The Power of the Paedos - another high profile case hits the 'never happened' wall?

[David Guyatt]

A spokesman for the diocese of Westminster described Pearce as "a cunning and determined paedophile able to exploit any restrictions placed on him". He added: "The advice provided by the diocese of Westminster followed the guidelines laid down by Copca (the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults), which established robust child protection and safeguarding procedures for the Catholic church in England and Wales."

I wonder if Pearce's "determination" to "exploit any restrictions" placed on him would work equally as well in confinement at Wormwood Scrubs, as opposed to the verbal censure handed to him by the school "Trustees"?

[Magda Hassan]

US man names Pope Benedict in Milwaukee abuse lawsuit


By Simon Cox
BBC News


Fr Lawrence Murphy died in 1998 with no official blemish on his record

A man who says he was the victim of an American paedophile priest is bringing a lawsuit against the Pope and the Vatican in a US federal court.
His lawyers want the Church to release any files it has on abuse cases involving priests.
The alleged victim, whose identity has not been disclosed, says he was abused by the late Father Lawrence Murphy.
Fr Murphy is accused of attacking up to 200 children during his 20 years at a school for deaf children in Milwaukee.
He was finally moved from the St John school to another diocese in 1974, but was never prosecuted or defrocked.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
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Attorney Jeff Anderson: ''This is the first case we have brought directly and exclusively against the Vatican''

A Church trial was opened after the Vatican received a letter from Fr Murphy's bishop in 1996, but it was not concluded by the time Fr Murphy died in 1998.
The alleged victim's lawyer, Jeff Anderson, says the Vatican has been negligent. "What we want the Vatican to do is step up to disgorge the secrets that they have in their files," he told the BBC.
'Horror'
The victim wrote to the then-Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano in 1995 asking the Pope to excommunicate Fr Murphy. The BBC has seen copies of the documents submitted to the court.
They include a seven-page letter to Fr Murphy graphically describing the alleged abuse and the effect it had on him.
"Do you know that you really ruined my life?" he writes.
The writer also says one boy abused by Fr Murphy later committed suicide. "God must punish you and send you to hell to stay forever," he adds.
There is a grave and serious problem, and all trails and responsibility for that leads to one place, to the Vatican


Jeff Anderson
Plaintiff's lawyer

The plaintiff says the Vatican did not reply to his letter, or to a another one sent several months later.
The fact that the alleged abuse was linked to the confessional meant the case should have been referred to the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). At the time this body was run by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
The CDF says the first it knew about the Murphy case was in 1996.
The lawsuit names the Pope and two cardinals.
Mr Anderson says his client is not seeking money but wants the Church "to fundamentally come clean, to come forth with all documents that have evidence of crimes against children for decades".
He adds: "Until and unless all of those things are done, there is a grave and serious problem, and all trails and responsibility for that leads to one place, to the Vatican, to the pontiff."
The Vatican has not responded to the lawsuit so far. In an earlier interview the Pope's spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, told the BBC that Benedict XVI had taken a clear line of transparency.
Last month a Vatican newspaper editorial said media claims that the future Pope had failed to act against Fr Murphy were "ignoble", and that there had been no cover-up.
There has been a wave of allegations that Church authorities in Europe and North and South America failed to deal properly with priests accused of paedophilia, sometimes just moving them to new parishes where more children were put at risk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8638798.stm

[Jan Klimkowski]

Much of the information in this post goes straight back to Pope Ratzinger, when he was a Cardinal running Vatican intelligence arm, the Congregation of the Faith.

In addition to taking out multi-million pound insurance policies against future abuse charges, the Catholic Church - as an institution - felt it had no obligation whatsoever to report priests who raped children to the authorities.

Belgian Catholic bishop admits molesting boy

Roger Vanheluwe, the bishop of Bruges, says he begged for victim's forgiveness as Vatican confirms his resignation

A Belgian bishop has confessed to molesting a boy, becoming the first high-ranking prelate to be directly implicated in child sex abuse since the outbreak of the global scandal enveloping the Roman Catholic church.

Shortly after the Vatican announced that the pope had accepted his resignation , Roger Vangheluwe, the bishop of the Flemish city of Bruges, said that before he took over his diocese "and for a short time afterwards, I sexually abused a young boy close to me".

In a letter read to a press conference, the 73-year-old prelate, who was not present, said what he had done more than 25 years ago "marked the victim forever".

"The wound does not heal. Neither for me, nor for the victim," he said.

Vangheluwe, who was consecrated a bishop in 1985, said he had several times begged for the forgiveness of the victim and his family – apparently to no avail.

His voice shaking with emotion, the head of the Belgian church and archbishop of Brussels, André-Joseph Léonard, acknowledged that the affair would have a painful effect on Belgian Catholics. "We are aware of the crisis of confidence that this is going to engender in a number of people," he said.

Vangheluwe's departure shattered the hopes of Vatican officials that the scandal could at last be contained. The affair had seemed to reach a turning point last weekend when, on a visit to Malta, Pope Benedict held a tearful meeting of reconciliation with abuse victims.

On Thursday, in an apparent confirmation of the Vatican's new hard line, he accepted the resignation of James Moriarty, the bishop of Kildare and Leighlin in Ireland, who was accused in an official report of hushing up abuse cases. But yesterday the pope's own past record was again called into question.

One of his cardinals said that before his election to the papacy, the pope had attended a meeting at which it was agreed to praise a French bishop for shielding a priest convicted of raping minors. In an interview in his native Colombia, Dario Castrillón Hoyos, who headed the Vatican department that deals with the clergy, said that a letter he wrote to the French bishop in 2001 was the product of a meeting in the Vatican.

"It was a meeting of cardinals. Therefore the current pope, who at that time was a cardinal, was present," he said.

After the letter came to light, Castrillón said the last pope, John Paul II, had approved it and recommended that it be circulated – as it was – to all Catholic bishops. "The law in nations with a well-developed judiciary does not force anyone to testify against a child, a father, against other people close to the suspect," Castrillón told his interviewer. "Why would they ask that of the church?"

His view was at odds with Vatican guidelines published last week, which make clear that bishops are expected to report clerical sex abuse to the authorities if required to do so by law. Church officials say the guidelines have been in force since 2003 – two years after John Paul II ordered that all such cases should be handled by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, the department headed by his successor, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

In a series of legal actions concerning abuse that dates from before then, the Vatican's representatives have argued that the responsibility lies solely with the relevant diocese. But a new suit filed in the United States seeks for the first time to pin the blame on the Vatican, claiming that it exercises "unqualified power" over the Catholic church down to the level of its parishes.

The suit was filed on Thursday by Jeff Anderson, an attorney in St Paul, Minnesota. He argues that top officials in the Vatican, including Ratzinger, knew about claims of sex abuse at a school for deaf children near Milwaukee, and that they blocked the punishment of the accused priest, Lawrence Murphy.

Murphy, who died in 1998, is accused of molesting up to 200 boys between 1950 and 1974. The defendants in the lawsuit are the pope, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was his deputy at the congregation for the doctrine of the faith and is now his top official, and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Bertone's predecessor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr...esting-boy

The no obligation to report child abuse to the authorities philosophy still exists today, as per my earlier postl #22 in this thread, containing statements made by a Catholic priest in Ireland in March 2010:

Monsignor Maurice Dooley, a priest and friend of Cardinal Brady, Ireland's top priest, just topped yesterday's pathetic non-apology apology by his boss by stating baldly that if, today, he learnt that one of his priests was a paedophile, he would not report that priest to the police.

Dooley considers he has no obligation legally or morally to do so.

Dooley is a self-styled Man of God. His definition of morality is as shocking as his practice of immorality.

Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, has apologised for failing to alert police about one of the country's worst paedophile priests. But he has said he will not resign. On his show in Belfast yesterday Stephen Nolan asked Monsignor Maurice Dooley, a priest and friend of Cardinal Brady, if another priest came to him now and told him that he had abused a child, would he report him to the police?

"I would not. I've no obligation to do it in law. I would also regard myself as not having any obligation to do it morally.

"Your conscience is only your brain facing up to a moral question. Now my brain, having taken everything into account almost certainly would say I'm not going to report this matter to the police."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/fivelivebreak...catho.html

[David Guyatt]

The Church of the Holy Erection in action...

[Jan Klimkowski]

My heart bleeds for Vatican Inc.... Not....

Catholic sex abuse scandal could trigger donations slump, Vatican warns

Dip in Italian taxpayers donating share of income to the church likely as row over paedophile priests takes toll on believers

Vatican officials fear the clerical sex abuse scandal could have a devastating effect on the finances of the Italian church, undermining what until now has been a bastion of the faith.

Italian taxpayers have until the end of July to declare their income for 2009 and, under a system in force in several European countries, they can opt for a proportion of their taxes to be paid to the church.

In Italy, 0.8% of income tax revenue is divided between state-run aid organisations and recognised denominations and religions according to the preferences expressed by taxpayers on their returns.

"The media always talk of class actions, compensation for the victims of abuse by the clergy and the legal fees which, since 2001 have forced the American dioceses to sell schools, hospitals, convents and universities," the daily La Stampa quoted a Vatican source as saying. "But in fact the biggest economic damage is done by the collapse in donations."

In Italy, among those who expressed a preference, the proportion of taxpayers earmarking a share for the church rose to a peak of 90% in 2004. It fell slightly to 87% in 2008. That percentage was far higher than the proportion attending Mass each Sunday, perhaps because only predominantly middle-class non-wage earners have to fill in a tax declaration. Last year, they earned the church some €900m (£776m) from the state.

With many Catholics across Europe saying the scandals have robbed them of their faith, there is a risk that this year's income could be much lower. In Germany, where church membership is registered and has a direct impact on church funds, pollsters for Focus magazine this month found that 26% of Catholics were reconsidering their religious allegiance

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr...ions-slump

[Jan Klimkowski]

Catholic headquarters in Belgium focus of police raids in sex abuse cases

Belgian police sources say church has been withholding information from its independent inquiry into sex abuse scandal

Ian Traynor in Brussels guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 June 2010

The Roman Catholic church was once again at the centre of a child abuse scandal today when police raided the headquarters of the church hierarchy in Belgium. They carried away computers and hundreds of files, amid rumours that church leaders were continuing to cover up abuse cases despite a public plea for forgiveness last month.

Belgian officers today sealed off and searched the headquarters of the church at Mechelen, north of Brussels, where the Belgian bishops' conference was in session, with the papal nuncio taking part. They also searched the home of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, until last year Belgium's most senior prelate, who enjoys a reputation for being a liberal.

In nearby Leuven, east of Brussels, police also searched the premises of the independent church commission investigating hundreds of cases of alleged molestation by clergymen. They took all 475 files belonging to the commission, prompting bewilderment and panic among investigators and victims of sexual abuse.

"The police have a number of accusations connected with the sexual abuse of children within the church," said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a Brussels police spokesman. "The searches are the result of the investigation we started recently. We are collecting evidence material."

The raids centred on the palace of Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, head of the Catholic church in Belgium, on the ancient town's St Rombout's cathedral, and on the residence of the former head of the church in Belgium, Cardinal Danneels.

The long-running but moribund commission in Leuven was resurrected this year to investigate the torrent of allegations that have surfaced, especially since April when one of the most senior clergymen in Belgium, Archbishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after admitting he had been abusing a boy for years.

Police declined to say whether any of the individuals at the centre of today's raids were direct suspects or whether the searches concerned evidence affecting other cases.

The commission of inquiry is well-respected and is led by Peter Adriaenssens, one of Belgium's top child abuse experts, whose office has received hundreds of complaints this year and who has threatened to resign should his work be impeded by the church hierarchy. He emerged as a national figure following the notorious Marc Dutroux paedophilia and murder case in 1996 and runs one of the country's most respected child abuse centres.

He voiced outrage and shock at the police actions, saying he had been given no warning, and would now struggle to deliver a report on clerical sexual abuse he was preparing for October. Adriaenssens was in Amsterdam in the Netherlands on Wednesday when his offices were raided. He said that all files in his investigation, concerning 475 cases, had been taken away by the police.

"All day we've been getting mails and calls from victims in panic," he said. "They agreed that we do a report, but they did not want others to see the material … No one asked us a single question. We have no idea why this happened now."

Adriaenssens suggested that a wave of "paranoia" had developed around the flood of allegations coming to light in recent months in Belgium. "There were rumours that the commission was having secret talks with the bishops. Perhaps the investigating magistrate let himself be led by this paranoia."

He added that the raids had thrown into question whether his commission would be able to continue its work. It was set up years ago but had vegetated until this year when the sexual abuse allegations and revelations spread rapidly across the world. The commission's previous head had complained of a lack of co-operation from the church authorities.

Police sources told the Flemish newspaper De Standaard that the raids were carried out because of suspicions that church leaders were failing to hand over all the necessary materials to the commission of inquiry. That was not confirmed by Adriaenssens.

Last month the Belgian bishops' conference issued a pastoral letter pleading for forgiveness both for the sexual abuse by many clergy and for the cover-ups and "silence" that then followed.

"Through the silence priority was given to the reputation of the church institution or the clergyman over the dignity of the child as victim," said the letter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun...sex-claims

These revelations may also link here:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...d.php?t=76

[Jan Klimkowski]

Does the Pope really think he and the Church retain any moral authority here?

That the Vatican and its clergy are above secular law?

As for the assertion that the Church be allowed to investigate itself, we know precisely where that's led for decades: cover up of crimes, blame for the victims, and protection of paedophiles on a massive scale.

Pope condemns Belgian police raids on Catholic church

Pontiff describes raids as 'surprising and deplorable' and demands church is allowed role in investigating abusers in ranks

The Pope today criticised raids on the Catholic church by Belgian police investigating sex abuse claims.

Pope Benedict described the raids as "surprising and deplorable" and demanded that the church be allowed a role in investigating abusers in its ranks.

Last week, police raided the home of a retired bishop, opened the grave of at least one archbishop and detained Belgium's nine current serving bishops as they met, seizing their mobile phones and only releasing them after nine hours.

In a message to the head of the Belgian bishops' conference, Monsignor Andre-Joseph Leonard, Benedict condemned the raids and offered his support to the bishops "in this sad moment".

The Vatican has also protested to Belgium's ambassador to the Holy See.Yesterday, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said: "There are no precedents for this, not even under communist regimes."

As cases of abuse by priests have emerged throughout Europe this year, the Belgian church has apologised for failing to root out abusers in the past and promised to crack down.

On Friday, Benedict appointed Monsignor Jozef De Kesel as the new bishop of Bruges to replace 73-year-old Roger Vangheluwe, 73, who admitted abusing a boy and resigned in April. He was the first European bishop to step down after confessing to abuse.

As part of their investigation into recent claims of abuse, police last week drilled into the tombs of two archbishops at the Cathedral of Mechelen, north of Brussels, using cameras to look for hidden documents, a church official said. Investigators said only one tomb had been opened.

Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard condemned the raid as being inspired by "crime novels and the Da Vinci Code".

Police also took documents and a computer from the home of former archbishop Godfried Danneels, Leonard's predecessor, and seized documents from an independent panel investigating around 500 cases of suspected abuse by priests.

After initially treating the abuse revelations emerging in Europe as a plot to discredit the church, Vatican officials have increasingly admitted the need for it to cooperate more closely with the civil authorities.

But in his reaction to the Belgian raids, Benedict stressed that abuse within the church needed to be handled by both civil and canon law, "respecting their reciprocal specificity and autonomy".

Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, went further, claiming the police investigation went "beyond the legitimate requirements of justice" and was the sign of a secular government's "desire to attack the church in its entirety" by a secular government.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun...lic-church

[Jan Klimkowski]

Ed J - many thanks for the links. I've added the one that opens for my browser to this thread:

Dutroux documents found at Cardinal's

Belga Tue 06/07/2010 - 11:45

The former Belgian Primate, Cardinal Danneels, is today being questioned by judicial police. The interview follows police raids on the Arch Bishop's Palace and Mechelen Cathedral in which large amounts of documents and computers were seized.

Police are speaking to the Cardinal as a witness, not as a suspect.

The raids occurred as part of an investigation into child abuse by clerics of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium.

It has also emerged that documents relating to the child sex killer Marc Dutroux were also recovered during the raids.

Police came to escort Cardinal Danneels from his home this morning. He arrived at the offices of the federal judicial police in Brussels at 9:40.

In recent months there have been big questions about the role that the cardinal has played in the paedophilia scandal that has engulfed the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium: what did the cardinal know and what did he do with this information?

Detectives hope to learn more about possible attempts by the Church to sweep the matter under the carpet. The cardinal will probably also be confronted with the documents relating to the Dutroux investigation.

Peter Adriaenssens, the chair of the church commission that examined child abuse by Roman Catholic clerics, says that the cardinal's name occurred in some fifty cases that the commission was dealing with.

In 2004 Marc Dutroux was sentenced to life for the abduction, kidnapping and murder of four girls: Julie, Melissa, An and Eefje and the abduction of two others.

http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.en...6_danneels

See also here:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...d.php?t=76

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=1519

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=3307

[Austin Kelley]

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commenta...-juncture/

The Belgian Church is at a troubled juncture

Cardinal Godfried Danneels is questioned for 10 hours as investigators continue on aggressive abuse investigation

By ANNA ARCO on Wednesday, 7 July 2010


Cardinal Danneels is pictured on a magazine cover at the
St Rombouts Cathedral in Mechelen
(AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)


The Belgian bishops have expressed astonishment at leaked documents which led to reports attempting to link last week’s police raid of Church property to the case of notorious Belgian paedophile and child murderer Marc Dutroux.

Reports in the Flemish newspaper Het Laaste Nieuws said that official documents pertaining to the case of two girls murdered by Dutroux had made their way into the dossiers seized from the offices of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels last week.

In a statement released today, the Belgian bishops said they were astonished that information from the investigation into the Church’s role in the child abuse scandal had been leaked to the press.

Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former head of the Belgian Church and Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, was taken in for questioning by the police yesterday. The interrogation lasted for 10 hours and a court doctor was called to check whether the cardinal’s health was up to it.

During the raids on Church property last week, which included a Da Vinci Code-esque breaking into tombs of two cardinals, Cardinal Danneels’s computer was confiscated as were over 400 files about clerical sex abuse belonging to the Church’s internal commission.

The Belgian reports about the interrogation stressed that the cardinal had been called in for questioning as a witness rather than because he was under suspicion. But according to De Morgen Peter Adriaenssens, the former head of the Church commission who was also questioned, made two statements which could possibly incriminate the cardinal.

After the interrogation, Mr Adrianssens told reporters that Cardinal Danneels was in a state of shock. He said: “It is very difficult for him to know that a good number of people thought that he knew and did nothing. He is surprised that such serious facts are being linked to him.”

De Morgen (in French at La Libre Belgique) also reported that the mysterious Dutroux files, which were CD-Roms containing autopsy pictures, had been sent to the Church by members of the press.

The Sprout, an English-language satirical newspaper, published a fictional story which suggested the two girls had been murdered by a cabal of Belgian notables including Cardinal Danneels. According to De Morgen, the editors of the Sprout also sent a copy of the pictures to the Vatican, hoping to get a reaction. The documents were then forwarded to the Archdioese of Mechelen, where they were filed and have now resurfaced.

An aside on the story of the raid on the Belgian bishops: whether people see it as an instance of dramatic irony or not, the Belgian bishops were supposed to be holding a big service at the Koekelberg on June 24, the day of the raids, to venerate the heart of the Cure d’Ars, a model of the priesthood, with 70 priests.

But the bishops were held in custody for nine hours while their phones had been confiscated. The people taking part in the Mass waited and waited for the bishops to come.

Finally, they went ahead with the Mass. At the moment of consecration, the Mass was disrupted by hooded protestors who made noises on vuvuzelas, released helium balloons with alarms attached to them into the dome, threw condoms filled with shampoo and poured red ink into the Holy Water font. They were protesting against the Catholic Church in general but about the current Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard of Mechelen-Brussels in particular.

[Jan Klimkowski]

More from WRH (Links only, as the material is disturbing):

[URL="http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2010/07/horrific-serial-infanticide-files-found.html#4111422518122140104"]http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2010/07/horrific-serial-infanticide-files-found.html#4111422518122140104
[/URL]
which links to

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4471

Thanks to Ed for these links.

And now we have to get on the merry-go-round to a very banal Hell:

PAIDIKA INTERVIEW:
HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD AND RALPH UNDERWAGER Part I

Interview with Paidika,
a European pro-pedophile publication.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Ralph Underwager earned his masters of Divinity from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and has been, since 1974, Director of the Institute for Psychological Therapies in Northfield, Minnesota. Besides being a staff psychologist in a clinic, Dr. Underwager has also been a pastor at Lutheran churches in Iowa and Minnesota. He is a member of the National Council for Children's Rights, the American Psychological Association, the Lutheran Academy for Scholarship, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, among others.
Hollida Wakefield received her M.A., from the University of Maryland, where she also completed the course work for her Ph.D. She has worked as an elementary school teacher, a college psychology instructor, and since 1976 as a staff psychologist at the Institute of Psychological Therapies. Her memberships include the National Council for Children's Rights, the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, and the American College of Forensic Psychology. She and Dr. Underwager are married.
Ms. Wakefield and Dr. Underwager are the publishers of the journal, "Issues in Child Abuse Accusations." They co-edited the volumes: "Accusations of Child Sexual Abuse" and "The Real World of Child Interrogations." They have written numerous articles on the interrogation of children, the role of the psychologist in assessing child abuse cases, the evaluation of child witnesses, and the manipulation of the child abuse system. They regularly appear as expert witnesses and give training sessions to jurists, psychologists, and laymen.
This interview was conducted in Amsterdam in June 1991 by "Paidika," Editor-in-Chief, Joseph Geraci.


PAIDIKA: Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individuals?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Certainly it is responsible. What I have been struck by as I have come to know more about and understand people who choose paedophilia is that they let themselves be too much defined by other people. That is usually an essentially negative definition. Paedophiles spend a lot of time and energy defending their choice. I don't think that a paedophile needs to do that. Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A paedophile can say: "This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I've made."
Paedophiles are too defensive. They go around saying, "You people out there are saying that what I choose is bad, that it's no good. You're putting me in prison, you're doing all these terrible things to me. I have to define my love as being in some way or other illicit." What I think is that paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness, they can say, "I believe this is in fact part of God's will." They have the right to make these statements for themselves as personal choices. Now whether or not they can persuade other people they are right is another matter (laughs).

Positive and Negative Views of Paedophilia

PAIDIKA: You've said that paedophiles speaks negatively about themselves; they are defensive; they act negatively. Paedophiles are a disparate group, like any human group, so what kind of individuals are you talking about, and with whom are you having contact?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Well, they are paedophiles I have come to know, to talk with as patients while providing treatment. But my contacts have not been limited to the therapeutic setting. I've also met others in a general context, here in the Netherlands, and in the U. S., and I've read some of the literature.
Let me give you another example. The paedophile literature keeps talking about relationships. Every time I hear the word "relationship" I wince. It's a peculiarly bloodless, essentially Latin word that may have a lot of intellectual or cognitive content, but has little emotion. I think it would be much more honest to use the good old Anglo-Saxon four letter word "love," more honest for paedophiles to say, "I want to love somebody." Not, "I want a relationship." I mean, what the hell's a relationship?
Paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness they can say, "I believe this is in fact part of God's will.

PAIDIKA: You say that paedophiles should affirm the fact that they believe that paedophilia is a part of "God's will." Are you also saying that for the paedophile to make this claim about "God's will, is also to state what God's will is?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: (laughing) Of course, I'm not privy to God's will. I do believe it is God's will that we have freedom. I believe that God's will is that we have absolute freedom. No conditions, no contingencies. When the blessed apostle Paul says, "All things are lawful for me," he says it not once but four times. "All things are lawful for me." He also adds that not everything works.

(snip)

PAIDIKA: You are speaking mostly about paedophiles in the U. S. What tack should they take given the societal attitudes? What solutions do you envision for their lives?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: The solution that I'm suggesting is that paedophiles become much more positive. They should directly attack the concept, the image, the picture of the paedophile as an evil, wicked, and reprehensible exploiter of children.

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: The United States is really pretty schizophrenic right now in its attitudes. On the one hand it glorifies sex in things like underwear advertisements, or James Bond movies. On the other hand it's very puritanical. You don't have good sex education in the schools, just these ridiculous prevention programs.
Let me give another example. Video recorders and video cameras are in right now. Couples are making their own pornographic movies. The comparison is on the one hand people running around making their own pornographic movies but on the other hand reacting hysterically to child sexuality issues. There was actually the case of a man who had had the nine-year-old son of a friend spend the night at his house. He kissed him on the neck, patted him on the rear, told him good-night, ad was later sentenced to two years in prison for these acts. They were labeled sexual abuse. The child later told his mother that it made him uncomfortable when the man kissed him on the cheek.
Given this schizophrenia and these hysterical attitudes about childhood sexuality, it's going to be difficult for paedophiles to appear more positive, to start saying they're not exploiters of children, that they love children, the sexual part included, even if it's a minor part. If they made such statements, they would be arrested.
What we see going on in the United States is the most vitriolic and virulent anti-sexuality I know of in our history. It may take people being arrested. Revolutionaries have always risked arrest.

RALPH UNDERWAGER: I was in the courtroom for the case that Holly just cited and I actually heard the prosecution say, "No man should ever be permitted to claim as an excuse that he was just being affectionate when a child says they were uncomfortable." I don't know; I don't think we can just label these attitudes "hysteria." Perhaps "madness" is better, or "pathology." What we see going on in the United States is the most vitriolic and virulent anti-sexuality I know of in our history. It may take people being arrested. Revolutionaries have always risked arrest.

(snip)

PAIDIKA: Still isn't it a reasonable wish for paedophiles to want to see paedophile sex decriminalized? It may not be realistic right now in the U. S., but does that make it less legitimate a goal?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: oh yes, sure, sure. I mean Jesus said, "I really don't want to do this. I don't want to go up there onto Calvary." But when it came down to it, he said, "Well, okay, I'm going to walk the steps." As for decriminalization, the question is really if you're not there, how are you going to get there?

PAIDIKA: Any advice?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Take the risk, the consequences of the risk, and make the claim: this is something good. Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of God's will for love and unity among human beings. This is the only way the question is going to be answered, of whether or not it is possible. Does it happen? Can it be good? That's what we don't know yet, the ways in which paedophiles can conduct themselves in loving ways. That's what you need to talk about. You need to get involved in discourse, and to do so while acting. Matthew 11 talks about the wisdom of God, and the way in which God's wisdom, like ours, can only follow after.
Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophiles is an acceptable expression of God's will for love and unity among human beings.
I think the paedophile movement makes a mistake when it seeks to label the church as the instrument of repression, and in a sense, the enemy. I'm certainly aware of the accusation that it's the church that represses sexuality. I don't believe that's the case at all. I believe that the repression of sexuality begins with Greek thought. People who want to deal positively with human sexuality will do best to see the church as an ally, and to elicit from the church the positive responses about sexuality that are there.

PAIDIKA: You spoke about the need for paedophiles to engage in a discourse. What should that be?

HOLLIDA WAKEFIELD: We can't presume to tell them specific behaviors, but in terms of goals, certainly the goal is that the experience be positive, at the very least not negative, for their partner and partner's family. And nurturing. Even if it were a good relationship with the boy, if the boy was not harmed and perhaps even benefited, it it tore the family of the boy apart, that would be negative.
It would be nice if someone could get some kind of big research grant to do a longitudinal study of, let's say, a hundred twelve year old boys in relationships with loving paedophiles. Whoever was doing the study would have to follow that at five

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHa...ager2.html

Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield were founder members of the key pseudo-scientific body created to discredit victims of child sexual abuse and "MK-ULTRA" (in the umbrella sense) experimentation.

Yes, Underwager and Wakefield were founder members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

See here:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/....php?t=122