Amazing Time-Lapse Video Shows Thousands and Thousands of Pro-Life People Marching for Life
NATIONAL STEVEN ERTELT JAN 24, 2020 | 6:32PM WASHINGTON, DC
An amazing new time-lapse video shows thousands upon thousands of pro-life people marching for life through the streets of Washington D.C during today’s March for Life.
It’s always difficult to capture the exact number of people who participate in the March for Life ,the rally and various pro-life events in the nation’s capital throughout the day.
But this tremendous video gives you a visual glimpse of the tremendous outpouring of pro-life support for the March for Life as it streams through the streets of the nation’s capital.
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins released a time-lapsed video of the March for Life, taken from a strategic vantage point that SFLA scouted before the March.
President Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani appears on Fox and Friends to discuss the scale and scope of corruption he has identified within the story of how Joe Biden and Hunter Biden laundered money from Ukraine for their own financial interests.
Giuliani highlights a January 2016 meeting in the White House between Eric Ciaramella (2020 CIA Whistle-blower) while on the National Security Council, and several members from the former Ukraine government, where the Obama administration and Ukraine officials entered into an agreement to frame dirt against Donald Trump and his campaign.
The key to understanding the corrupt endeavor behind the fraudulent “whistle-blower” complaint, doesn’t actually originate with ICIG Atkinson. The key person is the former head of the DOJ National Security Division, Mary McCord.
Prior to becoming IC Inspector General, Michael Atkinson was the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division, Mary McCord.
It is very safe to say Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson have a working relationship from their time together in 2016 and 2017 at the DOJ-NSD. Atkinson was Mary McCord’s senior legal counsel; essentially her lawyer.
McCord was the senior intelligence officer who accompanied Sally Yates to the White House in 2017 to confront then White House Counsel Don McGahn about the issues with Michael Flynn and the drummed up controversy over the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak phone call.
Additionally, Mary McCord, Sally Yates and Michael Atkinson worked together to promote the narrative around the incoming Trump administration “Logan Act” violations. This silly claim (undermining Obama policy during the transition) was the heavily promoted, albeit manufactured, reason why Yates and McCord were presumably concerned about Flynn’s contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It was nonsense.
However, McCord didn’t just disappear in 2017 when she retired from the DOJ-NSD. She resurfaced as part of the Lawfare group assembly after the mid-term election in 2018.
THIS IS THE KEY.
Mary McCord joined the House effort to impeach President Trump; as noted in this article from Politico:
“I think people do see that this is a critical time in our history,” said Mary McCord, a former DOJ official who helped oversee the FBI’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and now is listed as a top outside counsel for the House in key legal fights tied to impeachment. “We see the breakdown of the whole rule of law. We see the breakdown in adherence to the Constitution and also constitutional values.”
“That’s why you’re seeing lawyers come out and being very willing to put in extraordinary amounts of time and effort to litigate these cases,” she added. (link)
Former DOJ-NSD Head Mary McCord is currently working for the House Committee (Adam Schiff) who created the impeachment scheme.
Now it becomes critical to overlay that detail with how the “whistle-blower” complain was organized. Mary McCord’s former NSD attorney, Michael Atkinson, is the intelligence community inspector general who brings forth the complaint.
The “whistle-blower” had prior contact with the staff of the committee. This is admitted. So essentially the “whistle-blower” almost certainly had contact with Mary McCord; and then ICIG Michael Atkinson modified the whistle-blower rules to facilitate the outcome.
There is the origination. That’s where the fraud starts.
The coordination between Mary McCord, the Whistle-blower and Michael Atkinson is why HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff will not release the transcript from Atkinson’s testimony.
It now looks like the Lawfare network constructed the ‘whistle-blower’ complaint aka a Schiff Dossier, and handed it to allied CIA operative Eric Ciaramella to file as a formal IC complaint. This process is almost identical to the Fusion-GPS/Lawfare network handing the Steele Dossier to the FBI to use as the evidence for the 2016/2017 Russia conspiracy.
Atkinson’s conflict-of-self-interest, and/or possible blackmail upon him by deep state actors who most certainly know his compromise, likely influenced his approach to this whistleblower complaint. That would explain why the Dept. of Justice Office of Legal Counsel so strongly rebuked Atkinson’s interpretation of his responsibility with the complaint.
In the Justice Department’s OLC opinion, they point out that Atkinson’s internal justification for accepting the whistleblower complaint was poor legal judgement. [See Here] I would say Atkinson’s decision is directly related to his own risk exposure:
One is a true story, the other a vignette. You decide.
The pan-handler
His true name I do not know, but he called himself Andrea. I met him in front of the Bambino Gesu Hospital this morning. I had seen him before and he begged me for some groceries. So this time I felt obligated in justice and charity to help him.
He waited patiently while I conducted some other affair in the area and then followed me to a discount supermarket. Where I let him select what he wanted: some ingredients for a soup for his family, which he said lived under a bridge along the Tiber River. After the purchase I shook his hand and promised to pray for his wife and two children, so he told me he had.
Having another affair to conduct, I found myself on another street about 15 minutes later, and there was Andrea with his shopping bag empty. He did not even have time to go to the river and return. He was coming out of a shop where he had traded his groceries for money, because he wanted to buy liquor.
It was at that moment, Andrea gave me a lesson worth more than the groceries. He said to me, “You get around a lot, don’t you. You are on every street!” He was shamefaced that I caught him in his deception. But he spoke in the hope that by listening to his words I might not notice what he was doing.
The Ostriches
In the year 2041, when the Antichrist has taken up his throne in the Vatican, the only resistance left in his Church of Abu Dhabi — that is what it is now called — is a group which is called The Ostriches. This year they are meeting in a remote sandy place in Patagonia to perform yet another of what they call the most effective acts of resistance and defiance against the Supreme Pontiff of Surprises.
Their protest consists in arranging themselves in a circle, digging a hole in the sand big enough for the head of each of them, and then placing their head in the hole, while leaving their posterior stick out in the air. And they do this for 15 minutes, while contemplating the silence of ”resisting while recognizing.”
After a press conference, in which they denounce the Supreme Pontiff of Abu Dhabi for heresy and left-wing politics, one of the last German Noblemen invited to the secret, private protest, asks all of the leading ‘Recognize but Resistance’ Movement leaders, how they can say at the same time that the Supreme Pontiff is a heretic, while affirming that he has the grace of Pachamama to be infallible? Moreover, why protest here in remote Patagonia, and not in front of the Vatican?
To this none of them could respond, directly, they just continued with their press conference praising one another on the brilliant wisdom, prudence and strategy of recognizing and resisting with such outstanding public stunts as they had just accomplished for all the world to see, on Social Media — but only after the fact.
In Fine…
The pan-handler should teach us a lesson: when you see fraud in action, do not allow what the fraudster says, in the moment you catch him in his dishonestly, to keep you from recognizing that he is dishonest.
In this way you will remember that you are being played every time you go to their websites to read the carefully crafted controlled media stories they put out. Because their only lasting objective is to remain in communion with the High Priest of Pachamama. And the longer it takes you to recognize that, the more likely it will be that you lose your immortal soul and those of all your family.
Perhaps they do not do what they do under orders from you know who, but what difference does that make?
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CREDITS: The Featured Image is a photo take by Yathin S Krishnappa, and released under the CC Atribution Share Alike 4.0 International License. For more information see here.
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Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on When you see fraud in action, do not allow what the fraudster says, in the moment you catch him in his dishonestly, to keep you from recognizing that he is dishonest. In this way you will remember that you are being played every time you read the carefully crafted controlled media stories. Because their only lasting objective is to remain in communion with the High Priest of Pachamama. And the longer it takes you to recognize that, the more likely it will be that you lose your immortal soul and those of all your family. Perhaps they do not do what they do under orders from you know who, but what difference does that make?
A good number of laymen who never studied theology, or studied it at B rated institutions are at it again on social media, over the question of whether a heretical pope is still the pope.
So let us make some distinctions, so as not to get lost in the fog of controversy.
Saint Robert Bellarmine classifies the true and Catholic position as the 5th opinion, namely that a formal heretic loses all office in the Church ipso facto, that is, by the very adhesion to heresy. This is the position of all the ancient Fathers. And it is the only Catholic position. It is enshrined in Canon 1364 of Pope John Paul II’s Code of Canon Law of 1983.
Remember, heresy is both a false proposition in of itself, an erroneous judgement in the mind and a deviant profession of the mouth.
It is a false proposition, whether written down or comprehended in the mind. And example of this is: Jesus Christ is not God.
It is an erroneous judgment of the mind as if when you were to think: I judge that Jesus Christ is not God.
It is a deviant profession of the mouth, as if you were to write or say aloud: Jesus Christ is not God.
As a canonical crime, however, one deals only with the external profession. Thus no one can be judged by the Church to be a heretic without an external profession of heresy. The profession must be witnessed or recorded on paper or other medium.
If you know anything about Church History, however, you know that very few men have been condemned by name as heretics in the entire history of the Church. Why is this? Because the Church, which was founded to save souls, recognizes that every deviant profession might not come forth from a mind which adheres to error. It might come forth from a mind which is ignorant, or from a will which wants to offend others. So not every deviant profession represents formal heresy (of the kind which is a sin, though canon law presumes that such deviant profession is presumed to be imputable, until proven otherwise in a due process). Nor does every deviant profession represent pertinacity. Pertinacity is the quality of adhesion to the error such that even when shown that it contradicts revealed truth, the one holding the error remains steadfast in its profession.
Pertinacity is determined canonically after 3 reproofs before witnesses. In the great Councils of the Church even notorious public and certainly pertinacious heretics were asked 3 times to recant.
But if the Church has a process for deposing heretics from their offices, does not that mean that St. Robert Bellarmine was wrong when he said the 5th opinion was the true thesis?
Here we must remember that there is a distinction between what is true in itself and what is true inasmuch as the Church can know it. As soon as one commits the sin of heresy, even in secret, you lose the gift of faith and commit a mortal sin. You are separted from God. This is true whether any man ever knows of your sin or not, before the General Judgement on the Last Day.
However, in the Church, since some men have a better ability and some a worse ability to detect heresy, there has to be a public process for determining who is a formal pertinacious heretic, so as to officially deprive them from office. For otherwise, there would be chaos in the Church. Here the Church has recourse to the teaching of Jesus about fraternal correction, first in private, then with witnesses, and finally before the whole Church. This also confirms the principles of the cessation of power is not presumed. You cannot therefor presume a heretic has lost his office on the basis of your personal discernment. You are not infallible and you cannot know hearts.
In the case of notorious professions, which are made in public and spread on social media, every Catholic has the right to condemn the profession as heretical. You need not go to the person in private or correspond with him in private. His Bishop should and his superiors should. But not everyone has to. Because the common good requires that every public heretical profession be immediately confuted by a public orthodox profession.
At the same time, none of this denies that by the Catholic Faith each of us is capable of discerning heresy which is formal, even if in the person it may not be pertinacious. This ability is simply the application of comparing revealed truth with the perverse profession to manifest that it is perverse and deviant.
Likewise, since the salvation of souls is the greatest law, every Catholic has the right to separate himself from heretics, whether by avoiding them at all times or avoiding them in their Churches. So no one can be forced to receive the Sacraments from someone they know has made a deviant profession. And in this, the individual cannot be coerced, and the Church has never coerced them in such matters, because it has happened that heretics have been men who once occupied offices of power in the Church before.
Nor are you obliged to obey your superior in anything when his heretical spirit becomes manifest. Canon 41 gives you this right broadly. So the right to resist illegitimate commands is sufficient, in the law, to defend the rights of the faithful from a superior, who is heretical, before he is condemned as such by the Church and declared to have lost his office.
For this reason, IT IS THE GRAVE DUTY OF EVERY CATHOLIC to publicly denounce deviant professions, whether they be made by laymen, clergy or even those they think are the pope. Without the public denunciation, the faith is not guarded, the consciences of the faithful are not stirred to action, and souls are put in danger, because without the true Faith it is impossible for anyone to be saved — though admittedly God requires the faith that is willing to believe Him in everything (the perfect kind formally), more than the faith which knows every revealed truth and accepts all of them (the perfect kind formally and materially)
Therefore, there is an absolute necessity to call Synods and Councils to condemn the most notorious heretics and heresies. And if the man whom you think is the pope is one whom you consider a heretic, then you should not be silent, you should urge a council. And a council of Bishops, anywhere on the planet, has the Apostolic right and duty to hear the case, because if he is a heretic, he is no longer the pope, but it remains the duty of Bishops to discern and judge that fact.
Finally, if you take pleasure condemning others for heresy, because it suits your fancy, you probably do not have right discernment and you surely risk damnation for risking the mortal sin of falsely or rashly judging others, not to mention damaging or destroying their reputations. Likewise, if you know a man is a heretic and refuse to correct him, when he shows an ability to be corrected, you sin against charity. If he is harming souls and you remain silent, then you are complicit in that harm. And if you think you do not have to seek a canonical condemnation of a heretic, because you judge all in authority heretics, then you might be committing all those sins I just mentioned. This is what distinguishes Catholics from sedevacantists. We believe that the Church will never be overcome by any single or by every heresy together, because there will always be at lest one Bishop willing to condemn them. And to him we turn for their condemnation.
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CREDITS: The Featured Image is of an ancient Greek Icon, depicting the Saints who defended the Creed of Nicaea, which is written in Greek on the scroll they are holding in hand.
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A press release announcing the release of the Italian edition of “From the Depths of Our Hearts” for January 30th puts an end (or almost) to days and days of fierce controversy. The signatures will be “Robert Sarah with Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI” to avoid further speculation. So the truth has been restored, but the wound of a media lynching against Cardinal Sarah and the pope emeritus remains, to which no one – for sure – will apologise. And there is also the “unsolved mystery” of a statement signed by Benedict XVI and Sarah last Friday: it should have been published by the Secretariat of State but all trace has been lost.
“Today and only today, when the clouds seem to clear (…) we announce the release of the book From the Depths of Our Hearts by Robert Sarah with Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI for Thursday 30 January 2020, thanking the authors and all the friends who have been close to us during this delicate enterprise.” With these words David Cantagalli, the Italian publisher for Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah, in an official press release puts an end (or almost) to the squalid story that enveloped the announcement of the publication of the book in defence of celibacy, co-authored by Cardinal Sarah and the Pope emeritus. So, no signature will be withdrawn after all, as Benedict’s secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, had informed news agencies after rumours revealed that Benedict XVI was unaware of the book’s design. This led to the start of a real media lynching of Cardinal Sarah, but also the same old campaign against the Pope emeritus.
The book will be released in Italian as scheduled on January 30, with a minor formal change to the cover, as agreed with the French publisher Fayard, who manages all the contracts for translation: the signature of the authors will no longer be Robert Sarah-Benedict XVI, but “Robert Sarah with Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI”. The inclusion of his own name – Joseph Ratzinger – somehow intends to avoid the declared enemies of Benedict XVI using the pretentious topic of a text written by an “anti-pope”; but whoever reads this book must honestly admit that the spirit with which it is written is one of a contribution to the Truth, not of an ideological or power skirmish. And the addition of the preposition “with” in the signature clarifies what is explained in the publisher’s note accompanying the edition. That is, the book is composed of an essay by Benedict XVI, another by Cardinal Sarah (both have already been explained by the Daily Compass, here and here), then an introduction and a conclusion physically written by Sarah but “read and shared” by Benedict XVI. Exactly what had already been explained from the start, but which was ignored to give rise to “incessant, nauseating and lying controversy”, as Cardinal Sarah defined it a few days ago.
The controversies were particularly virulent by the usual sectors of the Catholic world, by “the revolutionary guardians” and by the Catto-progressive “intellectuals”, who certainly did not spare Cardinal Sarah from their harsh insults including a request to muzzle the Pope emeritus. We have reached a level of lies perhaps never reached before, particularly serious when we consider that even the Italian bishops’s newspaper, Avvenire, put words in Benedict XVI mouth (January 15) that he never said and that could not be deduced even from the however unfortunate statements made by Ganswein: “Benedict: I do not sign Sarah’s book on celibacy -” Never authorised the apposition, nor shared the premise and the conclusion”.
As evidence of the shared feeling between Cardinal Sarah and the pope emeritus, in the communiqué Cantagalli stresses that: «It is a book with a high theological, biblical, spiritual and human value, guaranteed by the expertise of the authors and by their willingness to make available the outcomes of their respective reflections, manifesting their love for the Church, for His Holiness Pope Francis and for all humanity.”
So: the book comes out, the truth is restored. One could say that everything ends well. But it is not quite like that. First of all because these weeks of poison, have not been canceled and the slime thrown above all on Cardinal Sarah will leave a stain. And you can be sure, no one will apologise – indeed, they will also avoid giving any importance to the news – on what has happened. Secondly, events – as we have already said – that seemed to be controlled by a director who had every interest in creating a fuss over nothing in order to obscure the content of the book, certainly unwelcome to those trying to overturn the doctrine of the Church by attacking priestly celibacy. A goal, unfortunately, that has partially succeeded.
The third part, remains a mystery. After days of fierce controversy, Cardinal Sarah went to Mater Ecclesiae, the residence of Pope Benedict XVI, at 6 pm on Friday 17. It was a clarifying meeting that Sarah himself reported with some tweets: «Due to the incessant, nauseating and false controversies that have never stopped since the beginning of the week, concerning the book From the Depths of Our Hearts, I met Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI tonight “, wrote the Guinean cardinal, who then continues:” With Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI we have been able to ascertain that there are no misunderstandings between us. I came out of this lovely meeting very happy, full of peace and courage.” This is followed by recognition for the work done by the French publisher.
The meeting and the concordant atmosphere that characterised it was not denied by anyone, but the announcement via tweet by Cardinal Sarah seemed to herald something that would attest once and for all to this unity of purpose. In fact, we know that a joint communiqué, signed by Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah, was written at that meeting, aimed at confirming the double authorship of the book and putting an end to the media lynching of the two. In order to avoid further friction, it had been decided to deliver this press release to the Secretariat of State for publication, which should have happened no later than Monday 20. However, its traces have been lost: censored by the Secretariat of State? Left in Msgr. Ganswein’s bag or some other official’s? It is not known. However, the unpleasant impression remains that everything is being done to prevent the total harmony between Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah in matters of priesthood, celibacy and not only, from emerging clearly.
Does New Philly Archbishop Perez agree with Francis that the Church Moral Teachings can “Evolves”?
On October 4, 2019, the Cleveland Diocese website revealed that the newly Francis appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia Nelson Perez apparently believes with Francis that the Church “evolves.” Perez’s diocese website reported:
“The Church grows and evolves over time, the pope wrote in his exhortation. Bishop Perez said that is what keeps the Church vibration and relevant.” (dioceseofcleveland.org, “Be involved in the Church, bishop tells young people at First Friday Club of Greater Akron, October 4, 2019)
In the post Perez appeared to speak against the “values” of “abortion” and “gender identity” as against the “values of the Church.”
Perez, in using Personalist value language terminology which implies change is possible in speaking of the Church’s infallible unchangeable teachings against abortion and homosexuality, appears to be saying it’s possible that the Church’s moral unchangeable teachings can “evolve.”
Will Francis appointed Archbishop Perez affirm unambiguously that the Church’s teachings on abortion, homosexuality and Communion for adulterers can never change unless one is in schism from the unchangeable truths of the Church established by Jesus Christ which is the Catholic Church?
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as for the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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CANON LAW AND CATHOLIC COMMON SENSEby Edward Peters1 . 24 . 20
Asmall but intense drama unfolded last week in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, Virginia. Thanks largely to the graciousness of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, the matter was resolved in the least painful way possible. Even so, it warrants a few words of reflection.
The Episcopal diocese was seeking a large, convenient venue for the upcoming consecration of Rev. Susan Haynes as bishop. The diocese asked for permission to use the spacious parish of St. Bede Catholic Church in Williamsburg for the rites. The parish pastor and the Catholic bishop of Richmond, Barry Knestout, granted permission. This sparked a backlash from many lay Catholics, who were distraught by the news that a Catholic parish planned to host the consecration of an Episcopalian bishop (a woman, as it happened, though that fact was mostly a distraction in this case). After a few days of increasing Catholic institutional embarrassment, the Episcopalians canceled their plans and found another site for the ceremony. Two points suggest themselves.
First, the remarkably effective lay opposition was formed almost entirely via social media, and was covered mostly by alternative Catholic news sites. In other words, this drama was largely driven by forces in cyberspace. At some point Catholic leadership simply must begin to appreciate this new reality.
Second, and more important for Catholic life, the pastor of St. Bede and the bishop of Richmond had consulted Church law in this matter, and their decision was based on a reasonable reading of the relevant provisions of Catholic ecumenical and liturgical law. Thus, while pastors and bishops should expect to run afoul of good Church sense whenever they run afoul of Church law, in this case, even following canon law (or a reasonable interpretation thereof) did not suffice to keep Church leaders within the bounds of Catholic common sense. An Episcopalian ordination is the purported conferral of holy orders by a faith community that does not possess them on a recipient ineligible to receive them. By what stretch of ecclesial imagination does it make sense to host such rites in a Catholic church?
When explaining and then defending their decision to make a Catholic church available to the Episcopalians for the ordination, Catholic officials invoked Rome’s 1993 Directory on Ecumenism, nos. 137 and 139, and its 2004 Directory for Pastoral Ministry of Bishops, no. 207. For good measure, Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenismwas mentioned (though it barely addresses the issues in this case) while Canons 1210 and 1220 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law could have been cited but were not. The phrasing of each of these norms allows Catholic pastors and bishops just enough discretionary room to authorize the Catholic hosting of non-Catholic rites such as those the Episcopalians sought. Therein lies the problem.
Framed almost at the level of platitudes, these norms permit non-Catholics to use Catholic worship spaces provided such use serves “the exercise of promotion of worship, piety, or religion” (c. 1210) and is not “inappropriate to the holiness of the place” (c. 1220). The Ecumenical Directory authorizes the non-Catholic use of Catholic holy places provided that the non-Catholics will be “celebrating worthily their religious ceremonies” (n. 137, emphasis added) and merely suggests removal of the Blessed Sacrament (which Knestout had directed).
Clearly, albeit unfortunately for all involved, the provisions are vague and almost naive. As a result, the same guidelines that authorize the use of Catholic sacred spaces by non-Catholics whose rites, by no reasonable interpretation, could be considered offensive to Catholic doctrine (think Protestant preachers proclaiming New Testament passages or Jews praying the Psalms) also allow the Catholic hosting of such rites as Episcopalian ordinations—hosting, as noted above, that sorely tries the bounds of Catholic common sense.
The Catholic pastor and bishop in this case could have declined the Episcopalian request (Church law sets no presumption in favor of permission), but they also could have, and did, plausibly read Church law as authorizing such permission—despite the obvious objections that other Catholics (not always precisely but in general correctly), could and did raise. And the ensuing mess played out painfully in public.
Whenever one law, faced with one set of facts, allows for two contradictory and controversial outcomes, the real problem likely lies not with the officials applying the law, nor with the subjects objecting to its application, but with the law itself.
Edward Peters teaches canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on BISHOP BARRY KNESTOUT, IN SLAVISH OBEDIENCE TO THE LETTER OF THE LAW, OVERRULED COMMON SENSE IN WILLIAMSBURG JUST AS HE DID AS VICAR GENERAL IN WASHINGTON, D.C. WHEN HE SUSPENDED A PRIEST WHO HAD DENIED HOLY COMMUNION TO A COUPLE OF ‘MARRIED’ LESBIANS WHO DELIBERATELY PUBLICLY ATTEMPTED TO RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION AFTER CONFRONTING THE PRIEST-CELEBRANT IN THE SACRISTY BEFORE THE MASS.
Accused of sex abuse, Buffalo priest fires back with defamation lawsuit
The Rev. Roy Herberger on Jan. 22, 2020, sued a man who had accused him of sexually abusing him as a child in a Child Victims Act case. Herberger says he did not abuse the man and sued him for defamation. (Derek Gee/News file photo)By Jay Tokasz Published January 22, 2020|Updated January 22, 2020
A Buffalo priest who was accused in a Child Victims Act lawsuit of sexually abusing a boy in the 1980s is firing back with a lawsuit of his own that alleges his accuser lied about the abuse and slandered the priest.
The Rev. Roy T. Herberger, former longtime pastor of SS. Columba & Brigid Church, filed the defamation suit Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Erie County. The lawsuit is the first known defamation case in Western New York filed against a person over allegations made in a Child Victims Act suit.
Herberger said he wanted “to take a stand” to prevent people from making false claims.
“Know that you can be sued. It’s not just so simple that you can make an accusation,” Herberger said in an interview with The Buffalo News.
The Buffalo Diocese put Herberger on administrative leave in June 2018 after receiving a complaint that the priest had sexually abused an 8-year-old boy in the 1980s. Herberger vehemently denied the allegation in a letter to parishioners and friends. Following a diocese investigation that determined the allegation was unfounded, he was returned to active ministry in December 2018.
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The man who complained to the diocese sued in August 2019 under the Child Victims Act, naming the diocese as a defendant, but not Herberger. The case is slated to go to trial Feb. 10, 2021.
Herberger’s accuser, who is 42 and lives in Niagara Falls, is named in Herberger’s defamation lawsuit. The News is not identifying the man because he says he is a child sex abuse victim and hasn’t consented to the use of his name in a story. The News does not identify sex crime victims without their consent.Editors’ Picks
The accuser’s lawyer, Stuart Mermelstein of New York City, did not immediately respond Wednesday to The News’ request for comment on Herberger’s lawsuit.
Herberger, 77, has been a priest since 1968. He retired as a pastor in 2017 but still celebrates Masses and performs other priestly ministries at the University at Buffalo Newman Center and other churches.
Herberger said in the lawsuit that he has been humiliated by the sex abuse allegation and has suffered severe emotional distress, as well as a loss of income due to the accuser’s claims.
Attorney Scott Riordan, who was hired by the diocese to investigate the allegations against Herberger, determined that the claims were “completely false.”
Riordan found several inconsistencies in the accuser’s story, according to a copy of a report Riordan submitted to the diocese that was obtained by The Buffalo News.
Among those inconsistencies, according to the report:
When the man reported the alleged abuse to the diocese in 2018, he said he was a student at St. Ann School in the mid-1980s, but Riordan couldn’t find any record of him there.
The man said the priest abused him 10 times in a room inside the St. Ann rectory. But St. Ann parish was run by the Jesuit order, and Herberger, a Buffalo diocese priest, would not have had a room there or a key to the rectory. Herberger was assigned to Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Boniface parishes, not St. Ann, at the time of the alleged abuse. Herberger didn’t become associated with St. Ann until 2008, when the parish merged with SS. Columba & Brigid.
The accuser also alleged much of the abuse happened at the priest’s home in Lackawanna, but Herberger never owned or rented a home in Lackawanna. Riordan did track down a Lackawanna house that Herberger had been associated with, because the priest was granted power of attorney for a parishioner who owned the home. The house in 2018 matched how the accuser described it, with beige siding and a white picket fence. But photographs of the house from the 1980s, when the accuser alleged he was brought there by Herberger, showed an exterior painted in multiple colors and no fence. The beige siding and white fence weren’t installed until the late 1990s. The accuser described being in a blue bedroom room filled with a porcelain doll collection during the abuse. The family of the parishioner who had owned the home submitted affidavits saying Herberger never had a key to the house and the home didn’t have a bedroom painted in blue, nor a porcelain doll collection.
Despite being cleared by the diocese, Herberger said he stills feels the stigma of having been publicly accused.
“The accusation is there: no proof, no evidence, not even an inkling, just an accusation and all of a sudden, people like me are put on the front page of papers, picture, name on television, and I mean, that’s just not fair,” he said.
The accusation resulted in Herberger’s not being able to officiate at several weddings, funerals and baptisms of family and friends. Nardin Academy, where he had been chaplain, hired another priest, he said.
Herberger said he’s gained weight due to the stress of carrying a reputation damaged by a child sex abuse allegation.
“It’s just sleepless nights and overeating and wondering, ‘What do people think?’” he said. “I’m afraid, do I even say hello? Do I shake hands with a child at Mass or after Mass? Do I have to be afraid that people are going to say, ‘He’s too close to that child? What’s he doing? What’s he up to?’ It’s just horrible, having to live with that.”
Herberger’s lawsuit, which was filed by attorneys Steven K. Long and Olivia T. Paulo-Lee, seeks in excess of $100,000 in punitive damages from his accuser.
Herberger said he doesn’t expect to get any money from his accuser.
“I mean, I’m going to be spending money on a lawyer to get no money, because I’m sure that the person accusing me doesn’t have any. That’s why he did what he did,” said Herberger.
Herberger acknowledged in his initial 2018 letter defending himself that he knew the man accusing him.
He said he had helped the man’s father, who struggled with alcoholism and was homeless for stretches of time on the streets of Buffalo. Herberger said he sometimes took the man’s father for treatment and returned him home. He met his accuser maybe three or four times, always in the presence of his parents and never alone with him, he said.
He has no idea why the man, decades later, would accuse him of sexual abuse, “except that maybe I’m the only priest he ever knew by name,” said Herberger.
Jay Tokasz– Jay Tokasz is part of the watchdog team at The Buffalo News. He has spent 25 years in newspapers, writing on a wide range of subjects, from evidence-tampering cops to papal elections.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on MAN BITES DOG. AT LAST, A PRIEST FIGHTS BACK AGAINST AN ACCUSATION OF PEDOPHILIA. IT IS A FACT THAT MANY OF THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST PRIESTS IN THE WAVE OF THE PEDOPHILIA SCANDAL ARE SIMPLY FALSE ACCUSATIONS MADE FOR THE MONEY OF SETTLEMENTS MADE BY THE CHURCH
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (ChurchMilitant.com) – The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is being sued for obtaining millions of dollars in charitable donations under false pretenses and privately investing that money into ventures such as luxury condominium developments and Hollywood movies.
Texas-based legal firm the Stanley Law Group filed a class-action lawsuit against the USCCB on Wednesday, alleging the organization fraudulently promotes Peter’s Pence as a papal charity when recent reports show as little as 10% of donations are used for its stated purpose. The lawsuit against the USCCB touches on two items the Catholic Church teaches are sins requiring restitution: stealing and lying.Tweet
“The purpose of the Peter’s Pence Collection is to provide the Holy Father with the financial means to respond to those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster and disease,” according to the USCCB website.
“This is about transparency and accountability,” Marc Stanley, the firm’s lead attorney, told Church Militant.
“People work hard for their money and give from their heart; this is a real gift. That money being diverted is just wrong,” he added.
Peter’s Pence poster
The USCCB promotes Peter’s Pence in many ways, such as offering diocesan and parish resources, social media kits and web ads.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported in December 2019 that $1.1 million from Peter’s Pence was invested into producing the movie Rocketman, a story about homosexual singer Elton John’s life that contains “the most explicit gay love scene since Brokeback Mountain in 2005.”
L’Espresso reported in October 2019 that the Vatican spent $200 million from Peter’s Pence towards the purchase of property on Sloane Avenue in London’s Chelsea district where a former warehouse was converted into 50 luxury apartments.
Peter’s Pence is collected on June 29, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, or the Sunday nearest the Solemnity.
The lawsuit against the USCCB touches on two items the Catholic Church teaches are sins requiring restitution: stealing and lying.
Stealing
Section 1293 of the Baltimore Catechism (1293) states: “All sins of cheating, defrauding or wronging others of their property; also all sins of borrowing or buying with the intention of never repaying are equivalent to stealing.”
Section 2454 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church echoes this teaching, adding the necessity of restitution: “Every manner of taking and using another’s property unjustly is contrary to the seventh commandment. The injustice committed requires reparation. Commutative justice requires the restitution of stolen goods.”
Lying
The Baltimore Catechism, in section 1297, maintains: “A person may be guilty of dishonesty in getting money or goods by false pretenses and by using either for purposes for which they were not given.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church again adds, in section 2509, the necessity of reparation: “An offense committed against the truth requires reparation.”
“[The] USCCB must come clean and give back the money it took from well-intentioned people who thought they were giving urgently-needed funds to help the destitute around the world,” said Stanley.
In a March 2019 settlement, Stanley Law Group obtained $37 million as a refund for donors in a class-action lawsuit against Gospel for Asia that lasted three years.
The class-action lawsuit against the USCCB was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
Church Militant reached out to the USCCB through different media multiple times for comment but received no response as of press time.
Christian charity requires that we not refuse to speak with our superiors or inferiors. The Crisis in the Church now is so grave that we should all be seeking to speak with our superiors about it and about how to remedy it. One thing we must discuss is the canonically erroneous declaration of Feb. 11, 2013 by the man who is Pope Benedict XVI. Erroneous, manifestly, because no one had the respect for his Office or person to point out that the act needed to be redone, IF it was his intention to posit an act in conformity with Canon 332 §2.
For this reason I have written more than 50 Cardinals, I think — I am not sure I have lost count — to raise the issue. And recently one of them had the Christian charity to respond to me in writing. I cannot divulge the actual text, for the sake of my respect to him, but I can divulge my text in reply, because I think it addresses a problem we all are having when we speak with out superiors about Pope Benedict’s Declaratio.
The Cardinal wrote to me that we must presume that Pope Francis is validly elected and holds the petrine munus, and therefore, he told me that he did not want to speak with me in person about the Renunciation.
Here is my reply to this prince of the Church:
Your Eminence,
If you ask any Doctor of Law, you will see that the reason you give, namely, “We must assume Pope Francis is a validly elected pope, who actually represents the petrine munus”, is a statement which compounds several errors:
1. First, that a man is the pope is not a presumption of fact, but the conclusion of law. For example, he is not the pope, whom the Cardinals say is the pope, rather, he is the pope who was elected according to thte norm of Universi Dominic Gregis. To say the first, that is, that he who the Cardinals says is the pope, is the pope, confuses the means whereby we know a canonical fact with the cause of the legitimacy of a canonical fact. They are two different things.
2. Second, in all law, whether Roman, Napoleonic or Common, the cessation of power is never presumed. This is an ancient principle, the ignoring of which would cause chaos in society. The corollary is that the cessation of right is never presumed. Now a Papal renunciation is the first moment in a petrine succession. And a succession of legal right is judged as a cessation of power. As Mons. Arrieta, of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, affirmed in my presence on Dec 11, 2019, such an act of renunciation must be clear in itself, it cannot be interpreted to be valid, because no one has the right to interpret it. This is because, interpretation of a law is the cause of its being understood other than what it is. And the Code of Canon Law does not grant that right, in papal renunciations, since they must be manifestly a renunciation of petrine munus.
3. Third, your affirmation that Pope Francis must be assumed to be validly elected, is the supposition of a conclusion as the first premise of your thought. In other words, you have taken what you should, in virtue of a series of illations based on facts and law, hold as a conclusion, and make it the first principle whereby your mind refuses to presuppose that from which it is illated. This is the logical error called petitio principii.
4. In truth, if you read Universi Dominici Gregis n. 37, Pope John Paul II required that a sede vacante be verified as a legal one. But Mons Arrieta assured me that no such verification was done in Feb. 2013. In fact, canon 40 invalidates everything done by a subject receiving an administrative act, before he verifies the integrity of the act itself. Yet the Vatican was publishing different versions of the Declaratio for many days, so an integral act was never had prior to the announcement minutes after the Consitory of Feb. 11, that the act meant a renunciation of the papacy. Indeed, as a Latinist who has published both a Grammar and translated over 9000 pages of Scholstic texts, I have found more thn 40 errors in the Latin text. There are moreover at least 6 canonical errors in the central act, which render it invalid, null or irritus. Furthermore, canon 41 gives each of us the duty to refuse an actus nullus and requires that we have recourse to the authority issuing the act. As Mons. Arrieta affirmed again to me, in the case of a papal resignation, if the act is null it must be redone, and if it is unclear the recourse to the superior must be to solicit another valid act, since he himself cannot make it valid by an interpretation. Thus, the mere fact that Pope Benedict said he renounced the ministerium, when Canon 332 §2 requries the renunciation of munus, means that the act is also irritus in virtue of canon 188, for substantial error, and irritus in virtue of canon 38 for not containing a derogation of the requirement to name the munus.
I can understand that as a Cardinal you would be disinclined to broach the issue of the legitimacy of the previous apparent Conclave, in which you never participated, but as Catholics we risk the penalty of eternal damnation, if we allow the Petrine Succession to falter for reasons so grave. Words have meaning, and if we reject that, then we will not find mercy before the terrible seat of Judgement of the Divine Word, who said of Pope John Paul II when he foresaw his Code of Canon Law in 1983: Whatsoever you bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven.
Finally, I have not demanded a meeting with Your Eminence, but I have pointed out the grave reasons why you should act, and at least do the due diligence required of you in Canon 41 and seek a private audience with Pope Benedict, before he loses his mental faculties. I assure you that he will tell you that it was never his intention to renounce the petrine munus, only to renounce the petrine ministerium and office. I say this based on a complete study of everything he said from Feb. 11, 2013 to today. And Antonio Socci agrees with me, as he said in his interview with Aldo Maria Valli just last week.
Sincerely in Saint Francis,
Br. Alexis Bugnolo
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CREDITS: The Featured Image is my own photo of a bas-relief in the Basilica of the Most Holy Savior, here at Rome, showing a Pope kneeling in adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Truth Incarnate.
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