ARTICLES - HOT OFF THE FAGGOT

Abuse Tracker: BishopAccountability.org

Abuse Tracker
A Blog by Kathy Shaw

 
ABUSE
TRACKER
A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse.
Click on the headline to read the full story.
February 8, 2011





Ex-priest's indecent assault trial ends




CANADA

CBC News



The trial of Catholic priest Charles Picot wrapped up in Campbellton provincial court Tuesday with Crown and defence lawyers presenting their final arguments.



Picot is charged with indecent assault against a teenage boy in the late 1970s.



Judge Ronald LeBlanc granted a request by the prosecution to expand the timeframe of the alleged offence.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:36 PM











Three Women Share $15,500 in Second Round of Voice of the Faithful Emily & Rosemary Fund Grants




UNITED STATES

PRLog



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 08, 2011 – NEWTON, Mass. – Three women who reported losing employment because of discrimination are sharing $15,500 in awards from the second round of grants from the Voice of the Faithful’s Emily & Rosemary Fund for Women in the Church.



The recipients are Paula Beaton of Corpus Christi, Texas, Cathy Roldan of Vista, Calif., and Keisha Veryser of Charlevoix, Mich.



Lynette Petruska, formerly a Roman Catholic nun and now a St. Louis attorney, established the Emily & Rosemary Fund in 2009. The fund was established to support women who lose employment in the Roman Catholic Church as a result of injustice or discrimination and to help women who are working to bring about justice and equality in the Church. Petruska said she experienced injustice and discrimination after opposing sexual harassment and other sexual misconduct by priests at Gannon University, Erie, Penn., where she was appointed the first female chaplain in 1999.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:33 PM











Pastor Accused Of Sexually Assaulting His Daughters




CORPUS CHRISTI (TX)

KZTV



CORPUS CHRISTI - Testimony started today in the trial of a pastor accused of sexually abusing his own daughters. Gerardo Gonzalez' now 17-year-old daughter claims she first remembers her father touching her inappropriately when she was 5-years-old. "Usually it was at night, we always had a time to put our pajamas on.. he was like hugging me but in a spooning position. All of the sudden he just puts his hands on me and starts touching me," the accuser told the jury.



She also testified that her father would routinely punish his children with a belt, "All of us were just scared of him, my mom, my brothers, my sister and me. I just heard the belt just hit her over and over again and she was just yelling. (He) hit my brother over and over and my mom would beg him please stop." The younger daughter also claims that her father put her hand on his penis once.



The older daughter, who is now in her 20's claims that she was sexually abused by her father at a bowling alley on Ayers and at the family's home on Angelo Street.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:30 PM











Bishop hopes settlement brings healing to survivors, renewal to church




WILMINGTON (DE)

Catholic Sentinel



Catholic News Service



WILMINGTON, Del. — Bishop W. Francis Malooly said he hopes and prays that the Diocese of Wilmington's recent settlement with survivors of clergy sexual abuse will begin the healing process for survivors and help the church "emerge purified and renewed."



The diocese late Feb. 2 reached an agreement to pay survivors of sexual abuse by priests more than $77.4 million to settle nearly 150 claims of abuse. The agreement will end pending lawsuits against the diocese and several parishes and commits the diocese to give to survivors its files on sexual abusers.



The agreement, pending approval of all creditors and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, could bring to an end by this summer the Chapter 11 process the diocese began in October 2009. The diocese declared bankruptcy to settle the cases filed by the survivors in a "fair and equitable way," while continuing the ministries of the church.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:28 PM











Catholic Diocese Finances Exposed in Bankruptcy Filing




MILWAUKEE (WI)

JDSupra



Summary: The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January after failing to come to agreements with two dozen claimants who are seeking legal redress for sex abuse suffered at the hands of clergy decades ago. In line with the bankruptcy procedures, the Archdiocese filed its financial statements in US Bankruptcy Court last Monday. According to the filing, the Archdiocese owns $40.7 million in assets and has $24 million in liabilities.



But the attorney representing the victims, Jeff Anderson said the financial statements were incomplete without giving any elaboration. Anderson went on to liken the Milwaukee Archdiocese with the Diocese of San Diego that was rapped by its bankruptcy judge in 2007 because of misrepresentation in its assets.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:26 PM











Mercure receiving benefits after being removed from ministry




NEW YORK/MASSACHUSETTS

WTEN



The trial of a local Catholic priest accused of raping two young boys more than two decades ago is moving forward, however NEWS10 has learned that no matter the outcome of the trial, the ex-priest will still receive his full retirement benefits.



Ex-priest Gary Mercure, 62, is being tried in Berkshire County for allegedly taking young boys from Glens Falls to Massachuesetts and sexually abusing them.



While the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese removed Mercure from the ministry back in 2008, he has kept his title of priest and is still receiving his benefits.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 4:27 PM











Picketing priests




MARQUETTE (MI)

Upper Michigans Sorce



[with video]



by Noël McLaren



MARQUETTE -- Andrew Anderson says he is a victim. The Marquette resident claims he was molested by a Father Donald Hartman in Champion 50 years ago, and today he wants justice. He hopes picketing outside of Saint Peter's Cathedral in Marquette will help.



"I did chores for him, eventually he had me in the basement of the church, in his bedroom," said Anderson. “He molested me 50 plus times at least once, twice a week."



The felonious Father was ordered to leave the parish as a result of the incident. Anderson says the punishment was weak since he was able to preach again in Caspian in the eighties, before his death in 1999.



"He got a slap on the hand, that's all he got for it," Anderson said.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 4:24 PM











Updated: Man Charged With Beating Los Gatos Priest to Appear in Court Wednesday




CALIFORNIA

Los Gatos Patch



By Sheila Sanchez



Supporters of William Lynch, charged with assaulting Father Jerold Lindner at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos on May 10, 2010, will gather at the Santa Clara County Superior Courthouse Wednesday morning to show support while he appears for his preliminary hearing.



A hearing scheduled Tuesday morning was postponed until Wednesday, because the judge hearing the case is having surgery on her foot, said Lynch's attorney, Pat Harris.



The case had been assigned to Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Andrea Bryan, but because of the foot surgery, it has now been assigned to Judge David Cena in Department 34. "They'll put witnesses on to discuss whether or not there's enough evidence for the case to go to trial," said Harris.



"The wrong man is on trial," Harris said as he entered the courthouse early Tuesday morning to represent another client in another case.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 4:19 PM











Outside investigator to examine Facebook posts on priest abuse




OWENSBORO (KY)

Lexington Herald-Leader



By Beth Wilberding — Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer



OWENSBORO — The Diocese of Owensboro announced Monday afternoon that it is using an independent investigator to examine allegations made in a Facebook note that an Owensboro man posted before fatally shooting himself in the parking lot of Blessed Mother Catholic Church on Thursday.



The Daviess Commonwealth Attorney's Office is having the Owensboro Police Department investigate as well.



David M. Jarboe, 23, posted about the "pain and torment" he experienced because of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. His body was found outside the church on Thursday morning.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 3:07 PM











German priest charged with collection plate pilfering




GERMANY

The Vancouver Sun



BERLIN — A retired German priest has been charged with 50 counts of fraud over the theft of $1.4 million worth of church donations, state prosecutors in Wuerzburg said on Tuesday.



The former Roman Catholic priest, aged 77, was detained in May on suspicion of taking donations and collection money from his church in Bavaria. Most of the money, including a large number of coins, was found in his apartment and bank accounts.



"A large portion of the money was recovered," Wuerzburg state prosecutor Dietrich Geuder told Reuters.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 3:05 PM











Priest charged with embezzling over €1 mln




GERMANY

The Local



A former Catholic priest in Bavaria is awaiting trial following after being charged with embezzling Church funds totalling over €1 million.



A retired clergyman, now 77, presided over several parishes in the Main-Spessart county, faces 50 counts of serious fraud for pocketing €1.088 million that was intended for a Church foundation and the diocese, according to state prosecutors in Würzburg.



Following a raid on his home, police discovered that the retired priest had been hoarding cash donated to the Church as well as a collection of other valuable objects such as rare coins.



He was also found to have used Church funds tied up in savings bonds and annuity agreements to channel money into accounts that only he had access to and that were unknown to the Church. A large part of the stolen cash was insured.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 3:01 PM











Former Ealing Abbey priest to stand trial




UNITED KINGDOM

Ealing Gazette



Feb 8 2011 By Michael Russell



A FORMER Ealing Abbey priest as well as a retired maths teacher are to stand trial for child abuse.



Father David Pearce, 69, formerly of Ealing Abbey, Charlbury Grove, Ealing, and former teacher at nearby St Benedict's Catholic School in Eaton Rise, will face three counts of indecent assault against a boy.



At the same time John Maestri, 71, of Chatham, Kent, a former maths teacher, will face three charges of indecent assault against a boy.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 2:55 PM











Meisner verteidigt Zölibat gegen alle Kritik




DEUTSCHLAND

Welt



Die Kritik zahlreicher Theologen am Zölibat lässt den Kölner Erzbischof kalt. Das Gebot der Ehelosigkeit sei unverzichtbar und dem Priesterberuf angemessen.



Der Kölner Kardinal Joachim Meisner ist strikt gegen eine Lockerung des Zölibats. Die Ehelosigkeit sei für katholische Priester nach wie vor unverzichtbar und von hoher Bedeutung, heißt es in einer Erklärung des Erzbischofs.



Rund 150 katholische Theologen hatten kürzlich in einem Appell an die katholischen Bischöfe Reformen gefordert, unter anderem die Zulassung von verheirateten Priestern. Auch prominente katholische CDU-Politiker stellten in einem Brief an die katholische Deutsche Bischofskonferenz den Zölibat infrage.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 2:53 PM











Janitor accused of killing Chatham priest confessed to crime 2 days later, transcript shows




CHATHAM (NJ)

The Star-Ledger



By Ben Horowitz/The Star-Ledger



CHATHAM — In an interview with an investigator two days after the Rev. Edward Hinds was stabbed to death, his accused assailant, Jose Feliciano, detailed his account of his relationship with the Chatham priest and told police he wound up killing him, according to a transcript.



Feliciano said Hinds had initiated a sexual relationship with him four years earlier and he was trying to end it, Feliciano said in the interview on Oct. 24, 2009 with Capt. Jeffrey Paul of the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office.



Hinds said he would fire him if he ended the relationship and Feliciano said he stabbed him as a result, the transcript says. Feliciano, 65, of Easton, Pa. is accused of murder.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 2:50 PM











Transcript: Janitor accused of killing Chatham priest confessed to crime




CHATHAM (NJ)

NorthJersey.com



Tuesday, February 8, 2011

NorthJersey.com



According to a transcript of an interview with an investigator two days after the Rev. Edward Hinds was stabbed to death, accused assailant Jose Feliciano detailed his account of his relationship with the Chatham priest and told police he killed him, according to a report on NJ.com.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 2:48 PM











Vatican Lineup for Clergy Sex Abuse Super Bowl I, 2.7.2011




UNITED STATES

Voice from the Desert



Frank Douglas



FEBRUARY 7, 2011



The Voice from the Desert International Sports Information Network (ISPIN) is pleased to announce the starting lineup for the Vatican for the Clergy Sex Abuse Super Bowl I which will be played in Rio de Janeiro at the Maracanã Soccer Stadium tonight at 7:00 PM, EST, February 7.



The starting lineup for the Survivor-Advocate All Stars was published on this blog previously.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 11:56 AM











139 pedofiele paters en broeders sinds 1960




BELGIE

hbvl



Sinds 1960 telden de religieuze ordes en abdijen in België in totaal 139 daders van seksueel misbruik tegen minderjarigen, van wie 109 in Vlaanderen. Dat deelden ze mee in een brief aan de Kamercommissie Seksueel Misbruik in de Kerk. 35 van deze daders zijn al overleden, van wie 24 in Vlaanderen.



Van die 139 verdachten kregen slechts 28 een effectieve straf (2 in Wallonië). Er waren ook drie vrijspraken (1 in Wallonië). 19 broeders of paters werden overgeplaatst naar een ander bisdom of een ander land (3 in Wallonië). Na het uitlekken van de zaak tegen bisschop Roger Vangheluwe kregen de religieuze ordes en abdijen geen enkele nieuwe klacht binnen.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 10:54 AM











Unprecedented look at archdiocese finances




MILWAUKEE (WI)

Janesville Gazette



MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has provided a rare look at its finances with a federal bankruptcy court filing.



Financial statements filed Monday show the archdiocese has nearly $41 million in assets and $24 million in liabilities. The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January after it failed to reach a settlement with two dozen victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 9:17 AM











Priest trial winds down




PITTSFIELD (MA)

Berkshire Eagle



By Conor Berry, Berkshire Eagle Staff,

Tuesday February 8, 2011



PITTSFIELD -- Testimony from a New York prosecutor and a DNA expert were among Monday's highlights in the trial of a former priest accused of raping two altar boys in Berkshire County more than 20 years ago.



Gary Mercure, who was permanently removed from ministry by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany in 2008, denies sexually assaulting the altar boys as a diocesan priest in Queensbury, N.Y., in the 1980s. Prosecutors maintain that Mercure raped the boys, both from New York and now in their 30s, during separate incidents in 1986 and 1989 in the Great Barrington area and New Ashford.



Warren County District Attorney Kathleen B. Hogan took the stand in Berkshire Superior Court Monday to explain her role in contacting Massachusetts and Vermont authorities about alleged assaults in those states. Mercure couldn't be prosecuted for alleged New York crimes because the statute of limitations for bringing charges in that state had elapsed, according to Hogan, who then contacted officials in the neighboring jurisdictions.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:37 AM











Abuse settlement lifts financial burden from St. Elizabeth's




WILMINGTON (De)

The News Journal



By GARY SOULSMAN • The News Journal • February 8, 2011



WILMINGTON -- As parishioner Flo Yezek laid out cakes and lemon squares before the 7 a.m. Mass on Sunday, she breathed a sigh of relief that St. Elizabeth Catholic Parish would be spared having to pay a $3 million jury award.



"It's a lot of money," said Yezek, thinking of the schools in her parish.



The high school and elementary school have 750 students and 80 employees.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:34 AM











DELAWARE: Wilmington school closing after diocese settlement




WILMINGTON (DE)

Delmarva Now



ASSOCIATED PRESS • February 8, 2011



WILMINGTON — A 125-year-old Wilmington school is closing at the end of the school year as part of the fallout from a settlement between the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and alleged victims of priest sexual abuse.



St. Paul School on North Van Buren Street is losing the financial support it relies on from the Catholic Diocese Foundation, which his being liquidated to help pay the settlement reached last week.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:32 AM











Protest held outside Diocese of Venice




VENICE (FL)

WWSB



Reported by: Josh Taylor

Email: jtaylor@mysuncoast.com



VENICE - A peaceful protest was held in front of the Catholic Diocese of Venice Monday afternoon. Demonstrators were with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP.



They say they're upset over the church’s reaction to the arrest of Catholic friar last week. However, the church says the criticism isn't fair because the man accused has nothing to do with them.



There was no yelling, no rah rah chants…just a handful of local residents holding what they say are pictures of victims of abuse at the hands of priests.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:27 AM











4th bishop from Wichita ordained since 1998




WICHITA (KS)

The Wichita Eagle



BY STAN FINGER

The Wichita Eagle



They gathered for a group photograph on a bitterly cold February day in western Kansas, resplendent in their bishop's miters and vestments.



When the Rev. John Brungardt was ordained as the newest bishop of the Catholic diocese of Dodge City last week, he became the fourth Wichita priest to be named a bishop since the summer of 1998. ...



Beyond sexual abuse



Benedict XVI is striving to help the Catholic Church in America heal and move beyond the clergy sexual abuse scandal that has hounded it for years, Palmo said.



To do that, the pope is looking for and selecting bishops "who won't sweep the tough things under the rug," Palmo said. "Someone who can convey the teaching of the church with savvy, with substance, but also with great compassion."



These recent selections reflect a shift away from a mindset of bishop as administrator toward a bishop "as preacher, as teacher, as missionary," Palmo said.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:21 AM











Rape trial nears end




PITTSFIELD (MA)

Albany Times Union



By Bob Gardinier Staff Writer

Published: 12:00 a.m., Tuesday, February 8, 2011



PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- Closing arguments and jury deliberations are scheduled to begin on Wednesday in the trial of a defrocked Catholic priest in the Albany diocese charged with raping two altar boys more than 20 years ago.



One of the final witnesses Monday was Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan, who testified that she got a call in January 2008 from Michael Costello, a lawyer with the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, alerting her that the diocese was investigating possible criminal abuse of young boys by Gary Mercure when he served at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in Queensbury. Mercure, referred to as Father Gary by trial witnesses, served at that church from 1982 to 1991, when he transferred to St. Mary's Church and St. Mary-St. Alphonsus Regional Catholic School, both in Glens Falls.



When Hogan received the call, Mercure, 62, was serving at Sacred Heart and St. William parishes in Troy. He was suspended from the ministry that same month. Mercure, who also served as a priest at St. Mary's in Clinton Heights and Our Lady of the Assumption in Latham, is free without bail.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:16 AM











Thomas Euteneuer's Possessed Penis.




FLORIDA

Broward-Palm Beach New Times



By Brandon K. Thorp, Tue., Feb. 8 2011



Lookit that smile! Those chompers! Those crinkly eyes! That soft auburn hair! What woman wouldn't fall for Thomas Euteneuer?



Lots, apparently, which didn't stop Thomas from falling for them. Which is why the Catholic priest, exorcist, and pro-life activist is now unemployed and disgraced. Last week we all learned that Euteneuer resigned from the presidency of the anti-abortion Human Life International last summer, under pressure from that organization's Board of Directors, because he'd engaged in inappropriate sexual relations with a client, or whatever you call somebody who consults an exorcist. (Exorcee? Easy mark?) In a personal statement, Euteneuer was quick to emphasize that he'd liaised with only one woman -- in other words, that even if he's a bad priest, at least he's not a playa. Hogwash, says Human Life International. In a cruel twist of the screw, they now publicly insist that Eutenuer had inappropriate sexual liaisons with several clients -- while exorcising them! Could that mean Father Euteneuer's got the Devil in his drawers?









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:11 AM











Youth leader traded gifts for sex acts, court documents state




LITTLESTOWN (PA)

WHTM



[with video]



Dara Rees

abc27 News



LITTLESTOWN, Pa. (WHTM) - An Littlestown man charged with raping two borough teenagers told authorities he had sexual relationships with about 10 teen boys he met while volunteering as a youth minister at a Hanover church, according to court papers in the case.



The charging documents state that 35-year-old Jeffrey Crosley promised gifts such as fishing rods, guns and cigarettes in exchange for sex acts.



"He would take them fishing," Littlestown police Chief Charles Kellar said. "Then he would eventually convince these kids to do other things."



Kellar said police have received additional reports of sexual abuse involving Crosley since Friday, when he was arrested for rape and other crimes against a 16-year-old and another boy who was between the ages of 12 and 16. He remained in prison Monday on $500,000 bail.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:06 AM











St. Paul School first casualty of settlement




DELAWARE

The News Journal



By ESTEBAN PARRA • The News Journal • February 8, 2011



St. Paul School in Wilmington will close at the end of the academic year -- one of the first ministries to be affected by the $77.4 million settlement reached last week between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and survivors of priest abuse.



"It's very sad because the school has a 125-year history ... and a school like St. Paul is especially needed here in our neighborhood because it does provide a safe environment," said the Rev. Todd Carpenter, pastor of St. Paul Parish. "Unfortunately, declining enrollments, changing demographics and the current diocesan bankruptcy have challenged the ability of the parish to fund Saint Paul School."



Enrollment at the prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade school at 312 N. Van Buren St. has dwindled to 128 students this year. The school also was expected to lose $400,000 in support it relies on every year from the Catholic Diocese Foundation. The foundation, which was started in 1928 through a donation from John J. Raskob, is being liquidated to help pay the settlement between the diocese and survivors of priest abuse.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 7:00 AM











Funeral held for Owensboro man ...




OWENSBORO (KY)

Courier-Journal



Written by

Peter Smith

psmith@courier-journal.com



OWENSBORO, Ky. — From the beginning to the end of his funeral Mass on Monday, loved ones celebrated David Jarboe Jr.'s generosity and friendliness even as they mourned his suicide last week after he left a Facebook posting on the “pain and torment” of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.



An overflow crowd of family, former classmates and friends bade farewell to Jarboe at Blessed Mother Catholic Church, where he had been a member.



It was outside the church on Thursday that Jarboe took his life, leaving the Facebook posting, which prompted the Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro to launch an investigation.



The diocese on Monday released more details on its probe, saying Bishop William Medley would engage an independent investigator as recommended by the diocese's abuse review panel at a special meeting on Saturday.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 6:55 AM











Avoiding the blame game on abuse




UNITED STATES

National Catholic Reporter



By John L Allen Jr



ANALYSIS



On the heels of a cause célèbre in Ireland over a 1997 Vatican letter expressing doubts about “mandatory reporter” policies on sex abuse, another piece of Vatican correspondence has come to light, this one from 1984 and addressed to the then-bishop of Tucson, Ariz. It insists that “under no conditions” are the personnel files of a priest accused of misconduct (in this instance, not sexual abuse) to be turned over to civil lawyers.



The 1984 missive from the Congregation for the Clergy, then headed by Cardinal Silvio Oddi, to Tucson Bishop Manuel Moreno was released by BishopAccountability.org, and is being cited as another example of a Vatican policy against cooperation with police and prosecutors.



Anyone who thinks these two letters are the end of the line is in denial. Diocesan archives all over the world are undoubtedly stuffed with letters from Vatican officials advising bishops to protect the confidentiality of church records, and as lawyers, reporters and activists continue to dig, more will come to light.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 6:53 AM











Should the Vatican Come Clean on Clerical Sexual Abuse?




UNITED STATES

About.com



By Scott P. Richert, About.com Guide



That's essentially what John Allen, the Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, argues in "Avoiding the blame game on abuse." In building his case that Vatican officials should quit pointing fingers at one another, Allen points to a 1997 letter to bishops in Ireland warning them against adopting a mandatory reporting policy concerning clerical sexual abuse, as well as a letter from 1984 to the bishop of Tucson, Arizona, concerning nonsexual misconduct by a priest. There is, he suggests, enough blame to go around, and it does no good to handle each new revelation separately.



Instead, Allen suggests, the Vatican should acknowledge that



until very recently, the primary concerns vis-à-vis cooperation with police and prosecutors, aside from the sanctity of the confessional, were the following:



•Preserving the church’s independence from the civil sphere, a value encoded in the Vatican’s DNA after centuries-long battles to fend off kings, emperors and dictators;

•Protecting an accused priest’s right to his good name;

•Defending a bishop’s right to confidential exchanges with his priests.

Some readers may be surprised to find that Allen argues that "The values listed above are entirely legitimate, and it’s no scandal that Vatican officials strove to defend them."



He's right. Where Allen goes somewhat wrong is in what he fails to say. As Twitter user Londiniensis put it, "All this also at a time when both church and society's attitude to/knowledge of child sex abuse was minimal [and] also at a time when the scale of the problem was unimaginable." The latter was especially true in the Vatican. Individual bishops on the ground knew much more about the scale of the problem than the hierarchy in Rome did, and all too often they kept it from officials in the Vatican—something that anyone who has covered the clerical sexual-abuse scandal knows, but which Allen doesn't mention.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 6:49 AM











Ownensboro Catholic Diocese OKs probe into abuse allegations




OWENSBORO (KY)

Evansville Courier & Press



By Garret Mathews

Evansville Courier & Press



Posted February 7, 2011



OWENSBORO, Ky. — In the wake of a Thursday morning suicide in which a 23-year-old man alleged sexual abuse on the Internet before shooting himself, the Diocese of Owensboro on Monday promised to seek an independent investigator.



The diocese also pledged cooperation with Bruce Kuegel, the Daviess County Commonwealth attorney.



David M. Jarboe Jr. was found dead outside Blessed Mother Catholic Church, where he was a member.



Earlier, he had left a Facebook posting referring to one priest as an "evil man." He thanked one priest on the post and wrote that he "forgave" another.









Posted by Kathy Shaw at 6:43 AM


Read more at www.bishop-accountability.org
 

Vatican Coverup of Sexual Abuse


Vatican Coverup of Sexual Abuse


www.bishop-accountability.org/Vatican/Documents/1984_01_31_Oddi_to_Moreno_Priest_Files_R.pdf

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTrackerArchive/2011/01/

This is one of many documents directing Bishops to withhold documents re: sexual scandal. Although this one does not pertain to paedophelia, the modus operandi in this document is illustrative. Having assisted in "outing" Navy Chaplaincy coverups to the Associated Press years ago and having talked with one class action lawyer representing abuse victims, the VATICAN MOST CERTAINLY DID DIRECT BISHOPS TO WITHHOLD materials in discovery in municipal and state criminal cases. It is NO mistake that there was a central coverup directed from the Vatican. This above is one example.

Read more at reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com
 

Parents discourage daughters who would be nuns

Amplify’d from www.usatoday.com

Parents discourage daughters who would be nuns

Daniel Burke, Religion News Service

If she had listened to her parents, Sister Jenn Graus might never have professed vows last month to join the Congregation of St. Joseph.

By Christopher Berkey, AP


Sister Julia Marie O.P. walks past students to her Nashville classroom last fall. A new study finds parents are often the most discouraging voices when their daughters consider becoming a nun or sister.

Though lifelong Catholics, Graus' parents had met few nuns or sisters near their home in Sterling Heights, Mich., and assumed most were cloistered in remote convents.

They were uneasy when Graus, 27, told them about her religious calling. Would they ever see her again? Would the college education they scrimped and saved for go to waste?

"They had to overcome a lot of apprehension," Graus said. Gradually, her parents warmed to her vocational aspirations after Graus told them that, yes, she would be allowed to visit home, and no, she would not have to give up her teaching career.

Communities of nuns and sisters in the U.S. are weathering a season of demographic decline with far-reaching consequences for the country's vast network of Catholic schools, hospitals and social services.

But as Catholic leaders try to convince more young women like Graus to dedicate their lives to the church, recent surveys suggest that a big obstacle may lie surprisingly close to home.

More than half of the women who professed final vows to join a religious order in 2010 said a parent or family member had discouraged their religious calling, according to a survey conducted by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

Only 26% of the surveyed sisters said their mother encouraged them to consider religious life, and just 16% said their father cheered their choice, according to the report, which was released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Feb. 2.

A more extensive survey conducted by the Chicago-based National Religious Vocation Conference in 2009 produced similar results.

After peaking at 180,000 in the mid-1960s, there are now just an estimated 59,000 nuns and sisters in the U.S. More than 90% are 60 or older. Less than 1% are, like Graus, under 40, leaving far fewer women to staff Catholic hospitals, charities and schools.

The steep drop in women's vocations has drawn the attention of the Vatican, which launched an ongoing investigation in 2009 to determine the causes. A separate probe is looking into allegations of doctrinal dissidence within an umbrella group of Catholic sisters.

In the last two years, just one woman has professed vows to join the Servants, Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a 466-member community based in Scranton, Pa.

"Usually, parents are the most resistant," about women entering religious life, said Sister Ruth Harkins, the community's vocations director. "They certainly do not encourage it."

Sometimes parents object because they want grandchildren, or fear losing a daughter. Other times, they fret over their child's loss of freedom and independence — an understandable but mistaken worry, according to many sisters.

"They really don't understand the choice," Harkins said. "They think we're leading them away and they won't have any contact with their daughter. They feel like they are losing their child."

Priests are more likely than sisters to receive encouragement — and discouragement — about their religious vocation from friends and family, according to surveys. That may be because more people are familiar with the priesthood and have strong opinions about it, according to church researchers.

In a presentation to the U.S. bishops in 2009, Brother Paul Bednarczyk, executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference, flagged the discouragement from family and friends as a troublesome trend for the church.

"Although people want a full-time pastor in their parish or religious sister teaching their children in the Catholic school, ironically, they are reluctant to have their own son or daughter choose that vocation," Bednarczyk said in an interview.

At one time, having a nun or priest in the family was a source of pride for Catholics. Folklore even held that it would help parents and siblings gain a spot in heaven.

But smaller families, changing cultural norms, a lack of knowledge about religious life and the clergy sex abuse crisis all contributed to a general decline in the desirability and prestige of Catholic vocations, according to Bednarczyk.

"Honestly, entering religious life is countercultural in so many ways," said Sister Mary Joanna Ruhland, associate director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. "It can be difficult for parents to see that their sons or daughters are going to lead a difficult life, and a life that may remain hidden in many ways."

Read more at www.usatoday.com
 

Should the Vatican Come Clean on Clerical Sexual Abuse?

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Should the Vatican Come Clean on Clerical Sexual Abuse?

That's essentially what John Allen, the Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, argues in "Avoiding the blame game on abuse." In building his case that Vatican officials should quit pointing fingers at one another, Allen points to a 1997 letter to bishops in Ireland warning them against adopting a mandatory reporting policy concerning clerical sexual abuse, as well as a letter from 1984 to the bishop of Tucson, Arizona, concerning nonsexual misconduct by a priest. There is, he suggests, enough blame to go around, and it does no good to handle each new revelation separately.

Instead, Allen suggests, the Vatican should acknowledge that

until very recently, the primary concerns vis-à-vis cooperation with police and prosecutors, aside from the sanctity of the confessional, were the following:

  • Preserving the church’s independence from the civil sphere, a value encoded in the Vatican’s DNA after centuries-long battles to fend off kings, emperors and dictators;
  • Protecting an accused priest’s right to his good name;
  • Defending a bishop’s right to confidential exchanges with his priests.

Some readers may be surprised to find that Allen argues that "The values listed above are entirely legitimate, and it’s no scandal that Vatican officials strove to defend them."

He's right. Where Allen goes somewhat wrong is in what he fails to say. As Twitter user Londiniensis put it, "All this also at a time when both church and society's attitude to/knowledge of child sex abuse was minimal [and] also at a time when the scale of the problem was unimaginable." The latter was especially true in the Vatican. Individual bishops on the ground knew much more about the scale of the problem than the hierarchy in Rome did, and all too often they kept it from officials in the Vatican—something that anyone who has covered the clerical sexual-abuse scandal knows, but which Allen doesn't mention.

Allen believes that responding to each new revelation about Vatican documents and directives is playing a losing game. He would rather have Vatican officials come clean about what they had hoped to accomplish, and to acknowledge that they should have responded more strongly much earlier.

There are two problems with Allen's proposed course of action, however: First, the truth won't satisfy the critics of the Church, because in the fever dreams of SNAP and VOTF and abuse attorney Jeffrey Anderson, the problem didn't stem from a lack of awareness in Rome but from a deliberate attempt at the highest levels of the Catholic Church to cover up horrific crimes (and even to perpetrate and perpetuate such crimes).

And second, Allen's proposed course of action has already been tried (which is why we know it won't work). Indeed, Allen himself has reported on it. Last year, during the new "crisis" largely manufactured by the New York Times and Jeffrey Anderson, Vatican officials, including Pope Benedict himself, spoke at length about the changes made in 2001 to consolidate control over cases of clerical sexual abuse in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—that is, in the hands of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

More than implicit in all of that discussion, and explicit in Pope Benedict's statements on clerical sexual abuse, was an acknowledgment that the Vatican had not understood the scale of the problem and had addressed it a haphazard manner before 2001. Yet every admission, implicit or explicit, led to further attacks.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Vatican's current response is, in Allen's words, "to counterpunch" whenever a new document comes to light?

Allen's solution may be naive, but his analysis of how we got to this point is very good (except, as I noted above, where he fails to say some things that need to be said). It's well worth a read. And once you've had a chance to digest it, tell us what you think in the comments.

More on Clerical Sexual Abuse:

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Investigate the Vatican

Amplify’d from www.esquire.com

Investigate the Vatican

ENOUGH WITH THE SCIENTOLOGY FASCINATION /// Wouldn't the resources and time of journalists be better directed at the finances, earthly corruption, and raw power of the Catholic Church, an institution that wields influence incalculably greater than L. Ron Hubbard's itty-bitty religion?

I just finished Lawrence Wright's long and ambitious piece in this week's New Yorker on Scientology, and on writer/director Paul Haggis's recent break with the religion. As a magazine editor, I applaud Wright's impulse to do the story, and I'm kicking myself for not calling Haggis myself the day I heard of his defection from Scientology, back in the fall of 2009. Unlike me, Wright did call Haggis, and he's written an important piece. I will say that the resulting piece is by turns fascinating and boring, as the story of Haggis's experience of finding himself increasingly under the sway of what he would later come to describe as a cult is interspersed with a long recitation of what might be described as the liturgy of Scientology, which entails accounting for the history of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. This description of the founding myth of a religion that now claims eight million adherents worldwide is familiar to anyone who's been paying attention to the occasional long and ambitious pieces on Scientology that one enterprising journalist or other produces every few years or so. Quoting from Wright's piece:

"A major cause of mankind's problems began 75 million years ago," the Times wrote, when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack, was part of a confederation of ninety planets under the leadership of a despotic ruler named Xenu. "Then, as now, the materials state, the chief problem was overpopulation." Xenu decided "to take radical measures." The documents explained that surplus beings were transported to volcanoes on Earth. "The documents state that H-bombs far more powerful than any in existence today were dropped on these volcanoes, destroying the people but freeing their spirits — called thetans — which attached themselves to one another in clusters." Those spirits were "trapped in a compound of frozen alcohol and glycol," then "implanted" with "the seed of aberrant behavior." The Times account concluded, "When people die, these clusters attach to other humans and keep perpetuating themselves."

The Times Wright mentions is the Los Angeles Times, which had gotten hold of a secret doctrinal scribbling left by Hubbard. Between the thetans and the volcanoes and the implantation of aberrant behavior and the dreaded Xenu, this is either a treatment for the worst movie ever made, or... it's your basic bewildering founding myth of any religion found anywhere on earth.

I mean, I grew up believing that every breath I drew sent a god-made-man named Jesus Christ writhing on the cross to which he had been nailed — an execution for which he had been sent to earth by his heavenly father thousands of years ago, so that he might die for my sins so that I might live. And yet I was born not innocent but complicit in this lynching, incomprehensibly having to apologize and atone for this barbarism for all my days and feel terrible about myself and all mankind. And not only that, but every day when I went to Mass, we would solemnly re-create this human sacrifice by drinking Christ's blood and eating his body in delicious wafer form. This was not an exercise in metaphor. As long as I shall live, I will never forget the look of spiritual transport on the face of my mother every time she received Communion. This was not a symbol of Christ's body; this was his body, through the miracle of transubstantiation. "You better believe it, boy," she'd say to me. And so I did. Oh, and then we'd wrap up each Mass by celebrating the fact — fact — that three days after Jesus had died, as any mere mortal would have after having been set up by your father and nailed to a cross by a mob, his spirit had risen on a cloud into heaven to rejoin the same god in the sky who had sent him on this errand in the first place.

Now, I ask you: Why is that story no less ridiculous than Hubbard's mumbo jumbo? Is it because we have invested it with the power and majesty of myth for a far longer period, giving it now the air of the ordinary, and because of the veneration of that myth by generation after generation of people whom we love, and who have power over our young minds as we were coming up? Because certainly, in the twenty-first century, the story I grew up believing is every bit as risible as all the Scientology nonsense that Wright dutifully details, as did Janet Reitman in Rolling Stone before him, as have dozens of very good journalists before her. I say this not to denigrate this area of inquiry in any way, for these are examples of good and even brave journalists doing their jobs, and covering a subject that has shown a ruthless willingness to sue reporters into submission. (And incidentally, I also say it not to denigrate the scores of ordinary people, such as my dear mother, who have reaped astonishing and tangible benefits from the simple act of belief.)

Rather, I mean here to instead ask a question: Why all the fuss over Scientology, when your resources and time might better be directed at the finances, earthly corruption, and raw power of, say, the Catholic Church, an institution that wields influence incalculably greater than Hubbard's itty-bitty religion?

For all of the well-documented creepiness and horrible secrecy and paranoia and the forced detention and reeducation of wayward members and the cult-like imperative to deny even the most obvious truths about the religion, Scientology, compared to the "great" religions, statistically doesn't even exist. Again, I quote from Wright's piece:

A survey of American religious affiliations, compiled in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, estimates that only twenty-five thousand Americans actually call themselves Scientologists. That's less than half the number who identify themselves as Rastafarians.

Obviously, any religion that cultivates "celebrity centres" for its elite members deserves a good whacking in the press every once in a while. And frankly, it is Scientology's A-list membership (as well as its state-of-the-art, police-state tactics for dealing with critics) that makes it an evergreen subject of fascination for the press. I understand this.

But it is an outsize attention that Scientology attracts, akin to routinely and pitilessly investigating Djibouti for its role in confecting the flawed intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, rather than giving Dick Cheney a call.

Can not some of this journalistic industry be trained on the church of my birth, whose chief vicar, an infallible man, lives in a palace in the middle of his own city-state while still claiming a vow of poverty and a simple Christ-like existence? The same vicar who presided over revelations — long-known but secretly guarded, that many of his employees were criminals and child molesters — not with the mien of the keeper of his flock but rather with the ruthless demeanor of the CEO of a massive corporation lawyering up against the barrage of lawsuits to come? The same vicar who successfully claimed that his canonical law (whatever that is) superseded civil law when it came to prosecuting the despicable crimes perpetrated by his subordinates, which is the only thing that explains why so few priests are in prison — unless you count those being harbored at the Vatican. The same vicar who presides over a church which holds homosexuality as an abomination (ironically, the same position held by L. Ron Hubbard, this being Paul Haggis's reason for bolting).

As much good and necessary journalism as came out of the Catholic pedophilia scandal, it still has been just piecemeal and fragmentary compared to the monstrous size of this global crime. And when compared to the ink spilled over Scientology during the same period, the coverage of Rome shrinks even smaller.

As much as I applaud Lawrence Wright for his piece on Paul Haggis, and as much as I greatly admire Wright's work generally, I call for a moratorium on coverage of the Scientology creeps, for, say, five years. There are simply so many other, bigger creeps in the world who more richly deserve the scrutiny.

Photo Credit: Robert Edwards/Newscom (Pope); Michael Montfort/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty (Hubbard)
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VatiCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has started Inquisition against theologian José Antonio Pagola


Vatican opens process against theologian Jose Antonio Pagola for his book about Jesus

Jesús Bastante of the Spanish newspaper, El Público (2/5/2011), reports that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has opened a process against Basque theologian José Antonio Pagola. Again, we would like to remind English-speaking readers that Pagola's book Jesus: An Historical Approximation is available from Convivium Press. The best way you can speak out against censorship is to continue buying and reading this book. Here is our English translation of Bastante's article:
Condemnations, book burnings and persecutions are coming back. Five centuries later, the Inquisition has returned in all its splendor. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has opened a process against the book Jesus: An Historical Approximation (Editorial PPC - the Spanish edition) by the Basque theologian José Antonio Pagola, to determine if it conforms to Church doctrine.

This is the latest link in a chain of persecution by the Catholic hierarchy whose recent victims include José María Castillo, Juan José Tamayo and Marciano Vidal in Spain, and international figures such as Leonardo Boff and Hans Küng, all of them advocates of the Second Vatican Council and freedom of opinion in the Church.

The Roman investigation has been pushed by the most ultra conservative sector of the Spanish Bishops' Conference, led by the bishops of Córdoba, Demetrio Fernández, and San Sebastián, José Ignacio Munilla, with the supervision of the bishops' spokesman, Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, and the consent of cardinal Rouco Varela.

The debate has also flared up because the book has become a religious best-seller (more than 80,000 copies, as well as having been translated into new languages), and it also has the nihil obstat ("nothing to oppose") and the Imprimatur (canonic authorization) of the former bishop of San Sebastián, Juan María Uriarte. But none of this has kept the Bishops' Conference from achieving the intervention and getting the text withdrawn, and a process opened against Pagola.

José Antonio Pagola, who has been keeping prudent silence over these last months, acknowledged a few days ago that the publisher (linked to the Marianists) had been obliged by the Bishops' Conference to withdraw the 6,000 copies still in circulation. According to some sources, a "certification of destruction" of the copies has even been demanded.

The theologian confirmed the opening of a process in Rome: "I accept it as something anticipated, but I don't feel that I'm either a martyr or a prophet. I try to be a believer who, from his passion for Jesus, tries to contribute to a Church that is closer to the gospel at the service of a more humane world."

Starting now, a long, slow period begins, one based on secrecy. The theologian doesn't know exactly what accusations the Vatican is bringing against him. These sorts of processes only resort to the accused for an interrogation for which he cannot prepare himself, and to announce his condemnation or absolution.
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Vatican official instructed US bishop to withhold files of troubled priest

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Vatican official instructed US bishop to withhold files of troubled priest

In 1984, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy wrote to an American bishop, instructing him not to hand over personnel files in the case of a priest who had been accused of misconduct.


The letter is being cited as new evidence that the Vatican had a policy of encouraging bishops to withhold evidence of priestly misconduct. In January, the release of a 1997 letter to Irish bishops from the apostolic nuncio in Dublin prompted similar outcries.


The letter, from Cardinal Silvio Oddi to Bishop Manuel Moreno of Tucson, Arizona, has been made public on the BishopAccountability web site. The correspondence involved the case of a Tucson priest whose name has been redacted from the correspondence because, BishopAccountability explains, his misconduct involved consensual activity with a female adult (as well as other misbehavior) rather than abuse of a child.


In response to Bishop Moreno’s question whether the diocese should turn over the priest’s personnel files, Cardinal Oddi replies that “under no condition whatever ought the after-mentioned files be surrendered to any lawyer or judge whatsoever.”


After giving that unequivocal instruction, Cardinal Oddi suggested that the Tucson diocese should anticipate demands for release of the files, and should “begin preparing whatever resistance to this request may be necessary.” The cardinal expresses confidence that American courts would uphold the Church’s position.


While the message from Cardinal Oddi is unmistakably clear, the letter does not indicate whether or not the priest in question could face criminal charges, nor is there any indication that he would be a threat to public safety. Thus it is difficult to judge, from the letter alone, whether Cardinal Oddi was justified in thinking that the US legal system would have favored the bishop in this case.


However, the newly disclosed letter adds to the mounting evidence that many Vatican officials were adamant in their belief that bishops should not allow such disclosure. “The files of a bishop concerning his priests are altogether private; their forced acquisition by civil authority would be an intolerable attack upon the free exercise of religion in the United States,” Cardinal Oddi explains.


During the sex-abuse scandal that reached its zenith in the US about 18 years later, dozens of American bishops cited the same argument of confidentiality that Cardinal Oddi raised in his letter, resisting demands to open their personnel files. However, when the courts ordered release of those files, the US bishops complied.


The two prelates involved in the 1984 letter are now deceased. Cardinal Silvio Oddi, who was prefect of the Congregation for Clergy from 1979 to 1984, died in 2001 at the age of 90. Bishop Manuel Moreno, who resigned his post in Tucson in 2003 at the age of 72, died in 2006.

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Vatican looks to expand dialogue with non-believers to US

Vatican looks to expand dialogue with non-believers to US




Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi

Rome, Italy, Feb 7, 2011 / 03:26 pm (CNA).- As Paris prepares to host a new forum for dialogue between believers and non-believers, the Vatican official in charge of the initiative sees interest cropping up all over the globe.

The first major "Courtyard of the Gentiles" meeting is due to take place this March 24-25 in the French capital. The Pontifical Council for Culture-promoted program aims to engage leaders of French culture in dialogue on issues of religion, enlightenment and common reason.

Important sites of culture, including the storied Sorbonne University, have been chosen for a series of encounters.

There will also be a moment for young people to meet in a more public "courtyard," the large square outside the Basilica of Notre Dame, to have discussions. Pope Benedict XVI will address the young people in a video message. Inside the basilica, the ecumenical Taize community will be leading a prayer service.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the head of the council for culture, told Vatican Radio Feb. 5 that interest is being generated around the world. The council has heard from a number of cities interested in the possibility of hosting such a forum of their own.

One institution, the University of Bologna, Italy – called the Alma Mater Studiorum ­– plans to hold a gathering next week, ahead of the Paris event in March.

On Feb. 12, the university will bring back the tradition of "disputed questions." Cardinal Ravasi said that this was traditionally an exchange of opinions on a variety of subjects, whereas questions in the coming event will pertain to matters of belief and non-belief.

During the talks, four professors will exchange viewpoints on God while examining law, philosophy, literature and science. Teachings from Paschal, St. Augustine and Nietzsche will be read aloud by another participant in between the academics' remarks.

For Cardinal Ravasi, the amount of interest is "very surprising." His original plan in Paris –what he called "the city-emblem of secularism" – was to host a more low-key event at a Catholic institution.

"Then, though, I saw this branching out. And this branching out is extending itself ever further and with very different typologies. It will now be our task to continue it, but most of all to allow others to do it."

The council is thinking of staging one in Tirana, Albania and is thinking about setting up another in Stockholm, Sweden in November of this year. The latter event would be particularly "curious," he said, because of the initiative's Catholic roots and expected participation from Lutherans.

For the cardinal, there is no limit to the possibilities. He spoke of "crossing the ocean and going to the most remote countries, beginning with the United States, where there has already been interest in Chicago and Washington."

Afterwards, he is setting his sights on countries with a small population of Catholics but a presence of "a religiosity of another kind."

"Let's think to Asia," he said.

Read more at www.catholicnewsagency.com
 

Why is China building eerie 'ghost cities'?

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FROM JEROME CORSI'S RED ALERT

Why is China building eerie 'ghost cities'?

Google Earth photographs reveal towns completely devoid of people


© 2011 WorldNetDaily

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and senior managing director of the Financial Services Group at Gilford Securities.

Why is China constructing large, well-designed "ghost cities" that are completely devoid of people?



China's empty roads (source: Business Insider)

Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports
Google Earth photographs of China depict city after city of vast complexes consisting of office skyscrapers, government buildings, apartment buildings, residential towers and homes, all connected by networks of empty roads – with some of the cities located in China's truly most inhospitable locations.

Images of these "ghost cities" – after countless billions of dollars have been spent on the towns' design and construction – reveal nobody lives in them.

"The photographs look like giant movie sets prepared to film apocalyptic motion pictures in which some sort of a neutron war or bizarre natural disaster has eliminated people from the face of the earth while leaving the skyscrapers, sports stadiums, parks and roads perfectly intact," Corsi noted. "One of China's ghost cities is actually built in the middle of a desert in Inner Mongolia."

Business Insider ran a series of photos of these Chinese ghost cities. One showed no cars in the city except for approximately 100 parked in largely empty lots clustered around a government building, and another showed a beautiful wetland park with people added using Photoshop.

etland park with people added using Photoshop.





No cars in the city, except for a few dozen parked at the government center

(source: Business Insider)

China now has an estimated inventory of 64 million vacant homes. It is building up to 20 new ghost cities a year on the country's "vast swathes of free land."



Empty roads in Zhengzhou (source: Panoramio)

ScallyWagAndVagabond.com quoted Patrick Chovanec, a business teacher at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who explained, "Who wants to be the mayor who reports that he didn't get 8 percent GDP growth this year? Nobody wants to come forward with that. So the incentives in the system are to build. And if that's the easiest way to achieve growth, then you build."

For more information on China's ghost cities, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."

Red Alert's author, who received a doctorate from Harvard in political science in 1972, is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and (with co-author John E. O'Neill) "Unfit for Command." He is also the author of several other books, including "America for Sale," "The Late Great U.S.A." and "Why Israel Can't Wait." In addition to serving as a senior staff reporter for WorldNetDaily, Corsi is a senior managing director in the financial-services group at Gilford Securities.

If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WND poll.

Disclosure: Gilford Securities, founded in 1979, is a full-service boutique investment firm headquartered in New York City providing an array of financial services to institutional and retail clients, from investment banking and equity research to retirement planning and wealth-management services. The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect Gilford Securities Incorporated's views, opinions, positions or strategies. Gilford Securities Incorporated makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability or validity of any information expressed herein and will not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this information or any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use.

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