Earth to Newsweek & CNN: Wanna Beam Down & Have a Look Around the Planet?

Jack Cashill is editor of a Kansas City business magazine, but also writes with considerable insight about politics. His book "What's the Matter with California" was incisive, and he may be onto something here, too: The reporting by our national media is so far off the mark that we can no longer attribute it to blind spots or inadvertent bias. It has crossed the threshold into fraud, sheer legerdemain. The national media appear to be corrupt.

But as a former small-market print newsman myself, let me suggest an alternative explanation in the case of Newsweek: I think it's possible the reporter just took the day off and made up quotes, defrauding not only her readers but her editors and her employer. She obviously didn't watch even 20 seconds of the march, and I don't think she talked to any police officer who would have said such a dumb thing, either. Seriously, Newsweek, you've been had.

LifeSiteNews.com
Group Exposes Media "Fraud" at March for Life
By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, DC (LifeSiteNews.com) - Anyone who attended the March for Life in the nation's capital January 22 - or was anywhere near Capitol Hill that day or the day before - was well aware of the size of the group that came to make its voice heard. District residents could only stand aside as the annual Starbucks-equipped army of young pro-life men and women descended upon the streets surrounding the Capitol. Hordes of March for Life participants filled sidewalks, and clogged crosswalks; while the noise of countless group leaders struggling to keep their contingents together competed with the din of colorfully-dressed gaggles of teenagers.

Such has come to be the late-January tradition in Washington. But from the news reports from the major networks and newspapers, one would never know it. The rest of the country was only shown misleading footage or pictures depicting the endless column of pro-lifers receding into the distance behind the looming presence of, at most, a couple dozen pro-abortion demonstrators.

Fed up with what they call the "mind-boggling corruption" of media coverage of the march, a small production team has released a YouTube video revealing the truth about the enormous event and the skewed media reports that referenced it. The same group released a documentary last year entitled "Thine Eyes," which reveals the sheer size of the 2009 March for Life and the pro-life stories behind it.

"We had hoped to set the media straight, but we did not succeed," says narrator Jack Cashill. "Their performance in 2010 convinced us that the issue at hand is not ignorance or incompetence, not even bias, but outright fraud. "More than any other event, the march reveals the truly eye-popping, mind-boggling corruption of the mainstream media."

Cashill responds to two particularly egregious media misrepresentations: one by CNN anchorman Rick Sanchez, who strongly implied that the number of pro-life marchers and pro-abortion demonstrators at the event were comparable. "Well Rick, we counted at least 300,000 pro-life marchers to 5 pro-choice protestors. In the real world, that qualifies as most," says Cashill.

[Note: I marched toward the end of the procession, and I think I saw 3-4 pro-abortion demonstrators. They were preppy, normal-looking women, and one effeminate young man. They were subdued, not raucous, and they stood at a distance from the marchers. I suspect they were doing it for extra credit in a freshman Women's Studies class. One held a sign that said "keep your Rosaries off my ovaries." How profound.

Near the end of the route, in front of the Supreme Court, there were not more than 10 of them. I heard there had been perhaps 100 earlier. These were older, shabbier and appeared to be old-school traumatized feminist man-haters, plus one sexually ambiguous man in his 50s with a condescending manner and a slight lisp, who struck me as a suburban Unitarian, perhaps a grantwriter or a liaison officer of some kind. I think most of us will always remember Rick Sanchez for his feigned uncertainty whether there were more pro-abortion (105, tops) or more anti-abortion (300,000 minimum) marching. I don't know how we can ever look him in the eye again without stifling a chuckle. B.James Stinson]

The video also skewers a Newsweek article by Krista Gesaman, in which she claimed that young women were "missing" from the March for Life 2010. Gesaman's article quoted a Washington police officer who said, in the reporter's words, that "a majority of the participants are in their 60s and were the original pioneers either for or against the case."

The YouTube video responds with copious imagery documenting the large percentage of youth at the March, a great deal of whom were women. "Pro-lifers will not soon be too old to stage an actual march, do not worry. In truth, young women of every race, color and creed are the single largest demographic in any march. They number in the scores of thousands," Cashill notes.

"The media will have only themselves to blame if next year the marchers come back to Washington, not just in record numbers, but in righteous anger."

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
CNN Gaffe: Anchor Wonders on Air Whether More Pro-Lifers or Pro-Aborts at March for Life
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10012806.html

Teary Mayor Throws in Towel, Wants to Redefine California Marriage From Now On to Accommodate Lesbian Daughter

Is this man an absolute imbecile, or have his handlers contrived this sappy theatrical display for Hilltop consumption? Is this going to be his springboard to run for governor of California, or to get his own reality show? It appears that California public service doesn't exactly attract the cream of the crop these days.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

San Diego mayor testifies about his reversal on gay marriage
The Republican former police chief tells the court in the Proposition 8 trial that his former opposition was based on prejudice.
By Maura Dolan

Reporting from San Francisco - After days of anti-Proposition 8 witnesses being described as liberal and activist, challengers of California's gay marriage ban elicited testimony Tuesday from San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican and the city's former police chief, who said his previous opposition to same-sex marriage stemmed from prejudice.

At the federal trial over Proposition 8, Sanders told the court that when his elder daughter, Lisa, now 26, was in college, she told him she was a lesbian. He said he expressed his "overwhelming love" for her but also had concerns she would face discrimination.

When he ran for mayor in 2005, Sanders said, he opposed same-sex marriage in favor of civil unions. Lisa worked in his campaign, wanted him to win and did not try to talk him out of his position, he said.

In 2007, the San Diego City Council passed a resolution calling on San Diego to file a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of San Francisco's effort to overturn a ban on same-sex marriage. Sanders said he intended to veto the measure and called together gay friends and neighbors to explain why. "I was absolutely shocked at the depth of the hurt, the depth of the feeling," he testified.

Lawyers for the challengers of Proposition 8 played a video of Sanders crying as he told a news conference the next day that he had changed his mind about marriage for gays. Sanders testified that he was emotional because he had come so close to sending a message that gay relationships were inferior to those between heterosexuals. "What hit me was that I had been prejudiced," he said.

During cross-examination, an attorney defending Proposition 8 asked whether Sanders' previous opposition to same-sex marriage stemmed from an animus against or moral disapproval of gays. Sanders said it had not, but "it doesn't mean that I don't believe it was grounded in prejudice."

Copyright (c) 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The Church Militant in a Time of Compromise and Depravity

If you've given up on this generation of Catholic youth, if you think that the militant Church of Lech Walensa and Josef Mindzhenty is in the rear-view mirror, have a look at the TFP Student Action website and follow some of the links. I wrote a friend recently that this is robust Catholicism with some bass in its voice. http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/what-we-do/

The youngsters have vowed to confront depravity and apostasy in the street and on the Catholic campus alike, to restore the values of Christian civilization. "Youth was made not for pleasure, but for heroism," they exhort their boys at Chivalry Camp.

Their full name is the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. The TFP was founded to "resist, in the realm of ideas, the liberal, socialist and communist trends of the times and proudly affirm the positive values of tradition, family and private property."

It has a full-time volunteer staff of 75, and claims 120,000 members. I'm not Catholic, but I'm profoundly encouraged by this movement during a dark time in our country. They look like a cavalry regiment cresting the ridge, in the nick of time.

Persons, Not Property: Hoye Writes That Personhood Triumphed Over Slavery, Must and Will Prevail Against Abortion

Pastor Walter Hoye blogged in November about the power of dehumanizing language as it was applied historically to Black slaves, and as it is currently applied to unborn people, many of whom also are Black. In both cases, the victim is stripped of personhood in order to accomodate oppression. And yet, he observed with Martin Luther King, Jr., “right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” Hoye writes that personhood will have the "final word."

Persons Not Property

By 1830 slavery was primarily located in the Southern United States of America and it existed in many different forms. African Americans were enslaved on small farms, large plantations, in cities and towns, inside homes, out in the fields, and in industry and transportation.

By 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, Historian James L. Huston emphasizes the role of slavery as an economic institution. Huston, a leading advocate of secession, placed the value of southern held slaves at $2.8 billion. At about $3 billion in 1860 currency, the economic value of slaves in the U.S. was more than the combined value of all the factories, railroads and banks in the country or about $12 trillion in U.S. dollars today.

Much of the North’s economic prosperity derived from what Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, called “the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil.” President Lincoln was asking Americans to consider the obligations created by slavery. The first of those obligations is to acknowledge the full truth.

The Full Truth

The full truth is African American Slaves were considered property, and they were property because they were black. Their status as property was enforced by violence and by public policy. Slaves throughout the South had to live under a set of laws called the Slave Codes. The codes varied slightly from state to state, but the basic idea was the same: the slaves were considered property, not people, and were treated as such. The killing of a slave was almost never regarded as murder, and the rape of slave women was treated as a form of trespassing. So intolerable were the conditions under which African Americans slaves suffered from day to day that some went as far as committing suicide or mutilating themselves to ruin their property value.

As an African America, I have asked myself these questions:

1. How could this be justified?
2. Was it not obvious that African Americans were persons, living, breathing human beings?
3. Where was the outrage from the American public?

The Language of Oppression Past

Haig Bosmajian, UW professor of speech communication says. “While names, words, and language can be, and are, used to inspire us, to motivate us to humane acts, to liberate us, they can also be used to dehumanize human beings and to ‘justify’ their suppression and even their extermination.”

In order to justify the inhumane treatment of African American slaves and soothe the conscious of the Americans, dehumanizing terminology or the “language of oppression” was established and propagated by way of both “academic” and “legal” opinion at the very highest levels of our educational and legal communities.

From 1815 to 1830, the American Colonization Society: “Free black in our country are … a contagion.”

In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court decided: “A negro of the African race was regarded … as an article of property … a subordinate and inferior class of being.”

In 1858, the Virginia Supreme Court decision declared: “In the eyes of the law … the slave is not a person.”

In 1867, Buckner Payne, Publisher: “The Negro is not a human being.”

In 1900, Professor Charles Carroll: “The negro is … one of the lower animals.”

In 1903 Dr. William English: “The negro race is … a heritage of organic and psychic debris.”

In 1909, Dr. E. T. Brady: “They [Negroes] are parasites.”

The Language of Oppression Present

Today, even while modern medical science clearly and overwhelmingly supports the humanity and personhood of the pre-born child, the same financial motives and oppressive language strategies that were used to oppress African American slaves are being used, right now, to justify killing pre-born children.

For example, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided: “The Fetus, at most, represent only the potentiality of life.” Again, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court declared: “The word ‘person,’ as used in the 14th Amendment does not include the unborn.”

In 1979 Professor Joseph Flectcher: “Pregnancy when not wanted is a disease … in fact, a venereal disease.” In 1980 Dr. Mariti Kekomaki: “An aborted baby is just garbage … just refuse.”

In 1984, Professor Rosalind Pollack Petchesky: “The Fetus is a parasite.” Again, in 1984, Rabbi Wolfe: “A fetus is not a human being.”

In 1985, Dr. Hart Peterson on fetal movement: “Like … a primitive animal that’s poked with a stick.”

In 1986, Attorney Lori Andrews: “People’s body parts [embryos] are their personal property.”

This year, in the Sunday, July 12th, 2009, edition of the New York Times Magazine, the power of the language of oppression to corrupt our conscious was revealed in the words of sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said in an interview that she was surprised at a 1980 court ruling that prevented the restoration of Medicaid funding for abortions, because, in her opinion, when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 “there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Entirely Indefensible

History teaches us, time and time again, that the use of oppressive language to demonize and dehumanize certain segments of the human race is incontestably evil.

In Germany, the persistent portrayal of the Jews as “vermin,” “bacilli,” “parasites,” and “disease” contributed to Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution.”

In the antebellum South, the deliberate and systematic labeling of African Americans as “chattel,” “property,” “beasts,” “feebleminded,” and “useless eaters,” eased the conscious of many and paved the way for the subjugation and suppression of African Americans.

From the East coast to the West coast the defining of the American Indian as “non-persons,” “savages,” and “Satan’s partisans” led to the extermination of a significant portion of the American Indian population.

Yet, today, it appears we have not learned our lesson.

Just as the Jewish holocaust in Germany, the African American slavery in the antebellum south, and the death of countless American Indians were despicable events in our human history that were accompanied by the use of dehumanizing language, so today is the deliberate dismemberment and destruction of the bodies of those most vulnerable among us, among the human race, that is to say the pre-born child, entirely indefensible.

Persons Are Not Property

Human beings are persons and persons are not property. As a civil society we must move beyond the loathsome language of oppression of powerful elite and recognize the inherent, inalienable and self-evident humanity of all human beings. Regardless of the means by which we were procreated, method of reproduction, age, race, sex, gender, physical well-being, function, or condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability, all human beings need to be and deserve to be protected by love and by law.

The Unarmed Truth

When Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10th, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: “I believe that ‘unarmed truth’ and ‘unconditional love’ will have the final word in reality. This is why “right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil” triumphant.”

Today, the “unarmed truth” is that the pre-born child is a person not property.

I believe personhood is God-given and not government-granted. It is not offered to the elite and denied to the “least of these.”

I believe personhood, addresses the most important RIGHT of all - the RIGHT to LIVE, without which all other rights are meaningless.

I believe personhood is RIGHT.

The “unconditional love” for the pre-born child in my heart, is rooted in the love Christ has for all. While the current conditions may have “temporarily defeated” the personhood of the pre-born child.

I believe the “righteousness of personhood” is stronger than the “evil of pre-natal murder” and will ultimately prove triumphant.

I believe personhood is the final word in reality of the pro-life movement.

Pastor Walter Hoye Denounces Racial Suicide, "Womb Lynching," and Passive, Inert African-American Church

California anti-abortion stalwart Walter Hoye blogged for Issues 4 Life Foundation last summer on "why African-Americans accept abortion." He finds that the Black church has failed to confront what he calls "womb lynching," and that today, as a result, a conceived African-American child has less than a 50% chance of being born: every 72 seconds an African-American baby’s life is terminated by abortion. At this rate, Hoye writes, the African-American race will be in danger of extinction by the the end of this century.

Why African-Americans Accept Abortion

The acceptance of abortion by African-Americans is one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.

Abortion is nothing new and the reasons for it can be found rooted in the Church’s failure to consistently and effectively demonstrate the love of Christ in the terms of James 1:27.

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

Until the quality of life for women is improved by the practical applications of unconditional love, many woman will continue to be attracted to the false sense security abortion provides.

Abortion is not just another surgical or medical procedure that is hygienic and safe.

Abortion is an intrinsically evil act that gravely violates the dignity of an innocent human being by taking his or her life.

Abortion gravely wounds the dignity of those who support it and leaves those who commit it in profound psychological and moral trauma.

Marginalizing abortion marginalizes the sanctity of human life itself and dehumanizes the members of any society.

The freedom, independence, empowerment and sense of security promised women by abortion is a lie.

Can equality for women be achieved at the expense of murdering their children?

Of course not.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.”

Abortion is oxymoronic, a “cruel kindness” if you will.

Abortion is the lie that promises to improve the “quality of life” at the “expense of life”.

Embracing abortion as a necessary social policy to guarantee life would ultimately result in the end of life.

Given that according to the 2006 U.S. Census the African-American community is no longer replacing itself.

The acceptance of abortion in the African-American community is a form of racial suicide.

During the Civil Rights movement African-American’s were willing to be hosed down by Fire Departments, bitten by dogs, beaten by police officers, unjustly incarcerated, financially ruined and lynched by racist white folk to secure access to water fountains, restrooms and seats in the front of the bus.

I believe most of us would assume that African-American’s would do more for their posterity than they would for the right to use a urinal.

However, if you assume this to be true you’d be wrong.

Today an African-American child has less than a 50% chance of being born.

Every 72 seconds an African-American baby’s life is terminated by abortion.

At this rate, the African-American race will be in danger of extinction by the year of our Lord two thousand one hundred (2100).

All this and African-American Pastors are strangely silent regarding the issue of abortion.

I wonder why?

Such silence allows the African-American Pastors to trivialize abortion by equating the killing of babies with other evils in the world when the numbers from pro-abortion communities clearly prove there is no comparison.

Such silence allows the African-American Pastors to politicize abortion by comparing Democrats to Republicans as if winning such a contest will bring our dead babies back to life.

For the record, since 1973 abortion alone, accounts for over fifty (50) million prenatal murders.

According to Father Frank Pavone’s June 11th, 2009 Blog entitled “One Solitary Child” …

“Worldwide, there are 42 million abortions every year.

That means that in the last thirty years, there have been over 1.5 billion abortions! 1.5 billion!

That’s the equivalent of approximately one quarter of the entire population of the planet!

One quarter of the earth’s population, murdered, snuffed out, gone.”

Such silence from the African-American pulpit allows Pastors to avoid wrestling with their congregation over two (2) potentially Church splitting and/or job threatening issues:

1. The biblical truth about abortion and

2. Why they support a President who does not publicly support the biblical truth about abortion and other biblically defined evils.

In my opinion, such silence from men called and ordained by God Himself to preach an uncompromising gospel at all cost, is just inexcusable.

Again, such silence from the African-American pulpit allows the race card to be played in the Black Church and the discussion to be moved from murdering children to whether or not abortion is a Civil Rights issue.

Yes, much has changed since the Civil Rights movement.

Segregation is illegal in all public schools and most private places.

While discrimination still exists in many hearts today, our country has come closer to the ideals of liberty and justice.

Still, why does it appear that African-Americans are more than willing to sacrifice their posterity for prosperity?

To put it bluntly, it appears…

The more affluent African-Americans have become, the fewer children we want.

The higher our material expectations rise, the more we perceive children prevent us from achieving them.

The more affluent African-Americans have become, the less inclined we are to take risks which might destroy our quality of life.

The more affluent African-Americans have become, the more we tend to only associate with the rich and identify with their lifestyle.

Thus, in a divided society like the United States of America, affluence creates materially comfortable prisons, emotionally isolated people and morally bankrupt protocols.

The Bible puts it this way in 1st Timothy 6:10:

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

1st John 3:8 teaches us that “… the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the work of the devil.”

Since torturing babies to death is incontestably the work of the devil, abortion is incontrovertibly evil and the benefits abortion promises are ALL lies.

Still, why can’t African-Americans see this?

Oh we can see it.

There is no doubt that “momma is pregnant with child”.

There is no question that a baby, an innocent human being is murdered every time an abortion takes place.

The biological evidence is overwhelmingly clear.

Human biology has been incredibly revealing.

The biological evidence for the humanity of the unborn child is undeniable, and even advocates of abortion rights now admit this.

Abortion is simply prenatal murder.

In light of Planned Parenthood’s founder’s (i.e. Margaret Sanger) racist and eugenic past, abortion is no less than womb lynching.

The facts are in now and it is painfully obvious who the baby is and what abortion does to him or her.

Oh I can assure you, African-Americans can and do see this.

So why is there such a difference between what we as African-Americans know to be true in our hearts and how we vote?

How can African-Americans consider themselves more religious than the U.S. population as a whole and support the shedding of innocent blood?

Read Proverbs 6:16-17 …

“These six (6) things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven (7) are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.”

St. Francis of Assisi once said “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”

In other words, it is time for the Church to speak the truth in love by meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of people.

I believe the answer is not in the White House, but in the church house.

I believe when the Church becomes relevant in the lives of the people …

The Word of God will once again be relevant in the hearts of the people …

And when the Word of God is relevant in the hearts of the people …

I believe abortion, anywhere and everywhere this evil exists, will come to an end.

So join me and let’s go to work.

Roe v. Wade NOT the 'Settled Law' of the Land, Despite Arlen Specter's Confusion

Old-school activists from the Operation Rescue era have ratcheted up their resistance to abortion recently, this time under the banner of the Personhood movement. (http://www.personhoodamendments.com/intro/index.php)

Former Rescuers Cal Zastrow and Chet Gallagher are at the forefront of the movement to enact state Constitutional amendments, which had gone dormant under National Right to Life's leadership.

On the U.S. Supreme Court, even Antonin Scalia has declared his hostility to a federal Personhood statute because he believes the issue properly belongs with the states. Now, activists like Zastrow and Gallagher are petitioning states to put Constitutional Personhood amendments on the ballot where permitted, and elsewhere they are urging state legislators to take up the Personhood issue.

In this article that prolife activist Mary King wrote for a Montana newspaper, she outlines a strategy to "end abortion by using the Constitution instead of amending it." That strikes me as wildly optimistic, but I do think it's worth a try.

As much as the Personhood activists denounce the incrementalist strategy of the National Right to Life "establishment," I believe every increment is worth fighting for because the increments are comprised of real live babies. If the Personhood movement's successes turn out to be incremental, that is no reason to be dismissive. If they turn out to be as revolutionary as Mary King predicts, I'll be absolutely thrilled to guess wrong.

How pro-lifers can overturn Roe v. Wade
By Mary King

In this month in 1973, the Supreme Court declared open season on unborn babies when they infamously invented a "right" to abortion in their Roe v. Wade decision, making null and void laws protecting the unborn in all 50 states.

In the 37 years since, black-robed despots have devalued the worth of life by systematically defending the slaughter of more than 51 million babies whose only crime was to have been "inconvenient." While this judicial activism has been tenaciously resisted by tens of thousands of pro-life activists in every state, the Congress and state legislatures have so far only whittled away at the margins by passing laws that slightly regulate abortion in the most egregious cases.

Yet the time to bow before the Supreme Court is over. It is time to really defend the defenseless and end abortion-on-demand entirely.

One such bill — a Life at Conception Act — would do just that.

By legislatively establishing the personhood of the unborn, this bill would actually eliminate judicially imposed abortion-on-demand.

Working from what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe, pro-life lawmakers can pass a Life at Conception Act and end abortion by using the Constitution instead of amending it.

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, it was based on the new, and previously undefined, "right to privacy" it "discovered" in the so-called "penumbrae" of the Constitution.

Of course, as constitutional law it was a disaster.

But never once did the Supreme Court declare abortion itself to be a constitutional right.

Instead the Supreme Court left the door open for lawmakers to protect life when it stated in its opinion that the Court "need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins." It admitted that "if the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case [for an abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment." That is exactly what a Life at Conception Act would do.

A Life at Conception Act changes the focus of the abortion debate. It takes the Supreme Court out of the equation and places responsibility solely on the shoulders of the elected representatives who, unlike life term judges, must respond to grass-roots pressure.

And the grass-roots pressure of pro-lifers has led to ever-increasing support in Congress.

The Life at Conception Act has attracted growing record numbers of co-sponsors in each of the last four Congresses.

And much to the chagrin of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Life at Conception Act in the current 111th Congress — S. 346 by Sen. Roger Wicker, R- Miss., and H.R. 881 by Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif. — are again on track to achieve new record support.

The politicians had better take heed.

Even if a Life at Conception Act doesn't pass immediately, the public attention will send another crew of radical abortionists down to defeat in the next election.

I can think of no more fitting way to celebrate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade than to prepare for its demise.

— Mary King is executive director of the National Pro-Life Alliance, 4521 Windsor Arms Court, Annandale, VA 22003.

Cascading Tragedy in the Catholic Church

This is how tragedy can and eventually will cascade out of unbelief: first, secular media and popular culture persuade Catholic schoolboys that happiness lies in self-indulgent materialism and sensuality. Then, the Church suffers a "crisis of vocations" (not enough volunteers for the priesthood).

Then the Church lowers its standards and enlists manifestly depraved candidates who in earlier generations would never have been considered suitable for the priesthood. Then the predators, clothed in the garments of the Church, act out their lusts on the powerless and the vulnerable. And when - in the fulness of time - the victims roar, it is not the spent perverts who pay the piper, but the Body of Christ.

The immense Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, where I lived for four winters, is no longer under the direction of its bishop, but of a federal bankruptcy judge and various attorneys who represent 258 Alaskans who were sexually abused in the 1960s and 1970s.

The terms of the bankruptcy plan require the Church to deposit $9.8 million in a fund for the victims, and to pay another $2.5 million to lawyers who have filed over 100 sexual abuse lawsuits, and to accountants and other professionals involved in the litigation.

According to this Anchorage Daily News story, the Bishop has been put on a $1,400 monthly allowance in high-priced Fairbanks. He has laid off 25 percent of the Diocesan staff, cut pay to the remaining employees, some of whom have taken unpaid furloughs. The parishes have to contribute $650,000 to the settlement, and the Diocese has eliminated fuel subsidies to its outlying rural parishes. The next time somebody tells you that "tolerance" is a virtue, ask them to be more specific.

DIOCESE WILL PAY $9.8 MILLION TO ALASKA ABUSE VICTIMS
Bankruptcy: Freed money will go to victims, outing of guilty.
By LISA DEMER, Anchorage Daily News

The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks is emerging from bankruptcy under a plan that will provide nearly $10 million - and maybe much more - to sexual abuse victims, send the bishop traveling to parishes where abuse occurred, and put names of suspected abusers on the Diocese website.

Under the plan for reorganization, $9.8 million will go into a fund for close to 300 victims. Another $2.5 million is going to lawyers, accountants and other professionals. Payments to individuals will be decided case-by-case by a mediator, depending on a variety of factors including the nature and severity of abuse, the age of the victim at the time it started, and whether the perpetrator was in a position of trust.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Donald MacDonald approved the plan at a hearing Monday morning in Anchorage.

"I've never had a case like this in my nearly 20 years on the bench," the judge told the lawyers and Catholic church leaders gathered in court. The sexual abuse claims made this bankruptcy especially challenging, he said.

The diocese filed for reorganization in March 2008 in the wake of more than 100 state-court lawsuits accusing priests and volunteers of sexual abuse. After the bankruptcy case was filed, the claims grew. Many arise from abuse decades ago.

Most creditors supported the plan, including 256 out of 258 clergy sexual abuse victims who voted on it.

Exhibits filed in Bankruptcy Court name the suspected perpetrators, most from the Jesuit order. Under the settlement, for the next 10 years the diocese must post on its home page a link to the names of the suspected abusers "and any other known perpetrators (admitted, proven or credibly accused), including deceased perpetrators."

One list filed in court names those whom multiple people accused of sexual abuse: 15 priests, a deacon, two brothers, two nuns, and two volunteers. They include the late church volunteer Joseph Lundowski, accused of molesting dozens of children in Western Alaska villages in the 1960s and 1970s. A second list names those accused by one person: 11 priests, five nuns, a deacon, a brother and three volunteers.

Bishop Donald Kettler, who sat in at the hearing, said afterward that what happened to people victimized by priests and lay volunteers was tragic. He said the diocese has tried to start the process of healing but that he couldn't do much when the case was in court. Now, he can reach out, and in fact must do so, under the reorganization plan.

He said he would try to connect with every victim and will travel to every place where the abuse occurred.

"I will be visiting their villages. I will invite them to come see me one-on-one. I will invite them to come to some church and community healing services. And I will have listening sessions with them and then the whole community," Kettler said.

Under the plan, he also must read a statement of apology from the pulpit in every affected parish.

The diocese pieced together money for the settlement mainly from the sale of properties to its own endowment. The diocese will still be able to use those properties, which include Catholic schools, the diocese offices, and the Kobuk Center, where the bishop lives. In addition, parishes are paying $650,000 and Alaska National Insurance Co. $1.4 million.

Kettler said operations of the vast diocese have been affected by the lawsuits and the bankruptcy. The diocese has cut subsidies to parishes for training, fuel oil and other basics, he said. The diocese staff has been reduced by 25 percent, and those left have taken pay cuts and unpaid furloughs. The bishops' pay is now just $1,400 a month, plus room and board, said Susan Boswell, the Tucson, Ariz.-based lead bankruptcy attorney for the diocese.

The victims also will pursue claims against two insurance companies that didn't pay into the settlement, Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. and Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America. Ken Roosa, an Anchorage lawyer who has represented dozens of abuse victims in state lawsuits, said the size of the fund for victims could grow substantially.

"We're not done," he said.