Send your bishop a message on Sunday, December 21st. Re-direct your donation to a charity that supports children and is independent of irresponsible, unaccountable, and secretive bishops.
Church officials continue to shield and protect predator priests. This policy places children at risk of sexual abuse that could have horrendous life-long effects.
Children take a back seat in the bishops’ bus and they don’t supply child safety seats or seat belts.
The Christmas season is an excellent time to re-direct your Sunday Mass donation to a favorite charity that focuses on children. If you don’t have a personal favorite, here is a short list produced from a Google search:
By Christine Pizzuti and Candice Ferrette
The Journal News • December 9, 2008
The Rev. Richard Ordonez of Mamaroneck is escorted by a detective for last night’s arraignment. Richard Ordonez (Matthew Brown/The Journal News)
MAMARONECK - A village priest was arrested yesterday at John F. Kennedy International Airport and charged with fondling a woman.
The Rev. Richard Ordonez, 37, a visiting priest at St. Vito’s Church, a Catholic parish on Underhill Avenue, was charged with first-degree sex abuse, a felony, after he was taken into custody yesterday morning.
He was arraigned last night in the judge’s chambers at Village Hall while a Board of Trustees meeting was under way in the courtroom.
Ordonez was accused of abusing a woman in 2004, fondling her breasts and other parts of her body, according to a statement read during the arraignment. He was being held in the Westchester County jail without bail. He is due in Village Court on Dec. 18.
Ordonez signed an order of protection and surrendered his Canadian and Ecuadorean passports.
At the arraignment, when asked whether he wanted an attorney, Ordonez said repeatedly that he wanted to speak to the Rev. James Healy, pastor at St. Vito’s Church. Healy, who was not at the arraignment, declined to comment yesterday on the case.
Village police detectives launched an investigation Sept. 24 after a woman came forward alleging that Ordonez had abused her, said Lt. James Gaffney, who would not comment further, citing a pending investigation.
Ordonez is not among the 700 priests in the Archdiocese of New York system, said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the diocese.
“This is the first I am hearing of this incident,” Zwilling said last night.
It is likely that Ordonez was visiting from another diocese, Zwilling added.
Mary Marino, 83, organist at St. Vito’s, said she and other members of the community were shocked to hear about Ordonez’s arrest yesterday.
“He never appeared to be that kind of a person. He’s a very nice and very respectful young man to both me and my husband,” Marino said.
The priest had been very well liked since he came to St. Vito’s about three years ago, she said.
Ordonez, a native of Ecuador, celebrated Mass in Spanish, English and Italian. He has been credited with reaching out to the parish’s Hispanic immigrant population, Marino said.
Eight people held signs and cited financial hardship while protesting outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston on Monday, saying the church was late in paying funds awarded in a settlement of sexual abuse cases.
The protest was endorsed by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, commonly known as SNAP.
Larry Mullen, one of the victims, said Catholic officials have found excuses to delay payment of $1.375 million in a settlement negotiated by Charleston attorney Gregg Meyers in the wake of a larger class-action lawsuit that required the diocese to pay up to $12 million to victims and their families.
A group of victims who opted out of that larger agreement are the plaintiffs in Meyers’ separate settlement.
“Some of us have had to file bankruptcy, some of us have had to apply for food stamps and some of us are about to lose our homes because of this delay,” Mullen said in a statement, adding that the lack of resolution felt “like salt is being rubbed in our wounds.”
The diocese has said it could not pay Meyers’ clients until all legal claims were resolved. The diocese also cited an unauthorized addition of a plaintiff to Meyers’ settlement.
“We are happy to abide by the original agreement,” said diocese spokesman Steve Gajdosik at the time. “The money is there, but we cannot pay it with this pending action.”
Meyers said Monday that he received a letter from the diocese last week asserting that because he had not signed a release and had added a 12th plaintiff after the settlement had been negotiated, along with new demands, the diocese was forced to rely on the court for resolution.
The two sides are waiting for a hearing with Dorchester Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein.
Researching role, Streep moved by ‘extraordinary’ nuns
By Stephen Schaefer
Sunday, December 7, 2008 - Updated 1d 15h ago
Meryl Streep in ‘Doubt.’
Though “Doubt,” the film version of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning play, piques the concepts of truth and certainty, star Meryl Streep was adamant.
“I already knew the answer!” she said laughing at a post-screening talk.
Director Shanley agreed: “She shared it with the crew, the craft services table. In-between takes she would say, ‘I know he did it! I’m going to kick his a– in this scene.’ And you did.”
Two-time Oscar winner Streep plays Sister Aloysius, the hardnosed principal of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, who is convinced that the popular new parish priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is molesting a student.
Streep researched the history of the Sisters of Charity and wore a wool gabardine replica of their habit with its distinctive bonnet. Before filming, “We went up to Saint Vincent’s College, where we shot part of it. And we visited a retirement home for the Sisters of Charity and talked to them. And they were extraordinary, extraordinary people,” Streep said.
“I didn’t go to Catholic school but I really wanted to,” said the 59-year-old actress. “I lived in New Jersey, where people went to the public school like I did, but there was this whole group that had the kilts and the blazers and they went to the Catholic school, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I went to Mass there because they were still saying the Latin Mass and I remember when they changed, we were all, ‘Oh! It’s so terrible.’ It got to be in English and they played guitars and we all hated that. Jackie Kennedy went there when she would come out to ride her horses in that part of New Jersey.”
Though “Doubt” is set in a Catholic parish, the actress stressed that the movie “is not about the Catholic Church. It’s about someone who thinks you can control evildoers with force and a firm hand and an unrelenting, ‘We will not negotiate (with terrorists).’ Or there’s another approach, one with all these layers of humanity who think you have to have innocence so it doesn’t go bad and get corrupted.”
Abuse victims ask parishioners to withhold donations
BY LAURA RIVERA
December 8, 2008
Members of a new Catholic reform group Sunday urged Long Island parishioners to withhold donations for what they said was the mishandling of clergy sex abuse cases.
About a dozen people supporting Project Send the Bishops a Message demonstrated outside St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre after morning Mass, asking parishioners to contribute to children’s charities instead of their local parish on Dec. 21.
The group’s national director, Frank Douglas, said the selective boycott would convey to church leaders that they need to do more to protect children from sexual abuse and to make their finances more transparent.
“The real message to Catholics is to try to make them aware that they have the power to change the church through the power of their purse,” said Douglas, based in Tucson, Ariz. Douglas called on U.S. dioceses to disclose income and balance sheet statements and assets, including real estate, cash, and stocks and bonds.
Diocese of Rockville Centre spokesman Sean Dolan said such action would starve parishes of much-needed funds for social services as well as their own maintenance.
“If these people really want to send a message, withholding collections is probably one of the least effective ways of doing it because you’re hurting your pastor and you’re hurting your parish, especially in this season of giving,” Dolan said.
Outside the cathedral Sunday, Tim Walsh, 45, held up photos of himself as an altar boy at St. Hugh of Lincoln Roman Catholic Church in Huntington Station, where he says he was sexually abused by a priest.
“When they come out of the Mass, they see us as adults,” said Walsh, of Huntington, one of four survivors in attendance. “Maybe we should show us as children to show who was the person who was abused. And it wasn’t us. It was a child.”
