Monday, January 29, 2018

Prepare For Rome

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

Prepare for our trip to Rome in May.  The 50th anniversary of the NCW in Rome will be held on May 5, 2018 in Tor Vergata.  Pope Francis has received the invitation from Kiko Arguello, the founder of the NCW, to participate in the event of the 50th anniversary of the Neocatechumenal Way.  The entire NCW worldwide are invited.  So, Guam, get in touch with your Responsibles regarding the trip to Rome.  :-) 

Image result for Rome  

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

NCW Inspires Commitment, Stirs Controversy

The following article can be found here. These are my input regarding the article below.  It is true that when the NCW goes out knocking from door to door, we do not proselytize in the sense to come and join the Way.  We always say, "We are from the parish of ........"  The idea is to hopefully bring them into the parish.  However, when we give our testimony in church, we are inviting others to deepen their faith.  Whether they come or not is up to them. 

Also, according to the article:
"It wasn't that we were necessarily against [the Neocatechumens]," Jenkins said.  "It was just that we didn't understand.  No one explained the changes." 
Granyak declined to comment.  McIntyre, however, acknowledged "tension in some long-standing parishes."  and attributed much of the concerns to congregants' wariness of something new.
It is normal for people to be afraid of change because most people are comfortable with the status quo.  Nevertheless, the NCW have the approval and support of four popes, which includes Pope Francis.  It is the responsibility of the Bishop to support what Rome approves.  He does not have to promote it, but he should support it, not suppress it as some priests would.  Yes, it is unfortunate that some priests have called for a moratorium on the Way.  In fact, we already know of one local priest who did just that.  It is the duty and responsibility of the Bishop to help his priests understand the things that Rome has approved so there would be less tension.  

The article goes on to say (the bold is mine):
In October, Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes of Guam closed the island’s Neocatechumenal Way seminary after finding four priests guilty of insubordination. 
 This is incorrect.  The news report was implying that the reason for the closure of the seminary was due to the insubordination of four priests.  Archbishop Byrnes had already decided to close the seminary BEFORE those four priests were found guilty of insubordination. 

We have the full support of Pope Francis.  In his letter to the Neocatechumenal Way, Pope Francis stated:  And today I confirm your call, I support your mission and I bless your charism. Rome is fully aware of the fruits from the Neocatechumenal Way.  Christ said, "You will know them by their fruits."  There are many fruits of the NCW.  They include the vocational inspirations into the priesthood and religious life, the active participation in the parish life, missionary zeal of the families and itinerants, and conversion of heart.  
   


Two nights a week, Jose and Maribel Martin leave their eight children to a sitter’s care and walk the streets of St. Charles Borromeo parish on a mission to energize the Roman Catholic church.
In a South Philly neighborhood an ocean away from their Madrid birthplace, the couple traverse blocks of brick rowhouses and knock on doors, eager to spread the Gospel to whoever answers.
“It’s a call from the Lord,” said Martin, 38, who has been making these rounds for more than three years. “We don’t proselytize in the sense of saying, ‘Come join our church.’ We say, ‘We come from St. Charles, and we want to bring you this good news — how God changed my life.’”
At the invitation of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput in 2014, the Martins and another missionary family settled in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to advance theNeocatechumenal Way, a program of immersive spiritual development practiced in small groups. Its followers make a lifetime commitment to not only study the Catholic faith, but also to share it. They do so with an evangelical zeal that is uncommon in traditional parishes — and occasionally unsettling for their congregations, including St. Charles’.
“The Way” began in Spain in 1964, but got the Vatican’s imprimatur only in 2008 under Pope Benedict XVI. It now claims more than one million adherents in 6,000 parishes worldwide, making it one of the “most important in a galaxy of new movements and associations” within Roman Catholicism, said Massimo Faggioli, a Villanova University theology professor and author of two books on the subject.
In the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the movement is a presence in a dozen parishes, with a total of about 300 followers. The first group was formed 25 years ago at St. Dominic in Torresdale.  The two congregations with missionary families — St. Charles and St. Michael, in Northern Liberties — also are led by priests schooled in the Way.  The movement operates more than 100 seminaries, one of which opened four years ago on the grounds of the former St. Louis parish in Yeadon.
In the St. Charles and St. Michael parishes, both of which had suffered flagging attendance, the missionary families “get to know neighbors, interact in different ways, on the street, in the supermarket, at a kid’s soccer game,” said Bishop John J. McIntyre, head of the archdiocese’s Secretariat for Evangelization. “They might go to a public park and sing.”
In these fraught times for mainstream religion, he added, “there is a real need” for extraordinary effort, “especially in the West where practice of the faith is diminishing.”
But if the Way’s mission is to expand the ranks of  practicing Catholics and excite those whose faith has gone cold, it also has been, on occasion, controversial and divisive. In some parishes, congregants have complained that the small groups, meeting apart from the larger church community, are secretive; that they engage in atypical liturgical practices; that they do it all with fleeting regard for tradition. At St. Charles, some of those worries, and others, were laid out in a series of letters to McIntyre.
The Rev. Esteban Granyak, the Way-trained parish administrator, “started right away to change things in a way that was insensitive to what was already there and not considering the concerns of parishioners,” said Carolyn Jenkins, a lifelong St. Charles member who sits on the parish council and serves as a lector and eucharistic minister.
The evangelizing not only shook the status quo, but longtime staff members were let go, railings were removed from around an altar where parishioners knelt to pray, and sections of the church campus were set aside for use by Neocatechumens, Jenkins said.  Some members, she added, left in frustration.
“It wasn’t that we were necessarily against [the Neocatechumens],” Jenkins said. “It was just that we didn’t understand. No one explained the changes.”
Granyak declined to comment. McIntyre, however, acknowledged “tension in some long-standing parishes,” and attributed much of the concern to congregants’ wariness of something new.
“We hope the priests can help parishioners understand,” McIntyre said. In St. Charles’ case, he added, Granyak has met with members to address “any missteps he may have made.”
Incorporating the Way into parish life requires a pastor’s strong guidance, said the Rev. Hugh Dougherty, formerly of St. Thomas More in Chester County’s South Coventry Township, which hosted its first Neocatechumenal group 15 years ago. Likening the Way’s followers to Eagles fans, he said, “People are enthusiastic [in their commitment], and sometimes enthusiastic people can be very irritating.”
Still, any local dissension pales next to disputes that have erupted in other parts of the globe.

In 2011, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Japan said in a statement that problems with the Neocatechumenal Way had resulted in “confusion, conflict, division and chaos.” Bishops there had attempted to suspend the Way’s activity, saying it failed to respect Japanese Catholic culture, but Pope Benedict insisted the two sides resolve their differences. The movement has also stirred controversy in the Philippines, and drawn criticism from bishops in the United Kingdom and Italy.
In October, Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes of Guam closed the island’s Neocatechumenal Way seminary after finding four priests guilty of insubordination.
In other countries, when Neocatechumens arrive, “they tend to take over and create a tension within the local clergy and with local Catholics because it’s a movement based on a high level of commitment of the members,” said Faggioli, the Villanova professor.
Founded in the slums of Madrid 54 years ago, the Way is a product of a religious conversion experienced by Spanish painter and musician Francisco “Kiko” Arguello after visiting the home of a family cook. Distressed by the troubled life of the mother of nine, he moved in to protect her from her abusive, alcoholic husband.
In the suffering of the family, indeed the entire neighborhood, Arguello said he saw the life of the Christian savior.
“I saw Christ crucified. I saw Christ in Bertha…,” he wrote on the Way’s website.  He later met chemist and theologian Carmen Hernandez (who died in 2016), and the two started a ministry. Seeking to reach the poor, they formed a small Christian community that became the Neocatechumenal Way.
Followers complete an initial eight-week course of study aimed at deepening their faith, then join up with groups of about 30 with whom they study, worship and commit to evangelizing inside and outside the parish. They attend study sessions on Wednesdays and Mass in small groups on Saturdays.
Ed Fowler, a real estate appraiser from Elverson who became part of the Way 15 years ago, found the experience transformative.
“When you come to church, sometimes you feel like you’re walking into a crowd, not a community” said Fowler, 74, who helps lead the Way community at St. Thomas More. The small-group format helped him to develop a relationship with God “in a personal way,” he said.
Indeed, parishioners who are part of an increasingly diverse Catholic church often seek “ways to feel at home” in the congregations, said Tricia Bruce, an associate professor of sociology at Maryville College in Tennessee and author of  Parish and Place: Making Room for Diversity in the American Catholic Church. Also, new movements can create parish spaces where members can try something new that will make them excited to go to Mass, she said.
McIntyre said the archdiocese hasn’t yet been able to definitively assess the Way’s impact. “It’s a long process of building community” that “has born some fruit in terms of reaching different people,” the bishop said.
The Way reached Jose Martin after his mother’s early death devastated him as a teenager.  Now, he says, he is returning the favor. Before coming to Philadelphia, he and his family had one other missionary posting, in Denver.  “It’s been difficult to leave everything behind, our house, job, friends,” said Martin, who works as director of religious education at St. Katharine Drexel parish in Chester. “But the Lord has given us everything 100-fold.”
Asked about the impact he has made, he wouldn’t venture to guess, but said, “When you go to a home and someone there is fighting and you give them a word and they are helped, maybe they don’t come to Mass — but they have been helped.”

Friday, January 19, 2018

Thank You Pope Francis

Image result for Pope Francis in ChileVictims are not only those who were sexually abused.  Victims can also be those who were falsely accused.  A civilized country is governed by the rule of law where the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. A civilized country follows proper procedures to obtain impartiality when meting out justice.  Unfortunately, there are mobs in our society who have already branded the person "guilty" without the due process of a trial.  There are those who take the word of alleged victims without any substantial evidence and would rather forgo any investigation to find out the truth.  Such groups would rather go back to the dark ages.   

Some of the alleged victims of Archbishop Apuron say they felt victimized all over again simply because the Archbishop proclaimed his innocence and offered his prayers for his persecutors. See the news report here. Imagine that.  How is it that one feels victimized over such "words"? Where was Roy Quintanilla when Vatican Insider reported the following in their news report (the bold is mine)???? 
The ad appeared over the course of a month in every newspaper. After a few days, four people came forward, among them Roy Taitague Quintanilla, who alleged having been abused forty years earlier when, at the age of 12, he was an altar boy for Father Apuron who, according to his allegations, had taken him by night in his own home to rape him. However, Vatican Insider has learned that statements were made by multiple former altar boys to the tribunal who maintain that they had never seen Quintanilla in the parish and that the parish activities were always carried out in groups and never alone.  
Why didn't Roy Quintanilla come out then and express how he was victimized all over again when this information was published in Vatican Insider?  

Thank you Pope Francis for seeing that a victim is not only those who were sexually abused, but can also be those who were falsely accused.  According to the New York Times:
Pope Francis has accused abused victims in Chile of slandering a bishop who they say protected a pedophile priest, upending his efforts to rehabilitate the Catholic Church's reputation while visiting South America. 
Francis told reporters Thursday there was not a shred of evidence against Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, who victims of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, Chile's most notorious priest, have accused of being complicit in his crimes.
"The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk," Francis said before celebrating Mass outside the northern Chilean city of Iquique. "But there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?"  

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Archbishop Apuron Denies Sexual Abuse

As you know Tim Rohr is trying to convince people that Archbishop Apuron is guilty because he ran away.  Remember that this is the same man who fooled people into believing that there was no canonical trial.  Tim Rohr made the following comment on December 26, 2016 (the bold is mine).   
He's in the area. I have "hard copy" evidence. He's not in Rome defending himself at his canonical trial because there's isn't one.
Since the beginning, Archbishop Apuron claimed that he was going to seek a canonical trial.  Tim Rohr, on the other hand, stated that there was no canonical trial and that the Archbishop ran away. On May 13, 2016, Archbishop Apuron responded to a sex abuse ad that was placed in the newspaper by Tim Rohr and CCOG.  You can read the Archbishop's response here.  According to Archbishop Apuron: 
 .......the Archdiocese of Agana is in the process of taking canonical measures with the Sacra Rota - the competent canonical tribunal - and filing civil lawsuit against those perpetrating these malicious lies."
  1. The above statement was made BEFORE Archbishop Apuron left for Rome.  Therefore, he already told the people of Guam his intention of why he left the island.  In other words, he did not run away, but went to pursue a canonical trial in Rome.  On June 3, 2016, a press release from the Archdiocese of Agana also mentioned that Archbishop Apuron was taking steps to have a canonical trial and civil trial to clear his name.  
  2. On August 25, 2016, Archbishop Apuron came out in video and through the news media stated that Pope Francis has granted his request for a canonical trial.  So, since May 13, 2016, the Archbishop and the Archdiocese of Agana has made it clear to the public that Archbishop Apuron went to Rome to request a canonical trial to clear his name.  This was made public THREE TIMES!!!  It was made public on May 13th, June 3rd, and on August 25th that Archbishop Apuron intends to pursue a canonical trial in Rome to clear his name. 
  3. The truth is out.  Tim Rohr stated on December 2016 that there was no canonical trial. He was wrong.  Today, we know for a fact that there was a canonical trial contrary to what Rohr stated in December 2016. The Archbishop told the truth when he said he went to Rome to pursue a canonical trial.  Also remember that Tim Rohr has already admitted to participating in a secret meeting since 2013, involving the removal of Father Paul by the Archbishop.  This entire controversy started at that time with the removal of Father Paul.  
  4. According to The Guam Daily Post:
  1. Suspended Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron this morning issued a statement denying all allegations of sexual abuse, including the most recent made by his nephew, Mark Apuron. 
    In an email statement sent Dr. Ricardo Eusebio to distribute to media, Apuron stated, "As I lay sick after another surgery and I face the final judgment approaching evermore close, having lost interest in this world, God is my witness: I deny all allegations of sexual abuse made against me, including this last one."
    Apuron said the allegations of sexual abuse are helping him direct his hope toward the "only righteous judge" and expressed sadness by the timing of the latest accusation that he said "alleges an act which supposedly happened in incredible circumstances and surroundings."
    The former head of the island's Catholic Church contends the allegations of sexual abuse against him have been "mentored and promoted by the same source," but the statement does not specify if that source is Attorney David Lujan, who represents the five clients who filed lawsuits against Apuron. 
    Roy Quintanilla, Roland Sondia, Walter Denton, the late Joseph "Sonny" Quinata, and Mark Apuron have alleged they were sexually abused by Anthony Apuron. 
    The statement by Archbishop Apuron said the most recent case, filed by his nephew who alleges he was raped by his uncle who was already archbishop at the Chancery, "seems particularly timed to influence the verdict of the Vatican trial conducted by the Holy See, as a last resort out of fear that I may be exonerated."
    Archbishop Apuron said the Catholic Church on Guam is being destroyed by people "who only have their power agenda at heart" and said he hopes God will have mercy and save the Church from the powers of darkness. 
    He concluded, "I pray that the truth may prevail; I pray for my accusers: fill them with what they desire; as for me, when I awake, I will be satisfied with Your face, oh Lord."
    Apuron was last seen in Fairfield, California last year, near San Francisco.  
It was Rohr who convinced people that there was no canonical trial and that the Archbishop ran away.  Therefore, it would not be surprising to find if Rohr had something to do with convincing Archbishop Byrnes to exile his brother bishop by declaring his return a disaster.  After all, Rohr already admitted to participating in a secret meeting.  How many secret meetings were held?   

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Children Gain Faith Through Epiphany Play

In the Neocatechumenal Way, faith is transmitted to the children by the parents in the morning prayer.  The youth also gained faith in the monthly youth scrutacio and through their participation in the Tripod.  Below is an article showing how the children also gained faith through a simulation of the Epiphany.  You can find the article here.
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KOTA KINABALU: It is good to see Catholic traditions being maintained.

A group of young children from the Neocatechumenal Communities at Sacred Heart Cathedral (SHC) in Kota Kinabalu did precisely that on Epiphany Sunday, 7 Jan 2018.

Over 30 of them courageously stepped forward to become actors and singers for a 40-minute play staged with all necessary supporting props and impressive graphic backdrops at the main hall of the SHC parish centre.

A new born boy was found to take up the role of baby Jesus, a teenage couple played the central figures of Mary and Joseph; another girl as Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, and many boys and girls volunteered to act as angels and shepherd boys.

Their play was presented in five separate but well-integrated scenes with appropriate narration and backdrop icons to depict each segment – The Annunciation, Birth of Jesus, Visitation, Angels & Shepherds, Three Wise Men.

Grown-up children and some parents supported these young actors by taking up such roles as King Herod, the Three Wise Men, narrators, in stage design, management and production.

Great efforts were made all round to prepare the necessary stage props, including doors of inns where Mary and Joseph were told there was no room for baby Jesus to be born.

The children spent many sessions in practising their respective roles and in presenting all the songs for the play.

Suitable costumes and attires for all were designed and acquired for use for the occasion, adding to the outstanding display of talents by the players.

At the end of the show, Father Paul Lo, assistant Rector at SHC, told the children he was very impressed by their show of talents and presented to them special gifts on behalf of the parents.

Prior to the start of the show, Fr Lo had a brief dialogue with the young children thus helping them to know and understand the true meaning of the Feast of Epiphany and the manifestation of the light that comes with Jesus for all nations.

The Epiphany play has been consistently staged by communities of the Neocatechumenal Way in various parishes of the Archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu as one of the means to pass our Catholic faith to young children.

By taking an active part in such a play over a number of years, the children of the communities are given opportunities to gain knowledge and faith in the birth and mission of Jesus Christ in a personal and intimate way.

Image result for Epiphany

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Setting The Record Straight

Bob Klitzkie and the jungle had always claimed that Archbishop Apuron gave away the seminary to the NCW or RMS.  They believed that the Yona property did not belong to the Archdiocese of Agana.  Because they believed that the seminary is not under the Archdiocese, CCOG drafted a quitclaim deed to be signed by the RMS Board of Directors and Guarantors in order for the seminary to be transferred to the Archdiocese of Agana.  PNC news recorded Tim Rohr (the bold is mine):
The Concerned Catholics of Guam organization is challenging Archbishop Anthony Apuron to sign over ownership of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary back to the Archdiocese of Agana. But local Catholic observer Tim Rohr suspects the Archbishop will not be able to, not because he doesn’t want to but because, as Rohr explains, he doesn’t have the power to.
“Well the question is if he’s really in control of both then why deed it over in the first place. Well we know why he did that. He did that because he was told to do that. So basically the CCOG is calling his bluff and simply saying, ‘Well, okay, if you really are in control of both corporations then what reason would you have to deed it in the first place?'” says Rohr. 
In fact, Rohr believes the Archbishop will not only refuse to sign a quitclaim deed, he won’t be able to. He says this is because, based on the way the documents are written, “on paper the archbishop only controls 25 percent of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary,” he points out.
As you can see, Tim Rohr believed that Archbishop Apuron would not be able to sign a quitclaim deed because he thinks that the Archbishop only controls 25 percent of the seminary.  The NCW, on the other hand, have always said that the seminary is under the Archdiocese of Agana and only the Archbishop of Agana or his successor have full control and authority to rescind the deed restriction. In other words, the Archbishop (or his successor) has 100 percent control of the seminary. 

In the jungle, Bob Klitzkie is now asking what Archbishop Apuron knew when he drafted the Declaration of Deed Restriction.  Mr. Klitzkie is implying that Archbishop Apuron drafted the deed restriction to "shield" the property from being sold should the sexual abuse scandal be exposed. Shield the property in case of a sex abuse scandal????  

In the first place, it was Mr. Klitzkie, Tim Rohr, and the rest of the Junglewatch Nation who believed that Archbishop Apuron gave away the seminary BECAUSE he was told to give it away.  The only reason they are coming up with this implication of "foreshadow" and "shielding" is simply because they still cannot explain how the seminary was transferred back to the Archdiocese of Agana WITHOUT the signatures of anyone from RMS or the NCW.  Remember, Rohr said that the Archbishop only controls 25% of the seminary.  The NCW was the one who kept saying that the Archbishop controls 100% of the seminary.  So, now they have a new story to tell regarding the deed restriction.  Instead of saying that the Archbishop gave away the seminary through the deed restriction, they are now saying the deed restriction was drafted to protect the seminary from being sold in case of a sex abuse lawsuit.    


The NCW, on the other hand, have never changed its story. At the time that the deed restriction was drafted, it was to protect the property from being sold.  Archbishop Apuron made it clear that he was aware that certain people wanted to sell the property to pay off the debts of the archdiocese.   


According to Vatican Insider (the bold is mine):
Following the unsuccessful audit, Apuron summoned the six members of the Archdiocesan Finance Council, asking them for an explanation and solutions. Benavente—regarded as a “godson” of lawyer David Lujan—submitted a proposal to sell the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and use the proceeds to cover the financial holes and thus avoid public scandal. “Over my dead body,” Apuron replied, dismissing the plan from further consideration. Despite the decision of the archdiocese’s head, members of the council attempted to pass the plan. In response, Apuron dismissed the Council already out of term, ousting members such as Richard Untalan—whose presence on the council was expressly requested by Benavente—a lawyer disbarred in the late 1980s for “moral turpitude” after he was condemned by the Washington DC Court of Appeals for “criminal facilitation of a felony of second degree, theft by deception.” One of Apuron’s collaborators—present at the time of the events and a direct witness—reported that the archbishop, his vicar general and his chancellor received threats following this decision by Msgr. Benavente, who claimed to have important friendships within the FBI and powerful figures in the Vatican.  
Also, Archbishop Apuron has a letter written by Richard Untalan as it was mentioned in the news report.  According to the Mariana's Variety (The bold are mine): 
 The former finance council members had been sitting as council members for a combined 50-plus years, Untalan wrote.
Selling the property, then valued at $75 million, could eliminate the archdiocesan debt, Untalan wrote.

Cristobal said that the finance council at the time wanted to sell the property to cover the debt incurred by the Cathedral and the Catholic Cemeteries and said “to think to sell the property to cover a deficit is unthinkable and would be irresponsible for the archbishop to even harbor that idea.”

PNC news also recorded Archbishop Apuron: 
Apuron says he will not lift the deed restriction, saying, “Some people proposed to me the sale of the property as a way to solve some short-term financial issues.”
He says his response to that is “over my dead body, because it would be irresponsible for a father to forfeit the future of his children, that is to cash in on the property and destroy the possibility to form priests for the future.” 
Archbishop Apuron was well aware of people who were interested in selling the property.  The NCW had stated that the deed restriction was drafted to protect the property from being sold.  Our story have not changed.  The jungle have stated in the beginning that Archbishop Apuron gave away the property through the deed restriction.  Their story have changed because to this day, they have not been able to explain how the seminary was transferred back to the Archdiocese of Agana without any signatures from RMS or the NCW.  The documents all had Archbishop Byrnes' signature on it.  As we have been saying....only the Archbishop of Agana or his successor have full 100% (NOT 25% as Rohr stated) control and authority of RMS, that only the Archbishop of Agana or his successor can rescind the deed restriction, and that RMS has always been under the Archdiocese of Agana.  

In the past, the jungle have also claimed that the deed restriction was unnecessary because only the Archbishop has the authority to sell the seminary.  Well, we now know today that all it takes is for a group of people to get together in a secret meeting to plan some sort of conspiracy to remove the Archbishop as the Vatican Insider described. According to Tim Rohr: 

Fast forward to 2013. I was invited to a secret meeting. 
I was told no one was to know who was at the meeting. I was told that there never was a meeting. It was July, 2013. I was shown a letter from Apuron to Fr. Gofigan.  
Naturally, this entire controversy started with the removal of Father Paul and Monsignor James.  Nevertheless, what was the purpose of a secret meeting where one is told not to say who was present at the meeting?  Meetings are held in secret for only one purpose.....something immoral was being planned.  And now with the deed restriction rescinded, the people who had an interest in selling the property are mainly the same ones now in control of selling the property today.  

Thursday, January 11, 2018

The #MeToo Movement By TSW



 Before the #MeToo movement engulfed Hollywood and Washington with “Who’s Next?” a Catholic moral panic embraced its same flawed “credible” standard of [in] justice.
The USA Today “Money” section of October 27, 2017, carried this headline: “Weinstein Effect: Men Are Getting Outed, Fired – and It’s Spreading.” Since then, more than seventy high profile claims of sexual harassment or assault lodged against producer Harvey Weinstein triggered a wave that spread through Hollywood, then to Washington, DC and the corporate world.
In a front-page column in the November 2017 issue of Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Bill Donohue exposed “Weinstein’s Bigoted Legacy.”
That legacy includes the production of Catholic-bashing films such as “Priest” (1995) which slandered the priesthood and all priests.
In 1998, Weinstein brought us “The Butcher Boy” in which Irish actress, Sinead O’Connor played “a foul-mouthed Virgin Mary.” The examples go on and on right up to the present time, and the Catholic League exposed and challenged them all.
No one should be surprised that Hollywood, the news media, and other entertainment industries employ a double standard when it comes to sexual misconduct. Many in this industry have grasped at opportunities to disparage Catholicism by pointing to the scandal of priestly abuse.
For transparency, however, you should know that I have had more than one personal encounter with media duplicity. In a recent post – “Plea Deals or a Life Sentence in the Live Free or Die State” – I detailed the efforts of one defender of justice, former Los Angeles prosecutor Marcia Clark, to review my trial.

Ms. Clark used her media notoriety as lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial to try to leverage media support for an inquiry into what she became convinced was a case of wrongful conviction. For a former prosecutor to do this – especially one on the losing end of a very high profile trial – spoke volumes about her personal and professional integrity. But as that post describes, politics and politicians blocked it.  

KEVIN SPACEY

Others in the media have exploited the Catholic clergy scandal, seeing within it an endless source of anti-Catholic jokes, bias, and rhetoric. Now that Hollywood has an opportunity to apply some of the same standards of transparency and accountability that they demanded from Catholic institutions, only time will tell what happens next.
But so far, duplicity reigns. Over recent months, the wave of accusations has been given a Twitter hashtag – #MeToo – that quickly evolved into #HimToo. A list of outed celebrities, politicians, and CEOs has grown into the most asked question of the day: “Who’s next?” By year’s end, the blacklist of “The Accused” included dozens of the rich and famous in Hollywood, Washington, and corporate America. Many were forced to resign.

But some of the media coverage of #MeToo claims reveals a glaring double standard. By early November, for example, Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey was accused by a dozen men of sexual harassment, groping, or assault alleged to have spanned decades.
A former TV news anchor claimed that he assaulted her teenaged son in 2016. The son of actor Richard Dreyfuss also accused Spacey of assaulting him as a teen. Actor Anthony Rapp says that he was 14-years-old when Spacey sexually harassed him.
At least one jurisdiction has launched a criminal investigation of Kevin Spacey. This story has created a problem for the news media tasked with reporting it. No one in the media refers to Kevin Spacey as a “pedophile,” the witch-hunt-word so freely leveled at Catholic priests who faced identical accusations.
Just weeks ago, an op-ed writer in the local New Hampshire Concord Monitor wrote that we should all be wary of presuming that claims against politicians and celebrities are true. After all, “it isn’t like the pedophile priest scandal which, for all we know, is still ongoing.”

After the allegations against Spacey surfaced, he revealed publicly that he is “a gay man.” The left-leaning news media usually celebrates such announcements, but the Kevin Spacey story creates a paradox. The media has insisted that the last two decades of Catholic scandal – characterized primarily by claims of abuse of adolescent males – has been a problem of pedophilia, not homosexuality, even when the facts refute that.

WEINSTEIN AND SENATOR AL FRANKEN(STEIN)

The June 25, 2017 issue of Rolling Stone magazine carried an article by Mark Binelli entitled, “How Al Franken rediscovered his sense of humor in the U.S. Senate.” The Minnesota Democrat had become a celebrated icon of the far-left wing of Washington politics. In the article, Binelli wrote of Senator Franken’s recently published memoir, and his decision to attend the Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump:
“Franken returned to the grim new reality of his day job. He attended Trump’s inauguration, which he describes in his admirably incautious new memoir, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate as ‘perhaps the most depressing moment I’ve had since entering politics, though that record has been repeatedly surpassed since January 20.’

I am certain that since then, Senator Franken has encountered some moments that have been far more depressing. Months after the Rolling Stone article went to print, a photograph surfaced from a few years prior to Franken’s senatorial election. The photo depicted him appearing to grope a woman on a plane while she slept. The same woman also accused him of other incidents including a sexual assault. Then the #MeToo floodgates opened.
Mr. Franken admitted to some accusations with a cautionary “I remember them differently.” He outright denied the truth of others. Nevertheless, he announced his decision to resign from the U.S. Senate after being pressured by other Democrats.
I doubt that Senator Al Franken stands for much that I agree with, but what just happened is troubling for democracy. He was elected by the people of Minnesota who now have no voice to assess the damage. Their votes were nullified by 30 politicians.
The agenda became clear when Mr. Franken used the moment to denounce President Donald Trump for alleged behaviors that long preceded his presidency, and that were known to voters before the election. Like many in this story, Al Franken declared Donald Trump to be unfit for the presidency while never even mentioning former president Bill Clinton whose sexual scandals took place not just before the White House, but in it.

#METOO CAN BE LUCRATIVE

On the day I write this, I am conscious of a sad anniversary. It was fifteen years ago that a New Hampshire priest, Father Richard Lower, took his own life during a winter’s walk on a deserted mountain path three days after Christmas in 2002. I wrote of that story in 2009, seven years after it happened. It was “The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul.
When the Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis reached its peak in New England and swept the country in 2002, Father Lower became one of many priests swept up in a wave of #MeToo claims. Three days after Christmas, he was summoned to the Chancery office and told of an allegation of misconduct claimed to have occurred 30 years earlier in 1972. He did not admit to the accusation.
Father Lower was accused only after many other priests had been accused – some 28 in all from this one diocese, and many of them were deceased. Since then, that number has risen into the 60s. The diocese was flooded with demands for settlements. A local newspaper described the outcome for accused and accusers: 
“[T]he diocese disclosed the names of all the [accused] priests… ‘None of these men will exercise any pastoral ministry in the Church ever again,’ said Rev. Edward J. Arsenault, delegate of the Bishop for Sexual Misconduct, in a news conference…
Manchester attorney Peter Hutchins, who represented 62 people, said no one will receive more than $500,000… At the request of Hutchins’ clients, the diocese will not disclose their names, the details of the abuse, or the amounts of individual settlements. During settlement negotiations, diocese officials did not press for details such as dates and allegations for every claim… ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Hutchins said. (Mark Hayward, “NH Diocese Will Pay $5 Million to 62 Victims,” New Hampshire Union Leader, November 27, 2002)
One month after the above news report was published, Father Richard Lower was summoned to a Chancery office under siege by wave after wave of #MeToo claims. Bishops across the country had quickly embraced a protocol contrived by lawyers and insurance companies. Father Lower was instructed by Bishop’s Delegate, Rev. Edward Arsenault, to vacate his parish of twenty years by the end of the day. On the next day, December 28, 2002, Father Lower took his own life.
Please do not conclude from this that Father Lower was guilty as charged. He was never charged. The claim was deemed “credible,” meaning that there existed no proof that it didn’t happen. Beyond a lot of money changing hands, no facts were ever investigated. No guilt was ever established. Absent an admission by the accused priest, the absence of investigation and corroboration characterizes the vast majority of settled claims involving Catholic priests.
At the time I wrote “The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul,” one reader who responded by letter wrote that “it should be read by every priest and bishop in America.” Well, it wasn’t. Not even close. The post-Christmas winter can be depressing enough, but for those able to steel themselves against winter’s cold reality that post is a cautionary tale about the unseen tyranny of the #MeToo movement sweeping America.
That tyranny is nowhere more evident than in the aftermath of the priesthood’s own #MeToo nightmare. Late in 2004, two years after the death of Father Richard Lower, I was awaiting a medical appointment in this prison’s Health Services Center. The only empty seat in the crowded waiting room was next to another prisoner-priest who arrived here five years after I did. So I sat with him.
I only rarely saw this man, but on that day I noted that he seemed troubled and despondent. So I asked what was wrong. He told me that on the night before, he had received a letter from lawyers for our diocese informing him that two men had leveled additional accusations against him. They were two men whom, he said, he had never even met. 

Yet the claims they made were eerily similar to the claims that sent that priest to prison. This is not as eerie as it seems. Back in 2002, the activist organization, Bishop Accountability established a heavily traveled website for the unstated purpose of helping new accusers to frame their claims with details and dates drawn from other, already “settled” claims.
If the stories of the two new accusers sounded familiar to the priest, it’s because they were following a published script. Both men, by the way, were clients of the same attorney whose 2002 settlement is described above. He amassed multiple rounds of mediated settlements obtaining millions in contingency fees.
Just days after that priest told me he was accused by two accusers he had never met, I received a letter from the same attorney for my diocese. I, too, had been named in two new #MeToo claims by two men whose names I had never before even heard. But my #MeToo moment turned into #NeverAgain.
I sent the lawyer’s letter to The Wall Street Journal. This initiated a probe of this story in 2004 resulting in “A Priest’s Story [Part 1],” a set of April 2005 articles, the first of several by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz. [see Part 2 and Followup] Her articles named most of the accusers who sought or obtained settlements with false accusations.
One lawyer – the one cited above – howled that his clients signed non-disclosure agreements with the diocese. But I was never a party to any such agreement. The newer accusers were among many brought forward by the same lawyer quoted in the news article above. According to a January 2017 article, he obtained 250 such settlements in claims against priests of this diocese, many following scripts that had been laid out on the Internet.
For an example of one of these overused scripts, see a brief but stunning article by Ryan MacDonald that demonstrates how my accusers and their lawyers “downloaded” a script from a November 1988 Geraldo Rivera show to frame their claims and monetary demands. Since then, the same script (it takes place in a YMCA hot tub!) has shown up in numerous claims against Catholic priests throughout the country.
The last word goes to Ryan MacDonald’s “A Touch of Déjà Vu.
Note from Father Gordon J. MacRae: Father Richard John Neuhaus left this world in God’s friendship on January 9, 2009, six months before These Stone Walls began. Here is his assessment of the U.S. Bishops’ Dallas Charter which was a response to the first #MeToo scare:
“Zero tolerance, one strike and you’re out, boot them out of ministry. Of course the victim activists are not satisfied and, sadly, may never be satisfied. The bishops have succeeded in scandalizing the faithful anew by adopting [in the Dallas Charter] a thoroughly unbiblical, untraditional, and un-Catholic approach to sin and grace… They ended up adopting a policy that was sans repentance, sans conversion, sans forbearance, sans prudential judgment, sans forgiveness, sans almost everything one might have hoped for from the bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ.” (Fr Richard John Neuhaus, Scandal Time.)