Hold them accountable!

It’s a very good thing that prosecutors let Jeffrey Epstein skate on charges in 2008. Well, that good thing comes at a cost, the cost being an unknown number of other teenaged girls being sexually abused, but maybe, just maybe, some real good can come of this. From The Miami Herald:

BY Julie K Brown and Jay Weaver | August 8, 2019 07:38 PM | Updated August 9, 2019 2:48 PM

A. Marie Villafaña, the lead federal prosecutor who helped negotiate a controversial plea deal for accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, has submitted her resignation to the Justice Department, the Miami Herald has learned.

Her departure comes amid a federal probe into the role she and other federal prosecutors, including her former boss, Alexander Acosta, had in sidelining a 53-page indictment against the wealthy New York investor in favor of a state plea to minor prostitution charges in 2008. Epstein, 66, was accused of molesting dozens of underage girls, most of them 14 to 16 years old, at his Palm Beach mansion more than a decade ago. He is now facing federal sex trafficking charges involving minors brought against him last month by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is examining whether Acosta, who resigned his cabinet post as secretary of labor last month — and other U.S. prosecutors involved in the 2007-2008 case — committed misconduct in negotiating the secret pact with Epstein. A federal judge in February ruled that the prior deal was illegally negotiated because Epstein and federal prosecutors concealed it from his victims in violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

The Herald has learned that several people involved in the Epstein case have been questioned by the Justice Department in recent weeks as part of its ongoing OPR investigation.

There’s more at the original, but Mrs Villafaña is the last member of the federal investigation team who is still employed by the Department of Justice.

Mr Epstein was given special treatment during his incarceration in 2009, being allowed to work in his office on work release, being chauffeured, and allowed to sleep with his cell door open when he was in jail. While the story says nothing about money changing hands, the mollycoddled treatment he received certainly raises questions about it. Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL):

ordered a criminal investigation into the state’s handling of the Epstein case, from his sentencing in 2008 to his incarceration and probation in 2009. In 2006, former Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer declined to prosecute Epstein on serious sex charges, which led to the U.S. Attorney and FBI taking over the case in 2007.

My website, The First Street Journal, has a long series called Hold Them Accountable, in which we have urged that government officials who treat criminals too leniently or release them too soon be held responsible for the crimes that those criminals commit at times when they should have still been locked up. If these investigations concerning the lenient treatment Mr Epstein received result in criminal convictions and prison time, it will send a message to other law enforcement officials: if you don’t do your jobs right, you, too, can go to jail.

And I’m guessing that prosecutors, policemen and sheriffs who wind up in jail will not have a pleasant experience therein.

If Mr Epstein is convicted, he’ll spend the rest of his miserable life locked up. Of course, that could have been the case starting in 2008, but some people didn’t do their jobs. They need to be held accountable for the injuries done to Mr Epstein’s (alleged) victims during that time.

The nanny state prepares to strike again

As William Teach pointed out, it’s rather humorous that the Pyrite State is so worried about sugary drinks, yet legalized marijuana usage. From the Los Angeles Times:

Is gulping soda as bad as smoking? California seems to think so

By The Times Editorial Board | March 4, 2019 | 3:10 AM PST

In California, soda is the new tobacco — at least from a public policy point of view.

Adopting some of the same methods that have been employed to reduce smoking, California legislators have put together an ambitious package of bills aimed at curbing consumption of sodas, energy drinks and other beverages that have added sugar.

The proposals, which are sponsored by the California Medical Assn. and California Dental Assn., include levying a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, mandating warning labels on their bottles and restricting how they are promoted and displayed in stores, as well as limiting the serving size of fountain drinks. The proceeds from the tax (the amount is yet to be determined) would fund programs to prevent obesity, diabetes and other health problems associated with the overconsumption of sugar.

It’s an intriguing approach that has already sparked a backlash from the soda industry and a public discussion about what role the government should play in grocery store purchases. Now the onus is on public health officials to make a clear and compelling case about the dangers — and to explain why sugary drinks deserve as harsh a regulatory response as cigarettes.

There’s much more at the original.

Full disclosure: I love Mountain Dew, and I had been consuming mass quantities of it since I was a teenager in the 1960s. It was nothing for me to drink four bottles or cans of Dew in a day, and on a particularly hot summer day, the count could go higher. When we lived in Pennsylvania, I even had my own, separate Dew refrigerator in the basement, because Mrs Pico continually complained that I had the regular ‘fridge set too cold, and was freezing the produce and eggs.

On July 1, 2017, when we moved back to the Bluegrass State, I gave up soda, cold turkey. I really haven’t missed it.

But, I digress. There is little question that soda isn’t particularly good for you; the Times’ editorial board was simply making the case that it hadn’t been proven bad enough for you for California to attempt to regulate and tax into disuse. I find it interesting that a state which has legalized the recreational use and sale of pot, has passed an assisted suicide law, tried to (but shelved) ban homosexual conversion therapy, and makes millions off of advertisements and product placements for the consumption of alcohol, is so very worried that you might drink a Pepsi.

But one of the proposed measures that could show results is definitely worth exploring: taxes on drinks with added sugar. Last week, a three-year study of the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages imposed by Berkeley in 2014 — the first in the nation — found that people in low-income neighborhoods bought fewer sugary drinks after the tax was imposed, while consumption trends remained the same in neighboring cities that didn’t have such a tax. The study also found that the people who drank fewer sugary beverages consumed more water during the same period.

This finding mitigates the argument that such a regressive levy would hit low-income people the hardest. Poorer people, many of them black and Latino, would still suffer, economically and physically, if they continued to drink copious amounts of sugar-sweetened drinks. But black and Latino Californians have higher rates of obesity than other populations, so if the higher cost encouraged them to switch to healthier (and untaxed) water, it would be a double benefit to them.

Translation: yes, it would have a disparate impact on minorities, but it’s for their own good, so that doesn’t matter!

The obvious question has to be asked: why is it any of the government’s business to “encourage” people to change their choices and habits? The city of Philadelphia imposed a special tax on sugary drinks, and part of the effect was to cut revenue to retailers near the city limits when their customers could, and did, easily drive to stores in neighboring Bucks and Montgomery counties to buy Mountain Dew without paying the ridiculous tax. It seems that customers were willing to spend a little more in gasoline to buy what they chose.

Of course, alcohol consumption is worse, far worse, than that of sugary drinks, and nobody in the Pyrite State is (seriously) trying to ban or reduce that. The editors of the Los Angeles Times even advocated changing state law to allow businesses which serve alcohol to continue serving until 4:00 AM rather than the 2:00 last call specified by state law:

California is still hewing to a 1935 law dictating that alcohol sales stop from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., and that blanket prohibition no longer makes sense for cities with thriving music and nightlife scenes that compete for investment and tourism with the likes of New York City, Las Vegas and other late-night cities.

Heaven forfend! We wouldn’t want the “thriving music and nightlife scenes” to be stifled by not having people drinking during the very wee hours of the morning, would we? At best, I found some California sites which want to help people who drink too much alcohol to moderate their intake, but it seems that nobody wants to curtail it back to zero. The National Institute for Health said:

An estimated 88,0008 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.

Yet California’s legislature doesn’t seem to care much about that!

The truth is that sugary drinks aren’t good for you, tobacco isn’t good for you, alcohol isn’t good for you, and, let’s be honest here, casual sex isn’t good for you, but you sure won’t find the home state of Hollywood trying to discourage the hook up culture!

Governments should just stay out of people’s personal decisions about what to put in their mouths. Yeah, a lot of things people do put in their mouths aren’t good for them, but those are decisions, intelligent or otherwise, which ought to belong to individuals, not politicians.

Hold them accountable!

If you were a judge, and had a second-time convicted sex offender before you, awaiting sentencing, and you gave him probation rather than the 2 to 2½ years in the penitentiary for which the prosecution asked, and he offended again, is there any reason that you shouldn’t be held liable for the sex offender’s subsequent crimes?

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes avoids prison for sex abuse
By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 2, 2018

For the second time in recent weeks, Portland protest leader* Micah Isaiah Rhodes stood before an Oregon judge ready to go to prison for having sexual contact with an underage teen.

And for the second time, an Oregon judge agreed to veer from state sentencing recommendations and give Rhodes five years of probation.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson on Monday said he wouldn’t send Rhodes to prison for two to 2½ years because he believes Rhodes earnestly is trying to change despite the prosecution’s arguments to the contrary.

“I can tell that you’re sincere and I can tell that you’ve grown a lot over the last couple of years,” Hodson said as Rhodes wiped away tears.

Rhodes was 20 and 21 at the time of his crimes, in 2014 and 2015.

In March, Rhodes pleaded guilty to two counts of felony second-degree sexual abuse for at least twice having sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy. Investigators say Rhodes met the boy on a gay dating app, and the contact happened in Gresham and Troutdale.

Days earlier, a Washington County jury had found Rhodes guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a 17-year-old girl. A defense memo said the contact happened after the girl went to watch a movie with Rhodes at his mother’s house.

There’s a lot more at the link, including information concerning Mr Rhodes previous record as a sex offender.

  • At age 14, he sexually abused a 9 year old boy;
  • At age 15, he sexually abused three younger boys. He was convicted as a juvenile of first degree sodomy and sexual abuse; and
  • He has thrice been through sex offender treatment programs, which don’t appear to have worked.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Bumjoon Park said that Mr Rhodes does not respect the authority of the courts and “simply must not believe that having sex with minors is wrong.”

At least Mr Rhodes will have to register as a sex offender, and was ordered to have no contact with minors, but I fail to see how that protects potential victims while he’s out on the street.

Well, guess what? It was only three weeks later that the esteemed Mr Rhodes was arrested for violating the terms of his probation!

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is arrested, again

By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 23, 2018

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is back in jail on allegations that he violated terms of his probation by having contact with minors.

Rhodes, 24, was ordered to stay away from anyone under 18 years old after he was convicted this year on three counts of second-degree sexual abuse for having illicit sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in Washington County and a 17-year-old boy in Multnomah County. The sexual abuse occurred in 2014 and 2015, and Rhodes was 20 and 21 years old at the time.

Washington County Circuit Judge Janelle Wipper and Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson decided in separate hearings not to sentence Rhodes to two to 2 ½ -years in prison, as state sentencing guidelines recommended. Instead, the judges ordered five years of probation for Rhodes with a long list of conditions, including that he was forbidden from being around children without the prior permission of his probation officer.

Last Wednesday, Rhodes was arrested and brought to the Multnomah County Detention Center on accusations that he had been in the presence of children. On Thursday, he was transferred to Washington County Jail, where he remains.

Fortunately, Mr Rhodes does not appear to have molested anyone, but he was caught at the protest “near a 15-year-old boy and outside a tent set up for children’s activities.” This time, Mr Rhodes was finally sent to prison, for 2½ years, for his probation violation.

Get that? Washington County Circuit Court Judge Janelle Wipper wasn’t all that upset that Mr Rhodes had raped minors, but that he had disobeyed her prior court orders! Yeah, the prison term was based on he molestation convictions, but the fact that he was sent to the clink was because he violated his probation.

The teenagers of Washington County are fortunate — as far as we know — in that none of them were raped by an incorrigible sex offender, but Judges Wipper and Hodson still exposed them to that danger. And even with the last violation, Mr Rhodes was sentenced to five years probation, yet Judge Wipper sent him away for only 2½, not five years.

Yeah, I know: government officials are shielded from legal responsibility for the decisions they take in their official capacity, as long as those decisions do not violate the law, and Judges Hodson’s and Wipper’s previous sentencing decisions were perfectly legal; they committed no crimes.

But at some point, such judges must somehow be held accountable when they release criminals on society when they have the power to lock them up, and those criminals re-offend.

Hold them accountable!

If you were a judge, and had a second-time convicted sex offender before you, awaiting sentencing, and you gave him probation rather than the 2 to 2½ years in the penitentiary for which the prosecution asked, and he offended again, is there any reason that you shouldn’t be held liable for the sex offender’s subsequent crimes?

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes avoids prison for sex abuse
By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 2, 2018

For the second time in recent weeks, Portland protest leader* Micah Isaiah Rhodes stood before an Oregon judge ready to go to prison for having sexual contact with an underage teen.

And for the second time, an Oregon judge agreed to veer from state sentencing recommendations and give Rhodes five years of probation.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson on Monday said he wouldn’t send Rhodes to prison for two to 2½ years because he believes Rhodes earnestly is trying to change despite the prosecution’s arguments to the contrary.

“I can tell that you’re sincere and I can tell that you’ve grown a lot over the last couple of years,” Hodson said as Rhodes wiped away tears.

Rhodes was 20 and 21 at the time of his crimes, in 2014 and 2015.

In March, Rhodes pleaded guilty to two counts of felony second-degree sexual abuse for at least twice having sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy. Investigators say Rhodes met the boy on a gay dating app, and the contact happened in Gresham and Troutdale.

Days earlier, a Washington County jury had found Rhodes guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a 17-year-old girl. A defense memo said the contact happened after the girl went to watch a movie with Rhodes at his mother’s house.

There’s a lot more at the link, including information concerning Mr Rhodes previous record as a sex offender.

  • At age 14, he sexually abused a 9 year old boy;
  • At age 15, he sexually abused three younger boys. He was convicted as a juvenile of first degree sodomy and sexual abuse; and
  • He has thrice been through sex offender treatment programs, which don’t appear to have worked.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Bumjoon Park said that Mr Rhodes does not respect the authority of the courts and “simply must not believe that having sex with minors is wrong.”

At least Mr Rhodes will have to register as a sex offender, and was ordered to have no contact with minors, but I fail to see how that protects potential victims while he’s out on the street.

Well, guess what? It was only three weeks later that the esteemed Mr Rhodes was arrested for violating the terms of his probation!

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is arrested, again

By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 23, 2018

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is back in jail on allegations that he violated terms of his probation by having contact with minors.

Rhodes, 24, was ordered to stay away from anyone under 18 years old after he was convicted this year on three counts of second-degree sexual abuse for having illicit sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in Washington County and a 17-year-old boy in Multnomah County. The sexual abuse occurred in 2014 and 2015, and Rhodes was 20 and 21 years old at the time.

Washington County Circuit Judge Janelle Wipper and Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson decided in separate hearings not to sentence Rhodes to two to 2 ½ -years in prison, as state sentencing guidelines recommended. Instead, the judges ordered five years of probation for Rhodes with a long list of conditions, including that he was forbidden from being around children without the prior permission of his probation officer.

Last Wednesday, Rhodes was arrested and brought to the Multnomah County Detention Center on accusations that he had been in the presence of children. On Thursday, he was transferred to Washington County Jail, where he remains.

Fortunately, Mr Rhodes does not appear to have molested anyone, but he was caught at the protest “near a 15-year-old boy and outside a tent set up for children’s activities.” This time, Mr Rhodes was finally sent to prison, for 2½ years, for his probation violation.

Get that? Washington County Circuit Court Judge Janelle Wipper wasn’t all that upset that Mr Rhodes had raped minors, but that he had disobeyed her prior court orders! Yeah, the prison term was based on he molestation convictions, but the fact that he was sent to the clink was because he violated his probation.

The teenagers of Washington County are fortunate — as far as we know — in that none of them were raped by an incorrigible sex offender, but Judges Wipper and Hodson still exposed them to that danger. And even with the last violation, Mr Rhodes was sentenced to five years probation, yet Judge Wipper sent him away for only 2½, not five years.

Yeah, I know: government officials are shielded from legal responsibility for the decisions they take in their official capacity, as long as those decisions do not violate the law, and Judges Hodson’s and Wipper’s previous sentencing decisions were perfectly legal; they committed no crimes.

But at some point, such judges must somehow be held accountable when they release criminals on society when they have the power to lock them up, and those criminals re-offend.

The problem with the Catholic priesthood

Yesterday I wrote about the problems with the leadership in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, but the problems are not limited to the hierarchy and their terrible decisions. Much of the problem is in the nature of the priesthood itself.

It ought to be obvious: human beings need to have mates. Our media are full of advertisements for the things people need to do to attract, or keep, their mates, ads for weight loss help, personal grooming products and the like, but also for help finding a mate when you don’t have one and are frustrated with doing that search by yourself. There are specialized companies like Our Time, which claims to be “the largest dating network for singles over 50,” and even one called Farmers Only, which specializes in finding dates for people in rural areas, as well as more generalized services such as Match.com.1 While some seem to think that this is just the biological urge to copulate, it really is clear: human beings need other human beings, and marriage is a common thread throughout every human culture, in every place and at every time in which we have any social knowledge at all.

But the Roman Catholic Church has required perpetual celibacy, and prohibited marriage, for its priests since the Second Lateran Council in 1139; this was reaffirmed at the Council of Trent in 1563.

While that part is common knowledge, less well known is that there are married Catholic priests. In 1980, Pole John Paul II opened a path by which married Episcopal/Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism could serve in the Catholic priesthood. Estimates are that there are about 120 such priests in the United States.

And there are more: the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches have allowed married priests for several centuries, and in 2014, Pope Francis ended the restriction that married Eastern Catholic could serve only in their home countries.2

There were, of course, many married priests in the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Second Lateran Council, including many popes. St Peter, regarded as the first Pope, at least had been married at one point: Matthew 8:14-15 refers to his mother-in-law.3

How can there be married Catholic priests, either in the Eastern Rite churches, or in the Latin Rite, converts from Anglicanism and its off-shoot churches? It’s simple: priestly celibacy is a discipline, not a dogma, and disciplines can be changed. The advantages of a celibate priesthood are clear:

  • Celibate priests can give more of their time an attention to their parishes and parishioners, while married men have to devote more of their time and attention to their wives and children.
  • Celibate priests can be more easily transferred to different parishes. Priests are reassigned every five to seven years, on average.4 Wives frequently have jobs, even careers, while children have friends and school, and transferring a married priest could be much more difficult and disruptive to his family.
  • Celibate priests are easier to house and support. Priests normally live in the rectory, a house for priests normally on church grounds. These buildings are not normally set up to house wives and children.5 Accommodating married priests would mean a larger home for his family. Considering that Catholic dogma opposes artificial contraception, a married priest could have a very large family to support and house.
  • A celibate priest will normally live on parish grounds, while a married priest might have to live in a house away from the church. This means that the married priest might not be a security guard for his parish.

But, if there are clear advantages to having a celibate priesthood, there is one huge disadvantage: with humans being naturally inclined to mate, the Church is expecting the priest to live an unnatural lifestyle. Human beings need to mate, they need to be married, and the celibacy discipline denies to Catholic priests that most basic normalcy in human life. Even St Paul, who stated that he was celibate, noted that marriage was the natural condition of life,6 And St Paul also set down the conditions that a man must meet to be a deacon, priest or bishop:

The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way— for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church?7

The conditions for priests and deacon are similar. But clearly, St Paul expected those in Holy Orders to mostly be married.

The Church offers for us The Theological Basis for Priestly Celibacy, saying in part:

Observing celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven does not mean being any the less a man; by renouncing a natural form of existence, the priest discovers life in all its fullness.

Alas! We are at this point, in the sexual abuse scandal rocking the Church, because, in too many cases, the renunciation of this “natural form of existence” has not led a too-large number of priests to “discover life in all its fullness.”

Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and priest, wrote:

Roman Catholic clerical culture favors doctrinal rigidity, conformity, obedience, submission and psychosexual immaturity, mistaken for innocence, in its candidates. These are the personality elements that lead to advancement and power in the clerical system. Single men are more easily controlled if their sexuality is secret. Double lives on all levels of clerical life are tolerated if they do not cause scandal or raise legal problems. Sexual activity between bishops and priests and adult partners is well known within clerical circles. The secret system forms a comfortable refuge for unresolved gay conflicts. There is a new emerging awareness of the systemic nature of sexual/celibate behavior within the Roman Catholic ministry that is increasingly destabilizing to the church.

Dire consequences will follow the exposure of this sexual system embedded in a secret celibate culture. Authorities who are or have been sexually active, although not with minors, are hard put to publicly correct clerics who are abusing minors. The need for secrecy, the cover-up, extends beyond defending criminal activity of a sex abuser. The power and control that holds the Roman Catholic church together depends on preservation of the celibate myth. The Vatican and Pope John Paul II declared its inviolability.

The truth about secret sex in the celibate system portends grave danger. The reality of celibate violations extends beyond priests who abuse minors and the bishops who hide them.

And this points up another problem: if “sexual activity between bishops and priests and adult partners is well known within clerical circles,” that means that it is largely homosexual activity, something else expressly forbidden. How many priests are homosexual?

Of course, many factors influence a person’s decision to join the clergy; it’s not like sexuality alone determines vocations. But it’s dishonest to dismiss sexuality’s influence given that we know there is a disproportionate number of gay priests, despite the church’s hostility toward LGBTQ identity. As a gay priest told Frontline in a February 2014 episode“I cannot understand this schizophrenic attitude of the hierarchy against gays when a lot of priests are gay.”

So how many gay priests actually exist? While there’s a glut of homoerotic writings from priests going back to the Middle Ages, obtaining an accurate count is tough. But most surveys (which, due to the sensitivity of the subject, admittedly suffer from limited samples and other design issues) find between 15 percent and 50 percent of U.S. priests are gay, which is much greater than the 3.8 percent of people who identify as LGBTQ in the general population.8

In the last half century there’s also been an increased “gaying of the priesthood” in the West. Throughout the 1970s, several hundred men left the priesthood each year, many of them for marriage. As straight priests left the church for domestic bliss, the proportion of remaining priests who were gay grew. In a survey of several thousand priests in the U.S., the Los Angeles Times found that 28 percent of priests between the ages of 46 and 55 reported that they were gay. This statistic was higher than the percentages found in other age brackets and reflected the outflow of straight priests throughout the 1970s and ’80s.

The high number of gay priests also became evident in the 1980s, when the priesthood was hit hard by the AIDS crisis that was afflicting the gay community. The Kansas City Star estimated that at least 300 U.S. priests suffered AIDS-related deaths between the mid-1980s and 1999. The Star concluded that priests were about twice as likely as other adult men to die from AIDS.

What we have, under the requirement of priestly celibacy, is a large group of men forced by their profession to live an abnormal lifestyle. Heterosexual men, anticipating an eventually married lifestyle, face a very difficult choice if they are considering the priesthood, a choice of a lifetime of denial of their sexual urges versus a (hopefully) happy and productive marriage. Homosexual men who might be considering the priesthood might now be able to marry legally, but if they are Christians, in general, and Catholic specifically, they are faced with the concomitant belief that two men cannot marry or have sex with each other; the priesthood just might offer the grace of God, to enable them to resist their sexual urges.

But, for whatever reasons they have, it has been clear that homosexual men make up a significant percentage of the Catholic priesthood, a far greater percentage than their percentage of the population. From The Washington Post:

The Catholic Church is enabling the sex abuse crisis by forcing gay priests to stay in the closet

By Robert Mickens9 | July 23, 2018

The Catholic Church is being rocked — again — by high-level sexual abuse scandals, with allegations in recent weeks surfacing in Chile, Honduras and the District, home to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a once-super-popular cleric who is facing accusations by five males of harassment or abuse.

And again, people say they are shocked and outraged, which shows how Catholics still refuse to see that there is an underlying issue to these cases. It is the fact that almost all of them concern males — whether they are adolescents, post-pubescent teens or young men.

And while no adult who is of sound psychosexual health habitually preys on those who are vulnerable, there is no denying that homosexuality is a key component to the clergy sex abuse (and now sexual harassment) crisis. With such a high percentage of priests with a homosexual orientation, this should not be surprising.

But let me be very clear: psychologically healthy gay men do not rape boys or force themselves on other men over whom they wield some measure of power or authority.

However, we are not talking about men who are psychosexually mature. And yet the bishops and officials at the Vatican refuse to acknowledge this. Rather, they are perpetuating the problem, and even making it worse, with policies that actually punish seminarians and priests who seek to deal openly, honestly and healthily with their sexual orientation.

Something I wrote then comes to mind amid the McCarrick scandal: O’Brien should not have recused himself from voting in the pope-picking “conclave,” as “only a naif could believe that he is the only man among the electors who has broken his solemn promise to remain celibate,” I wrote in the March 9, 2013, edition of the Tablet. “There are likely others. And even those who’ve done worse,” I warned.

There’s much more at the original, but Mr Mickens’ theme is that the Church should simply be more open and honest about the number of homosexual men within the clergy:

Their more conflicted gay confreres — and all gay people, indeed the entire Church — would benefit greatly if these healthy gay priests could openly share their stories. But their bishops or religious superiors have forbidden them from writing or speaking publicly about this part of their lives.

Even if you believe that homosexual relationships are acceptable — the Editor does not — Mr Mickens’ proposal is that the Catholic Church should find some way to accommodate the sexual desires of its homosexual priests, when the Church holds that homosexuals cannot be married, that sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful,10 and that homosexual activity is “gravely depraved”,11 and that homosexuality itself is “objectively disordered.”12

There is, instead, another, far simpler, far more logical path for the Church: the Church should only ordain heterosexual men,13 and only ordain those who are already married or state that they intend to marry. This will not only give us a priesthood which is not denied the basic human need of mating and which understands married parishioners, but greatly expand the pool of potential priests.

But more, it will address the sexual abuse of minors in a way that is wholly politically incorrect to say: the vast majority of sexual abuse by Catholic priests has been against boys rather than girls. Several different Google searches have failed to turn up any notation concerning the number of victims in the recent Pennsylvania grand jury report divided by sex, something of obvious interest, because such would reinforce the rather obvious fact that most victims of an all-male clergy have been boys. The John Jay report noted that sexual abuse cases studied between 1950 and 2002 indicated that, rather than prepubescent children, abusers targeted older children:

The largest group of alleged victims (50.9%) was between the ages of 11 and 14, 27.3% were 15-17, 16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7. Overall, 81% of victims were male and 19% female. Male victims tended to be older than female victims. Over 40% of all victims were males between the ages of 11 and 14.14

Yes, this is a celibacy problem, in that priests are forced to live unnatural lives, but while it might be politically incorrect, it is also intellectually dishonest to deny that this is a homosexuality problem as well. We have a priesthood of sexually immature men — what else could they be, having been denied mature sexual relationships by the nature of their careers — who are far more heavily than the population homosexual in orientation. The statistics we do have indicate that they were preying on boys just entering puberty, not prepubescent children, and that is an indication that sexual orientation as opposed to pedophilia is the primary motivation.

We need a priesthood who understand and participate in normal, adult sexual relationships, and, given that the Church does not, and cannot, recognize homosexual marriages as legitimate, that can mean only one thing: a priesthood in normal, heterosexual marriages.

That will not eliminate all sexual abuse; Jerry Sandusky, were he available for comment — and cared to tell the truth — could tell us all about men in stable, heterosexual marriages who still had a preference for underaged boys. Nor will it prevent the inevitable, some priests being divorced by their wives, and some children or married priests turning out badly.

But it has to be better than what we have now, a priesthood with an out-of-proportion homosexual cohort, and all being denied the most natural of human impulses, that of mating.

This is what we must have, this is what the Catholic Church needs in order to survive to serve the faithful into the future. Denying it, because it is politically incorrect, is denying the truth.
________________________________________
1Links to these dating services are simply for documentation; none are paid advertisements on this site.
2In the Eastern Rites, married men can be ordained; this has been the custom from the first, but unmarried men who are ordained may not subsequently marry. A married Eastern Rite priest is not allowed to remarry if he is widowed. Bishops in the Eastern Rite are all celibates.
31 Corinthians 9:5 has also been interpreted as confirming that not only was St Peter married, but that his wife accompanied him as he traveled with Jesus. Cephas, in the cited passage, refers to Peter.
4I would note here that the priest of my parish, when I lived in Pennsylvania, was at the same parish for the entire fifteen years I lived there, and was still there nine months after I moved away.
5I am personally aware of one instance in which the parish sold the rectory building, and the priest lived in a small room in the church basement.
61 Corinthians 7:1-11.
71 Timothy 3:1-5
8The Centers for Disease Control conducted the National Health Institute Survey in 2013, and found that only 1.6% of the population are homosexual, with another 0.7% bisexual, and another 1,1% either stating that they were ‘something else’ or declining to respond. This does not support the article’s contention that 3.8% of the population are homosexual.
9Robert Mickens lives in Rome and has covered the Catholic Church for decades. He is English-language editor of La Croix International, an online Catholic paper that originally ran a version of this piece.
10Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2353
11Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2357
12Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2358
13“Pope Francis warned Italian bishops this week to vet carefully applicants to the priesthood and reject anyone they suspected might be homosexual, local media reported on Thursday.
‘Keep an eye on the admissions to seminaries, keep your eyes open,’ the pope was quoted as saying by newspaper La Stampa’s Vatican Insider service. ‘If in doubt, better not let them enter.’
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on the remarks, which Vatican Insider and Il Messaggero said were made at a closed-door gathering on Monday.”

14The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, 1950-2002, page 12.

Hold them accountable!

On Sunday, a recently released felon named Tanaij Wells shot up a 24-hour are festival in Trenton, NJ. Wells had been released from prison after serving time for “homicide-related charges.” Seventeen people were wounded, five were injured in the ensuing stampede and one, Wells, is dead. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy,  a Democrat, wasted no time blaming guns for the Trenton Art All Night festival shootings.

That Mr Murphy would blame guns rather than criminals is hardly unexpected; that’s what Democrats do these days. Fox News noted that Governor Murphy supports shorter sentences for criminals, and the Trenton shooter, Tahaji Wells, was the beneficiary of a ‘shorter sentence,’ in that he was released from prison early. Had he not been paroled, he couldn’t have shot up the Trenton festival, because he would still have been behind bars. Perhaps Governor Murphy’s notion of shorter sentences is the wrong idea?

The problem isn’t gun control, or any lack thereof; the problem is that when the state has criminals in custody, they are treated too leniently, and released too early. From the Fox News story:

Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.

The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.

“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

But it seems that Governor Murphy didn’t want to actually do much to reduce recidivism:

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.

Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Now, what could have prevented Tahaji Wells from obtaining a firearm illegally, and shooting up a festival because he was angry at another gang-banger? Keeping him in prison for his previous crimes would have accomplished that!

Mr Wells was convicted of aggravated manslaughter in 2004, and sentenced to 18 years in the state penitentiary. That sentence alone should have kept him behind bars until 2022.

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.

Six more years should have kept him locked up until 2028, unless the sentence was set to run concurrently rather than consecutively. Why anyone would think that sentencing a prisoner to an additional term to run concurrently with his existing sentence would be any sort of punishment or deterrent is beyond my poor ability to grasp.

Yet Mr Wells was paroled in February of this year.

Clearly, committing other felonies while in prison does not seem to constitute good behavior. Why was Mr Wells released early?

As is usual, we aren’t told who took the decision to release Mr Wells early, or even if there was any choice in the matter under New Jersey law. If there was no choice but to release Mr Wells early, then the legislature needs to address that. If there was a choice, then the parole board members who looked at his record need to be identified and held accountable for their actions. They need to be publicly shamed, they need to be fired, and the victims of Mr Wells’ actions need to sue them into penury. If the judge who allowed Mr Wells in prison conviction sentence to be run concurrently rather than consecutively had any choice in the matter, he needs to be publicly shamed, driven from office, and sued into penury.

Of course, public officials are shielded from such lawsuits, but they shouldn’t be. When a considered decision for leniency leaves people wounded, perhaps permanently handicapped, or dead, then the officials who took that decision should be held accountable for the consequences of their decision. If that was done, we wouldn’t be seeing instances of violent criminals being released early, we wouldn’t see idiotic judges handing down minimal sentences for serious felonies, and we wouldn’t be reading stories about men who should have still been locked up shooting into crowds.

Hold them accountable! A felon guns down 17 people and New Jersey’s governor blames the gun.

On Sunday, a recently released felon named Tanaij Wells shot up a 24-hour are festival in Trenton, NJ. Wells had been released from prison after serving time for “homicide-related charges.” Seventeen people were wounded, five were injured in the ensuing stampede and one, Wells, is dead. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy,  a Democrat, wasted no time blaming guns for the Trenton Art All Night festival shootings.

That Mr Murphy would blame guns rather than criminals is hardly unexpected; that’s what Democrats do these days. Fox News noted that Governor Murphy supports shorter sentences for criminals, and the Trenton shooter, Tahaji Wells, was the beneficiary of a ‘shorter sentence,’ in that he was released from prison early. Had he not been paroled, he couldn’t have shot up the Trenton festival, because he would still have been behind bars. Perhaps Governor Murphy’s notion of shorter sentences is the wrong idea?

The problem isn’t gun control, or any lack thereof; the problem is that when the state has criminals in custody, they are treated too leniently, and released too early. From the Fox News story:

Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.

The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.

“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

But it seems that Governor Murphy didn’t want to actually do much to reduce recidivism:

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.

Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Now, what could have prevented Tahaji Wells from obtaining a firearm illegally, and shooting up a festival because he was angry at another gang-banger? Keeping him in prison for his previous crimes would have accomplished that!

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.

Six more years should have kept him locked up until 2028, unless the sentence was set to run concurrently rather than consecutively. Why anyone would think that sentencing a prisoner to an additional term to run concurrently with his existing sentence would be any sort of punishment or deterrent is beyond my poor ability to grasp.

Yet Mr Wells was paroled in February of this year.

Clearly, committing other felonies while in prison does not seem to constitute good behavior. Why was Mr Wells released early?

As is usual, we aren’t told who took the decision to release Mr Wells early, or even if there was any choice in the matter under New Jersey law. If there was no choice but to release Mr Wells early, then the legislature needs to address that. If there was a choice, then the parole board members who looked at his record need to be identified and held accountable for their actions. They need to be publicly shamed, they need to be fired, and the victims of Mr Wells’ actions need to sue them into penury. If the judge who allowed Mr Wells in prison conviction sentence to be run concurrently rather than consecutively had any choice in the matter, he needs to be publicly shamed, driven from office, and sued into penury.

Of course, public officials are shielded from such lawsuits, but they shouldn’t be. When a considered decision for leniency leaves people wounded, perhaps permanently handicapped, or dead, then the officials who took that decision should be held accountable for the consequences of their decision. If that was done, we wouldn’t be seeing instances of violent criminals being released early, we wouldn’t see idiotic judges handing down minimal sentences for serious felonies, and we wouldn’t be reading stories about men who should have still been locked up shooting into crowds.

Hold them accountable!

From the Sun-Sentinel:

School district shuts down information after Stoneman Douglas shooting

By David Fleshler | May 11, 2018

Superintendent Robert W Runcie, from his Twitter page.

The Broward school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege.Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.

The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to issue any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state’s open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward Sheriff’s detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz’s disciplinary records.

The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong. The district had repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” suggestions that Cruz was in the program.

“It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina, was killed by Cruz during his rampage through the school. “As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida.”

In an interview, Runcie said the district has held nothing back from authorities, providing records as soon as they could be gathered. Any delays reflect the state of the district’s record-keeping systems, he said, not a reluctance to cooperate. He said he would look into the issue of the blanket refusals to provide documents to the news media.

Bovine feces!

From Superintendent Runcie’s biography page on the Broward County schools’ website:

Superintendent Runcie knows first-hand how a high-quality education can transform a person’s life. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the United States as a young boy and became the first member of his family to attend college, graduating from Harvard University and earning an MBA from Northwestern University. He later founded a management and technology consulting company and held several strategic leadership positions with Chicago Public Schools, including serving as its Chief Information Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Area Instructional Officer and Chief of Staff to the Board of Education.

Superintendent Runcie proudly joined Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in 2011. With the support of a dynamic School Board, Mr. Runcie developed a strategic plan for the District focusing on three key areas: high-quality instruction, continuous improvement and more effective communications.

So, we are being told that a man who “founded a management and technology consulting company” and was once “Chief Information Officer” for the Chicago public schools, and “developed a strategic plan” focusing on, among other things, “more effective communication” oversees a school records division that doesn’t have recent records computerized, and easily accessed?

Let me be plain here: the Broward County schools and superintendent are trying to cover their asses!

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Mr Runcie stated, on February 28, 2018, that Nikolas Cruz was not part of the so-called ‘Promise’ program which didn’t report most in-school crimes to the police. In a March 24, 2018, column for the Sun-Sentinel Mr Runcie called reports that yes, Mr Cruz was in that program “fake news.” This all turned out to be false. While Mr Runcie claimed that he, a former Chief Information Officer, hadn’t had all of the information, a four week time lapse between the first statement and his column was plenty of time to get the information.

Mr Runcie and his minions are doing everything in their power to save their own jobs right now. They don’t give a damn about anything else, they don’t care about the truth — especially the truth, because it would reveal how incompetent they are — about complying with Florida’s open records laws, about transparency or the larger community, only about keeping their jobs. Mr Runcie, who in November of 2017, just three months before Mr Cruz’ killing spree received a contract extension until June 30, 2023, makes $335,000 a year, paid for by the taxpayers’ dollars, yet he is doing everything he possibly can to keep information about the school shootings, information about his own failures, from the taxpayers.

To say that Mr Runcie need to be held accountable means that he needs to be terminated, fired, let go, dismissed. That is up to the Broward County School Board, of course, but the School Board is answerable to the voters: six school board seats, out of a total of nine, are up for election this year, and every school board candidate who does not commit to discharging the Superintendent should be defeated. More, the School Board candidates should make commitments to complete transparency and to open all records concerning Nikolas Cruz, and what actions the school took concerning him prior to the shooting.

This involves more than just Mr Runcie’s poor decisions, failures and attempts to cover up. Holding him and his minions accountable means that superintendents of other school districts will see what has happened, and realize that if they follow the same idiotic policies Broward County did, and something bad happens, they, too, will be filing for unemployment benefits.
____________________________

Hold them accountable!

From the Sun-Sentinel:

School district shuts down information after Stoneman Douglas shooting

By David Fleshler | May 11, 2018

The Broward school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege.Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.

The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to issue any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state’s open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward Sheriff’s detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz’s disciplinary records.

The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong. The district had repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” suggestions that Cruz was in the program.

“It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina, was killed by Cruz during his rampage through the school. “As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida.”

In an interview, Runcie said the district has held nothing back from authorities, providing records as soon as they could be gathered. Any delays reflect the state of the district’s record-keeping systems, he said, not a reluctance to cooperate. He said he would look into the issue of the blanket refusals to provide documents to the news media.

Bovine feces!

From Superintendent Runcie’s biography page on the Broward County schools’ website:

Superintendent Runcie knows first-hand how a high-quality education can transform a person’s life. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the United States as a young boy and became the first member of his family to attend college, graduating from Harvard University and earning an MBA from Northwestern University. He later founded a management and technology consulting company and held several strategic leadership positions with Chicago Public Schools, including serving as its Chief Information Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Area Instructional Officer and Chief of Staff to the Board of Education.

Superintendent Runcie proudly joined Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in 2011. With the support of a dynamic School Board, Mr. Runcie developed a strategic plan for the District focusing on three key areas: high-quality instruction, continuous improvement and more effective communications.

So, we are being told that a man who “founded a management and technology consulting company” and was once “Chief Information Officer” for the Chicago public schools, and “developed a strategic plan” focusing on, among other things, “more effective communication” oversees a school records division that doesn’t have recent records computerized, and easily accessed?

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Mr Runcie stated, on February 28, 2018, that Nikolas Cruz was not part of the so-called ‘Promise’ program which didn’t report most in-school crimes to the police. In a March 24, 2018, column for the Sun-Sentinel Mr Runcie called reports that yes, Mr Cruz was in that program “fake news.” This all turned out to be false. While Mr Runcie claimed that he, a former Chief Information Officer, hadn’t had all of the information, a four week time lapse between the first statement and his column was plenty of time to get the information.

Mr Runcie and his minions are doing everything in their power to save their own jobs right now. They don’t give a damn about anything else, they don’t care about the truth — especially the truth, because it would reveal how incompetent they are — about complying with Florida’s open records laws, about transparency or the larger community, only about keeping their jobs. Mr Runcie, who in November of 2017, just three months before Mr Cruz’ killing spree received a contract extension until June 30, 2023, makes $335,000 a year, paid for by the taxpayers’ dollars, yet he is doing everything he possibly can to keep information about the school shootings, information about his own failures, from the taxpayers.

To say that Mr Runcie need to be held accountable means that he needs to be terminated, fired, let go, dismissed. That is up to the Broward County School Board, of course, but the School Board is answerable to the voters: six school board seats, out of a total of nine, are up for election this year, and every school board candidate who does not commit to discharging the Superintendent should be defeated. More, the School Board candidates should make commitments to complete transparency and to open all records concerning Nikolas Cruz, and what actions the school took concerning him prior to the shooting.

This involves more than just Mr Runcie’s poor decisions, failures and attempts to cover up. Holding him and his minions accountable means that superintendents of other school districts will see what has happened, and realize that if they follow the same idiotic policies Broward County did, and something bad happens, they, too, will be filing for unemployment benefits.