Posted on 07/01/2011 7:08:38 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
DALLAS (June 27, 2011) – Tomorrow night, “Dan Rather Reports” uncovers the dark and disturbing past of a priest who joined the Los Angeles Archdiocese, even as church leaders were promising to address its swelling clergy abuse scandal.
The priest, Father Fernando Lopez-Lopez, went on to molest at least three teenage boys in his Los Angeles parish. Our report shows there were warning signs from a prior post in Italy that Lopez was trouble — signs that were missed by church officials in Los Angeles, even as its leader, Cardinal Roger Mahony, was pledging a new “zero tolerance” policy on sexual abuse in the priesthood.
One of Lopez’s victims is now taking on the Archdiocese for exposing him to harm in a trial set to start in October.
“Even if you’re hiring a janitor to work in the school, you’re going to find out where he worked… who he worked with,” said attorney Vince Finaldi, who is representing the plaintiff in the lawsuit. “You’re going to fingerprint the person, you’re going to do a background check.”
How does the Archdiocese respond to this lawsuit and the new disclosures from our investigation? Watch “Dan Rather Reports” tomorrow night on HDNet.
“Dan Rather Reports: All is not Forgiven” premieres on HDNet, Tuesday, June 28 at 8:00 p.m. ET with an encore at 11:00 p.m. ET. The program also airs on Saturday, July 2 at 12:00 p.m. ET.
Oh yeah, like we’re going to believe Dan Rather????
The program also airs on Saturday, July 2 at 12:00 p.m. ET.
lol. Shoot the messenger.
Rather didn’t get everything wrong. Watch the show and see if you disagree with it.
i know i would be very worried and concerned if I, as a believer in Jesus Christ, took such obvious joy in the sinful acts of others. it’s very sad that these sinful acts occurred and it’s also very sad that some love to revel in the sin.
Well really I can’t from Australia. I was just being sarcastic over the Bush thing he did .....
That'd be the first time that Rather got anything right. Did you watch the first airing?
When is going to report on the tens of thousands of public school unionized pedophile teachers running amok in the schools?
His old network was not called SeeBS for nothing.
What’s the frequency Kenneth?
As I understand it, the problem is not one of pedophilia but of homosexuality. I also understand that the church has redoubled its efforts to clear old cases and manage its personnel better so that new cases are minimal.
how sad must it be for someone to go thru life with a weird obsession with the sins of some Catholic priests? sad, very sad.
I am skeptical about Rather but sadly I would not be too shocked if Cardinal Mahoney did hire this guy in violtion of his own policy.
September 15, 2004, 5:52 a.m.
The First Rathergate
The CBS anchor’s precarious relationship with the truth.
By Anne Morse
Critics are calling the media scandal over the Jerry Killian forgeries “Rathergate.” But to thousands of Vietnam veterans, the real Rathergate took place 16 years ago when Dan Rather successfully foisted a fraud onto the American people. Then, unlike now, there was no blogosphere to expose him.
On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the “rebirth of the TV documentary.” It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell.
“I think I was one of the highest trained, underpaid, eighteen-cent-an-hour assassins ever put together by a team of people who knew exactly what they were looking for,” said Steve Southards, a Navy SEAL who told Rather he had escaped society to live in the forests of Washington state. Under Rather’s gentle coaxing, Southards described slaughtering Vietnamese civilians, making his work appear to be that of the North Vietnamese.
“You’re telling me that you went into the village, killed people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that the other side had done this?” Rather asked.
“Yeah,” Steve replied. “It was kill VC, and I was good at what I did.”
Steve arrived home “in a straitjacket, addicted to alcohol and drugs” knowing that “combat had made him different,” Rather intoned. “He asked for help; that’s unusual, many vets don’t. They hold back until they explode.”
Rather then moved on to suicidal veteran named George Grule, who was stationed on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga off the coast of Vietnam during a secret mission. Grule described the horror of watching a friend walk into the spinning propeller of a plane, which chopped him to pieces and sprayed Grule with his blood. The memory of this trauma left Grule, like Steve, unable to function in normal society.
Neither could Mikal Rice, who broke down as he described a grenade attack at Cam Ranh Bay, which blew in half the body of a buddy, “Sergeant Call.” “He died in my arms,” Rice tearfully recalled. Rice described how the sound of thunder and cars backfiring would regularly trigger his terrible memories.
Most horrific of all were the memories of Terry Bradley, a “fighting sergeant” who told Rather he had skinned alive 50 Vietnamese men, women, and children in one hour and stacked their bodies in piles. “Could you do this for one hour of your life, you stack up every way a body could be mangled, up into a body, an arm, a tit, an eyeball . . . Imagine us over there for a year and doing it intensely,” Bradley said. “That is sick.”
“You’ve got to be angry about it,” Rather replied. “I’m suicidal about it,” Bradley responded.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, drug abuse, alcoholism, joblessness, homelessness, suicidal thoughts: These tattered warriors suffered from them all.
The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post’s Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was “extraordinarily powerful.” There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.
The truth was uncovered by B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran and author of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History (with Glenna Whitley). Burkett discovered that only one of the vets had actually served in combat. Steve Southards, who’d claimed to be a 16-year-old Navy SEAL assassin, had actually served as an equipment repairman stationed far from combat. Later transferred to Subic Bay in the Philippines, Steve spent most of his time in the brig for repeatedly going AWOL.
And George Gruel, who claimed he was traumatized by the sight of his friend being chopped to pieces by a propeller? Navy records reveal that a propeller accident did take place on the Ticonderoga when Gruel was aboard — but that he wasn’t around when it happened. During Gruel’s tour, the ship had been converted to an antisubmarine warfare carrier which operated, not on “secret mission” along the Vietnam coast, but on training missions off the California coastline. Nevertheless, Burkett notes, Gruel receives $1,952 a month from the Veterans Administration for “psychological trauma” related to an event he only heard about.
Mikal Rice — the anguished vet who claimed to have cradled his dying buddy in his arms — actually spent his tour as a guard with an MP company at Cam Ranh Bay. He never saw combat. Neither did Terry Bradley, who was not the “fighting sergeant” he’d claimed to be. Instead, military records reveal he served as an ammo handler in the 25th Infantry Division and spent nearly a year in the stockade for being AWOL. That’s good news for the hundreds of Vietnamese civilians Bradley claimed to have slaughtered. But it doesn’t say much for Dan Rather’s credibility.
As Burkett notes, the records of all of these vets were easily checkable through Freedom of Information Act requests of their military records — something Rather and his producers simply didn’t bother to do. They accepted at face value the lurid tales of atrocities committed in Vietnam and the stories of criminal behavior, drug addiction, and despair at home.
Perhaps that’s because this is what they wanted to believe. Says Burkett: The Wall Within “precisely fit what Americans have grown to believe about the Vietnam War and its veterans: They routinely committed war crimes. They came home from an immoral war traumatized, vilified, then pitied. Jobless, homeless, addicted, suicidal, they remain afflicted by inner conflicts, stranded on the fringes of society.”
Burkett, who did check the records of the vets Rather interviewed, shared his discoveries with CBS. So did Thomas Turnage, then administrator of the Veterans Administration, who was appalled by Rather’s use of bogus statistics on the rates of suicide, homelessness, and mental illness among Vietnam veterans — statistics that can also be easily checked. Rather initially refused to comment, and CBS spokeswoman Kim Akhtar said, “The producers stand behind their story. They had enough proof of who they are.” For his part, CBS president Howard Stringer defended the network with irrelevancies. “Your criticisms were not shared by a vast majority of our viewers,” he sniffed, adding that “CBS News and its affiliates received acclaim from most quarters . . . In sum, this was a broadcast of which we at CBS News and I personally am proud. There are no apologies to make.”
Sarah Lee Pilley, who ran a restaurant in Colville, Washington where the CBS crew dined while filming The Wall Within, would not agree. The wife of a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who saw combat in Vietnam, Pilley, said she “got the distinct feeling that CBS had a story they had decided on before they left New York.” After interviewing 87 Vietnam veterans, CBS chose the “four or five saddest cases to put on the film,” Pilley said. “The factual part of it didn’t seem to matter as long as they captured the high drama and emotion that these few individuals offered. We felt all along that CBS committed tremendous exploitation of some very sick individuals.”
Why would Dan Rather do such a thing? Partly because the stories of deranged, trip-wire vets is much more dramatic than the true story: That most Vietnam veterans came home to live normal, productive, happy lives. Second, Rather apparently wanted the story of whacked-out Vietnam veterans to be true — just as he now wants the Jerry Killian story to be true.
Or maybe — despite a preponderance of the evidence — he considered the sources of these tales of Vietnam atrocities “unimpeachable.” As angry Vietnam veterans began calling CBS to complain about the factual inaccuracies of The Wall Within, Perry Wolff, the executive producer who wrote the documentary, claimed that “No one has attacked us on the facts.” Despite the growing evidence that he’d been had, Rather also continued to defend the documentary — which is now part of CBS’s video history series on the Vietnam War.
Perhaps Vietnam veterans ought to take a page out of the book of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and air television ads exposing Rather’s deceits — something along the lines of: “Dan Rather lied about his Vietnam documentary. I know. I was there. I saw what happened. When the chips were down, you could not count on Dan Rather.”
Certainly, we cannot count on him for the truth. During a 1993 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Rather criticized his colleagues for competing with entertainment shows for “dead bodies, mayhem, and lurid tales.” “We should all be ashamed of what we have and have not done, measured against what we could do,” Rather said.
Thousands of Vietnam veterans — not to mention the Bush campaign — would agree.
— Anne Morse is a writer living in Maryland.
Diverting the attention away from the topic of the catholic church and it's serious problem that continues to linger.. is just plain foolish. Won't work Newtoidaho. Seen and attempted on the threads many times...a tactic all too easily seen thru. There's huge difference between teachers who are caught and loose their jobs....and a catholic priests who continue to hold there's and are protected by leadership to continue those crimes...and or the crime is swept under the rug entirely...for years!
Nobody's obsessed with the sins of catholic priests....but many are very angry that more is not being done to stop this and to prosecute the guilty instead of two-stepping around the issue...and that includes many catholics being enraged over this.
The true concern is how many more kids are going to be assaulted...and or influenced... before this becomes outed completely from the church? Though the church leadership has indeed stepped up the pace of ridding the church of this evil infiltration...until it's done and over people are going to hold the church leaderships feet to the fire until it is.
It isn't about the blame game...it's stopping the assaults and those who enable this to continue. Homosexual and pedophiles..both.
i take a back seat to no one in condemning homosexual and pedophile priests, but for you to deny the OBSESSION is laughable on it’s face. if the concern was truly for protecting the children, the same concern would be shown when protestant ministers are caught abusing children or when teachers or boy scout leaders are caught. i invite to look up the posting history of who we are talking about, and tell me when a post was ever made when these other groups are caught doing these vile acts. i can save you the trouble, they never are posted. so please, stop defending an obvious perverse pleasure in sinful conduct, which Paul warns against in 1 Corinthians.
A Prayer for Healing
Victims of Abuse
God of endless love,
ever caring, ever strong,
always present, always just:
You gave your only Son
to save us by the blood of his cross.
Gentle Jesus, shepherd of peace,
join to your own suffering
the pain of all who have been hurt
in body, mind, and spirit
by those who betrayed the trust placed in them.
Hear our cries as we agonize
over the harm done to our brothers and sisters.
Breathe wisdom into our prayers,
soothe restless hearts with hope,
steady shaken spirits with faith:
Show us the way to justice and wholeness,
enlightened by truth and enfolded in your mercy
Holy Spirit, comforter of hearts,
heal your people’s wounds
and transform our brokenness.
Grant us courage and wisdom, humility and grace
so that we may act with justice
and find peace in you.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
Amen.
First of all I am not talking about any individual though it's apparent now that you intended just that. So read my post again without thinking about you're target and then respond accordingly and we'll see if we can communicate about 'the topic'.
I will say again ...people are angry...catholics and any other of the faithful...that more isn't being done within the catholic church leadership to stop the cover ups and dodging the criminal activity happening within "the catholic church" which is the topic of this thread..."the catholic church"
Now if you want to take on teachers...start a thread about them, as has been done before....or any other group or organization, also which has been done before. But I assure you that just because the catholic church has 'catholic' before it does not exempt it from criticism any more than any other group or organization or church, just because some of it's members continue to want to down play that it's a serious problem..which by the way is not exempt from accountability to "we the people"...or from God Himself....of which obvious He's cleaning house now, in full view of the audience, because the leadership refused and failed to do so for years.
This is the problem as I see it... many of the catholic church memebrship and leadership continuously plays the "victim" of society or of any criticism , even from it's own membership...and I simply will not be one who excludes it, and neither will others who care about the faith, and the children, and for the faithful members and all others concerned....which includes the Christ for which the church claims as their own.
I did. They went back to the town in Italy where this priest came from and found filed allegations of abuse by the priest with minors along with sharing drugs with them. The L.A. Archdiocese apparently didn't lift a finger to find out who this priest was and basically let him start serving from off the street. The priest spoke two or more languages and that's what was needed so they let him in with practically no questions asked. IIRC, another Archdiocese in CA even tried to warn them of this guy after he tried to get a job with them, but nothing was done.
In any case, if any part of this HDNet report is bogus I would expect to see a response/defense in the media sometime very soon.
I'm afraid that the reason this has not been done so far is because it is even more wide-spread than imaginable and it goes very high up the chain. I also think a big reason is that many parrishes would find themselves leaderless and the church cannot afford to lose their monetary support. That, I think, is the primary reason why this terrible problem will drag on for years to come and that there will continue to be new victims who will face a lifetime of shame, regret and lost faith.
One more thing, this is NOT a new problem within the church. It has gone on for many, many centuries and we are seeing the severe consequences of ignoring sin and allowing the criminals to continue in their sins unsupervised and unrepentant. God only knows the millions of lives effected by this scandal and only God can bring justice and healing to those who were and are harmed physically, emotionally and spiritually.
This is NOT a Catholic only issue as we are all commanded, who are members of the body of Christ, to live holy lives that bring glory and honor to our Savior and to purge from among us those who try to corrupt this body from within. We must ever turn our backs on this again nor think it is not our business. It IS our business because it reflects on us all who name the name of Christ.
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