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NYC Officials Fear Of Archbishop Dolan Impedes Justice For Church Abuse Victims

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In August, 2011, Father James (aka Jaime Duenas) of Nativity of Our Blessed Lady Catholic Church in the New York City borough of The Bronx, was arrested on allegations that he had repeatedly molested a 16-old girl working in the rectory.

Prosecutors say Duenas told them the girl was “wearing short skirts” and that she didn’t mind “the massage.”

Wouldn’t you think that given the Catholic Church’s notorious history with child sex abuse, orders would have come down from on high that in no circumstance whatsoever was any employee of the Church to blame a victim, or even an alleged victim?

Yet prosecutors say Duenas told them that the alleged victim “liked it” and that she was wearing “short skirts.”

A victim advocacy group attempted to educate the community about the realities of how sexual abusers operate. But many in the community circled wagons in defense of their priest, with an implied negative judgement about the complaining witness in the case, the 16-year-old girl.

Archbishop Dolan went on the attack. On his blog, he published “Gratitude to the Catholic League” — a Catholic League press release impugning the integrity of the 16-year-old girl.

READ: Archbishop Dolan Bashes Church Rape Victims

The complaining witness alleges that the sexual abuse occurred over a three day span. Dolan’s blog mocks her as a liar, says that she “voluntarily” returned to work on days after she claims Duenas molested her, and states furthermore that Duenas has never previously had an allegation made against him.

Firstly, if Dolan wants to convince the public that he is serious about protecting the well-being of young people in the Church, he will not disingenuously publish that an accused priest has had no prior allegations made against him. It is well-known that abusers inculcate fear in their victims and that victims generally are 1) extremely fearful of coming forward and 2) full of ugly uncomfortable emotions such as shame shortly after the abuse.

Secondly, for Dolan to publish to his blog insinuations that the 16-year-old complaining witness is lying — (this blog written by a Catholic Church kingpin and read by many in the Catholic community, including some that were circling the wagons to protect Duenas and to scorn the girl) — is a form of attempted witness intimidation. Dolan should have allowed the criminal justice process to function — without insinuating that the 16-year-old witness is lying.

Dolan’s attempted witness intimidation went further. The statements from the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue impugned the integrity of SNAP (Survivors Network of People Abused by Priests) calling it a “phony victims’ group.” If SNAP is a “phony victims’ group” as Dolan published, then why was SNAP involved when the Catholic Church paid a $7 million settlement to Church sex abuse victims in Delaware? And why was SNAP involved when the Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $600 million settlement with Church sex abuse victims?

If these were “phony” victims, why did the Catholic Church pay them a $600 million settlement?

Dolan actively communicated anti-SNAP propaganda at a time that SNAP was involved in trying to secure — for young people’s safety — the places where Duenas had been working. One of SNAP’s criticisms of Dolan is that he did not inform the communities of Duenas’s arrest; that he left them to learn of it through the media. A SNAP press-release said, “We call on Dolan to stop acting passively and secretly, and start acting compassionately and aggressively. We urge him to personally visit every parish where Duenas worked, begging anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered child sex crimes to contact police and prosecutors.”

Instead of doing that, Dolan published an anti-SNAP smear calling it a “phony victims’ group.” There is an appearance that the material Dolan published calling SNAP “a phony victims’ group” while also insinuating that the girl is lying was thusly contrived to create a reader take-away that the girl is — however loosely– to be associated with a “phony victims group” and therefore is herself a “phony victim.”

Shame on Archbishop Dolan for publishing such vile and despicable dreck. Double shame on him for publishing it under the title “Gratitude to the Catholic League” beside a photo of his bloated smiling face as though there were nothing conniving and hideous about the press release.

To sum up what is wrong with Dolan’s blog post; 1) The whole thing is calculated to put the screws to the 16-year-old alleged victim and to show other eventual victims that the screws will be put to them in this way too, should they ever dare to come forward; 2) Dolan published that Duenas never before had child sex abuse allegations made against him, as if that proved that Duenas could not possibly be guilty of child sex abuse;  3) Dolan published a defamatory smear against SNAP, which at that time was providing advocacy services in the community. Dolan’s published anti-SNAP smear indirectly encouraged members of Duenas’s parish to circle their denial wagons more tightly. To see how low the Catholic Church stoops in smearing SNAP, look at this Catholic League anti-SNAP screed with a cartoon image of a diapered baby crying.  The Catholic League intended to mock the advocates by depicting them as a crying baby, but I dare say that is not the imagery to use if you do not want people associating your Church with child sex abuse.

Any decent human being would acknowledge that it was monstrously indecent for Dolan to publish the insinuations that the 16-year-old girl was lying.

Because Dolan engaged in this attempted witness intimidation, it would be urgently important for New York City government officials to speak up and to denounce Dolan’s blog post and to tell him that witness smearing of a 16-year-old who is alleging sex abuse is completely unacceptable, that society just will not stand for it.  The criminal justice process should be allowed to run its course without the Archbishop aggressing the witness on his blog.

Yet, apparently, no New York City government official has the guts to denounce Dolan for the smears he published against the alleged victim and SNAP. I contacted New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in an e-mail copied to most Council members; Quinn did not reply. I called and e-mailed her press contact Jamie McShane and explained that I wanted comment from Quinn about Dolan’s blog post. I said that I did not expect the comment immediately but that I wanted to know by the end of the day whether I could expect comment from Quinn at all.  He said OK, but did not follow up. I also called and wrote my NYC Council Member Gail Brewer; no response. I called and e-mailed the press contact for New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio; (the post of NYC Public Advocate is comparable to a Deputy Mayor). The press contact took my questions but provided no follow-up.

Really, New York City Council — really? If this 16-year-old girl were your daughter, you would be totally cool with the smears Dolan published against her?

Remember — the point in this is not whether Duenas is guilty, but that Dolan’s blog post is unconscionable no matter the final disposition of the case. Besides its direct smears against the girl and the victims’ advocates with a demonstrated track record of working for community safety, it conveys improper messages to eventual additional abusers, victims and to the Catholic community in Duenas’s parish as a whole.

Meanwhile, what is in the criminal Complaint against Duenas? Two counts of forcible touching (a DNA Qualified Offense), Endangering the Welfare of a Child (a DNA Qualified Offense), Two counts of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree (a DNA Qualified Offense) and Three counts of Harassment in the Second Degree.

Duenas is alleged to have repeatedly groped the girl’s buttocks without her permission while she was on the job in the rectory, to have made lewd suggestions to her, to have put her hands under her shirt, unclipped her bra and told her “Don’t tell your parents.”   He also is alleged to have pulled her by her arm into his lap and molested her.

With Dolan’s behavior in this matter so unambiguously wrong, wrong, wrong, why will nobody in NYC government say a peep about it?  Why is the New York City Council so afraid of Dolan that it will not tell him he is wrong when on his blog he trashes a 16-year-old female Church employee and a Church child rape victims’ advocacy group? In a more recent smear against SNAP, the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue said “Catholics are talking about the announcement that Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Archbishop Edwin O’Brien will become Cardinal Dolan and Cardinal O’Brien next month—they’re not interested in wallowing in negativity.”

Evidently, New York City government officials have no scruples or pangs of conscience about making it so easy for Archbishop Dolan not to “wallow in negativity.” Dolan has his techniques down for trashing alleged Church child sex abuse victims in his blog, and he can rest assured that no NYC government official will criticize him for that appalling misdeed that endangers young people in the city. If any NYC officials want to give me an interview, proving me wrong in that, they know where to find me.

New York City– based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT– interest by– line has appeared on Advocate .com, PoliticusUSA .com, The New York Blade, Queerty .com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide” is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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