Rudy Giuliani - What gets covered regarding morals?

by Sara,

This is about a story that for some crack-pot reason is not getting written up by the national media, even though if you do just a mite of googleing, you'll discover that the Right Wing has long had the story, but gotten no traction on it.  To read all the bloody details, what you do is google the two names, Alan Placa and Rudy Giuliani, and you can read about it for hours, should you have a taste for Priestly Pedophilia and the investigations of recent years thereof.  I'll sketch an outline of the story here. 

Placa and Giuliani became friends when they were 13-14, when they began High School, and remained close friends through College.  Post college Placa went to the Seminary, and Giuliani off to Law School.  After he was ordained, Placa went off to Law School too.  Eventually he became a Monsignor in the Diocese of Rockville Center, Long Island NY, and as we know Giuliani went to DC to Reagan's DOJ.  When Giuliani needed an Annulment of his first marriage, Placa did the job. 

But Monsignor Placa got into considerable trouble in the late 1990's and early 2000 era, when he not only was accused of abuse of two minors, who could not sue him or the diocese because the five year statute of limitations was long past, but when the whole huge story broke, first in Boston, and then across the country, Monsignor Placa comes up in several parts of it.  While serving on Long Island, he had developed a legal strategy for dealing with abuse complaints that involved having an "intervention team" that met with family members and the abused, without revealing that Placa was indeed the Diocese Lawyer on such matters.  Placa took great pride that in cases that if litigated might cost the Diocese Millions, he could frequently manipulate the situation, and get out for a few thousand.  Of course the Monsignor was flying a false flag -- he was not a spiritual counsel, he was the Bishop's Lawyer.  He traveled the country teaching Bishops the technique -- apparently 200 cases where he was successful outside his own diocese. 

Well into the 1980's, the preferred method of dealing with Priestly Pedophilia was to send the guy off for "therapy."  There were several institutions available, St. Lukes in Maryland still exists and is professional, but there was another, the House of Affirmation run by a Father Thomas A. Kane, which was a huge fraud.  Kane lied about his degrees in Psychology, but that was only found out later.  In the meantime he acquired lots of high grade real estate, and when he was about to go under, he transferred title to Placa.  (Estate in Mass, Estate in Florida among other assets.).  The transfers were not discovered till years later.  (When evaluated under court order the Houses of Affirmation were judged to have no treatment program that passed a professional review.)

In 2002 when this whole story was all over the papers and all, Suffolk County on Long Island ordered up a Grand Jury to review the whole situation with Rockville Center Diocese, and while they could not charge Placa because of Statute of Limitations matters, they issued a report about his "intervention team" that manipulated victims and their families, and his own unanswered accusations of abuse of two teens,  (they didn't know about the House of Affirmation Property deals), and as a result, Monsignor Placa was suspended from the Priesthood, and essentially defrocked.  Apparently his case has been sent to Rome where it rests.  He was allowed to say one public Mass -- at the funeral of Rudy's Mother.  (Which is why her funeral was picketed by victims.)

So after 2002 Rudy is no longer Mayor -- and he establishes a Consulting Firm in his name, supposedly dealing with private-public partnerships and all that, and who does he partner up with?  Well Former Monsignor Alan Placa, his best buddy from High School and College.  When the Long Island Grand Jury was trying to serve him with a Subpoena, Rudy hid him till the term was out.  Then, Placa developed a speciality within Guiliani and Associates of taking private Not for Profit Hospitals owned by orders of Nuns who no longer had the membership to administer or staff them -- from which the Corporate Health Community was willing to pay nice commissions to the Guiliani Consultants. 

Now every bit of this has been reported over the years in Newsday, the NYTimes, and to some extent in books by Jason Berry.  You can find all the articles archived at the Bishopsaccountability Web site.  You can find the report of the Grand Jury there.  In fact the Times front paged it when Rudy hired Placa for his firm.  And you can find the efforts of the Right Wing Bloggers to make an issue of this -- but they have never gotten any traction.  By the way, one little part of it involved a real shouting match between Donoghue of the Catholic Civil Rights outfit, (Anti-Edwards) and Jimmy Breslin -- and I really recommend their essays as informative reading.  Breslin wanted to know why a Catholic Civil Rights outfit should not be about advocacy against sexual abuse of minors, and he got a fight and not an answer. 

So what I want to know is why did Rudy hire this guy?  Is this his version of Affirmative Action?  We know he recommended Kerik to George W. Bush for Homeland Security -- is this his taste in Health and Human Services?  (God Help Us.) 

I invite everyone to google all the documents and get your own take on the matter.  But I have problems.  Why, given the press that Placa's problems have already had, including Rudy's hiring of Placa, has this not been presented front face to the Religious Right of the Republican Party now discussing nominations -- with the question, do you really believe Christian Conservatives think this taste in appointees or hiring decisions is what they want?

I guess our problem is we have no little blue dress. 

 

Comments

[Melanie]

Know your bad guys: William Donohoe is the president of the Catholic League. These are extreme right wingers who in no way represent most garden-variety Catholics.

[orionATL]

ah, age and memory,

what a powerful combination.

sounds to me like guliani has a taste for the wild side of life - at least with respect to his choice of associates.

which brings up the logical next question:

what has guliani himself done on the wild side of life - was it only women and sex?

or is there more we do not know.

good guys don't consistently pick bad guys for friends cf. our current prez.

[Crab Nebula]

Sara, I am pretty much a newshound compared to 99% of the population, though less with each passing year now.....and I never heard this story. I don't read the papers much, never the tabs when I lived in NYC (10 years, all thru Rudy) and have always been a top line skimmer. And blogs have made it easier for me.

So I think I'm a pretty good proxy for regular low-information voters for anything that I haven't read on a Dem blog. I've never heard of this story. I think it will cause him much damage. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't.

Yes it's complex, which means it's a cumbersome campaign weapon, but it fits into a sleazy corruption narrative (kerik, mistress, wife, temper). A whispering campaign in the R primary will get this out there. He was already damaged goods among fundies.

[Sid58]

Well, we have a big black frock.

[Sid58]

Maybe that shd be "cassock" -- but there is little comparison to Monica.

[jwp]

Sara,

If the Repubs follow their standard playbook, the story will come out much closer to the election.

And only if needed to knock Guiliani out.

My guess is that it won't be needed. So the Repubs won't bring it up; needless sullying of the brand name.

The MSM won't touch a story like this because it makes the Catholic Church look corrupt.

[Rick B]

I'll agree with JWP. It's too early for the Repugs to use their best oppo research on Guiliana. Suppose he otherwise self-destructs and this got out anyway. The whole party is hurt.

But the next question is why the Democrats are alreading spreading it. I'd guess it is just way too juicy, and would be best used after Guilani had gotten the nomination.

As for making the Catholic Church look corrupt, I'm sure that could be finessed.

[freepatriot]

so rudi's pals with mobsters, a married gay couple, and he paling around with a pedophile priest

oh ya, I can REALLY SEE rudi winning the repuglican nominee now

[Sara]

I hope those interested will read into the story by following my google instructions -- Alan Placa and Rudy Guiliani -- and read what turns up. As I said, this story depends on MSM reporting already published in places like the Times and Newsday, and the House of Affirmation part -- by Jason Berry and the Boston Globe. (and there were a few Pulitizers there.) It is just a matter of putting it together as backstory to Rudy's hiring Placa in 2003 after it was mostly all on the record.

The Priest Podophile Story was a long time coming to the front pages of the paper. The first reporting was in the National Catholic Reporter beginning in the early 90's, followed by a Book, "Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children" by Jason Berry, (see the paperback 2nd Edition, U of Illinois Press, 2000.) The Berry book is essential for fitting together everything that hit the papers after the Boston Globe stories of 2002. Berry is a practicing Catholic with a Jesuit Education -- not exactly some sort of anti-Catholic warrior.

The Bishops Accountability Website is extremely deep. It's run by Catholics trying to resource reforms, and they are in the process of digitalizing and posting everything on this massive story. Some of the Plaintiff's lawyers have donated their files to be included in the archive -- thus you can search through old depositions, trial testimony, and in the Placa case, the Suffolk County Grand Jury Report. Again -- this information source is being assembled by Catholics -- not anti-Catholics -- in the interests of ending secrecy and getting to reforms. I have great respect for the people putting this archive on line simply because it makes secrecy less likely to serve the ends of power -- and information leads to accountability.

Rudy seems to be running for President by substituting what he did in public on 9/11 for everything else in his record, and flim-flaming the Evangelicals with this image. In fact, Rudy's worst sin was his abject failure to deal with the communications problems between the two tribes locked in turf war in NYCity prior to 9/11 -- whether Police and Fire could communicate with each other in emergency situations. Hundreds of Firefighters died because he did not make the decisions that would have fixed this known problem. Rudy empowers himself by sitting atop waring tribes, he does not see his job as resolving conflicts. Were he to become President I suspect he would do the same thing, that is nurture existing divisions. So regardless of any partisian playbook, I think this needs to be on the table now. I also think many of the Evangelicals need to have access to the underlying stories so they can exercise their values and judgment. We know that no Democratic Campaign is going to use oppo research on sleeze to Swift Boat a Republican Nominee at a late stage in the campaign, in fact the official party will avert its eyes even if they know the truth. So if more progressive bloggers can do the research on line and for free, and put it into the mix -- maybe we help them avoid a terrible choice in the first place. Right now it bothers me that the Evangelicals are being fed a most incomplete picture of Giuliani, and his poll numbers are way up there, beating both Clinton and Obama in match-ups.

[Mimikatz]

Great job, Sara. Everytime I get discouraged at the Dem filed for 2008 I just look at the GOP field. What a bunch of second raters (at best).

[Tullius]

Well... I for one congratulate Msgr Placa for keeping the church from being robbed by lawyers and greedy clients. God's money is not supposed to enrich lawyers, but to finance good deeds and the advancement of the faith. Spending it on these people is not only a waste but blatant misappropriation of funds given py parishioners in good faith that they would be used for church purposes.

[Elizabeth]

These people? "These people" - survivors of clergy abuse - are your sisters and brothers, your mothers and fathers, your children. They did not ask for horrific acts of sexual assault to be perpetrated on them. Why do you speak in such an un-Christian manner of innocent people? And why do you praise a defrocked priest who sexually abused children?

Do you have any idea of the suffering of these children?

[jjjjj]

Ah...and the fact that Rudy established his "command center", complete with thousands of gallons of tanked gasoline, in Building 7 of the WTC....does that give him the presidential nomination, too?

[jjjj]

Ah..just googled it...

floor 23...very strange....

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani opens a $13 million emergency Command Center on the 23rd floor of World Trade Center Building 7. [Newsday, 9/12/2001] The center is intended to coordinate responses to various emergencies, including natural disasters like hurricanes or floods, and terrorist attacks. The 50,000 square foot center has reinforced, bulletproof, and bomb-resistant walls, its own air supply and water tank, beds, showers to accommodate 30 people, and three backup generators. It also has rooms full of video monitors from where the mayor can oversee police and fire department responses. It is to be staffed around the clock and is intended as a meeting place for city leaders in the event of an act of terrorism. [CNN, 6/7/1999; London Times, 9/12/2001; Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 233] The center is ridiculed as “Rudy’s bunker.” [Time, 12/31/2001] Most controversial is the 6,000-gallon fuel tank. In 1998 and 1999, Fire Department officials warn that the fuel tank violates city fire codes and poses a hazard. According to one Fire Department memorandum, if the tank were to catch fire it could produce “disaster.” Building 7 will be destroyed late in the day on 9/11; some suspect this tank helps explains why. [New York Times, 12/20/2001]

Entity Tags: World Trade Center, Rudolph ("Rudy") Giuliani

[Tullius]

@Elizabeth: I see the end result. This is a racketeering scheme. Strangely the only country that has such an "epidemic" of cases is the US, which also happens to features punitive damages and baseless pain&suffering awards in its legal system. There have been occurences elsewhere, but they have been rare and dealt with appropriately.

When I see Dioceses bankrupted, parish churches and schools closed and sold, social services ended, and that all to pay these greedy people and their even greedier lawyers, they have changed sides. Yesterday's victim became today's perpetrator.

All this could be done without plundering and destroying our church. But it isn't.

Maybe you don't see a tendency. I do. These charges serve exactly the same agenda as the heresy charges against the templars and similar campaigns. They provide cover for forces in the society in their strife to destroy the church. Yes, there is of course a core of truth in them, but the ridiculous éxaggeration and the subsequently courses of action are way overblown and outright hostile to Catholicism.

Friendly hint for democrats: we run on this agenda to our own peril. I doubt I'm the only Catholic who feels this way - and certainly not all of us are Donahue fans.

[Sara]

Tullius, you seem to ignore the fact that the Church Leadership, both in the US and in Rome, were warned back in the late 1970's of the scope of the problem -- long before victims and their lawyers got standing to get into court and force the truth on to the public record. Read Jason Berry's early work, read about the efforts of the Dominican, Thomas Doyle to use his position in the Vatican Embassy in DC to impress on Bishops the danger of their approach to a massive problems. If they had recognized the problems for what they were when they were warned, they would not be dealing with hundreds of cases, bankruptcy, and all the rest. Instead they persisted in moving pedophiles from one parish to another, making for more abused victims.

I think Lawyer Jeff Andersen gets it right -- all the lawsuits have not changed all that much, the secrecy is still there, the dishonesty is still present. But what has changed is that they now view the problem as bad for business, and their approach has changed because it is a better business decision. Andersen is one of those lawyers the pro-pedophile crowd love to hate. He was one of the first to take these cases -- he was a part time legal aid attorney when he took his first case, everyone said it would kill his legal career, but he was persuaded that the homeless drug addict he took on as client had a cause of action, he financed the case himself, and won big time. Since then he has done hundreds. Finally a few years ago a major religious order with multiple cases against them moving forward, sat down with Andersen and some of the counselors working with victims, and talked honestly -- the outcome was a fair settlement that respected institutions as well as the rights of those victimized. May have been a business decision, but it was progress.

[Elizabeth]

Tullius. What a disturbing user name. Do you believe you were recently released from service as a Roman legionnaire? Do you think you are Cicero? I wouldn't ask, except that you seem to be so frighteningly dislocated in time. Since the Templars were disbanded in the 14th century, it's troubling that you present the Templars as relevant to the 21st century. Do you understand that there is no Holy Roman Emperor? Can you get past your paranoia about attempts to "destroy" the Roman Catholic Church and see that the Church is busy destroying itself?

Are you aware that this is the United States of America and sexual abuse of children is a crime not tolerated in this country?

You claim you have seen the "end result" of clergy abuse? Liar. You have not seen the end result of clergy abuse. You have not seen the lives ruined by it. You have not grieved for the victims of clergy abuse who took their own lives because their psychological pain was more than they could bear. You have not buried a child who chose to die rather than live with unbearable pain. Parents across the United States have. They still grieve for their children and the good lives they might have had if a priest had not violated their children's trust and savaged them.

You do not know the men and women who are incapable of sexual relationships because of the flashbacks of abuse that intimacy triggers. You do not talk with the men and women who have suffered life-long depression, anxiety, constant nightmares, fear of forming close relationships.

You are ignorant of the pain that the Roman Catholic Church has caused in this matter, on a scope that can't even be imagined, because so few victims and their families come forward because of shame and fear. Fear because people like your defrocked, faithless priest Placa did everything they could to destroy what the pedophile and epebophile priests hadn't completely destroyed. Your Placa. You dare to congratulate this evil man man, then you own him.

Dioceses have not been "bankrupted." They have CHOSEN bankruptcy rather than have their dirty secrets made public in courts of law. The horrendous secrets are recorded in their own documents, documents which show that bishops were aware of an extraordinary number of cases of sexual abuse by their priests, and did nothing about them. There is not a bishop or an archbishop in the United States who has ever - EVER - picked up the telephone and called the police to report child abuse of which they were completely aware. No. Instead, they transferred the abusers from parish to parish, with the result that some priests racked up dozens of victims. All these data are recorded in diocesan records, although some bishops have done a thorough job of purging their files of incriminating evidence. Each of these bishops was an accesorty to the crime of child abuse.

It is certainly racketeering, and it is racketeering by the U.S. Bishops and the Church hierarchy, all the way up to and including the Pope. It is their pact that crimes committed by clergy will be covered up and not reported to the authorities. It is my fervent hope that RICO charges will one day catch up with the American Catholic hierarchy.

There are more cases of clergy abuse reported by victims in America than in countries where the Roman Catholic Church has an even greater stranglehold upon the government and the people.

Jesus said of those who hurt children in this way that it would be better for them if millstones were tied around their necks and they were drowned. In smugly supporting Placa, you are an accomplice to his crimes. In defaming the victims of sexual abuse, you are sinning against charity. Do you want to be complicit in this? Or do you want to really try to do something for the Roman Catholic Church, since the Knights Templar aren't around to do it?

The best thing you could do for the Roman Catholic Church is to ask hard questions of your bishops, archbishops and cardinals and demand true answers.

[tullius]

@Elizabeth - you start with a paragraph long smear, and it doesn't improve from there. That you consider the Church a criminal organization shows your true colors - so we Catholics are all criminals. Yeah. Go where you are heading to.

@Sara - I think you look at it the wrong way. The "pre-warning" theory is basically armchair quarterbacking. You effectively demand that the Church 30 years ago should have shed society's and science's belief that such behavior is an illness that can be healed, and should have trampled its own teching that there is forgiveness for sin. You demand a revert to medieval - or even prechristian - ideas about ultimate evil and the futility of forgiveness. It was unreasonable back then and it's still inhumane today - we should refuse such beliefs. The church did what it thought was best in those situations.

Furthermore - and that is the actual problem here - the state is unjustified and unreasonable to go after the church for failings of individual men. No church can operate on such a ground. Any organization sufficiently large has bad apples, and society will have to live with that. What is unaccpetable here is that by covert regulative acts ("punitive damages" and trumped up pain and suffering awards are exactly that) the state basically and sucessfully destroys the Church by denying its members places of worship and the ability to organize and build long lasting structures, to finance their activities and pay their clergy.
The state levies a duty on Catholics it may not reasonably do and is not morally entitled to (namely, to guarantee a infallible clergy, and, failing that, to build prosecutable structures and paper trails).

Lastly, there is an implicit understanding in the project of secularization, that believers and non-believers should be able to leave each other alone and do their respective thing. There is much worry in leftwing circles that radical christians try to revert to a time where christian belief was the only and absolute moral authority, and mold society accordingly. But in this case its the secular side which doesn't hold up its part - when our churches and schools get siezed, when the state holds us hostage for the actions of a few single men, then this is the ultimate power-grab by the non believers (for lack of a better word - I don't think atheists fits it).

[freepatriot]

yo, tullius, stop reading the bible and start reading the criminal code

anybody who has knowledge of a crime and DOES NOT report the crime becomes a criminal himself

the leaders of the catholic church should be prosecuted under the RICO act, for operating an on-going corrupt criminal organization

them's the facts, and nothing in the bible can change those facts

[orionATL]

in the new york times review of books this past sunday (march 11) there is a review entitled "Defender of the Faith" by tony judt.

the book being reviewed is "Sacred Causes" by Michael Burleigh.

michael burleigh sounds like he could be "tullius'" twin brother.

read the review to get a sense of the style of argument used by obtuse, excuse-making, church loyalists like tullius and burleigh.

[Sara]

The -- what Tullius calls -- a "pre-warning theory" is not a theory, it is simply a fact. In 1985 Ray Moulton, a defense attorney from New Orleans working for that Archdiocese defending priests, was commissioned by the Conference of Bishops to produce an estimate of frequency distribution of offenders, and a projection of costs. It was not published, but it is cited in Jason Berry's footnotes in the 2000 edition of his book. He estimated at that time that between 85 and 1992 there would be 400 criminal and civil litigations, and that the cost over time would be one Billion Dollars. Court ordered medical and psychological treatment of offenders (the Priests) was alone estimated at 41 million. As we know the number of litigations was greater than Moulton's estimate. At any rate the fact that an estimate of costs was requested by the Bishops around 1985 and was produced -- that is a factual warning, it is not a theory.

There were many earlier warnings that came from professional therapists working with victims of clerical abuse. And by the way, the Catholic Church is not the only institution with this problem. You might want to consult the work of Gary Schoener, his series of publications date well back to the mid 1970's, and his perspective comes from treating thousands of victims in both his private practice and a public clinic, as well as data from his University centered research. Schoener has been an expert witness in many cases, but he has also over the years privately done much consultation with Church Leadership -- Protestant as well as Catholic. I really think Tullius needs to dig into the professional and thoughtful work in this field before making claims that someone else is unfamiliar with the facts.

Freepatriot, there are two cases now in the pre trial process that are attempting to use the RICO formulation. There are two other cases that have, at the appeals court level, been allowed to name the Vatican in their suits. These are the cases at the cutting edge of the trial law. No one knows how they will come out -- my own guess is that in some ways it will depend on reforms promised but not necessarily yet delivered.

But Freepatriot, you have it right, the key to all this is whether institutions recognize the legitimacy of civil and criminal law, and operate within those laws. And this is at the core of the Placa story -- he used his NY State Law License to advise his Bishop bosses how to avoid legal justice. And this is the core of the question that needs to be raised with Rudy, who established a business relationship with Placa after he had been defrocked.

I have no problem at all with the Christian Theology of Forgiveness -- but I also remember that comes after contrition. Not just sorry we got caught, or sorry we had to pay up -- but sorry about the causes of problems which may well contribute to damages done. In the public sphere, I tend to agree with the theology of John Kennedy who said in his inaugural address that in this world God's Work must be our own. Among other things, I think this means run schools, camps and other institutions in line with Civil and Criminal law.

[orionATL]

it's not really relevant to the current discussion,

but your comment about JFK

put in context for me a very positive response i had to john edwards comments on - how shall i say it-

"christianity, "religion", "the american religious experience" ?

i thought edwards comments were thoughtful, and meaningful to me, in the context of the culture that I, at least, was raised in (southern appalachian).

and i thought they were a superb rhetorical "reaching out" effort - an effort that is easy to do if your have the sense of what folks care about,

but very difficult to do if you don't.

that impressed me about edwards.

[for the record, i am not even remotely religiously inclined.]

[Sara]

Orion ATL, I guess I will not be soon reading the Michael Burleigh offering -- unless perhaps I find it on remainder at 90% Discount.

The fight really is about whether Pius XII should be elevated to Sainthood, something John Paul II wanted to do, but there are so many barriers. Burleigh seems to be about making the argument for.

There is a wonderful story I found in the FDR Archives some years back about Pius XII. It comes out of the correspondance between FDR and Myron Taylor, his wartime ambassador to the Vatican -- Taylor had previously been head of US Steel, and had convinced the industry not to fight Unionization in 1937, helping FDR because it avoided a major (and potentially violent) labor battle -- but it ultimately got him squeezed out of his CEO position. Anyhow, FDR named him as his personal rep to the Vatican about 1940, and their correspondance was totally outside the orbit of the State Department -- the ultimate back channel. Taylor was able to get in and out of Italy under Swiss protection so it was one of the US's only "ears to the ground" in Europe between late 41 and the arrival of the US Army.

Anyhow, The Army Arrived in Rome June 5, 1944, and after a few days Taylor made a papal appointment for the commanding general -- I think it was Ridgeway -- as essentially a formality. Anyhow, the audience took place, and the two of them were treated to a Papal diatribe against the posting of any black US troops anywhere near Rome or near any convents. The Pope was convinced that blacks were all hot to rape his nuns -- and that was his only concern with the occupation. Now while the African Americans were then in a segregated army, they did have jobs such as truck driving, cooking in the messes and as mechanics in various depots -- so the Pope's wishes were not possible to follow. Anyhow, Taylor (who didn't have much respect for the Pope at any rate -- Taylor was Anglican), sent a description off to FDR -- and FDR responded by telling him to find some Black Catholic troops, and escort them to Mass at the Vatican. Apparently FDR went so far as to look for Black Catholic Officers attached to units in Italy -- and he sent Taylor their names and units, and insist that they be decked out in formal uniforms for the "visit." Then he discovered a few days later (probably from Eleanor) that the Tuskegee Fighter Pilots were in Italy, and he sent Taylor additional instructions that they be paraded to an audience and "blessed". FDR was never a rip roaring Civil Rights type, but some things really got his dander up. During the summer of 1944 while much else was in their correspondance of great consequence, they kept up a to and fro about how many black officers and units Myron Taylor could formally introduce at the Vatican.

One has to remember that FDR had close Jewish associates -- Morgenthau, Frankfurter and Sam Rosenman, and with and through them he understood the Holocaust. He also understood -- much unlike the Burleigh book -- that even though the Pope had been presented with much evidence, he had refused to morally condemn the German Final Solution. FDR understood the Pope's diatribe about black soldiers as part and parcel of his essential racism -- and while he could not be direct, he did all he could to rub his nose in it all. It is small potatoes given the whole, but it amuses me to visualize FDR in the Oval Office, long cigarette holder properly tipped, ordering up Taylor to take the Tuskegee Flyers (probably mostly Baptist) to the Vatican for a blessing, and to make sure they were smartly turned out. In the fall of 44 in the African American Press there are photos of Taylor's success getting the Tuskegee Flyers blessed properly. Remember, it was election season. It would never have happened had not FDR been profoundly pissed over Pius XII's first audience with an American General who happened to have just arrived in Rome the hard way.

The Politics of Canonizing Pius XII are now about a 25 year conflict -- and the Burleigh Book, and Judt's review are just the latest act in the saga. It is a major issue after all, deciding whether you want to honor a true racist. And that is the root of it, but it is also about power.

[orionATL]

thank you, sara, for the time you took to share this knowledge.

i had no idea of the background details of the burleigh-judt conflict. i just have a keen interest in bogus political argument and judt's article addressed that issue in a nice short little essay on the avoidance of unpleasant facts and the misuse of rhetoric.

the story you tell related to the canonization of pius xii reminds me of the efforts to elevate pres reagan to secular "sainthood" - ignoring his political and moral misjudgment, and his tolerance and support of unnecessary state-sponsored cruelty (in central america).

as for fdr, last year my wife and i visited the fdr memorial
for the first time. it is a beautiful and soothing place. my delightful surprise there was the powerful impression i gained, from the fdr quotations carved in the rocks, that fdr was john kennedy's rhetorical father. the wonderful touch that kennedy displayed with his public words was there to see and associate with fdr.

the two men represent, for me, a tradition of affecting, ennobling american public speech that i would love to see shine on us once more in my lifetime.

[RT]

But in this case its the secular side which doesn't hold up its part - when our churches and schools get siezed, when the state holds us hostage for the actions of a few single men, then this is the ultimate power-grab by the non believers

Tullius: your churches and schools were already seized, by the selfsame RCC hierarchy that betrayed you. Exactly what Roman Catholic Church property is owned by the laity that fill the collection plates? None, right? It all belongs to the priesthood.

They took it from you. Now someone else has taken it from them. But you lost it when you let a corrupt priesthood have all the power.

[John Casper]

"@Elizabeth - you start with a paragraph long smear, and it doesn't improve from there. That you consider the Church a criminal organization shows your true colors - so we Catholics are all criminals. Yeah. Go where you are heading to."

tullius, as far as I'm concerned, the only problem with Elizabeth's initial graph was that it was too darned diplomatic. She raised valid historical questions about the positions implied by your statements. Your failure to address them is your problem.

"@Sara - I think you look at it the wrong way. The "pre-warning" theory is basically armchair quarterbacking."

tullius, no it wasn't. Canon law has always prohibited priests from having sex. If you don't like RC canon law, please state your objections, but don't lie about it.

"You effectively demand that the Church 30 years ago should have shed society's and science's belief that such behavior is an illness that can be healed, and should have trampled its own teching that there is forgiveness for sin."

No one above quarreled with RC canon law about forgiveness, but nice try. The issue was and is their "suitability" for the priesthood. If you want to argue that a man who serially rapes underage boys is still "suitable" for the RC priesthood, please by all means, go right ahead. I think a lot of RC Bishops and Cardinals agree with you.

The other area you plainly do not understand is that RC's and Xtians have always agreed that sinners have to at least attempt to make restitution before God absolves them from their sins. Baltimore Cathechism was pretty good on this, please read it.

"You demand a revert to medieval - or even prechristian - ideas about ultimate evil and the futility of forgiveness."

tullius, do you know anything about Roman Catholicism or Xtianity? How is something pre-Xtian? How were Adam and Eve and everyone else born before Jesus of Nazareth saved? Pope Benny 16 expects you to know stuff like this, if you want people here to think you know what you're talking about.

"It was unreasonable back then and it's still inhumane today - we should refuse such beliefs."

Are you a charter member of NAMBLA? Canon law also has laws about the age at which RC's can marry, as well as strict prohibitions against premarital sex. Did you just forget about these?

"The church did what it thought was best in those situations.

No it didn't, the hierarchy did what it thought was best to hide it's criminal negligence.

"Furthermore - and that is the actual problem here - the state is unjustified and unreasonable to go after the church for failings of individual men."

No tullius, the "actual problem" is that the RC Church claims that God's grace of ordination can only work through one gender and that celibacy is mandatory. Those two factors, not surprisingly, have caused a shortage of ordained RC ministers. Now of course this isn't a problem for non-Roman Catholics, because they know mandatory celibacy is antithetical to scripture. The RC hierarchy has responded by ordaining some incredibly sick and dangerous men in addition to many, many more who are simply pathetically unqualified. According to Mark's gospel, Jesus' first miracle was healing Peter's mother-in-law. No evidence of "mandatory" celibacy as a requirement for priesthood until Hildebrand/Gregory in the eleventh century.

"No church can operate on such a ground."

Sure it can, it was the RC hierarchy who warrantied to the public that these men were safe to work with children. Now that the warranty has been proven completely false, you do not want to hold anyone accountable. Pope Benny 16 wants to hold gays accountable, but not child molesters, who are ordained.

"Any organization sufficiently large has bad apples, and society will have to live with that."

tullius, a "bad apple" is a parking ticket. A man who seeks out RC ordination solely as a platform to have sex with underage boys is not a "bad apple" by "reasonable people."

"What is unaccpetable here is that by covert regulative acts ("punitive damages" and trumped up pain and suffering awards are exactly that)"

tullis, what is "covert" about civil or criminal laws? Your position is that the priests, Bishops, and Cardinals, didn't know it was wrong, under civil, criminal, and canon law for a priest to repeatedly have sex with an underage boys?

"the state basically and sucessfully destroys the Church by denying its members places of worship and the ability to organize and build long lasting structures, to finance their activities and pay their clergy."

tullius, if a school principle did what RC Bishops and Cardinals routinely do, they would be held accountable by the exact same laws. You, however, don't want RC Bishops and Cardinals held accountable. They decide who gets ordained in their diocese. According to canon law, it's their responsibility. Canon law holds the Bishops responsible, why shouldn't criminal and civil law hold them accountable too? There's no precedent for what you wrote. If a priest is arrested for drunk driving, should he not be held accountable?

"The state levies a duty on Catholics it may not reasonably do and is not morally entitled to (namely, to guarantee a infallible clergy, and, failing that, to build prosecutable structures and paper trails).

tullius, you are some piece of work. So, altar boy sex is a sign that the RC Clergy is not "infallible?" I haven't run into any Roman Catholics who wanted an "infallible" clergy. I think they'd settle for some who did not routinely commit felonies and then try to cover them up.

"Lastly, there is an implicit understanding in the project of secularization, that believers and non-believers should be able to leave each other alone and do their respective thing."

No tullius, the Constitutional separation between Church and State does not allow the RC hierarchy to avoid the legal and financial consequences of ordaining sexual predators.

"There is much worry in leftwing circles that radical christians try to revert to a time where christian belief was the only and absolute moral authority, and mold society accordingly."

No there isn't.

"But in this case its the secular side which doesn't hold up its part - when our churches and schools get siezed, when the state holds us hostage for the actions of a few single men, then this is the ultimate power-grab by the non believers (for lack of a better word - I don't think atheists fits it)."

Oh poor tullius, the big bad state has kidnapped you and held you "hostage." You whine like an-in-the-closet-seminarian, or as I call them, "church mice."

[orionATL]

john casper -

your comment is superb rebuttal

and most interesting to read for this non-rc.

thanks for the info

and for taking the time to put it together in this very readable form.

[John Casper]

Thanks very much orionATL.

I also should have mentioned. The Roman Catholic hierarchy and tullius is not interested in "forgiveness" when it comes to divorced and remarried Catholics; they can never again receive the Sacraments, unless they are like Giuliani, and can leverage that wealth and power into an annulment (which doesn't make any theological sense). Faced with priests who routinely had sex with underage boys, however, Bishops gave them "absolution" again and again and again. Not only could these priests receive the sacraments, they were administering them.

[freepatriot]

yo, John Casper:

Bravo dude

I don't think I've ever seen such a well prepared smackdown

I don't think tullius will be back any time soon

and thanks for mentioning the fact that the RC Church forgives pedophiles and condemns divorced persons for life

that fact alone tell you all you need to know about the rc church

child molesters are forgivable, but adults who make a rational choice to end a failed marriage are not forgivable

you can't convince me that any organization with fucked up priorities like that can ever be considered "infailable"

Thanks again

[freepatriot]

Kudos to Elizabeth and Sara too

this thread is an excellent smackdown for the false christians like tullius and company who forget the very precepts of Christianity

I'm beginning to think that in addition to consulting the US Code, tullius should also try reading about the life and works of Jesus, cuz he seems to be very unfamiliar with the teachings of Jesus

here's the "Short Version", incase tullius has chance to revist his humilliation

Jesus stood up for the victims, and fought against a corrupt priesthood (does "tossing the moneylenders out of the temple" sound familar tullius ???)

YO, TULLIUS, READ THE BIBLE SOME TIME, YOU FUCKING TWIT

[Sara]

Well, what really bothers me about the Giuliani plus Placa story is that "business relationship" established after the truth of Placa was on the record, and then Rudy hired him on to his Consultant firm.

You see what he did was sell out assets that belonged to womens' religious orders, and here I mean hospitals, homes for the elderly and other health care facilities. They were for all intents and purposes forced sales. The Nuns who had built, staffed and run the hospitals over the years were getting older, they had few if any new sisters since the late 1960's, and everything they had was invested in their medical and nursing missions. Rudy and Placa used each other -- to both make large commissions converting formerly non-profit facilities into corporate owned for profit Health Industries, and in the process they probably pleased the Vatican by taking a valuable asset out of the hands of Church Women, thus disimpowering them. Catholic Hospitals were almost all owned by womens' religious orders, as are many private schools and colleges. When you own an institution you have some standing. What Rudy and Placa did was destroy that, and they did it for profit.

Orders that got the lay of the land fairly early -- say in the late 60's and early 70's, successfully migrated their institutions to lay boards, and retained their mission and non-profit status. In the 80's that all changed, and the era of forced sales and disestablishment began. That is where I think Rudy's responsibility rests -- and it really fits that he used a defrocked pedophile priest as his partner.

Back in the late 19th Century the order of nuns who built St. Mary's Hospital as part of Mayo Clinic, saved the money for expansion of their first building by essentially starving themselves. They cut their consumption of meat down to 5 lbs per week for about 35 nursing nuns. For the most part they just ate potatoes. This kind of practice was all too common throughout the US as religious orders founded and built hospitals. Bishops left and right refused to invest in the Sister's efforts to build institutions, and in many cases, they subverted their efforts to raise money in the Catholic Community, because many orders are not under the Bishop's actual control -- their orders have a different link with the Vatican through General Superiors.

So yes, it is authority over marriage and divorce (annulments) and it is also the easy freedom to sexually abuse kids, but it is also about the profound need to disimpower women.

So the problem is, how do you tell the Rudy-Placa story to an electorate that needs to know it and contemplate it so that they will factor it into voting decisions?

[John Casper]

Wow Sara, I had no idea about the theft of the institutions, but it makes perfect sense. Per everyone else, thanks for another great post.

OT, did any of the proceeds from the sales, as far as you know, go to taking care of the nuns in their old age?

[Sara]

I don't think one can see an overall pattern. Orders that began cashing out brick and morter assets in the first half of the 70's, and were able to get good investment advice and had within their membership good business management, they manage OK.

Then you have cases like the Chicago based teaching order who up until 1970 worked in the Chicago Parochial Schools, the order paid by the Archdiocese at $125 per month per teaching nun, as a stipend. In 1969 they asked Cardinal Cody to pay social security on them so as to make them elegiable for both that and medicare -- and to pay into an annunity fund. He turned them down cold, and when they made a fuss, he closed their schools. You can't get much in the way of savings for old age out of $125 per month even in 69 dollars. In my mind it was the Chicago reality with Cody that led many orders to look at how to cash out assets.

The hospitals Giuliani and Placa converted are mostly in New England, the Hudson Valley, and the old industrial belt in upstate New York, and I doubt if they were adequately cared for, because of recent years they have been doing considerable begging. There have been a scattering of articles on the matter in places like National Catholic Reporter. About 5 years ago the Nation had a fairly lengthy article on the subject. In contrast, the nuns who own St. Mary's Hospital, part of the Mayo Complex, long ago dealt with the Mayo Board directly, and negotiated agreements that provide very well for both the order as a whole, and the retired nursing and administrative sisters. Their retirement pretty much follows what Mayo would provide for any retired staff, and nurses at Mayo have a Union Contract, and are members of the State Nursing Association.

[John Casper]

Thanks very much Sara.