Where did he get the bail money? They passed the hat in the South End neighborhood of Boston and in Provincetown.

There doesn't have to be money coming from NAMBLA itself for purposes like that. They just check their list of sympathizers. It isn't particularly surprising that they could come up with that kind of money. Those two areas are among the most affluent in the country.
Tom Fitzpatrick | Homepage | 10.31.03 - 3:48 pm | #

Just because the line blew me away let me once more quote our most excellent resident church historian and stylist Sandra Miesel: "The Lie and the hour have found each other I suppose."
Gerard E. | 10.31.03 - 3:55 pm | #

I don't think so.

Shanley is not in court for his activities during the 1970s which have been documented. He is in court for alleged molestations that are probably based specious claims of "recovered memories." I personally think that the charges made by Ford and his friends were fabricated.
Patrick Rothwell | Homepage | 10.31.03 - 3:57 pm | #

Mr. Rothwell raises a good point: even though Shanley has said and done some shameful things, that does not mean he is guilty of the specific crimes with which he is charged. The uncertain reliability of "recovered memories" also needs to be kept in mind. On the other hand, he may in fact be guilty and, in any case, his "activities" in the seventies should have excluded him from public ministry then and thereafter.
Gray Eminence | 10.31.03 - 4:33 pm | #

Ah! The death of Amchurch will be a thing of great beauty!

Amchurch the True Whore of Babylon & the enemy of the Catholic Church!
BenYachov(Jim Scott 4th) | 10.31.03 - 4:52 pm | #

I doubt Shanley is getting any dinero from Boston's South End. Perhaps from the folks harboring him in Provincetown, but little else. Boston's gay/lesbian folks banned NAMBLA and its ilk from pride parades (and other venues) years before elsewhere (this was a periodic subject in the newspapers, IIRC), and when NAMBLA tried to insert itself into the parades without permission, the scorn for it was furious (I have this from trustworthy eyewitnesses from over a decade ago). I knew people who boycotted a now-defunct gay bookstore because its owner (or manager -- I cannot recall that level of detail) was reportedly sympathetic to NAMBLA. Boston's gay and lesbian community, as it were has completely not evaded inheriting, funnily enough, some of the puritanical censoriousness and introverted domesticity for which people of the region are historically (in)famous. Which is quite OK by me, mind you. However, that does not sell newsprint, so you won't hear too much about that.
Liam | 10.31.03 - 5:43 pm | #

There's an archive of articles at the Globe.
RC | 10.31.03 - 6:34 pm | #

The Poynter Institute has a useful archive focused on clerical sexual abuse.
Patrick Sweeney | Homepage | 10.31.03 - 8:02 pm | #

Peace, Mark.

More likely, it will be a conviction of MaChurch, and the preconciliar cultivation of priests for a subculture set apart from the Catholic laity: especially the encouragement of privilege and prestige. God only knows how many Tridentine-trained clergy descended upon women and children for gratification before the Church wisely put psychology to use in weeding out the chaff before they destroyed whole gardens.
Todd | Homepage | 11.01.03 - 7:08 am | #

Aside from the Shanley case and speaking in general, I think it sad that so many of these cases we have been reading about both criminal and civil have not had their day in court either through plea bargaining or, in civil cases. through out of court settlements. So much exposure of truth has been avoided.

I want even those who know themselves guilty to defend themselves in court where they are assumed innocent until proven guilty. The last useful act of charity an even guilty man might do is to use the system to defend himself and thereby oil the system for the sake of the truly innocent.

To me the plea bargains and the settlements out of court are all ways to hide the guilt of collusionists. And haven't the collusionists been the biggest problem?
caroline | 11.01.03 - 5:25 pm | #

Sure Todd. Hundreds of homosexual predator priests, including Shanley, have been accused of raping boys. The Church has paid out milions of dollars in settlements. ANd you think the real problem is heterosexual priests forcing themselves on women. Amchurch delenda est.
mj | 11.01.03 - 7:14 pm | #

Todd,
Psychology hasn't been of much use except fot screening out orthodoxy with the psuedodiagnosis of "Rigidity." Geoghan was seen and ?? treated by psychologists or sexologist and released with their blessing. Interestingly, the scorecard on treatment for sex offenders had gotten so bad that by the early 1990's several mental health professionals questioned the validity of treament. There is no screen for pedophiles on the MMPI.

Meanwhile, the sexologist guru (Dr. Berlin) that advised the Bishops sent a letter to the editor in the APA journal proclaiming pedophilia a sexual orientation and asking for nondiscrimnation.

Finally, most of these cases involved homosexual relationships between teenagers and priest, not pedophilia. The psychologist were being paid to treat ??homosexuality even after all these organizations(APA) were proclaiming any treatment of homosexuals as fraudulent.

The psychologist, sexologists an psychiatrist have been part of the problem, not a solution.
TCB | 11.01.03 - 7:54 pm | #

I think Todd was being a wee bit satirical.

If I'm wrong, of course, I'll have to amend that to a wee bit delusional.
Ed | 11.02.03 - 1:23 am | #

Excuse me, but what does AmChurch mean? Cause I see it said a lot here, but I have no clue what it means.
LACAstronomer | Homepage | 11.02.03 - 2:30 am | #

AmChurch conveys the image of an American Catholic Church that is not one with Rome, while MaChurch conveys the image of a Mother Church smothering its children from Rome...

And AmChurch delenda est is a reference to Cato's imprecation that Carthage must be destroyed, as it was (and the ground was salted so that nothing would grow in its place, making it an odd reference for a Christian to wish upon any church) in the Third Punic War circa 146BC....
Liam | 11.02.03 - 7:15 am | #

But imagine how awful it is to be Paul Shanley these days. Your freewheeling AmChurch On The Road Days are over. Your public image is worse than Yer Average Dope Dealer. Your home archdiocese has a new Top Guy, whose marching orders are: Where Cardinal Law Zigs, You Zage. The Boston Globe will cover your trial painfully and without the cover of its previous approval of your AmChurch Agenda. And you sleep with one eye open. You live with the understanding that the Mass. Corrections Dept. may not give you complete protection. Oh, and you watch out for every new inmate on your cell block. It could be the same cold nut who used your old pal Johnny G. like a trampoline on a Saturday afternoon in August. Glamor of Evil? No, just a scared man in his 60s as alone as alone can get.
Gerard E. | 11.02.03 - 1:22 pm | #

Sex Offender treatment, when reputable, does not attempt to "cure" pedophilia or other deviancies. It seeks to break through the denial and evasion to force the victimizer to see himself for what he is, to see his victims as humans, and to have tools to avoid re-offending.

True pedophiles constitute a small portion of the people who offend against young folks. As TCB points out, most of the victims in the Catholic scandals have not been children, but adolescents - sexually mature young men. Even when the victim is prepubescent, the perpetrator is often not acting compulsively, but criminally. One therapist I know told me, "getting caught is all the therapy they need".

As in all areas of life, the human will regarding sexual behavior is a great mystery.
Ken | 11.03.03 - 12:05 am | #