Escape from Utopia

“Karen, I was right!  Someone escaped!  She says they are a cult!” I said to my wife, exuberant.

It was Monday, Labor Day.  We were at the Lake of the Ozarks, in mid-Missouri, and Karen, my wife, noticed a group of people standing near the overlook on the hill above the lake’s dam.  A man about my age was about to take a picture of a group of teenagers with the lake in the background.  All of them were well groomed, well behaved and wearing polo shirts and caps that said “Shepherdsfield” on them.  Karen offered to take the picture for this man, so he could be in it as well.  He was very grateful.

“What’s Shepherdsfield?” I asked after the photo had clicked.

“We’re a Christian community near Fulton, Missouri,” the man answered.  “We’re on our Reward Trip.  These young people have been working very hard all summer, and we’re taking them on a Reward Trip before school starts again.”  My eyes locked with one of the young people.  They were certainly well behaved … but a “Christian community”?  Creepy.

Karen and I got in the car.  I began to talk in my quiet, slow cult-leader voice.  “Welcome to Shepherdsfield,” I said.  “You’ll be very happy here.  As long as you do what we tell you.  There’s no need to fuss.  You’ll be loved and you won’t want to leave.  In fact, you won’t be able to leave.  Now just do what we say and everything will be fine.”

“Kevin!” Karen shouted.  “Stop that!  You’re so judgmental!  Those were nice people!  What makes you say they’re a cult?!”

I got out my phone and Googled them.  One of the first things that comes up is the blog Cult Girl Speaks Out.  It’s written by Tabitha Casey, and it details how she grew up in Shepherdsfield and how she “escaped” and how she’s trying to process all of it now.  It’s a fascinating blog, and even Karen became interested as I read many of Tabitha’s posts to her on our way to ice cream after dinner at the Lake.

Tabitha Casey

Of course, my only knowledge of Shepherdsfield is what I’ve been reading on Tabitha’s blog, and it’s possible that the place is not as dark as she paints it - though, she actually seems quite fair and gives credit where credit is due on more than one occasion.  But human history has many examples of utopias gone bad - and, if what Tabitha says is true, Shepherdsfield is one of them.  

For one thing, according to Tabitha, the Reward Trip rewards children from the ages of about 10 on up who are required to work all summer long from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm daily mulching, weeding, repairing, and sweating in the hot and humid Missouri summers, the “reward” of which is a trip to someplace like the dam overlooking the Lake of the Ozarks.  Plus mini-golf.  But it’s worse for adults.  Able bodied males supply the commune with money by power washing, painting and building decks in Columbia, Jefferson City, and other towns nearby.  The income they generate goes to the Shepherdsfield “church”, which allots them back a small amount.  In the case of Tabitha and her family of eight, they were given no more than $130 per month back from the money her husband earned power washing.  Of course, the “church” provides all needs - housing, car, telephone, utilities, food - but the “church” also controls all needs.  And if and when a member “escapes” with his or her family, they must leave with absolutely nothing.  There is no private ownership.  Christian Communism meets Christian Capitalism - the Company Town owns everything and the members owe their souls to the company store, so to speak, even though the power washing business seems to be entrepreneurial and thriving.  

Tabitha explains how there is no incentive to work hard, since slackers receive the same share as hard workers.  This was the story of New Harmony, Indiana and elsewhere.  Human nature must be either ignored or brutalized for utopias to have any chance of working.

For example, Tabitha describes …

… a peer of mine who, at age nine, because of stealing some quarters from a communal change drawer to buy a gift for a girl, was subjected to the most severe punishment we had devised. He was made to undergo what we termed "coventry". This coventry involved rejection from every member of the community. He would eat alone during all our common meals (lunch and dinner for five of the seven days); no one would talk to him except to give direction ... he would not play or interact in any fun way with any of his friends during this time. This lasted several weeks and crushed this child.  To this day, the mention of Shepherdsfield evokes only pain.

… the fear of such strong punishment was so great that those youth who had pullings toward stealing, lying, cheating, interest in the opposite sex, etc. became masterful at doing what they were already inclined towards and masterful at disguising it. It created an environment of facades. If someone had a problem, or an issue, covering up, putting on a brave face and always looking joyful - "as a good Christian should" - were the ways that were approved of to deal with it.

This is one of many painful and fascinating tales of Tabitha’s life as a Christian Communist.  She analyzes her experiences growing up in Shepherdsville well, and reaches the two most obviously correct conclusions …

This is my story - this is the life I lived and this is mine to tell. I did not just observe and am reporting on what I observed - I ate, drank, slept, talked and walked this life - this is my story and this is what I want to do with what I have lived. I want to warn people about the dangers of these two things mostly:

1.) spiritual abuse and

2.) putting men on pedestals or allowing them to climb there themselves.

Such misplaced idealism which created the environment for spiritual abuse and for trusting in men rather than God, and for giving men way too much power and authority over private lives and over other people’s families led to what became an intolerable atmosphere.  There is more than one suicide in Tabitha’s story.

Her husband, however, gets closer to a third lesson learned that should be emphasized …

It was a great place to be a kid - but there was never a transition point in how one was treated. We were never given the chance to make decisions and choose wisely - all those decisions were made for us.  If we started to try to think an issue through and - Heaven forbid - question or disagree, we were challenged on our spirit of divisiveness.

My friends, I see this in Devout Catholic circles every day.  It is the prime characteristic not of the Church, but of an ideology.  Ideologies are Closed Systems, Unrealities that are man-made fictions and that can only exist by forcefully suppressing human nature and by carefully keeping out anything that might topple the house of cards or pop the carefully guarded bubble.

The true Church, by contrast, and true philosophies, and indeed common sense and sanity are marked by an openness, by a seeking, by humility.  “Thy Kingdom come” (our daily prayer) means that we will never have the perfect community on earth, though we are always desiring it and seeking it.  The “eschaton” is not “immanent”.  There is a fundamental tension that exists between “The Divine Ground” of our existence and our longing for it.  Even we Christians who know Christ and love Christ still seek Him - or at least seek to imitate Him - in various ways.  We try to remain open to Him, and in doing so we renounce the kind of control and fear that keeps His Spirit out, we renounce the contraceptive mentality that protects the precious bubble at all costs, that keeps it from ever being pierced, and that keeps life from ever being natural, joyful, fertile.

There is an idealism behind Shepherdsfiled, and “Cult Girl” Tabitha readily admits that and refuses to condemn it.  She knows that that love, that longing, that desire to embody what we long for is at the heart of our existence.  But there was an idealism to all sorts of Communism, not just the Christian “Acts 2” kind.  There was an idealism to the Bolshevist Communism that brutalized half the world for most of the 20th century.  Even the Nazis were idealists.  But all such ideals, all such utopias, all such Closed Systems and Unrealities start with a frightening premise: We men are enough.  We can build, on our own efforts, God’s Kingdom on earth - if we’re just emphatic enough and repressive enough.  And if we have to, we’ll tear down and remake man himself to do it.

In C. S. Lewis’ phrase, “The Abolition of Man” is the final project of man.  Indeed, at one point, Tabitha quotes C. S. Lewis …

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their conscience.

Monday night, Labor Day, after meeting the Reward Trip kids and reading Tabitha’s blog posts, Karen and I arrived at the ice cream stand off of Highway 54 at the Lake of the Ozarks.  There were about eight old men surrounding us as we stood in line to get ice cream, and, to my surprise, they were dirty old men.  One old guy got a sundae with a cherry on top.  He turned to his octogenarian companion.  “I guess I can’t give you my cherry!” he leered.  Two other old guys got their sundaes.  One of them, stooped over, wearing shorts with street shoes and black socks pulled up to his ankles, said to the old guy next to him who got a smaller size sundae, “I guess mine’s bigger than yours!”  I’m not sure his companion heard him.

They all finished their treats, climbed (slowly) into a mini-van with Missouri plates and pulled away, almost backing into another car in the process.

“Wow!  Those old guys were something else!” I exclaimed.

“Do you know who those guys are?” asked Karen.

“Who are they?” I replied.

“They’re the elders from Shepherdsfield,” she answered.  

It was the best laugh I’d had all weekend.

Is Sasquatch the Antichrist? - or - The Temptation to Believe Nonsense

NOTE - On April 29, 2106, Charlie Johnston responded to this post with outright lies, doing his best to libel me in the process. I go into detail about that here - Charlie Johnston Lies about Me - and I Admire Him for It! Charlie is one of the most outrageous frauds in the Catholic Church. He actually fascinates me - in a sad way. Read on ...

***

I don’t want to write about this, but I think I have to.  I’d rather not write anything more on this blog (most of my articles are now on Catholic Exchange and the Ink Desk), and I’m closing this post to comments.  But what I have to say has to be said.

Living the Christian Faith is not sexy.  It is not lurid.  It is not particularly exciting on a day to day basis.  It doesn’t have the flair of a Jerry Springer episode.  Types of antichrists are all around us, but Sasquatch is not one of them and if there is such a thing as a “rapture” it’s not a mass UFO abduction.

But we’re not satisfied with that.  We want celebrities.  We want false prophets.  We want National Enquirer headlines about the apocalypse.

Charlie Johnston

***

Charlie Johnston is from Belleville, Illinois, across the river from me.  He is becoming viral, sweeping the attention of conservative Catholics from coast to coast.  I’m hearing about him from all corners.  This is, sadly, due to a video of him posted on Vimeo, in which he talks to a group of serious Catholics, including Fr. Mitch Pacwa from EWTN.  Fr. Mitch’s presence in the audience of Charlie’s talk has made a huge difference to people’s perceptions of Charlie Johnston and Charlie’s “authority”.

As a commenter on the Mother of God site says …

If Fr Mitch Pacwa came to see Charlie. That spoke volumes to me! I Hold Fr Pacwa in very HIGH esteem. And Bishop Garcia is onboard as well, tells me to pay attention to Charlie. The Bishop is NO liberal for sure!!!

I found the video one of Hope for sure…

In the video, Charlie begins by saying some good things, such as how God works through the ordinary and how all we need to do as believers is to take the next right step.  Sound advice, and many others have said that.  But when the Q&A comes, Charlie expounds on his “visions”, delivered to him by an angel, he claims, of the coming “Storm”.  Charlie’s vision includes the following:

• A world wide financial collapse.
• The collapse of all order in society.
• The conversion of President Obama, who will not finish his term in office.
• The suspension of the 2016 elections.
• The appearance of the Virgin Mary sometime in 2017, to be noticed by all people.
• A utopia following the Storm, in which the Church is reunified and true believers live in harmony.  Our society will go from Ferguson to Mayberry, so to speak.

Charlie, however, also claimed that Christmas of 2013 would be our last normal Christmas.  When people point out to him that Christmas of 2014 was quite normal, he responds (in so many words), “Well, the government is now regulating Christmas lights and soon you won’t be allowed to decorate in front of your home and have a Christmas tree and we’re ceding territory to radical Islam and there’s Obamacare and you call that normal???  Oh, and nobody listened to Winston Churchill either.”  I’m paraphrasing, but read Charlie’s defense of this failed prophecy for yourself.

Note that when other Christians or Christian sects have made specific predictions about the End Times, and when the predictions are inevitably proven wrong, such false prophets typically respond, “I know we said the rapture was to take place at 12:01 am on September 2, 2015 - and everybody is still here - but it was a spiritual rapture and if you didn’t notice it, that’s your problem, not mine.  You’re not as spiritually sensitive as we are.  Oh, and we’re moving the date up to September of next year.  Be prepared!”

Now, worldwide economic collapse, of course, is quite possible, and even inevitable because of the nature of usury, but predicting when the economic shell game will end is just a guessing game.  And so when most ordinary people hear, “Last normal Christmas, Obama will convert, the Virgin Mary will appear”, they laugh, roll their eyes, and go about their business.  

But many Devout Catholics have apparently lost this quality, this virtue of common sense.

Charlie also says the summer of 2015 will be our “summer of discontent”.  As I write this, it’s almost Labor Day of 2015.  I’m still waiting for the beginning of the Storm, but I’m sure Charlie will tell me I missed it.

But there’s more.  

If you need more evidence of Charlie’s dubious status as a prophet, well, there’s this.  He claims to have walked across America.  He claims to have walked 3200 miles wearing a 70 pound backpack, even though he has nerve damage.  He claims to have slept outside, often fearing for his life in groves of trees in inner city ghettos.  He claims to have run into cougars.  He claims this experience changed him spiritually.  

From Charlie’s website …

Charlie Johnston is a former newspaper editor, radio talk show host and political consultant. From Feb. 11, 2011 to Aug. 21, 2012, he walked 3,200 miles across the country, sleeping in the woods, meeting people and praying as he went.

But if you look at Charlie’s own Facebook page, which he started for the purpose of chronicling this journey, here’s what you find …

• Charlie departs from Alabama on Feb. 11, 2011.
• He appears to be on foot all the way to Houston, where he posts on Facebook on July 4, 2011, covering over 400 miles in about five months.
• He then posts from San Antonio, then Austin (a strange detour to the northeast), then from somewhere in New Mexico by Oct. 11, covering perhaps 600 miles in three months.
• He then gets on a plane and flies to Chicago on Oct. 18.  He has pictures of this.
• He stays in Chicago until Nov. 24, when he flies to San Diego.  He posts pictures from the plane window.  One of his Facebook friends doesn’t seem to realize that Charlie’s “walk across the U.S.” includes more than one plane ride and says, “So you have made it all the way to San Diego??? That’s truly incredible Charlie!!! God bless you.”  Charlie replies, “Ha! Most of the rest of the journey will involve going up and down mountains. Glad I had almost a year to train for that - because it is this second leg that, at least physically, is truly incredible.”  What’s truly incredible is the gullibility of Charlie’s Facebook friends.
• After the first of the year, in 2012, Charlie is posting from his hometown of Belleville, Illinois - 2,000 miles to the east of San Diego by foot.
• From his Facebook posts, Charlie appears to remain in Southern Illinois for several months.  He even alludes to this at one point, writing, “Funny thing...after a few months of living indoors, I am really no stronger than ever I was...I still have to conserve my strength and rest frequently because of my neurological damage. If you took any group of outdoorsmen, I would be among the last people [you] would think is the guy who has hiked 2000 miles across the country and has another 1200 or 1500 to go through the desert.”  At this point, he has walked perhaps 1200 miles, if that many, has not walked at all for almost six months, and is certainly not about to walk through the desert - especially from Southern Illinois, which is nowhere near the desert.  In fact, his remaining posts demonstrate that he came nowhere close to the desert on foot - and the only mountain climbing he did was in state parks, abetted by some car rides when he got tired.
• By April, Charlie is posting pictures from the California coast.
• By May of 2012, he’s freely admitting that people are driving him pretty much everywhere he’s going.
• On April 25, he admits he rode in a car from California to Kansas.  After that, he says he rode into Colorado.
• He seems to be on foot part of the time and hitch hiking most of the time through the High Plains of Colorado through the spring of 2012.
• He spends the final two months of his “walk” living in Loveland, Colorado.
• He claims he climbs Mt. Meeker, where he plans to build a shrine that will probably cost (from the look of the design) upwards of $50 million to construct.  Mt. Meeker is the end of Charlie’s “walk across America” - a walk that included at least two airplane rides and that featured very little walking at all or that saw him riding in cars for the bulk of the final nine months of his journey.  And this is all documented on Facebook!

First of all, if Charlie is lying about his “walk across America”, or at least stretching the truth, why would anybody believe him when he relates his “visions” and prophecies?

Secondly, if the economy is going to collapse and money will be worthless, why is Charlie soliciting donations for his $50 million shrine?  How can my cash be useful to him when it won’t be useful to me?  And where is the accounting for the money Charlie is apparently being given by people?  Does anybody know where such possible donations are really going?

Finally, Abraham told the Rich Man, “They have Moses and the Prophets, let them listen to them … If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  Well, we have both Moses and the Prophets AND someone who has risen from the dead.  Let us listen to them.  Why would we waste our time with the nonsense coming from the mouth of someone whose three verifiable claims - 2013 was the last normal Christmas, 2015 is our “summer of disconent” and “I walked 3200 miles across America” - are either subjective and vague or demonstrably false?

But, as I said at the outset, the day to day living of our Faith is apparently not sexy enough for us.  Even many of the Catholics I know who are skeptical about Charlie Johnston still want to believe him and are disappointed when I point out Charlie’s unreliability.

And that’s the core of the sin - wanting to believe him.  It’s a kind of morbid curiosity, a kind of morose delectation, a desire for more than what we have, which (as Catholics) is the presence of Jesus Christ Himself and His Spirit and access to His Father as adopted children.  What more can we want?

Why do we desire to augment that fullness … with this?  With titillating tales of the lurid and grotesque?  With claims that can be proven to be false by spending an hour on Facebook or Google?

...

Fellow Catholics, we must strive for “maturity in Christ”.  We can’t get there if we don’t simply grow up.

The Birth Control Pill vs. the Magic Pill

Did you know that there's a way to become automatically virtuous, so much so that discernment and deliberation and uncertainty vanish and that every decision you make about a certain subject is automatically correct?

No, it's not by means of mortification or by the long and frustrating process of trial and error and increasing maturity.  It's by charting your wife's fertile periods, taking her basal temperature, analyzing her vaginal secretions and examining her cervix.  And by giving money to the NFP industry.

In addressing the question of "serious motives" or "grave reasons" that the Church teaches must be present for having sex only when you think your wife won't get pregnant, Fr. Richard Hogan of "NFP Outreach" makes a rather stunning assertion (my emphasis) ...

NFP ... builds a respect for human life. With this respect in place through the use of NFP, any decision by a couple to try to achieve a pregnancy or to avoid will be made for a good reason. It is not that serious reasons are not necessary—they are. But, a couple practicing NFP after taking the classes and knowing the method, practicing their faith attending Church and receiving the sacraments, with an active prayer life, and conscientious about the religious education of their children, will, if they decide to avoid a pregnancy, have serious reasons. 

In other words, NFP is the magic pill.  The NFP Outreach spokesman assures us that if you buy into the technique, BINGO! your discernment process is solved.  Any reason you come up with for separating sex from babies will, since you've come up with it, be a serious one! 

My First Post on Finn

This was my first post on Bishop Finn.  It's from October 23, 2011.  Since this post, Fr. Ratigan was convicted and sentenced to fifty years in prison.  Bishop Finn spent $1.4 million of diocesan money to defend himself, but was also convicted in criminal court of failure to report child abuse; he was placed on probation and fined.  He has been serving as bishop of Kansas City ever since his conviction, though such a conviction would have prevented him from even being a crossing guard at a public school.  He finally resigned today, under pressure from the Vatican.

The Catholic Defense League and Opus Dei and some of Finn's fellow bishops shamed themselves by vigorously defending Bishop Finn, and in the case of the Catholic Defense League, spinning the story to a point where the facts of the case were utterly distorted.

My original post garnered 99 comments, some of them very angry at me for daring to attack a doctrinally orthodox bishop.  It remains the third most read post in the history of this blog.  It deserves reposting today, but I'm not allowing comments.  My entire series of posts on Finn, written in the 3 1/2 years since the one below, can be read here.


***


"Let's step outside and settle this thing like men," she said, and she was a lady. "You're spewing anti-Catholic rhetoric!" he insisted. "How can you criticize a bishop when you're an actor and everyone knows actors are perverts and nitwits," she screamed. (That last gal had a point).

These are all reactions to my post last week about Rod Dreher's article on Bishop Finn's Indictment.

And above all, people are charging me with believing the biased media coverage of the scandal.

This, at least, is not true. In fact, everything I say in this post will be taken not from a media account of the scandal, but from the independent report on it as commissioned by the diocese, the Graves Report, which you can read on your own here.

So let's shove the media aside and see for ourselves what's contained in this internal diocesan report conducted by an independent firm.

***

Fr. Shawn Ratigan was a priest of the diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph, Missouri. While pastor of St. Patrick's Parish (a parish with a grade school), his behavior around children raised many red flags. There were several incidents of "boundary violation", in which Fr. Ratigan held girls on his lap or tried to spend time with them alone while waiting for rides. At one function, he began rubbing a girl's back until her father angrily pulled her away. A pair of girl's panties was found in Fr. Ratigan's back yard planter.

In December, 2010, a computer technician servicing Fr. Ratigan's laptop discovered hundreds of photographs of young girls, apparently taken by Fr. Ratigan. Many were of children playing, the photographer focusing on their crotches and not including their faces. There were photos of girls climbing ladders in swim suits, focusing on their crotches. There were photos of girls wearing shorts sitting with their legs apart, focusing on their crotches. The girls appeared to be between eight and ten years old. One stash of photos was of a child in diapers. The series of photos ended with the diaper moved to the side, to reveal the girl's genitals and her bare buttocks. The photos were labeled with this toddler's name. Another series of photos was of a girl of about age seven, sleeping, but posed in sexually provocative ways while asleep. Her face was fully visible. The computer also contained links to internet sites advertising spy photo pens and two way mirrors.

The computer technician who made this discovery, his hands shaking, brought this laptop to the deacon at St. Patrick's and showed him the photos. The deacon immediately took the laptop to Msgr. Murphy, the Vicar General of the diocese, and Bishop Finn's right hand man. Before he viewed the images, Msgr. Murphy called and asked a friend of his who was a police officer if a single photo of a nude girl on a laptop "in a non-sexual pose" constituted child pornography. The officer answered that it might, but, particularly if it were of a family member, it would probably not be prosecuted.

This was the only contact the diocese made with the police until the following May. For, even after Msgr. Murphy viewed the images, and after it became clear that these images were not of family members, and that they were of a sexual nature, and that they were almost certainly photos Fr. Ratigan had taken of children in the diocese, neither Msgr. Murphy nor any one else involved in this case, contacted the police for nearly six months.

As soon as the pictures were discovered, Fr. Ratigan tried to kill himself, leaving a note saying he was sorry for what he had done. He survived his suicide attempt and was sent to a psychologist in Philadelphia who specializes in treating priests with problems. And yet, after interviewing Fr. Ratigan, and even after viewing the pictures which were pulled from Fr. Ratigan's laptop, the psychologist concluded he was not a pedophile. He was just lonely. And depressed. Why? Because the principal of the school was "out to get him," having complained about his inappropriate behavior around children. It was her fault, not his.

The diagnosis being evidently wrong, there were at least a few people in the Chancery Office who advised Bishop Finn to seek a second opinion. He did not.

At one point the legal counsel for the diocese told Msgr. Murphy that an attempt should be made to identify the children in the photographs, particularly if they were children in the diocese, as it appeared they were - victims of a child pornographer, and perhaps of other more violent sexual abuse at his hands. Legal Counsel also advised Msgr. Murphy to report this case to the Missouri Division of Family Services.

But contrary to the advise of counsel (and contrary to common sense, not to mention Christian charity), no one made any attempt to identify these victims or to reach out to their families.

No one made any report to the Division of Family Services.

In fact, no one even bothered to report the incident to the Independent Review Board, as required by diocesan "Protecting God's Children" policies!

Bishop Finn then assigns Fr. Ratigan to a Vincentian Retreat Center ... where school groups often go on retreats. He tells Fr. Ratigan to stay away from computers, cameras and children, but he allows him to say Mass for the school groups.

The Vincentian leaders at the retreat house adamantly claim that they were never informed of these restrictions on Fr. Ratigan, nor were they told he was a pedophile with a flair for child pornography; they thought he was simply recovering from his suicide attempt. Bishop Finn says he informed them of the full story; they say he did not. In fact, they told the firm conducting the independent review that if they had known the full scope of the situation, they would not have let Fr. Ratigan live with them. In any event, no one was placed in a supervisory role over Fr. Ratigan. He was living entirely unsupervised.

Immediately, Fr. Ratigan began using Facebook. He started attending public events and St. Patrick's parish-family events where children were present, including a birthday party for a sixth grade girl. He started glad handing parishioners, telling them the reason he had not been re-assigned to St. Patrick's was that the principal was "out to get him". Against the Bishop's directives, he made contact with children on retreat at the center, and on Easter Sunday - Easter Sunday - he tried to take pornographic pictures of a girl at the center.

Bishop Finn was informed of all of these violations of the "honor code" he had placed on Fr. Ratigan and yet Bishop Finn admitted that, as late as May of 2011, he had (in his own words) "not formulated a plan to further address Fr. Ratigan's behavior if he continued to violate restrictions".

By the middle of May, Msgr. Murphy eventually let his policeman friend know of the full scope of the situation - that the laptop contained not one photo of a nude girl in a non-provocative pose (as he had told him earlier), but hundreds of photos of girls, all of a lascivious nature. The police officer said, "You never told me that," and informed Msgr. Murphy that the diocese should immediately turn the laptop over to the police.

But instead the laptop was given to Bishop Finn, who gave it to Fr. Ratigan's brother, who (naturally) destroyed it.

And while copies remained of the photos, the original evidence (the laptop and its hard drive), including any other cached information the police could have obtained, is now gone for good.

***

Now, Bishop Naumann makes a passioned defense of his brother bishop, and points out that many in the Kansas City media are viciously pro-abortion and will stop at nothing to destroy the Catholic Church. Bishop Naumann, I'm sure this is true.

And many lay folk have pointed out to me that Bishop Finn is orthodox in his teaching and has boldly attacked pornography, for example. I'm sure that this is true as well.

But have we come to a stage where we are so desperate for orthodox bishops that we turn a blind eye to their other shortcomings? Are we so defensive against our own sins that we refuse to acknowledge where we fall shy of virtue, simply because other sinners are pointing our failures out to us?

And how do we expect to turn the hearts of the pro-abortion zealots in the Kansas City media if we don't even have the gumption to protect a two-year-old girl who's being victimized while asleep by one of our priests? Why on earth would they listen to us about the evils of killing unborn babies when we won't even do anything to protect a sleeping two-year-old from a predator?

Because, my friends, it comes down to this.

Bishop Finn and his Vicar General knew that children under their care had been exploited and abused. Bishop Finn and his Vicar General did nothing to identify or protect those children. Instead, and incredibly, when the story finally broke, Bishop Finn and his Vicar General instructed that the parish of St. Patrick's hold listening sessions at which parents were asked to write down one "hurt" and one "hope".

As the Graves Report states, two "hurts" collected at listening sessions included the following ...

***

The images of my daughter's private areas that the FBI showed me, they are forever burned into my brain. Shawn Ratigan was in my house, around my children in February, and I thought my children were completely SAFE!!

***

You let one of your priests hurt my children and you saw the pictures and decided to cover it up. That monster was in my house in February 2011 to prey on my children and I let him in since you felt you were above the law and made that decision not to turn in photos of my kids.

***

So those of you out there who are offering to take me out back and fight me, those of you who think I'm an anti-Catholic filled with hatred and Chick-tract rhetoric, those of you who think that if a human being happens to be an actor, he should not be allowed to write about this, answer one question for me ...

What would you say to these parents? Or better yet, if Fr. Ratigan had taken pictures of your sleeping two-year-old girl and removed her diapers to take a spy-pen snapshot of her vagina and her bare butt for use on his computer, and perhaps molested her and the diocese never bothered to tell you this, and never bothered to warn you not to let this man back in your house, or reach out to make sure you and your daughter got the help you needed (all the while the beg letters for the annual diocesan appeal kept coming in the mail) ... what would you put down on the "hurt" card? What would you "share" as your "hope" during the listening session while somewhere a man we call father masturbates to a picture of your sleeping two-year-old?

Perhaps Bishop Finn should not be tried for this misdemeanor (failure to report the crime in a timely manner) in the criminal courts of my state. I think a case could be made either way. But one thing I'm sure he should do.

He should repent in sack cloth and ashes and beg the forgiveness of every girl dancing naked in Fr. Ratigan's dreams. For he had the ability to reach out and offer help and the love of Christ to these girls and their parents, and he did not do it.

Fin de Finn!

This was a long time coming and is a welcome relief - The Pope has accepted the resignation of Bishop Finn of Kansas City.

I've decided to turn comments off on this post.  I really don't want to read indignant Catholics who think this was the result of a liberal conspiracy against poor, persecuted, "conservative" Finn.  Read my two dozen or so posts about the situation, or go straight to the source and read the Graves Report, the independent investigation into how Finn covered up for and enabled the sexual abuse of children in his diocese.  Step away from the right / left factional split for a while and simply look at the facts.  Finn should have been removed long ago.

I suspect Bishop Barros in Chile will be asked to resign as well if the situation there continues to fester.

It is perhaps naive to hope that our bishops can be good, holy Christians.  It is, however, incumbent upon us to demand that they be decent, trustworthy human beings.

Sadly, most of them are not.

Catholics: Don't Believe CNA's Spin on Bishop Barros and the Situation in Chile

A scene from the Riot in the Cathedral, where protesters attempted to stop the appointment of Juan Barros as bishop of Osorno.

Conservatives are rightly angry at liberal bias in the media.  There's a lot of it.

But the game works both ways.  There's a huge conservative bias as well, and it follows a pattern.

The pattern is typically this.  Someone in the Church does something horrifically awful and outrageously embarrassing, something that can't possibly be defending or excused.  For several days the truth is out there and none of my DC (Defensive Catholic) friends comment on it either here or on Facebook or elsewhere.  An awkward silence falls and the truth is simply ignored.

Then (typically) the Catholic Defense League or an organization like Catholic News Agency pipes up with a defense of the situation that is a real stretch of the imagination, but that provides a handy template for the reactionaries to use, and suddenly comboxes are filled everywhere with the rank and file DCs who have swallowed the template whole, who run with it and who don't look back.

With Bishop Finn, the lie that was being promulgated was that the priest's crime at the center of the scandal was not child pornography at all, that the priest in question was utterly innocent, and that Finn did all he could in the situation, that he was being persecuted for being a vocally orthodox bishop who was firm on pro life issues, and that this is why folks in Kansas City were out to crucify him, the whole case against Finn being trumped up.

But the truth was just the opposite.  In fact, not only (in that case) were the pictures in question child porn, but the perpetrator priest was sentenced to fifty years in prison for producing the hundreds of images, using his own parishioners as victims, some under the age of three. And for years prior, Finn not only refused to look into or even acknowledge any of the many complaints about this priest's behavior, some of which came directly from the principal of the school that most of the victims attended, he also stonewalled once the child porn came to light, failed to inform or warn any of the families of the victims, gave the priest continued access to children, was complicit in the destruction of evidence, spent $1.4 million of diocesan money defending himself against two misdemeanor charges in court, only alerted the police when forced to, and, in short, put children at risk and failed to get the offending priest any serious help or counseling.

The Defensive Template bore no relation at all to the real situation.

And now we have Catholic News Agency doing the same thing, albeit with more subtlety, but in a way that's just as clumsy and heavy handed.  Several days after the original reports of the Riot in the Cathedral in Osorno, Chile surfaced - several days after right wing Catholics have been studiously ignoring them - a template has been handed down.  And now this is what the DCs (Defensive Catholics) will use to defend the episcopacy and to see-no-evil, hear-no-evil.

So, since that is bound to happen, let me address the CNA "report" and counter its most egregious errors.

I'll quote from CNA's biased spin on the story with my own comments (in red, a la Father Z), which are closer to the truth ...

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1.    Who is Fernando Karadima Farina?

Fr. Karadima fostered the vocation of some 40 priests (What CNA leaves out: Fr. Karadima sexually abused altar boys for fifty years - according to court documents.  He led a kind of cult-within-the-church, feeding his own lust while appealing to wealthy right-wing Catholics with his ostensible orthodoxy, after the pattern of Fr. Maciel of the Legion of Christ), including Bishop Juan Barros, who decades ago belonged to Karadima’s closest circle of friends (and was, according to some, Karadima's gay lover - which, I suppose counts as belonging to Karadima's "closest circle of friends".) When reports of sexual abuse and other scandal surrounding Karadima surfaced, Bishop Barros, like a number of other prelates, at first did not believe the accusations. (Not only did they not believe them, they stonewalled and prevented the allegations from being seriously considered.  Against their own diocesan policies regarding the protection of children, allegations against Karadima were never presented to any committee.  Barros himself is said to have angrily torn up a letter to the bishop by one of Karadima's victims.)

The judge in the civil case dismissed the charges because the alleged abuse was too far in the past. (It was not alleged abuse, it was actual abuse, as the judge acknowledged in her ruling, and as the Vatican eventually confirmed.  It was not "too far in the past", it was simply not covered by the statute of limitations.  The phrasing of this sentence alone tells you all you need to know about CNA's agenda in this bit of "reporting".)  Nevertheless, in February 2011, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican completed its own investigation and declared 84-year-old Karadima guilty. He was sent to a life of solitude and prayer (a sentence he is reportedly flouting).

The news of the sentence surprised bishops, priests and lay people who viewed the priest as a role model and considered the initial accusations as an attack on the Church (and therefore refused seriously to consider them - EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE TRUE ALL ALONG).

2.    Juan Carolos Cruz and the accusers

Three of Karadima’s reported victims are accusing Bishop Barros of covering up the priest’s abuses. The accusations do not agree with the investigation carried out by the Vatican.  (Here we have a simple lie at worst, and an utterly strange assertion at best.  All we know of the Vatican's investigation is the upshot, the sentence.  The accusations were part of the evidence the Vatican considered.  If the accusations led to the sentence - which was guilty - how can CNA claim that the accusations "do not agree" with the "investigation carried out by the Vatican"?  This assertion crosses the line from biased reporting with a pro-episcopal slant to simple falsehood).  Juan Carlos Cruz is the most well known of the accusers. He lives in the United States and is often asked by national and international news media for comments on what is happening in the Chilean Church.

After Bishop Juan Barros was appointed as Bishop of Orsono, Cruz told CNN Chile that the Chilean Episcopal Conference and Pope Francis were giving Karadima’s victims “a slap in the face.” This has created international media attention.  (CNA is deliberately leaving out a crucial fact.  Cruz and the other accusers are claiming that Barros both protected Karadima and participated in the abuse by watching it take place as a voyeur.  If that's true, isn't Barros' appointment a "slap in the face"?  And even if it's not true, is not Pope Francis' appointment of a bishop who was part of the inner-inner circle of a cannonically convicted abuser a "slap in the face"?  Is it wrong that this phrase has generated media attention, as CNA implies?)

3.    Bishop Barros’ Defense

Bishop Juan Barros and three other bishops close to Karadima supported the decision of the Holy See in April of 2011 and denied having known about his double life. They declared in a statement that “with great sorrow we have accepted the sentence declaring him guilty of serious offences condemned by the Church. Like so many, we learned about this situation and its diverse and multiple effects with deep astonishment and pain.”

In a letter addressed to the faithful of the Osorno diocese days before his installation, Bishop Barros reiterated that “I never had any knowledge of any accusation concerning Father Karadima when I was the Secretary for Cardinal Juan Francisco Fresno and I never had any knowledge nor did I even imagine such grave abuses as this priest committed against his victims. I neither approved nor participated in those actions.”

“The deep pain that continues to affect the victims for long years profoundly hurts me. And I reiterate along with the whole Church that there is no place in the priesthood for those that commit those abuses,” he added.

Before taking up his responsibility as the Bishop of Osorno on March 21, 2015, the prelate reiterated that he was not linked to the priest’s abuses.

“I am telling you, before God who is listening to us, it did not cross my mind that these things were going on. I would not have accepted it for any reason, and I am not a friend of Fernando Karadima,” he stated.  (As Bill Clinton would say, "That depends on what the definition of 'am' is."  While Barros says "I am not a friend of Fernando Karadima," he certainly was.  Read on.)

He added that before the Vatican convicted him in 2011, “I was already becoming distant from him. Of course I had been close, but I was already becoming distant from him, not because I knew about these questions of the accusations but because he became ill tempered.  I never knew about these very tragic things. The pain of the victims hurts me enormously, I pray for those that carry this pain with them today.”  (So Barros was indeed at one time "close" to Karadima, which is glossed over in his denials and in CNA's reporting.  

Barros may be telling the truth here.  He may be innocent of any cover-up of Karadima's actions, of any collusion with Karadima's bishop who covered for him, of any sexual contact with Karadima and with any vicarious participation in the abuse.

But here's what makes me skeptical.  

1. The three public accusers of Barros are three of the victims of Karadima.  They were not believed for many years.  They were ostracized and criticized and belittled.  But they were telling the truth.  Both a judge in Chile and the Vatican admit that, all along, they were telling the truth about Karadima.  So why are they now, all of a sudden, beginning to lie about one of Karadima's intimates?  Why stop telling the truth about how they were abused - a truth that was never believed - and start lying at this point?

2. If these accusers are lying, if they are trying to destroy Barros, why are they not accusing him of sexual abuse?  Why are they adamant that Barros did not directly abuse them, that he merely "watched" as they were abused, engaged in sexual contact with Karadima, and ran interference for him, preventing their eventual complaints from being heard?  Why are these accusers deliberately limiting their accusations against Barros if they're lying and if their goal is to destroy him?)

Before being the bishop of Osorno, Bishop Barros was the bishop for the Chilean military for almost 11 years, Bishop of Iquique for four years and Auxiliary Bishop of Valparaiso for five years. During all this time, his ministry had not been questioned. (This riot was caused not by Barros' previous episcopal positions, but by his being appointed by Francis as bishop of Osorno, the first appointment of Barros since his mentor Karadima was convicted.  It's obvious why this appointment caused a furor, while Barros's appointment as bishop of the military a decade ago was not on anyone's radar.  To imply that this indicates some sort of shadowy agenda on the part of the rioters is typical of this whole article, which reads more like a pro-Barros press release than a news report.)

4.    The Protests in Osorno

On the day Bishop Barros was installed, dozens of people (no, hundreds of people inside the cathedral and about 4,000 outside the cathedral), including non-Catholics, (what evidence does CNA have that non-Catholics were involved in the protests?  What difference would it make even if they were?  Are non-Catholics not allowed to enter a cathedral?  Are non-Catholics not allowed to protest?) entered the Cathedral of Osorno with banners and black balloons to protest against the prelate. Large groups inside the church held white balloons and banners in support of the bishop.

The media has publicized a letter signed by priests and deacons, as well as a letter from the Congregation of the Sacred Heart signed by their provincial Father Alex Vigueras, demanding the resignation of the prelate.

In response, the Permanent Committee of the Chilean Episcopal Conference issued a March 18 statement expressing their “support, in a spirit of faith and obedience, for Pope Francis who has nominated Bishop Barros as bishop of the Diocese of Osorno.”

5 . Other interests?

The media coverage on Bishop Barros’ appointment as Bishop of Oserno is taking place in the midst of the debate on legalizing abortion as well as bills on euthanasia and homosexual unions in Chile. The Church is one of the few voices that is speaking out against these proposals.

In this context, 51 congressional representatives sent a letter to the Vatican questioning the appointment, some of whom are close to Cruz. This has led to some speculation that those advocating legal and social changes are using the Karadima case and his former friendship with Bishop Barro to discredit the Church in this debate.

(Is it possible that the protests against Barros are politically motivated, and that the pro-abortion / pro-"gay marriage" crowd is trying to capitalize on this situation?  Certainly!  In fact, I can't imagine that those with a liberal political agenda are not trying to capitalize on this.

But that's not the point.  

Fellow Catholics, we are not always persecuted because of our beliefs.  We are not always persecuted because we're trying to do good.  

In fact, when it comes to the Abuse Scandal, we are criticized and persecuted because of the evil the bishops have condoned and facilitated.  

And until we acknowledge that, and as long as we buy the PR-spin that organizations like CNA pass off as "reporting", we'll never make progress on issues like abortion and marriage.  In buying the Great Lie that CNA is selling here, we become anti-evangelists, witnessing against truth and goodness, witnessing against Our Lord Himself.)

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ADDENDUM - There are reports that the Chilean Bishops' Conference forced Barros and three other bishops publicly to apologize for supporting Karadima.  Barros is not the "aw, shucks, what did I know?" former pal of Karadima that he claims to be.  He was his protege and one of his most adamant supporters (at the very least).  And remember, Karadima sexually abused altar boys for over fifty years, with bishops stonewalling and covering up for him during that time.