Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer - Timothy Dolan

Sexual Abuse of Children was 'Endemic' and Covered Up by the Clergy in Ireland

Paul Kiesel — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:59:14 GMT

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Sexual abuse of children in Irish state and church-run institutions for boys was “endemic” and covered up by the clergy, according to a commission’s report.

“The recidivist nature of sexual abuse was known to religious authorities,” the government-appointed Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse said in its report, published in Dublin today. “The risk was seen by the congregations in terms of potential for scandal and bad publicity should the abuse be disclosed. The danger to children was not taken into account.”

The five-volume, 2,500-page Commission Report was published amid angry scenes as victims demonstrated outside a press conference demanding copies. The document is the result of almost 10 years of investigation into beatings and rapes at orphanages, schools and hospitals from the 1930s until the 1990s. The inquiry heard confidential testimony from more than 1,000 people who had been in 216 institutions.

“The schools investigated revealed a substantial level of sexual abuse of boys in care that extended over a range from improper touching and fondling to rape with violence,” according to the report. Corporal punishment in girls’ schools was “pervasive, severe, arbitrary and unpredictable.”

More than 90 percent of witnesses who gave evidence to the commission’s confidential committee reported being physically abused. Around half of the witnesses reported sexual abuse.

‘Abuse and Neglect’

“These children lived under a regime of physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect,” Meave Lewis, executive director of One in Four, a victims’ lobby group, told reporters. “Even put in the context of the harsh child-rearing practices of the time, it is really shocking.”

The Catholic Church has been grappling in recent years with allegations of sexual abuse by clergy in countries including Ireland and the U.S. Priests have been jailed and defrocked while the church has faced criticism for covering up the allegations by moving pedophile priests from parish to parish.

“We are deeply sorry for the hurt caused,” the Christian Brothers in Ireland said in an e-mailed statement today. “We are ashamed and saddened that many who complained of abuse were not listened to. We acknowledge and regret that our responses to physical and sexual abuse failed to consider the long term psychological effects on children.”

Pope Benedict XVI said he was “outraged” by the sex abuse scandal on a trip to the U.S. last year. “No words of mine can describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse,” he said.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Message to Notre Dame Response Group: President Obama's the Least of Your Worries

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:14:28 GMT

A group of students -- a very small group of students -- from Notre Dame University made a short movie trailer (a la Hollywood-summer-blockbuster trailers) in an attempt to rally support around their cause and what appears to be the thesis of their trailer: Don't let President Obama speak at this weekend's graduation ceremonies.

Kids, the president speaking at your commencement is the least of your problems.

First, the trailer chose to quote current clergy members, like quotes from movie critics and reviews (cute), and as if the opinions of these clergy members, like New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan (an apathetic voice to victims of clergy sexual abuse), are valid. (They're really not that valid, unless we're discussing Theology.) Seriously, they're not. Not unless the Catholic church begins to make a better effort to eradicate pedophiles, like Father Eric Swearingen. Once that effort has started and is clearly visible, then we can start discussing the validity of clergy members' opinions.

Second, you had former President George W. Bush, an enabler of torture, give last year's commencement speech at your school. (I'm shaking my head, too.)

Third, up until recently, the Catholic church fed the nonsensical belief to families who lost their children before baptizing them, that their unbaptized babies would unfortunately be lost in "purgatory" forever. (You know, because the Catholic church is vehement in its support of protecting innocent life, it just seems that the church stops caring about that innocent life, once it is born.)

Hmm... My conclusion: The Notre Dame Response Group is more concerned with women's reproductive rights and fearful of a pragmatic president, a venerable family man, who has done more in his first 100 days as president than Bush, the "alleged" torturer, did within his first seven months as president, who, again, spoke at Notre Dame last year without fanfare. To me, this reeks of nonsense, however, it does fit with some of the nonsense that is propagated throughout various Catholic teachings (i.e. Condoms have microscopic holes in them and are defenseless against AIDS -- yep, they're currently teaching that nonsense throughout Africa and South America).

Lastly, and to be completely serious, if I were a senior graduating from ANY college right now, I'd be less concerned with who's speaking at my graduation and more concerned with the ability to find a job after I receive my diploma.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Cardinal Dolan Vows to be the "Same Kind of Priest" He's Been for the Past 33 Years: Indifferent to Clergy Abuse Victims

Paul Kiesel — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:42:39 GMT

From the February 26, 2009 Los Angeles InjuryBoard blog, "Archbishop Timothy Dolan to Sexual Abuse Victim: 'What was the Name of Your Guy Again?'":

"[. . .] Over the last three decades, 60 to 70 clergy members have sexually assaulted children in Milwaukee, according to New York City news outlet NY1. [Survivor's Network of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP)] is also certain that Mr. Dolan knows who these criminals are and that he has basically "pushed it off" for the next Archbishop the deal with.

"He sort of pushed it off to leave it to the next person. He has done some things around [sic] this issue that are disconcerting. He has not reported to police priests who have sexually assaulted children who were subsequently arrested andconvicted," said Peter Isely, who as a child was raped by a Catholic priest in Milwaukee.

John Pilmaier, an abuse victim, agrees with Mr. Isely. He states that Mr. Dolan has not been comforting to victims.

"When I did meet with as a victim coming forward for the first time, his questions to me immediately was 'What was the name of your guy again?' Which made me realize that he had taken five minutes to read my file," said Mr. Pilmaier.

From CNN:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Timothy Dolan was installed Wednesday as archbishop of New York in a ceremony in the city's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Once officially installed, the former archbishop of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, embraced his predecessor, Cardinal Edward Egan, 77, who is retiring as an archbishop.

In his homily, Dolan spoke of Easter's message of rebirth. "The risen Christ has been and is very much alive here (in the New York archdiocese). Can I count some of the ways," he said before naming the church's priests and the city's faithful as two of several examples.

Dolan alluded to abortion in his remarks, noting the church's message of embracing and protecting "the dignity of every human person (and) the sanctity of human life," including, "the tiny baby in the womb."

The remark drew a standing ovation.

Earlier, he elicited laughs from those seated within the cathedral when he addressed his mother.

"I am really relieved to see Mom," he said. "We were a little afraid this morning that she might not make it; she found out there was a sale on at Macy's."

At a news conference earlier Wednesday, Dolan, 59, acknowledged that his new pulpit carries a high profile, but he resolved to remain the "same kind of priest and preacher" he's been for three decades.

"The pulpit of the archbishop of New York does have, perhaps, an enhanced prominence that might take some getting used to on my part," he told reporters.

"I'm just going to be the same kind of priest and preacher that I've been for 33 happy years."

The Vatican announced in February that Dolan would become the archbishop of New York.

Egan had led the New York archdiocese since 2000. He became a cardinal a year later.

Dolan was named archbishop of Milwaukee by Pope John Paul II on June 25, 2002, according to his biography on the Milwaukee archdiocese's Web site. He was installed as Milwaukee's 10th archbishop on August 28, 2002, at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

Dolan served in Rome from 1994 to 2001 before returning to the United States to become Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis, Missouri.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Message to Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann: Leave Gov. Kathleen Sebelius Alone

Paul Kiesel — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:15:20 GMT

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City has been spewing his vile opinions in regards to President Obama's selection of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as the Health and Human Services secretary nominee with several media outlets this week. These opinions include: being openly, however, unfairly critical of the governor and her political party (i.e. Vice President Joe Biden, California Senator Nancy Pelosi, etc.), suggesting her political and social views are evil or wicked ("Such acts [abortion] are judged to be intrinsically evil..."), and he has called for the Catholic Church to deny Governor Sebelius communion.

First, Archbishop, Governor Sebelius has maintained that her Catholic faith is the basis of her belief that "life is sacred." She INSISTS that her personal belief is that abortion is wrong. However, bullying her to try and criminalize abortion will not stop the practice of abortion, but only make it more deadly. Governor Sebelius has stated several times that her goal is to implement policy to prevent unwanted pregnancies, obviously in a hope to lessen the number of abortions that take place in the U.S.

And the Governor will likely have the opportunity as HHS secretary to make several policy changes in an effort to reduce the amount of abortions that take place in this country, but that will only occur if the number of unwanted pregnancies decreases, as well. However, I'm sure the Archbishop will oppose that, too, since his church is adamantly against the use of condoms, except in the most narrow circumstances (and that latter exception is only a recently amended doctrine rule).

Now the Catholic Church and Archbishop Naumann will state that 100 percent extramarital abstinence will prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions. See, the problem with this argument is 1) That'll never occur. Never. We're humans. We're mammals. And sex is natural. And it'll naturally occur among teenagers, young adults and other non-married couples. 2) These guys, the clergy and other leaders within the Catholic church, can't even practice what they preach. Just because they're not having sex with consenting adults, doesn't make sex with children morally correct.

Archbishop Naumann is essentially saying that the Catholic Church's doctrine should dictate public policy. He wants to surreptitiously make church and state one in the same. And if the Archbishop had his way, his views on all church doctrine being vigorously enforced, then condoms would be prohibited. In fact, Archbishop Namann and his church's doctrine essentially sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year. For instance...

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is now the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. The virus infects over half the American population and causes nearly five thousand women to die each year from cervical cancer; the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more than two hundred thousand die worldwide. We now have a vaccine for HPV that appears to be both safe and effective. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the six thousand women who received it as part of a clinical trial. And yet, Christian conservatives [and Catholic conservatives] in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year.

Sam Harris, "Letter to a Christian Nation"

There is nothing wrong with discouraging teenagers from having sex at a young age. But, as seen by Sarah Palin and her daughter's unwanted pregnancy, abstinence only is not a good way to curb teen pregnancy nor is it the responsible approach to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Also, in preemption to the Catholic Church's uproar in regards to President Obama lifting the Bush ban on embryonic stem-cell research, that I'm sure will be heard vociferously later today or this week, your qualms and complaints are similarly obtuse.

Until you guys (Archbishop Naumann, Cardinal Mahony, Dolan, etc.) quit contradicting yourselves, quit acting in nefarious ways when it come to clergy sex abuse matters, quit saying you appreciate all forms of life, when in fact that's a flat out lie (i.e. see the church's recent views on most things scientifically progressive; the Catholic church seemingly wants society to be shackled in the ways and mores of medieval Europe, much like Islamic-extremists would like us to revert to the Stone Age) then most people, rational people, do not want to hear anything you've got to say.

Most of your opinions and belief are anachronistic and invalid. So leave Governor Sebelius alone.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Archbishop Timothy Dolan Negotiating Sexual Abuse Deal

Paul Kiesel — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:41:32 GMT

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese has reached a settlement involving another California sexual abuse case, a lawyer said Tuesday.

The settlement is unrelated to nearly $17 million that the archdiocese and its insurer paid as part of a 2006 settlement with 10 victims.

Irwin Zalkin, a San Diego lawyer who represented a 41-year-old man who said he was abused by Milwaukee priest Siegfried Widera, declined to reveal how much the Milwaukee church agreed to pay because he is still negotiating a settlement with the California Diocese of Orange.

The man involved in the case said he was abused by Widera between 1979 and 1981 while a student at a San Diego parochial school. Zalkin said his client was 12 to 14 years old at the time.

Widera worked as a priest at the school between 1977 and 1986 after he left Milwaukee amid a series of other sexual abuse allegations, including one that resulted in his arrest for having sexual contact with an 11-year-old boy in Port Washington.

The $17 million settlement forced the Milwaukee church to put up for sale the Cousins Center in St. Francis, the current headquarters of the local church, and other properties.

The church also was forced to liquidate some long- and short-term investments to pay its $8.25 million portion of the settlement.

The sale of the Cousins Center to Cardinal Stritch University has not yet been completed.

Nine of the 10 cases involved allegations of abuse by Widera; the other involved abuse by another Milwaukee priest, Franklyn Becker.

At the time of the first settlement, Archbishop Timothy Dolan said the archdiocese's liability could have been towering if the cases had gone to trial.

The archdiocese did not comment on the new settlement when contacted Tuesday.

Peter Isely, a local spokesman for survivors of sexual abuse by priests, called on Dolan to reveal how many other settlements are being negotiated.

"He never mentioned this case," Isely said. "How many other secret negotiations of sex abuse cases has Dolan got the archdiocese in?"

A pair of decisions issued in the mid-1990s by the Wisconsin Supreme Court all but blocked sexual abuse lawsuits here.

Another decision issued by the high court in July 2007 narrowly opened the door to lawsuits here. Those cases accuse the church of fraud for placing known abusers in the ministry without warning the parish of the priest's history.

A handful of cases filed are pending in Milwaukee. Last year, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jean DiMotto ruled that the church's insurers did not provide coverage in these cases.

In 2002 and 2003, Wisconsin authorities issued 11 felony charges against Widera based on abuse allegations dating to the 1970s.

Widera went on the run and jumped to his death in May 2003 after he was cornered by police at a resort in Mexico.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel

Archbishop Timothy Dolan to Sexual Abuse Victim: "What was the Name of Your Guy Again?"

Paul Kiesel — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:44:09 GMT

The Survivor's Network of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP) feel that Archbishop Timothy Dolan hasn't done enough to address the issues of pedophilia and sexual abuse during his tenor in Milwaukee.

The organization says that over the last three decades, 60 to 70 clergy members have sexually assaulted children in Milwaukee, according to New York City news outlet NY1. The group is also certain that Mr. Dolan knows who these criminals are and that he has basically "pushed it off" for the next Archbishop the deal with.

John Pilmaier agrees with Mr. Isely. He states that Mr. Dolan has not been comforting to victims.

"When I did meet with him as a victim coming forward for the first time, his questions to me immediately was 'What was the name of your guy again?' Which made me realize that he had taken five minutes to read my file," said Mr. Pilmaier.

This display of indifference is not uncommon to Archdiocese leaders. Cardinal Roger Mahony has also proved to be uncooperative in sexual abuse matters, as he has suppressed vital information (preventing victims any catharsis), moved priests accused of sexual abuse to other parishes with children, and holds the stance that the days of sexual abuse within the Catholic church are over. The latter belief or denial may be the most troubling: It shows a religious leader, with a lot of power, not dealing with the problem and assuming that his priests will cease pedophilia urges, even though the sexual abuse of children within the Catholic church has been occurring for well over a thousand years.

Unfortunately, Mr. Dolan and The Cardinal are not the most logical people society has to deal with (even though they do hold enormous power and influence). Just look at the confusion taking place at their corporate headquarters:

[. . .] One does not have to venture as far as Nigeria to see the hypocrisies of reinvention at work. Rome will do, where the latest eternal verity being abandoned is the doctrine of limbo -- the place for the souls of unbaptised babies -- and where some cardinals are floating the idea that condoms are acceptable, within marital relationships only of course, in countries with high incidences of HIV infection. This latter, which to anyone but an observant Catholic is not merely a plain piece of common sense but a humanitarian imperative, is an amazing development in its context. Sensible Catholics have for generations been ignoring the views on contraception held by reactionary old men in the Vatican [. . .]

-A.C. Grayling, 2007

With that in mind, I think it'd be reasonable to ignore Mr. Dolan's and The Cardinal's recent statements that the days of sexual abuse within the Catholic church are over.

All empirical evidence on the subject matter shows that Mr. Dolan and Mr. Mahony are dead wrong: Future generations of unsuspecting children, who could be kept from the wickedness of some celibate clerics, particularly if this widespread sexual abuse problem was dealt with appropriately, will continue to be preyed upon by certain malevolent priests who believe that their transgressions -- all of them -- are justified due to their moral superiority, based on anachronistic life choices.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Kiesel