Month: August 2011

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Bishop: Beaten Birmingham priest was in improper relationship

A Catholic priest who was brutally beaten Wednesday and remained in critical condition at UAB Hospital on Friday had been warned to discontinue an improper relationship with a woman who may have been the wife of his attacker, Bishop Robert J. Baker said.
The Rev. Emmanuel Isi, 57, associate pastor of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Birmingham since June of last year, was involved in a car wreck Wednesday about 1 p.m. in the 5600 block of Avenue H in Ensley, a few blocks from St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Fairfield.

A Birmingham police homicide detective investigating at the scene Friday night said witnesses described Isi being dragged from his car and then assaulted after a collision that ran one car into a cinder block wall. Birmingham Fire and Rescue took Isi to UAB Hospital at about 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Both cars were towed from the scene and police are looking for the attacker, the detective said.

A woman who lives near the scene said she heard the cars crash and ran out to see two men punching each other, with one of the men being knocked backward, falling off a cinderblock wall and hitting his head.

Baker confirmed he had gotten a complaint about Isi having an improper relationship with a woman. “He was in some relationship that was overstepping boundaries,” Baker said. “We let it be known that it needed to stop. Our directive to him was cease and desist. We thought he did.”

Regardless, Isi did not deserve to be attacked, Baker said.
“It was an overreaction,” he said. “Certainly, no person deserves that kind of hostility.”

Isi underwent neck fusion surgery, was on a respirator and may be in danger of permanent paralysis, Baker said. “It’s just a tragic thing,” he said.

“In all other ways, his track record has been excellent; we received excellent comments about him,” Baker said. “We’re very grieved and praying hard for Father Isi. We’re all so saddened. We pray for both parties. Hopefully we’ll all learn from this.”
Isi, a native of Nigeria, is a member of the Missionary Society of St. Paul, an order of priests founded in 1977 in Africa. Baker, head of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham, said he was hopeful Isi would recover and be able to describe what happened. “We’re trying to get Father Isi’s side of the story,” Baker said.

http://tinyurl.com/3czqtzp

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Catholic church used $400m in Irish bank loans to pay U.S. sexual abuse victims

More than $400m of compensation to American victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests was paid with loans and guarantees from Allied Irish Bank, it has ben revealed.

The funds, in the form of loans, guarantees and lines of credit, were given specifically to pay clerical abuse victims, and led to AIB being dubbed the ‘Vatican’s banking arm’ in U.S. legal circles.

The revelation that a comparatively small Irish bank based on another continent was used to pay off victims will raise questions about AIB’s links to the church.

One of the payments, of $250m to the Los Angeles diocese, emerged in a new book entitled ‘Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church’, by Jason Berry, which outlines extraordinary links between the bank and the church.

But an investigation by the MoS has established that in a few short months in 2007 AIB emerged as the lender behind abuse settlements for four separate dioceses, and the true figure was almost twice as high.

It also emerges that while AIB was used to pay the bulk of the Church’s abuse claims, the dioceses were able to hold on to most of their properties.

Berry also claims that out of 194 Catholic dioceses in America, 45 banked with AIB.

In the book, he asks: ‘Was AIB a pass-through for Vatican funds to help certain dioceses while others had no such advantage?’

Many American dioceses, confronted in recent years with compensation cases, have filed for bankruptcy and negotiated settlements with victims.

But instead of being funded by the Vatican, which is fighting court cases by denying any legal responsibility to pay, almost half a billion of the money paid out in America was borrowed from AIB in Dublin.

Many other agreements may have been made out of court, in secret.

The MOS has confirmed that all of the loans were agreed by the bank’s headquarters in Dublin, and amount to as much as a quarter of AIB’s €2bn exposure in America the following year.

The MoS has also discovered that the loans are now being quietly repaid.

In a revelation that will prompt further questions about whether the Vatican is behind the international deals, the supposedly-indebted dioceses have begun to pay off the AIB debts with money from other, unnamed, institutions.

Just last month a $40m line of credit to the Diocese of Portland in Oregon was taken over by an un-named creditor.

Bob Krebs, a spokesman for the diocese for many years, declined to name the new lender.

Asked why AIB had been used to help fund its abuse compensation cases, he said he did not know who ‘found Allied Irish for us’.

Of the deals, by far the largest line of credit was for Los Angeles, for $256m.

The diocese avoided going into court with abuse victims by reaching a settlement in advance.

It emerged afterwards that AIB loans and guarantees accounted for almost half of total settlement.

The deal included $175m in cash and another $25m to pay the interest, and helped Los Angeles avoid selling the bulk of its properties or reveal the true value of its total assets.

In San Diego AIB gave cash and credit of some $100m, almost half the $198m paid out to 144 victims.

That diocese filed for bankruptcy on the eve of the first civil trial against it, a case involving Monsignor Patrick O’Keeffe, originally from Kilkenny.

The Diocese of Portland, in Oregon, also filed for bankruptcy because of compensation actions.

Of a $129m settlement for victims $40m came from AIB.

The loan effectively allowed the diocese to close the bankruptcy proceedings without selling any assets.

A loan document obtained by this paper details the loans in Portland.

On AIB headed paper, it details how the loans were being specifically made to trusts set up to pay known and future abuse claims for the diocese.

The letter was written one day before a similar letter giving credit to the Diocese of Los Angeles, again signed by its LA-based senior vice president Charles Lydon and London-based vice president John McGrath.

U.S. lawyer Jim Stang, who sat on nine bankruptcy committees charged with looking after victim creditors, said: ‘We joke that AIB is the bank of the Catholic Church.’

The bank is still exposed on some of the loans. It is owed almost $10m by the diocese of Wilmington in Delaware.

An AIB spokesman said: ‘AIB’s business focus in America was in the ‘Not for Profit’ areas and this included churches.

‘Any loans advanced were approved in accordance with AIBGroup policy.’

An AIB source said they were ‘standard commercial loans’.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said the allegation of Vatican involvement ‘is complete rubbish’.

‘The Archdiocese initiated the loan discussions with AIB and other potential lenders in the summer of 2007. An arrangement was closed with AIB in November 2007,’ he said.

‘Settlement related financing was undertaken as a way to allow an orderly liquidation of surplus assets by the Archdiocese, and provided time for the Archdiocese to formulate a post-settlement recovery plan. Financing arrangements with AIB or any other potential lender had no impact on the settlement timing or terms. The AIB loan was repaid in full during the 2011 fiscal year.’

http://tinyurl.com/3qbgozr

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The gay agenda will see you now

So, how about it? Has it all come clear? Has the true horror been made absolutely and irrefutably real? Because know this for certain: There is no going back.

Behold, beautiful and confused children of Earth: The smoke has cleared, the glitter bomb has settled and finally, after years of deliciously imaginary back-room strategizing and decades — if not centuries — of secretly brainwashing millions of innocent children, punk-rock girls and repressed ’50s dads …

After panicking the religious right, inducing nightmares in the Pope and shamelessly luring countless congresspersons and church pastors, mayors and deeply shamed NFL players into the shimmery rainbow fold, the world-famous “homosexual agenda” has, once and for all, screamed itself alive.

Have you noticed? Have you read and felt and pored through, stifled a sniff and perhaps even let a few tears flow? Have you yet had your heart cracked open, just a little? Or maybe a lot?

I dare you. I dare you right now.

Especially you, over there on the convulsive and ever so baffled religious right. Especially you, bleak and loveless Mormon Church elders. Especially you from the aged, encrusted generations who are right now looking around in buzzing terror and not sure what to make of it all. Especially you up there on the pulpit, waving your arms and wielding your Bible like it was a dull switchblade, wailing that the fabric is coming undone and nothing will ever be the same again.

You know what, pastor? You are absolutely goddamn right. You know what else? Thank sweet Jesus for that. I mean, really.

To make it even easier to understand, to produce irrefutable evidence of the agenda’s ultimate goals, to further confound (or perhaps finally enlighten?) those who still think homosexuality is a choice, who think it the devil’s work and believe it morally repugnant, well, we have pictures. Lots and lots of pictures, all from New York, all from the first days of legal gay marriage in that fine state.

And lo, they are enough to shake you to the core, reignite the soul, reaffirm your simplest faith in this rough beast known as humanity. They are enough, if you look just right and open a bit wider, to make you forget the woes of the world and be reassured that the simplest truths remain, as ever, the most profound.

Or let’s put it this way: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a photo of two people aswim in true and respected love is worth just about every book, poem and bible ever written in this messy and godsmacked little realm we call home.

Don’t believe me? Click the gallery I’ve included in this column, or any other floating around the Web right now, and be amazed, refreshed, ignited, heartspun and soulwarmed, over and over again, as many times as you like, as many times as it takes. I’ve looked through all these pictures a dozen times, and take my word for it, it never fails.

Here it is, over and over, one stunning photo after another, an endless parade of people simply bursting at the seams with love and human potential, radiating and terrified and madly aglow with the possibility of it all.

Here they are, in an incredible array of shapes and sizes, ages and hair colors, backgrounds and melodramas, each and every one finally able, with the state’s full blessing, to consecrate their vows. Hey, just like you! Imagine.

The good news is, there is almost no way your Republican dad, your deeply homophobic brother, your Puritanical grandma, or pretty much anyone with a functioning and extant heart can see these pictures and not suddenly be drained of all protest, all resistance, all ridiculous fear of what “the homosexual agenda” is really all about. It is, after all, about just one thing, and one thing only. And it always has been.

Perhaps it’s too much to ask. Perhaps you believe there are many who will simply never be convinced. The fear is too deep, the religious indoctrination too harshly stamped, the heart too cold and locked down.

It’s very possible. When I first posted a link to some of these photos in Twitter and on my Facebook page, amidst all the positive comments, the cheers and tears from all normal and vibrant souls, even then did a few scowls sneak through, some who were still disgusted at the thought, sickened by the images, grossed out by the very existence of gay people in the way only violently uptight, over-sheltered straight people can be.

To which you can too easily reply, Have you seen straight people lately? Bridezillas? Bridalplasty? The abject nightmare of deeply freaky straight people getting married in strip clubs, in full furry costume, at Star Wars conventions, as Klingons and Smurfs and Star Trek characters, at drunken monster truck rallies, Krispy Kreme donut shops, Guns ‘R Us? I’ve been to many beautiful weddings in my life. But know this now: No one can top straight people when it comes to gross and ridiculous couplings.

But I won’t say that. Because that would be tacky, and also beside the point. Besides, the protests have been relatively minor, tame. Note how there hasn’t been a single GOP candidate who has dared to slam the New York weddings. The Prop 8-loving Mormons are nowhere to be found. Redneck dudes in baseball hats have retreated to the man cave en masse to sulk and watch gay porn in silent resentment.

Do you think they sense the writing on the wall? Do you think they intuit which way history is leaning? Which state will be next (note: all of them, eventually)? Or do you think they finally understood the true nature of the terrifying “homosexual agenda?”

Maybe, just maybe, they finally saw it, in blazing full color, in a devastatingly simple photo gallery somewhere, and finally had their fears laid to rest, their ideologies reconfigured, their hearts blasted open. Hey, it’s possible.

Love can do that, you know. It always has.

http://tinyurl.com/3wwq28s

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Former priest John Geoghan killed in prison; was center of church abuse scandal

Former priest John Geoghan, the convicted child molester whose prosecution sparked the sex abuse scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church nationwide, died Saturday after another inmate attacked him in prison, a state corrections spokeswoman said.

Geoghan was injured in an incident with another inmate about noon and died shortly after being taken to Leominster Hospital, said Department Of Correction spokeswoman Kelly Nantel.

The incident happened just after lunchtime at Souza-Baranowski Correction Center, about 30 miles northwest of Boston, Nantel said. Geoghan was being held in protective custody to shield him from the general prison population, but he still had some contact with other inmates, Nantel said.

The other inmate was being held in isolation and the incident is under investigation, she said. She declined to give further details.

In civil lawsuits, more than 130 people have claimed Geoghan sexually abused them as children during his three decades as a priest at Boston-area parishes. He was convicted last year of indecent assault and battery for fondling a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool.

Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney for many Geoghan victims, said he was “surprised and shocked” by Geoghan’s death.

“Many of my clients would have rather seen Father Geoghan serve out his time in jail and endure the rigors of further criminal trials, so that his pedophile acts could have been exposed further,” he said.

The church abuse scandal, which has had repercussions worldwide, broke in early 2002 with revelations that the Boston Archdiocese had shuttled Geoghan from parish to parish despite warnings about his behavior.

The scandal mushroomed after a judge ordered the release of archdiocese files involving dozens of priests, showing repeated examples of the archdiocese shipping priests to different parishes when allegations arose.

Soon dioceses and bishops across the country came under scrutiny for their handling of abuse allegations over the years, with the church tainted by scandal in many states. With the public outcry reaching a new crescendo, the bishops adopted a toughened policy against sex abuse and more than 325 priests of the roughly 46,000 American clergy were either dismissed or resigned from their duties in the year after the Geoghan case.

David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said what made Geoghan’s case more “than just a single case about a single predator” was that it revealed the corruption in the church.

“In many respects, Geoghan is not the pivotal figure, it’s the people who he wounded and still came forward and the bishops who enabled him but were finally exposed,” he said.

Geoghan was ousted from the priesthood in 1998 at the urging of Cardinal Bernard Law. The Geoghan case was one of several that led to Law resigning in December over his mishandling of abuse cases.

A recent report by state Attorney General Thomas Reilly estimated that more than 1,000 children were abused by priests in the Boston archdiocese in the last 60 years. The Boston Archdiocese has offered $65 million to settle cases filed by more than 540 alleged victims.

Rev. Christopher Coyne, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, offered prayers for Geoghan’s family.

“Upon hearing the news of the tragic death of John Geoghan, the Archdiocese of Boston offers prayer for the repose of John’s soul, and extends its prayers in consolation to his beloved sister, Kathy, at this time of personal loss,” he said.

Geoghan was convicted in January 2002 for grabbing the buttocks of a 10-year-old boy in 1991 in the first of three criminal cases against him. He was sentenced to nine to 10 years in prison.

In September 2002, the archdiocese settled with 86 Geoghan victims for $10 million, after pulling out of an earlier settlement of about $30 million.

One of those victims, Ralph DelVecchio, said Geoghan deserved prison but didn’t deserve to be killed.

“I wouldn’t say he deserved to die, you know?” DelVecchio said. “He was in jail — that’s where I believed he should be.”

DelVecchio said he didn’t wish ill on Geoghan.

“It’s over with,” he said.

http://tinyurl.com/kyz7

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U.S. lawyer says Vatican knew of priest’s sex abuse

A lawyer representing a victim of priest abuse in a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic church said on Monday Vatican documents show the church hierarchy and the pope were ultimately responsible.

A lawyer for the church disagreed, saying the newly released documents show the Holy See was not involved in the offending priest’s transfer from Ireland to Chicago and then to Portland, Oregon, where the victim was a minor in the 1960s.

In April, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman in Oregon ordered the Vatican to produce documents in the case that alleged a cover-up of priest sex abuse.

At the time, the judge’s order was termed a “historic step” by attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who sued the Holy See in Rome and U.S. archdioceses and church officials on behalf of an unnamed man in Oregon.

Anderson said on Monday an analysis of the 1,856 documents written in Latin, Italian and English showed the Vatican had direct control over the placement and laicization of Rev. Andrew Ronan, who left the priesthood in 1966 and died in 1992.

“At all times, Father Andrew Ronan’s life from profession to dismissal was under the control of the Holy See,” a report released by Anderson said.

One document from early 1966 showed that Ronan had asked the Holy See to remove him as a priest. The request was granted that year.

Also among the documents was a letter from a Provincial Minister to the Prior General in Italy in 1966 that said “we believe it will be possible, if the Holy Father will grant Father Ronan’s request, for him to leave quietly and without any open scandal.”

When confronted, Ronan admitted the abuse to his superiors at Our Lady of Benburb, Ireland, according to the documents, but was transferred to a Chicago high school anyway. He abused children there, the documents show, then was transferred to St. Albert’s Church in Portland.

On Monday, Anderson said the documents showed authority stems from “the top of the hierarchy, and that is to the papacy.” He said he would ask for additional documents.

“This is a selective, deceptive, incomplete production at best and in my view typical of the Vatican’s view that they are above the law,” Anderson said.

Jeffrey Lena, a lawyer for the Roman Catholic church in the United States, said the accusations of Vatican involvement in Ronan’s transfers were groundless. The Vatican has long held that its priests are under the local control of bishops.

“Like the documents previously released — and contrary to the plaintiff’s lawyers’ long-standing accusations — the written responses confirm that the Holy See was not involved in Ronan’s transfers and had no prior knowledge that Ronan posed a danger to minors.

“The responses also show that there is no support for the plaintiff’s lawyers’ spurious theory that Ronan was ever the Holy See’s employee,” Lena said.

The case is John V. Doe v Holy See et al, 3:02cv00430MO.

http://tinyurl.com/445ws5l