July 06, 2012
Sex abuse and the study of religion
By Kathryn Lofton, via The Immanent Frame:
What I want to tackle, immediately, is the fraught relationship between effect and affect in this subject for those of us who seek to interpret it. It is difficult to write or think about sex abuse without being affected by its circulating effects, without feeling that the very practices of academic analysis do something suffocating to its experience. To think about sex abuse in an academic context could suggest that we might wish to think away its awfulness; to write about sex abuse could suggest that we seek to argue away its visceral trauma.
Scholarly practice replies to such worry with bravado, assuming that our studied neutrality will offer fair view to every contributing party. Yet this is the very neutrality that so troubles subjects of our analysis, since it suggests that everyone deserves understanding, regardless of their actions. This is a perspective to which few victims of such violence can accede.
Even if we bracket the voice of such victims in our academic work, we cannot imagine that we have bracketed their call for judgment upon their perpetrators. To be sure, scholars sometimes imagine that a responsible account is an account that withholds judgment. “I just try to explain what happened,” one historian tells me. “I don’t judge what they did.” This is an evasion of responsibility; interpretation is judgment. We cannot imagine that our default to historicism will spare us our job as arbiters. We are always in the story, no matter our attempt to abstract ourselves from it through various modes of scientism, humanist and otherwise. “For even a world equation that contained everything, so that the observer of the system would also be included in the equations, would still assume the existence of a physicist who, as the calculator, would not be an object calculated,” Hans Georg Gadamer writes, concluding, “Each science, as a science, has in advance projected a field of objects such that to know them is to govern them.” To know them is to govern them. This is the struggling work of all scholarship: to acknowledge that its very free enactment by a solo thinker is also a practice of governance with others. How do we do this? How do we do this especially in cases where our subjects have already been governed in abusive ways?
Read more here.
Posted by Zujaja Tauqeer at 10:44 AM | Permalink
Comments
Religion is usually child abuse.
Posted by: Dave Ranningdd | Jul 6, 2012 1:13:44 PM
If you read the early writings of the Catholic church, you will find hints of adult men despising women, and finding them to be repulsive (maybe the men were gay and were horrified at the thought of having sex with women). You will also find an odd assumption of a strange connection to the little boys in their parish, a shared view that it was the responsibility of the priests to teach the young boys to stay away from the dirty women, to give themselves to other forms of glory. It's twisted, and I believe not a thinly-disguised rationale for engaging in pedophilia. Why exactly did the Catholic church come up with the bizarre idea that priests should stay away from those dirty devil-loving women? Presumably because those wrangling power at the top did not enjoy having sex with women, or were horrified at the thought, so came up with some elaborate story to cover up their sexual inclinations. From that grew this system which is premised on the idea that women are dirty and untrustworthy, and men are to be idolized and worshipped. Including the little men, the 5 year olds.
But it isn't just the Catholic church. It's also teachers and coaches. The mormon church has essentially tried to take over the Boy Scouts, promoting the same white world view of chastity and male superiority and exclusion of women. Sure enough, there have been many instances of boy scouts now suing mormon scout leaders who engaged in sexual conduct with the young boys.
It does seem that pedophilia, child sex abuse and rape are all the byproducts of sexism, a system which hates and despises women, which inevitably channels men into other directions, or at least rewards men who stay away from women. So what do they do for sex? There aren't a lot of other options.
Posted by: NABNYC | Jul 6, 2012 5:40:41 PM
It does seem that pedophilia, child sex abuse and rape are all the byproducts of sexism, a system which hates and despises women, which inevitably channels men into other directions, or at least rewards men who stay away from women. So what do they do for sex? There aren't a lot of other options.
The feminine is s threat to most religions (especially the Abrahamic), and especially the patriarchal nature of the organization.
I think your above analysis is right on, and explains the serial pedophilia among our religious leaders.
Posted by: Dave Ranningdd | Jul 6, 2012 6:35:37 PM
The article references a commonly known and easily researched fact: that pedophilia seems to occur at similar frequencies in religious venues that do not insist on priestly celibacy, and in fact stress marriage, in public venues that are not religious at all such as public schools, scouting, and coaching programs, and of course in private households, where the majority of abuse cases take place. The common denominator isn't hatred of women, access to normal sexual channels, repression, or patriarchal fear of the feminine. The common denominator is easy access to children for sexually disordered perverts to exploit.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 6, 2012 7:52:17 PM
"If you read the early writings of the Catholic church, you will find hints of adult men despising women, and finding them to be repulsive.'
Can you cite an example, author, partial quote, or date range for these writings. I can't recall ever running across them.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 6, 2012 7:57:19 PM
"The common denominator is easy access to children for sexually disordered perverts to exploit."
Carlos, you are spot on. It doesn't get clearer than that.
Regarding the despising of women in the early church. One of the earliest councils held a vote on whether or not a woman had a soul. Women have souls by a margin of one vote. Karen Armstrong may have written about this in "A History of God."
The debate over whether some humans have souls and others not, was revisited in the years of the slave trade from the 16th to the 18th centuries for Christianity. It was proposed and vehemently debated as to whether or not the indigenous peoples of the New World, especially within the colonies of Spain, had souls. The Church concluded, eventually, that they did. However, the Church also concluded that some peoples were 'Natural slaves' according to 'Natural Law.'
In the 19th century in the U.S. there were Christian and political groups in the South who held that African slaves did not have a soul. The subject was covered in the novel, "Mandingo."
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 6, 2012 11:37:03 PM
@ Carlos,
More on "...easy access to children for sexually disordered perverts to exploit."
In the 1950s a paedophile ring was run by a Catholic Monsignor in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. His name was Joseph Maria Pernicone. The ring consisted of a number of priests, possibly some seminarians, doctors, police, and others. Pernicone supplied children for the ring.
He also supplied children for child pornography that was financed, produced, and distributed by the Gambino crime family. The Gambino Mafia provided 95 percent of the child pornography that was imported into Europe at that time.
Pernicone was later consecrated a bishop, the first Italian-born (Sicilian) in the NY Catholic Archdiocese. He was promoted by Francis Cardinal Spellman. At the personal request of Spellman, Pope Pius XII, himself, consecrated Pernicone a bishop in Rome.
Pernicone became a member of the executive board of the Guardian Society of the Catholic Charities of New York. The Guardian Society was responsible for the placement of children for foster care and adoption. There have been subsequent scandals and law suits over the allowing of abuse for placed children, even when the abuse and the abusers were known to the supervisors and managers of the Guardian Society.
Carlos, I repeat your observation. "The common denominator is easy access to children for sexually disordered perverts to exploit."
At one of the sessions for the production of child pornography, $25,000 was given to Pernicone for supplying the children. At that session at least one child was murdered in a paedophile-sex thrill-killing. The child victims were usually murdered after the production of child porn. The Mafia disposed of the bodies after dismemberment, and the committing of other atrocities upon the bodies of the dead children.
There are a few survivors of these child porn operations. The reason they are still alive is that they would have been missed. What they reported about their experiences and what they witnessed is consistent with survivor reports of snuff-like productions in other parts of the country.
The name of the Mafioso who ran the porn operation for Gambino and Paul Costellano is known. Bishop Pernicone was the de facto head of all Italian parishes in the NY Archdiocese. The Gambino Mafia ran those parishes with the main base of operation at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the Arthur Avenue section of the Bronx, not far from Fordham University.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 7, 2012 12:22:47 AM
Norman,
Where did they find the children, the ones who would not be missed after their murders? Were they in Catholic orphanages?
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Jul 7, 2012 10:53:06 AM
@ Louise:
As to the specific process I do not know. There may have been a number of ways a child comes to or is brought to them.
There are parents who consign their children to paedophiles and child porn producers. They get paid.
There are single parents and couples who are devastated emotionally, mentally, and physically by alcohol, drugs, and mental illness who give away, or even sign away, their children to legitimate organizations or seemingly legitimate groups.
A child may be given over to a priest or agent to be put into the system at Catholic Charities, but never really gets put into the system and shunted to paedophiles and child pornographers.
Thousands of children go missing every year.
Go back a few decades and you realize that a child can completely disappear off the face of the earth and no person or agency or institution would note the absence. A family could move out of town or out of State, and no one takes notice that there was no request to forward school records.
To understand a little about how paedophile rings operate think of the four Ps. Power, Protection, Pleasure, and Profit. Bishop Pernicone's paedophile ring had doctors (some of whom administered drugs to victims,) and police who intimidated victims and others.
My assessment of the process is that it was a very well run and well financed industry. All industrial organizations have financial resources, materials procurement, production, marketing, distribution, collections, and waste disposal. I don't want to go into great detail, but just think of all those Mafia movies you've seen and how they dispose of bodies. It was that bad, that evil.
If you can imagine how a child might be murdered in an act of paedophile sex, it happened. It you can imagine something and feel it would never be that horrific, it happened. We are talking about pure psychopaths. The Mafia players are known by name.
There was a lot going on in the Arthur Avenue parish of OLMC, and may have included the neighborhood "Knights of Columbus" hall or facilities. Today the KOC hall is named after Bishop Joseph Maria Pernicone. There is a plaza near the church and school that is named the Bishop Joseph Maria Pernicone Plaza.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 7, 2012 1:38:43 PM
@ Louise,
Another possibility is that a child in the system was put in the foster care of, or adopted by, abusers who cooperated with Pernicone's paedophile ring. The question is so obvious. WHAT IS A PRIEST WHO LEADS A PAEDOPHILE RING AND SUPPLIES CHILDREN TO THE MAFIA CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS DOING ON THE EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE CATHOLIC CHARITIES AGENCY THAT PLACES CHILDREN INTO FOSTER CARE AND ADOPTION?
In one case that I know of, a priest member of Pernicone's ring may have been sourcing children in an orphanage.
When Timothy Cardinal Dolan's office was asked by Russo about an investigation of Pernicone, the answer was that there was nothing in Pernicone's file.
There is a landmark case from the 1980s involving The Guardian Society of Catholic Charities in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of NY. It held that the agency that provided children for foster care and adoption were responsible for abuse even when children were no longer under their care and supervision. The depositions, records, and other evidence in the case showed a pattern of abuse that was documented by case workers, but for which managers and supervisors were completely unresponsive. We know now that paedophiles will work their way into organizations and child protective agencies whose job it is to protect children. I am not talking about one or two people. I am talking about the hijacking of the management of those groups. Recent events in Florida come to mind.
By the way, paedophiles have a sixth sense, a radar if you will, to detect other paedophiles, or children that have been abused, or children that are susceptible to being groomed by them for abuse, or parents who will cooperate with them in consigning their own children.
There is an excellent movie that depicts this 'radar' and interaction between abuser and victim, "The Woodsman" 2004 with Kevin Bacon. The film is not graphic, but can be psychologically and emotionally difficult for some viewers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodsman .
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 7, 2012 2:07:42 PM
Norman, Thank you for your answer. Yes, that evil!
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Jul 7, 2012 2:14:25 PM
"Regarding the despising of women in the early church. One of the earliest councils held a vote on whether or not a woman had a soul. Women have souls by a margin of one vote. Karen Armstrong may have written about this in "A History of God.""
Seems to be debunked here: Some Blog Anderson claimed this? How sure are you?
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 8, 2012 7:43:38 PM
@ Carlos,
Starting back about 18 or so years ago I spent a good number of years reading on a variety of topics in the history of religion, the historical Jesus and the times in which he lived, the history of the Church, conventional scholarly materials, and speculative ideas and theology. I read stuff by Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels, Geza Vermes, A.N. Wilson, Harold Bloom, and Jack Miles (former Jesuit) to name a few. Of course, there were the highly entertaining books on Templars, Holy Blood Hold Grail, Bloodline of this and Solomon's that, and a good dose of Freemason conspiracies and Leonardo Davinci's secret whatever.
I remember coming across at least two (maybe more) discussions on the vote on women's souls. You ask how sure am I about it. I am sure I read it in at least two of the books I read over a period of years. Since I am not a scholar on the subject, I have to rely on the authors' creds.
Now I'll take a look at your link and see what's cooking. For what it's worth, I came from 16 years of schooling in Catholic institutions of education. I spent two years in a monastery.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 8, 2012 9:00:47 PM
@ Carlos,
OK. I read the blog entry. The first two links on that page get a 404 error. The third one at rutgers.edu does not respond.
The short blog entry references the first first link which gets a 404 error. Let's assume that the link exists and say what the blogger purports. The blogger quotes as follows:
"The actual historical event which became the basis for this rumor did not happen at the Council of Nicea or any other ecumenical council in Church history, but in a local Synod in France in 585 AD. The account can be found in the book The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours ..."
The references made in what I read talk about a council that was much earlier, perhaps as late as the 4th century CE, or possibly earlier.
The blogger quotes further:
"During a break between sessions at the Synod, one of the bishops there expressed to his fellow bishops his personal belief that the Latin word homo does not include women. Immediately every other bishop present objected to his statement, pointing out that the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Scriptures used at that time) uses the word homo to refer to both Adam and Eve in Genesis 5:2."
Let's assume that the account is accurate. Three things come to mind.
1. There is nothing here that says there was not a debate and vote on the matter at a much earlier time.
2. It is noteworthy that a significant member of the synod held the view at that time that women did not have an immortal soul.
3. We do not know how many others at the synod or among the churches held the same view.
A brief search of Gregory of Tours leads me to be skeptical, though not totally. He was a soldier against heresy, a promoter of the historicity of miracles by various Saints, and his historical writing (royal histories?) may be influenced by the fact that his royal patrons were footing the bill. These are not necessarily the kinds of standards we require of historians in modern times. However, by no means am I dismissing all of his content. That is for others who know more than I.
There is nothing compelling about the view of the blogger at your link. Perhaps the other sources, if they could be found, are more substantive.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 8, 2012 9:33:20 PM
@ Carlos,
I found "THE ALLEGED "SOULLESS WOMEN" DOCTRINE." It is a blogger's response to a comment. Technically, it is true that the Church never held such a doctrine. Allow my memory of what I read, and you will see that it never became doctrine because that view was defeated, and by one vote. The fact is that half of the leaders of the church believed in such a 'doctrine' at that time.
There can be no doubt that to this day there is a firm tradition of condescension, insulting paternalism, and boneheaded patronizing of women by the hierarchy of the Church.
If the other unavailable references are like this, they hardly deserve to be regarded as debunking anything.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 8, 2012 9:49:00 PM
@ Carlos,
I found the reference to "Opinion: The Myth of Soulless Women." As to the fundamental issue, it is another retelling of the Gregory of Tours account. My comment, above, still holds. There is no debunking here.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 8, 2012 10:04:13 PM
But then again, they are are "hardly" debunking that which has merely been asserted, and not demonstrated in any way.
"2. It is noteworthy that a significant member of the synod held the view at that time that women did not have an immortal soul."--That is not the reading I came away with. Women's souls are not mentioned at all, in the link I posted.
In any case, Google has a number of links to refutations of the myth, and none that I saw in support of it. Here is another, from (in my view) a reliable source First Things: The Myth of Soulless Women
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 8, 2012 10:11:26 PM
@ Carlos,
I had read the first things blog opinion. It takes more modern falsifications to task, however it is a retelling of the story of the 585 CE synod by Gregory of Tours.
You are making me do my homework. That's good. In Karen Armstrong's "A History of God," she covers the development of attitudes toward women which were little changed up to recent times. See pages 123 to 125. A few recent changes in views seem more reasonable by today's standards, but woman is still second class.
In the 1960s and 1970s some teachers from Catholic religious orders could hardly make a distinction between their contempt for women or for their children. For example, in a religion class in a Catholic High School, there was a discussion of a news story about a woman who became pregnant by alternative means, IVF. She delivered five babies. The explicit message from the member of a Catholic religious order to his high school students was that having five children for her to raise was a good and suitable punishment for her because she sinned by using IVF.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 8, 2012 10:50:13 PM
@ Carlos,
I found the following online, but I cannot say anything about its content. Perhaps someone else will take up the torch and some research.
"Well folks the verdict is in; the Catholic Church did indeed hold an
official council on whether women had souls and you women did just make it by one vote.
"I now have 3 references: _The_Rape_Of_The_A*P*E*_ by Allen Sherman (page 202 for those who care),
"_Why_We_Burn:_Sexism_Exorcised_, written by Meg Bowman and appeared in _The_Humanist_ magazine in the November/December 83' issue
"and finally, an article witten by Dottie Lamm (wife of the governor of Colorado) that appeared in the November 6th 1983 Denver Post. The title of the article was _Tracing_Anger:_Its_roots_are_in_history_ and the excerpt from the article is as follows:
""Are Women Human?" (In the year 584, in Lyons, France, 43 Catholic
bishops and twenty men representing other bishops, after a lengthy
debate, took a vote. The results were: 32, yes; 31, no. Women
were declared human by one vote.) ---Council of Macon, France.""
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/net.women/PtEmp8kJC4A
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 8, 2012 11:59:55 PM
@Norman: none of the sources you mention regarding the alleged synod seem the least bit scholarly. These sort of things are the stuff of urban legends; you really ought to be able to give us a source written by a credible historian -- or point us to the relevant primary source(s) for the Council of Macon.
By the way, I'm also a bit skeptical about the Bishop Pernicone stuff. Paedophilia, of course, I can believe; but snuff movie rings are, again, the stuff of urban legends. What's your source for it? It's clear that Pernicone was never tried in any court of law -- and these kinds of allegations shouldn't be made lightly -- the gravity of the accusation needs to be matched with the weight of evidence you have for it.
Posted by: Matt_M | Jul 9, 2012 3:59:25 AM
Some info on First Things (a well respected academic/religious/ecumenical journal) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things.
The author is a professor emeritus at Professor Emeritus in the Maurice Kennedy Research Center at University College, Dublin.
All of which establishes nothing but adds at least a modicum of credibility.
The article's closing line: " If the first casualty of war is the unwelcome truth, the first weapon of the discontented is the welcome lie."
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 9, 2012 5:55:31 AM
Ummm... Carlos, your link is broken.
Posted by: Matt_M | Jul 9, 2012 6:04:55 AM
@ Matt_M,
Yes, the online sources, for the most part, are not scholarly and I said as much. I don't remember the names of the books I read that covered the topic. However, I went back through Karen Armstrong's "A History of God" and found a pretty good discussion of the theological and historical foundation of the Church's view of women. See above.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 9, 2012 9:25:03 AM
@ Matt_M,
Regarding Bishop Joseph Maria Pernicone the leader of a paedophile ring in the Roman Catholic Archdioces of NY, my research over eight years has yielded first-person accounts by survivors. I want to say this as clearly as I can. Pernicone supplied children to his paedophile ring and for Mafia financed and produced child pornography.
I did not use the words "snuff movie rings." You did. I said, "What they reported about their experiences and what they witnessed is consistent with survivor reports of snuff-like productions in other parts of the country." It could have been still photography. What was described by my witness was a stage setting of black curtains as a backdrop for an intense, very bright narrow lighting of the scene of the paedophile-sex thrill-killing of a child. Everything else was dark. Pernicone was present.
At about the same time that Pernicone was operating, there was a ring of paedophiles in NYC that consisted of ultra-orthodox Jews including rabbis. There is a first person account by a surviving witness. We still see this today among ultra-orthodox Jews in NYC.
I am not talking about the hoopla of commercially produced and distributed snuff movies back in the 1970s. As far as I know these were debunked. However, you can go online and watch videos of murders of the most gruesome kind - beheadings, executions, stoning, beatings, etc. You can also find dismembering of dead bodies.
I have a first person eyewitness account, from a survivor, of the atrocities committed upon the dead children in the disposal of their bodies.
Your saying that Pernicone was never tried in a court of law, is glib and dismissive from a foundation of no information or research. Carlo Gambino was never tried in a court of law. You may be hesitant and uncomfortable with the accusations, but I and a number of very brave survivors know what we are talking about. My father was a victim of clergy sex abuse of minors, and very likely some of his brothers.
There is more evidence that I will be writing about and publishing in the future. This is not an easy subject to focus on for writing. I have to put down the material for extended periods of time. In time it will come out.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 9, 2012 9:59:32 AM
@ MATT_M,
There are plenty of psychopaths, fanatics, and evil people in this world. The murderer in this video might never be tried in a court of law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfK9PdLfV8A&feature=related
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 9, 2012 10:20:42 AM
"Ummmmm...Carlos..."
Ah.
First Things Wikipedia entry (without the period in the URL)
Wikipedia entries aren't necessarily accurate or without bias, but anyway...
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 9, 2012 10:58:04 AM
Maybe they believed the women they tortured and burned as witches didn't have souls:
http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Jul 9, 2012 11:54:59 AM
Seems like this was a secular trend, Louise, and opposed by the Church.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum
Crazy pagans?
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 9, 2012 12:55:27 PM
I don't think so, Carlos:
http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/N1676b.cfm
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Jul 9, 2012 1:33:47 PM
That link seems to offer proof of the claim through a quote from a book entitled "The Magic of Obelisks," and you are disputing my suggestion that this is the work of pagans?
Further, the overall content of the link you provided is a little disquieting. Celibacy led to priests delighting in raping women? But they were really homosexuals? But priests are pedophiles because they are homosexuals?
Dunno, Louise. I'm sure you wish you had better sources than this.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 9, 2012 1:54:41 PM
I just quickly Googled it. Here's one with a different twist. Since the authors of the book were Catholic, I don't see how you can say the Church was against it:
http://suite101.com/article/malleus-maleficarum-how-to-torture-a-witch-a230757
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Jul 9, 2012 2:09:55 PM
Was this entry also written by those with pagan leanings?
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cienciareal/cienciareal12.htm
It's your Church that believes in a fellow with cloven hooves and horns.
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Jul 9, 2012 2:27:53 PM
"It's your Church that believes in a fellow with cloven hooves and horns."
You must have us confused with someone else. We're the folks who believe in a talking snake.
"I don't see how you can say the Church was against it:"
And yet:
"Kramer failed in his attempt to obtain endorsement for this work from the top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne, and they condemned the book as recommending unethical and illegal procedures, as well as being inconsistent with Catholic doctrines of demonology."
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 9, 2012 3:24:59 PM
Carlos: I've read a lot of early church writings, so I'm not sure exactly where I read that. I do know that it was not in a book or article discussing pedophilia or sex at all. It was a broader discussion, but I can't recall specifically the source. Sorry. Since I'm not sure, I also don't want to attribute it incorrectly.
Posted by: NABNYC | Jul 9, 2012 3:31:13 PM
"It's your Church that believes in a fellow with cloven hooves and horns."
You must have us confused with someone else. We're the folks who believe in a talking snake.
"I don't see how you can say the Church was against it:"
And yet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Kramer
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 9, 2012 3:37:57 PM
@Norman:
Thanks for your reply. What I said about Pernicone was indeed written from a foundation of no information or research, but I don't think my skepticism was baseless -- wild unsourced claims abound on the Internet, and I think treating such claims with skepticism is, in general, the right thing to do.
At any rate, I was not so much disputing your claims as asking you to substantiate them. I'm now somewhat less skeptical, and I'd be interested in hearing more about your research. I just wish you'd prefaced your original claim with an explanation of where your information had come from.
Posted by: Matt_M | Jul 9, 2012 9:44:32 PM
@ Matt_M,
Thanks. In time, more will be disclosed.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 9, 2012 10:11:33 PM
With so much information having been brought to light about all those who perpetrated crimes against children from within the RC Church, that no evidence connecting Pernicone to these practices exists anywhere but in your hands, Norman, seems too precious.
Long past time to bring everything forward, in my opinion. What possible reason is there to hold back, that will not jeopardize the credibility of the case?
As a counterpoint, here is the sort of thing that more readily come to light about Pernicone:
A testimonial from Dion.Posted by: Carlos | Jul 10, 2012 1:16:42 PM
Carlos, it may be time to look at what a hell of a good coach Jerry Sandusky was.
If it is deeply morally troublesome, but not absolutely incomprehensible, that Anthony Blount was not only a traitor to his country but one of its foremost art historians, or that Charles II was not only the king of England but a spy for Louis XIV, or that Pirandello was the pre-eminent dramatist of surreal situations and also in bed with the Fascists, or that Furtwangler and Grundgens were supreme artists and Third Reich-friendly too, then it should not be difficult -- however distasteful -- to consider that Msgr. Pernicone may have been capable of giving excellent priestly counsel and sexually abusing children.
While you may be unconvinced by the type of support -- that is, memories of abused children who grew up to name names in private conversations -- that Norman cites, it should not surprise you to ponder a truism: people can lead highly compartmentalized lives, and the pedophiles who function superbly in positions of responsibility over adults and children not only can but must lead highly compartmentalized lives.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jul 10, 2012 2:07:50 PM
Carlos, So I guess Kramer and Sprenger, two Dominican "fathers," merely inspired pagans and Protestants to indulge in torturing and burning women?
How great their contribution to humanity, as was Pope Innocent XIII's.
Posted by: Louise Gordon | Jul 10, 2012 6:34:23 PM
I understand all these things, Elatia. But there seems to be no evidence anywhere, only this allegation, in exhaustive detail, from a guy on a blog, whereas many people have come forward with evidence against these people you mention.
If this is real, then it should be made public, so that justice may be rendered.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 10, 2012 9:45:14 PM
Carlos, so you aren't saying it's impossible that Msgr. Pernicone could have done these things, and yet be a good priest in giving wise counsel to others, only that the evidence you would need to believe that he did so is lacking. And lacking in this particular way: one first-person account quoted by that person's listener on a blog comment is not enough to convince you that Msgr. Pernicone could be guilty of pedophilia. That suggests that if enough people came forward, and you found them credible, you would be willing to believe them, however awful it would feel. This is what happened a decade ago when thousands of boys with ruined lives spoke up about the abuse they received from rogue priests -- they were believed by people who would have given almost anything for them to be lying because their numbers were sufficient, their stories consistent, and the disorder of their lives very great. Yet, if only a few such boys had been able to come forward, they would have been disbelieved, for the very same reasons you give negligible weight to the story of Msgr. Pernicone's accuser, as told to Norman. Which leaves everyone in difficult territory.
Looking at Msgr. Pernicone's dates as an active priest, the surviving children whose lives he touched would now be about 60 and up. How many will come forward? Probably not enough for you.
I went to a Catholic school, where I met nuns and priests who were wonderful people, and nuns and priests who were not. The revelations about the Church that have come to light in the last decade are difficult and painful to me, and must be unimaginably so to Catholics worldwide. It is awful to take in that The Church fostered a culture of abuse, and not naively. In all this horror, it is very easy to lose sight of something fundamental -- that the few people who come forward at risk to themselves are not less truthful because they are few.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jul 10, 2012 10:57:18 PM
Two would be enough, I think, as a witness to personal abuse. Even one would be preferable to none. Remember though the scope of the accusation. Collaborating with the mob, trafficking,films, snuff films, the Knights headquarters, the local parish. It's far more than just the usual pervo priest working his way into the lives of his victims, it's large scale commercial crime, in so much detail, and zero corroboration.With a single person claiming to hold all the evidence and offering proof for none of it.
I'm going to drop this, (because why boost SEO on either calumny or putting someones life at risk), But I find it disturbing from every possible direction.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 11, 2012 6:08:31 AM
On top of the kitschy "cult of Padre Pio" so beloved of the Mob, the One True Church has always been there to help out the Men of Honor when they need it...
http://www.repubblica.it/2007/10/sezioni/cronaca/chiesa-commento-mauro/segreti-ior/segreti-ior.html
Posted by: Bill | Jul 11, 2012 8:24:56 AM
@ Elatia,
Thank you, very much, for your words of support.
@ Carlos,
I do not criticize your skepticism or comments. My purpose, here, is not to present a convincing argument. That will come in time. There are others from whom I do not have permission, yet, to use the details of their story and assign them an alias.
For the record. I stand by everything I have said on this subject and Bishop Joseph Maria Pernicone. You and everyone else can quote what I have written. I know not only the victims and survivors, but their therapists, as well. I obtained permission, some time ago, to sit in on group therapy sessions over a period of several years.
I am familiar with the relationship of Dion and Pernicone, and how he has been regarded by others. I did say that I have been researching this for a good number of years. He is a quintessential sociopath who knows how to present himself to the outside world and put on a mask of sanity. He disarms with a surface pretense of simple, even naive, piety - eyes raised to heaven and exhortations to go to Communion. There a reason why they call them confidence artists.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 11, 2012 8:58:40 AM
OK, Norman. I hope the truth will prevail.
On a related subject. I happen to be reading a junk/train commute book by Richard North Patterson. In it, an idealistic Senator recounts a powerful quote by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin.
Such a good thought (and vice versa, of course). And yet, and yet: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/060818
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 11, 2012 9:17:07 AM
@ Carlos,
Thanks. I am very familiar with Randy Engel's work.
Peace.
Posted by: Norman Costa | Jul 11, 2012 9:24:43 AM
I think the Talking Snake could straighten us out about this.
I'll jump on Mohammad's Flying Horse and pay him a visit.
I think I'm living in an Ibsen play.
Posted by: Dave Ranningdd | Jul 11, 2012 11:43:07 AM
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