someone tell them not to talk to me. That seems paranoid.

I ask Carlos, did you call the news media to set up this event today? He says, Oh no, Barbara Blaine did that.

********
Maybe

Because I was taking pictures, the reporters figured I was a reporter too, so did not interview me.

BUT I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY!!!!!

Of course, I wasn’t quiet about the media snub, I'm City of Angels Lady.

So I followed the guy from KNX as he packed up to go somewhere else, and I said, huh? Why don’t you interview me? I’ve been writing about this for three years, and you're not going to interview me?

He said, "Oh I didn't know you were a survivor, I thought you were news media."

So I ran after him and said, Yes, but not a paid journalist. And I know about the Pope, I know about the crimes all across the country.

Mr. KNX was running faster than I was and he went through the Cathedral entrance.

I was calling and running after him:

“What the f-- just because I'm not affiliated with a nonprofit, you won’t interview me? Is that how bad mainstream media has gotten?”

Then an arm stretched out blocking me from going further.

“Ma’am, I'm sorry you cannot come in.” A tall thin black man in a black suit with a thin tie and Security emanating from all over him towered over me.

I stopped, taken aback, “Can’t come in? What do you mean, this is a church.”

“Ma’am you've been identified as one of the demonstrators.”

Me: “No I'm not, that guy from KNX just said he couldn't interview me because I'm with the media.”

Black security guard (who just did not seem menacing at all, probably goes to a Gospel Church in South Central himself, still he stood over me and said slower this time, enunciating the syllables): “Ma’am, you have been identified as one of the demonstrators, you are not allowed on the church grounds.”

*****
In Photo below, you can see the meager turnout in L.A. today, the KNX guy is in the background scowling.

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

Some of what Carlos had to say today:





Sorry, Folks, it got real hot standing there and I thought I was not getting the audio so did not get the whole interview.

***********

THIS IS A CREEPY way I reacted to being so close to a Catholic Church in order to attend this event today:

I could tell security cameras were on us, all four or five of us who had shown up to show the world that Los Angeles stands in solidarity with the Irish and the Germans and all of the survivors in Europe.

Again survivors met in front of the Cathedral for the event, and at Our Lady of the Angels at the west entrance, I always feel some church creep is watching me on the security cameras.

And it excites me.

[DELETED]

PLEASE

Hold these demonstrations someplace else.

At Left KTLA and other main stream media interview L.A. Archdiocese spokesman, but City of Angels is blocked entry.

Cut paragraphs:

In Fact, I don't know where I fit in. The reporters would not interview me. I stood in line with the other four people, Carlos and I were the only two survivors of Catholic pedophile priest rape, and the reporters interviewed everyone, then blatantly passed me right by with their microphones, it was just one more incredibly weird inexplainable experience like all of them I keep happening.

At first I was thinking, do I look that bad they don't want me on camera? Then realized it was a radio reporter who still would not interview me.

I'm a journalist and a survivor, and that half-in half-out identity left me standing outside the Cathedral entrance hollering after the KNX reporter as he went inside.
.

AT LEFT AND BELOW:
COOL SIGNS



The two women from Church of Christ brought cool signs...

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


FUTURE DEMONSTRATIONS?

L.A. has a new U.S. Attorney. We should focus demonstrations on him. As a group, survivors in L.A. need to ask the new U.S. Attorney, whatever happened to the Federal Grand Jury investigation of the L.A. Archdiocese and Cardinal Roger Mahony?

POST SCRIPT:

Everything comes full circle.

Below is what I saw when I arrived at the Cathedral:

Below is what I saw when I got home.


Everyone in L.A. is just trying to make a living...

NEWS FROM BOSTON YESTERDAY:

Boston Protestors Call For Govt. Probe Into Church
BOSTON (MA)WBZ - BOSTON (AP) ― Protesters in Boston called for a government investigation of clergy sex abuse claims nationwide, saying revelations concerning the Pope show the Catholic church will never reform itself..

Advocacy groups seek hearings on abuse scandal
BOSTON (MA)Boston Globe - By Matt Byrne Globe Correspondent / March 14, 2010 - As European governments have begun inquiries into the most recent allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members in several countries, two Boston groups called for similar hearings in the United States at a demonstration yesterday outside US Senator Scott Brown’s Boston office...

THEY SHOWED Solidarity in San Francisco too

Clergy Abuse Victims Speak Out
SAN FRANCISCO (CA)KCBS
The Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in the United States is watching with dismay as more and more victims come forward in Europe.

"Dismay"?

That doesn't say it by half.

***********

Posted by Kay Ebeling, Hollywood, California

More to Come Soon.

Bookies cut odds Pope will resign from 12-1 to 3-1 after 'cascade of bets'

.
Cool Story: Irish bookmaker Paddy Power said Friday it had cut the odds on Pope Benedict resigning after allegations of child abuse by priests in Germany gripped the Roman Catholic Church... Ireland’s biggest bookmaker, which has branches in Britain as well as Catholic Ireland, said it had cut the odds from 12 to 1 to 3 to 1 following a “cascade of bets.”

Continued here:
Irish bookmaker slashes odds on pope’s resignation

So the rest of the world is discovering that the treatment of pedophiles priests was the same all over the world

Including Regensburg Diocese in Germany

Where the current Pope was once Cardinal Ratzinger, it's fun to find a story that provides comic relief.

Turns out when he was Cardinal Ratzinger in Germany, the current Pope Benedict transferred and tolerated pedophile priests just like every other Cardinal and Bishop in every other archdiocese in the world:

German Sex Abuse Scandal Includes The Pope
NPR - Audio for this story from Weekend Edition Saturday will be available at approx. 12:00 pm ET A growing scandal in Europe over child sexual abuse by priests ...

Vatican Speaks as Abuse Details Emerge New York Times - Rachel Donadio, Nicholas Kulish -
ROME — As new details emerged on allegations of child sexual abuse by priests in the Munich archdiocese then led by ...

Vatican to Drop Statute of Limitations for Pedophile Priests BusinessWeek - Flavia Krause-Jackson‎
March 13 (Bloomberg) -- The Vatican's chief prosecutor will remove the statute of limitations for priests accused of child ...

Pope being set up over Munich sex abuse case, says Vatican The Guardian -
Pope Benedict XVI has said he was 'shocked' to hear of the Munich sex abuse case. Other church officials have taken responsibility for letting the abuser ...

Germany abuse scandal edges closer to Pope Benedict; Vatican insists no connection New York Daily News - Larry Mcshane
Pope Benedict XVI with Robert Zollitsch, the former diocese in Bavaria who acknowledged he was involved in a 1980 decision to reassign a ...

Vatican defends Pope Benedict in German abuse scandal
BBC News - The Vatican has denounced attempts to link Pope Benedict to a child abuse scandal in his native Germany. A Vatican spokesman said there had been ...

Celibacy vows to stay despite sex abuse scandal
ABC Online ELIZABETH JACKSON: In the wake of the latest sex abuse claims in the Catholic Church in Germany, a number of senior clergy have called for a debate on the ...

Vatican officials defend pope on abuse
The Associated Press - Frances D'Emilio
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile ...
Original pos about the bookmaker in Ireland:

Irish bookmaker cuts odds Pope will resign from 12-1 to 3-1 after 'cascade of bets'
Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer City of Angels

MORE:

History of an Abuse Case - New York Times - The Munich Archdiocese acknowledged mishandling an abuse case in the late '70s and early '80s, when the pope served as its archbishop. ...

Pope's former archdiocese clarifies details of abusive priest's placement - Catholic News Agency - Munich, Germany, Mar 13, 2010 / 01:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich has owned up to his responsibility in making the ...

Report: Pope Allowed Pedophile to Work - Daily Beast - The Pope reportedly took part in sending a pedophile priest to therapy instead of dismissing him in 1980. Despite repeat offenses and convictions of child ...

.
Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels

Coming Monday, More From Santa Barbara: Van Handel and Medical Exams at St. Anthony Seminary

.
One did it to another to another, and the corruption of sex among the Franciscans metastasized over generations at St. Anthony's Seminary. Monday we revisit the Sexual Autobiography of Robert Van Handel, his sexual confusion as a teenage seminary student as we pick up where we left off on the Santa Barbara Story.

In Monday's edition we will show how a Friar showed the young Van Handel a cool way a priest can have sex and still be celibate, by pretending to do medical exams.

Here is where we have written on the medical exams earlier:

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Preview: Molestation MO passed from generation to generation in seminary
Father Robert Van Handel perpetrated "medical exams" of teenage boys at St. Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara in the 1970s. Young seminary student Robert Van Handel was on the receiving end of a very similar exam in about 1962. Molestatio MO's passed from one generation of priests to another at the Santa Barbara boys high school, that blessedly closed June 1987... Here is story of Van Handel's crime:

Tuesday, December 01, 2009
The Franciscan grabbed the freshman by the testicles and instructed the boy to cough as if it were a hernia exam. Just another day of Seminary Life.
Franciscan friars with no medical training tested boys for "undescended testacles" at St. Anthony's high school seminary in the 1960s and '70s, as revealed in a new lawsuit filed in Santa Barbara last month and reported here in Part 4 of the Santa Barbara Story November 2009 here at City of Angels..

********
We have also written a bit before about Fr. Robert Van Handel and his Sexual Autobiography, so for more background:

Friday, January 29, 2010

The Pedophile Mind: In panic as his conviction for child molestation approached, the priest poured out his sexual history to give the Court
.(Part 2: More from Sexual Autobiography of Franciscan Pedophile Priest, Robert Van Handel, actual Santa Barbara Story Part 8, Part 2)Has anyone anywhere ever paid this much attention to the crime victims?

Friday, January 29, 2010

A Pedophile Mind: As sentencing approaches, priest pours out sexual history hoping for probation, gets notoriety instead
.By Kay Ebeling
City of Angels in Santa Barbara
Fr. Van Handel felt he was “a failure with nothing to live for” soon after news broke that he molested choir boys, his therapist said. Facing justice, the pedophile priest wrote out a history of his sex life and gave it to the Court while requesting probation, answering questions about what is wrong inside the Church, inadvertently, and the role of priests that led to this nationwide epidemic of pedophilia...

****
And at headline below we scanned in some pages from his tight single spaced sexual autobiography:

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Predator Franciscan describes years he ran Santa Barbara Boys Choir, 'A constant supply of attractive little boys' (5 pages scanned here)
By Kay Ebeling
While reading through his Probation Report, we scanned five pages from Sexual Autobiography of Robert Van Handel Pedophile Franciscan and posted them here, for our readers to click enlarge and read, as a preview of upcoming stories. These tight single-space typed memories cover the time Van Handel was Director of Santa Barbara Boys Choir, which, he writes "was clearly my choir, and the fulfillment of one of my fondest dreams.“Now I understand that it was also a constant supply of attractive little boys.” On these pages Van Handel talks his way through years of serial felonies.

****
From Megan's Law Website:

Robert Van Handel

Last Known Address:
15705 HWY 9,
GARAGE
BOULDER CREEK,
CALIFORNIA
County: SANTA CRUZ
Zip Code: 95006
Date of Birth: 04-02-1947
Sex: MALE
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 173
Eye Color: GREEN
Hair Color: GRAY
Ethnicity: WHITE
Offense: Code 288(a)
LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS

We Googled to see a satellite view.

Looks like Van Handel is living about 30 miles northeast of Santa Cruz, deep in the lush green rolling hills between San Jose and the Pacific Ocean.

Hearing in Santa Barbara Tuesday

.
Public Nuisance Clauses of pedophile priest clergy sex abuse case in Santa Barbara to be argued at hearing on Franciscans' Motion to Strike, Tuesday March 16 in Santa Barbara Superior Court Anacapa Division Dept. 3.




No, City of Angels Lady won't be there. We are dealing with weeks of being crippled these days, not getting out much... so able to write more.
.
onward

Of Course the Pope Knew. They All Knew

.
The rest of the story comes out slowly:

Pope Under Fire For Transfer, Letter On Sex Abuse
Diocese Says Pope Wasn't Aware Of Decision

NICOLE WINFIELD,
Associated Press Writer
POSTED: Friday, March 12, 2010
UPDATED: 7:25 pm EST March 12, 2010

VATICAN CITY -- Germany's sex abuse scandal has now reached Pope Benedict XVI: His former archdiocese disclosed that while he was archbishop a suspected pedophile priest was transferred to a job where he later abused children.
The pontiff is also under increasing fire for a 2001 Vatican document he later penned instructing bishops to keep such cases secret.

The revelations have put the spotlight on Benedict's handling of abuse claims both when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982 and then the prefect of the Vatican office that deals with such crimes -- a position he held until his 2005 election as pope.

And they may lead to further questions about what the pontiff knew about the scope of abuse in his native Germany, when he knew it and what he did about it during his tenure in Munich and quarter-century term at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Benedict got a firsthand readout of the scandal Friday from the head of the German Bishop's Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, who reported that the pontiff had expressed "great dismay and deep shock" over the scandal, but encouraged bishops to continue searching for the truth.

Hours later, the Munich archdiocese admitted that it had allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s, while Benedict was archbishop. It stressed that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger didn't know about the transfer and that it had been decided by a lower-ranking official....

Read Entire AP Story

Good Morning

Posted at AlterNet:

Vatican Editorial: With More Women in Charge, We Could Have Avoided Pedophile Priest Crisis

If women broke the “code of silence” and were part of Catholic Church hierarchy, we probably would not have had the pedophile priest epidemic, reads an editorial in the Vatican weekly L’Osservatore Romano, where Italian historian Lucetta Scaraffia says women “would have been able to rip the veil of masculine secrecy that in the past often covered with silence the denunciation of these misdeeds.”

Historian Lucetta Scaraffia writes:

“With regard to the painful and shameful events that have come to light concerning the sexual abuse and molestation of young people entrusted to the care of priests, we would suggest that a greater female presence, not at a subordinate level, would have been able to rip the veil of masculine secrecy that in the past so often covered the reporting of these misdeeds with silence. Women, be they religious or lay, are more likely to move in defence of young people when it comes to questions of sexual abuse. That way, the church would have been spared the serious damage that this guilty behaviour (silence) procured for it.”

“We can hypothesize that an increased female presence, and not only at lower levels, would have been able to rip the veil of male secrecy that in the past often covered the denunciation of misdeeds. In fact, women — both religious and secular — are naturally more inclined to defend the young in cases of sexual abuse, avoiding the serious damage these guilty attitudes have done to the Church.”

Lucetta Scaraffia is a journalist and professor of history at Rome’s La Sapienza university

Read More:

Greater female presence may have stopped child abuse
Irish Times
This is an edited version of the front page article, published yesterday by L’Osservatore Romano , the semi-official Vatican newspaper. …

A Mafia-like “omertà” on sexual abuse in the Catholic hierarchy?
Ethiopian Review -
By Tom Heneghan
The Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano has published an interesting article saying the Catholic Church might have avoided some of the clerical sex abuse …

***
Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels

The City of Angels is Everywhere

ABC Radio Australia: What is Wrong with the Catholic Church?

.
What is wrong with the Catholic Church?
Listen Now - 2010-03-07
Download Audio - 07032010

"Not only in Australia, but around the world."

"Not only in Australia, but around the world, the Catholic Church is rocked by news of sex abuse scandals. The vow of celibacy is often blamed, but it is more than that. The Church encourages a kind of adolescence in its priests, a co-dependency, and a terrible and immature loneliness."

Reporter, Stephen Crittenden.
Read more here

Click for BBC video: Perpetrator Priest Bill Carney confronted by reporter

Pedophile Ex-priest Confronted

Former priest Bill Carney was named as one of the worst cases in Dublin's Catholic diocese in the Murphy report into clerical abuse there. However, for the last 10 years he has been free to live quietly in Britain.

Watch here

The Catholic Church Just Got Away With 60 Years of Sex Crimes Against Children

.
City of Angels Is Now on AlterNet in the Soapbox

The Catholic Church Just Got Away With 60 Years of Sex Crimes Against Children

What other organization in the U.S. could have six thousand (6000) pedophiles whose job is interacting with children and as a result produce tens of thousands of crime victims, yet the organization is still operating, has not ever really even been investigated?

Because they are a religion?

As one of the pedophile Catholic priest crime victims, I am shocked by the world’s fear of the Catholic Church, in America, from U.S. senators down to court clerks in every city, people bow to the bishops, rather than treat them like the criminals many of them are.

Kay Ebeling, Hollywood California

Thou shalt not sin, we are better at it: Motto of Catholic Church. (Re: Digital Journal today)

.
Dear Editor:

You wrote: Imagine what a world would feel like if we would not have a new revelation every week about one or another priest, and as one of the adult victims of pedophile priests, I do think about how different the world could have been, often.

I believe we would not have so many young children being kidnapped raped and brutalized today if the world had not seen pedophiles in the Catholic Church getting away with it for decades.

Other pedophiles became empowered after seeing the modus operandi of priests, indeed, some of these new predators who dominate crime news today may even have been among the tens of thousands of young parishioners who were raped by these priests, or non-Catholic children from the community who attended Catholic church events.

Now we see the acts of these demented predators on children and wonder how they could be such sociopaths.

With its silent response to the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church, law enforcement and news media have indirectly shown other pedophiles that these crimes can be committed and almost accepted, if they carry the crime out right.

So without even thinking about what the pedophile epidemic did to the Catholic Church, let's stop a moment and think what Six Thousand pedophiles in one institution, the Catholic Church in the United States did to the entire society.

(Source of number 6000 is BishopAccountability.org where they also predict, when all the research is done, the number could end up being 10,000 pedophile priests that operated in the Catholic Church in the U.S.A. last 50 years or so.)

Kay Ebeling, Los Angeles

Posted this morning at:

Opinion: Thou shalt not sin, we're better at it - motto of Catholic Church

Digital Journal
R. C. Camphausen

After the catholic church has been damaged by sexual abuse scandals in the US, Germany, and Ireland, now there's a focus on the Netherlands as well. It seems time for a worldwide inquiry. Should the catholic church be classified as a terrorist agency?

Just imagine what a world would feel like, look like, be like ... if we would not have a new revelation every week that one or another priest, in one or another country, abused either a young girl or a young boy (apparently much preferred among the clergy... (continued)

>>>>

Posted by Kay Ebeling, still on short or long hiatus, who knows...

Story also running at AlterNet in Soap Box in lower right hand corner or click this headline:

Pedophiles Became Empowered Seeing Catholic Priests Get Away With the Crime for Decades
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The City of Angels Is Everywhere

City of Angels is still on break, but just read this and want to post it ...

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'We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented” society to a “person oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'

Martin Luther King
April 1967

Since 1967 add to that list, corporations, including those dressed up as world religions.