The Red & Purple Wall of Shame (a.k.a. "The Thin Black Line")

I've been eagerly awaiting this original true movie these past three years ever since it was in production. Actually, I've been looking forward to dramatic revelations like these ever since my parochial grammar school days almost four decades ago. (a dated blog explained why) However, as I've been warning ever since then -- this is still only the tip of the iceberg.

So I encourage everyone -- especially His Holiness over at the Vatican -- to watch the premiere of "OUR FATHERS: The Catholic Church In An Age Of Scandal". It will be telecast for the first time this Saturday night, May 21st -- at 8:00 P.M. EST/PT (2 hrs, 10 min.) on the SHOWTIME premium Cable TV station -- and several other times thereafter... (SEE LISTINGS).

OUR FATHERS is the first dramatization of the clergy child rapes/bishops cover-ups issue, produced with the cooperation of several real-life victims who insisted their names be used in the film. Their trials by "fire" and the excuses offered by Rome remind me of the idolatrous Israelites who once thought that by sacrificing their children on the altars to Moloch, they were offering them in holocaust to Yahweh.

The film distinguishes that many priests are gay without being pedophiles and that most pedophiles in fact are heterosexual! (Have your speakers on when clicking this link!)

It's about the RC Boston Archdiocese pederast priests sex crimes scandal which the obstinent criminal Bernard Cardinal Law (former Archbishop of Boston who was kicked upstairs to a sinecural benefice in Rome) tried to cover up. Last June, Cardinal Bernard Law was appointed to a plush ceremonial job overseeing one of the four major basilicas of Rome, St. Mary Major. His prestigious appointment was granted one week before the Archdiocese of Boston announced that it was closing 65 parishes (there have been more ever since) as the fiscal result of law suits. That appointment and his recent celebration of a Vatican Mass for the late Pontiff infuriated many of the faithful.

Previously, after his "Find the Pedophile Priest" Three-Card-Monty games up in Boston, (play a hand and "keep moving" -- more fun than "Church B.I.N.G.O." or a barrel of monkeys) he was holed up "doing penance" elsewhere. He fled Massachusetts to a secluded convent in Maryland where he took a refuge under the apron of the Mother Superior. (The cops should have placed a Roman Style Crime Tech "cleric tracker collar" around his neck before he absconded out of this country to Italy. As Martha Stewart would say, "It's a bad thing.") The sisters gave him sanctuary there for an extended period of time. Those nuns must have been glad to finally see his old cronies get him "reassigned to another parish" in Rome. Sooner or later JUSTICE will be served upon him here in America. (WARNING: links could be "tasteless".)

This premiere promises to be a powerful and true-to-life docudrama about the ruined lives of the now adult boys who survived their clergy rapes. They are the heroic stars of this docudrama. The cast will also feature Ted Danson as the victims' lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian. Christopher Plummer plays the obstinent yet seemingly obtuse prelate who spent decades moving pedophile priests from parishes where their crimes had become public to parishes where they could commit new crimes -- until discovered again and transferred again, ad infinitum... Brian Dennehy plays Boston priest Father Domenic Spagnolia, a much esteemed stand up guy who criticizes the Archdiocese and then finds himself embroiled in scandal when a gay ex-lover outs him. Their director, Dan Curtis, is a veteran of television epics such as "Dark Shadows," "The Winds of War," "War and Remembrance", etc.

The film is based on Newsweek journalist David France's powerful 2004 best-seller by the same name, but it tells only a portion of the investigative reporter's meticulously researched 656-pages book. Had it not been for the professional and courageous Boston Globe investgative reporters Spotlight Team, which won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for its excellent and relentless coverage (which I shared on the Internet daily before the advent of this blog site) then none of this would have received the exposure that it did.

If, as Pope John XXIII of blessed memory remarked, "Vatican Council II was like opening a window for fresh air" then perhaps NOW by opening these windows wider we'll let the bad air out. But, thankfully, ever since my RC parochial grammar school days back in NJ, they now have a new anti-predator priest law on the books to protect the innocent from pederasts like the monster I knew.

EMPOWERING RESOURCES
These links may contain "triggering" material.
VIEW WITH CAUTION!

Advocate.Web -- Helping Overcome Professional Exploitation

Bishop Accountability!!!

*** Voice of the Faithful
*** Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (S.N.A.P.)
*** SNAP Regional Offices

Survivors First

Take Courage -- Confronting collusion with abuse in the faith community

Clergy Abuse Tracker (National Catholic Reporter)

Protection of The Theotokas (POKROV - a site for victims of abuse in the Orthodox Church) Be aware of our own convicted monster Bishop here in Queens, NYC: Rev. Demetrios Vrionis (a.k.a. "Metropolitan Pangratios" of the Archdiocese of Vasiloupolis, Queens, New York )

Coalition of Catholics and Survivors

Matter of Truth -- national survivor-driven org. for federal intervention & assistance

PedoWatch.com
Report Child Porn
Sex Offenders -- Registries, news, resources, discussion, info., etc.

Silent Lambs -- (The Worldwide Problem of Child Abuse and Jehovah's Witnesses)

The Awareness Center -- Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault (JCASA)

"Secret Shame" -- Self-Injury Info & Support

Voluntary "Amnesia" -- These new Stanford Univ. & Univ. of Oregon medical findings in the journal Science reinforce Sigmund Freud's century-old thesis about the existence of voluntary memory suppression. (FOR THOSE WHO WOULD DENY THIS PAINFUL REALITY.)

WINGS Foundation

WATCH IT!