Catholic parishioners revolt against sexual predators but will it kill the Church?

Archbishop John J Myers

Daniel O’Toole had enough.

O’Toole, and other parishioners at St. Joseph’s Church in Oradell, New Jersey, part of the Archdiocese of Newark, have spent the past week up in arms.  They have been handing out leaflets before and after Mass. 

And on Wednesday, July 31, St. Joseph’s pastor, Reverend Thomas Iwanowski, will step down, following what Iwanowski has described as a series of disagreements over his leadership style.

However, O’Toole told the Bergen Record that there is just one reason it became necessary for Iwanowski to step down.

“The reason he was removed, as best as I can understand it, was because he was harboring a priest with a known history for sexual predation,” O’Toole said.

And so it goes.

Even prior to this latest allegation, their had been calls for the resignation of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.  Earlier this month, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan also came under fire, accused of shielding church finances even as known abusers remained in the priesthood for years.

And so, it seems as if parishioners have realized that they must take action into their own hands.  This has been part of a quiet revolution across the Catholic Church, especially since the extent of abuse allegations has become painfully clear in the past decade.

Or painfully clear to the people in the pews, anyway.

Parish and diocesan officials, on the other hand, have proven time and time again that they still don’t grasp the depth and seriousness of the sexual abuse crisis plaguing the Catholic Church.  It has left thousands of sex abuse victims scarred for life.  It has sickened parishioners to such a great extent that many have abandoned the church completely. 

This crisis has also, it should be noted, taken attention away from the charitable works the church still admirably performs, and the many dedicated priests who are a source of comfort to their parishioners.

The latest bit of abhorrent news on this front came from the leafy, north Jersey borough of Oradell.
Attorney Daniel O’Toole is among the more active parishioners at St. Joseph’s, even funding scholarships for local students. 

But late last year, parishioners noticed a new priest who was spending nights in the St. Joseph’s rectory.  It turned out to have been Reverend Robert Chabak, whose home in Toms River, New Jersey, had been damaged by Superstorm Sandy.


It also turns out that in 2004, Chabak had been removed from the ministry, when church officials discovered that there was evidence that Chabak had molested a teenaged boy decades earlier. A second allegation has also since come to light, according to the Star Ledger newspaper.

Despite this, the Newark Archdiocese approved of Chabak staying at the St. Joseph’s rectory, which is located right near St. Joseph’s grammar school.

Iwanowski has said offering shelter to Chabak was an act of compassion and that the archdiocese approved the move solely because Chabak was instructed to do no priestly work whatsoever. 

Furthermore, they note that once allegations about Chabak’s sordid past came to light, he was promptly relocated.

Nevertheless, Chabak was spotted once again at St. Joseph’s. 

This is also the same archdiocese that has been under fire over its handling of another priest, Reverend Michael J. Fugee, who had been accused of touching a 13-year-old while at another Jersey church. 

And yet, earlier this year, Fugee still managed to attend youth retreats and interact with children, in a case that led to the demotion of the Newark Archdiocese’s vicar general John Doran, and spurred calls for Archbishop Meyers’ resignation.

Once again, this week, parishioners had to hear about how Newark Archdiocese officials approved the placement of a priest with a dark past in a local parish.  Church higher-ups better listen to the calls for change coming from the pews. 

If they continue to ignore them, sure, those calls for change might eventually go away.

But that’s only because the pews will be empty.

(Contact Sidewalks at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

What America can teach Ireland about immigration and abortion

Former President George W. Bush

It wasn’t always so easy being an Irish American.

Oh sure, there were the bad old days of anti-Catholicism and the No Irish Need Apply signs.  But there’s always been a fair bit of tension between Irish Americans and folks from Ireland.

I will admit that Irish Americans are to blame for some of these problems.  There are times when folks whose great- great- great-grandparents were born in Cork try to pass themselves off as experts on the Emerald Isle, and that is as painful to witness as it is silly.

In recent years, Irish Americans were particularly taken aback by the anti-American sentiment in Ireland which came out strong during the George W. Bush years.  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were never very popular in the U.S., much less in the rest of the world. 

And yet, the sight of virulent anti-American protests in Ireland still shocked Irish Americans who’d come to believe the Irish on both sides of the Atlantic shared common bonds.

The Irish in Ireland proudly stood on the moral high ground.

Oh, how times have changed.

Like America, Ireland is currently struggling through nasty debates on immigration and abortion.  As the Irish are learning, there’s no real high ground on issues such as these.

Irish Americans might even be inclined to gloat when it comes to immigration.  The U.S. Senate recently passed an impressive immigration reform bill, and the anti-immigrant sentiment that once seemed pervasive in the U.S. has transformed into a stubborn acceptance of the fact that the U.S. needs a thriving immigrant population.

True, the immigration bill is likely to die in the House of Representatives.  But that chamber of government has long since proven itself so useless (thanks Republican Party!) it almost does not merit mention.

The Irish have long viewed nativism in America with a mix of curiosity and indignation.  Having sent sons and daughters to the U.S. for generations, watching these immigrants eventually produce children and grandchildren who won World Series baseball games and reached The White House, the Irish assumed that Americans would and should (eventually) embrace all ethnic groups.

But Ireland itself is now experiencing a bit of a nativism.

A recent report from the Economic and Social Research Institute shows that between 2002 and 2010 the number of Irish people who are “opposed to immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds coming into the country more than trebled, from six percent to almost 20 percent,” as The Irish Times reported.

Irish views on immigration “are more negative than those in Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K.,” the Times notes, adding, “Only the U.K. scores worse than Ireland on attitudes to the impact of immigrants on cultural life.”

Dr. Frances McGinnity, author of the report, said, “The evidence seems to suggest that rapid growth in the immigrant population, followed by economic recession, has resulted in increased concerns about, and resistance to, immigration in Ireland.”

It’s almost as if America could look over at Ireland and say, what’s wrong with those people, picking on poor, helpless immigrants?

The Irish are hardly handling the abortion issue any better.  The way the Irish have transformed their relationship with the Catholic Church in recent decades, in light of horrific sex scandals, has been nothing short of revolutionary. 

And yet, when it comes to abortion, church teaching still holds sway, making it controversial to pass even a modest pro-choice law.

Church leaders call the recent abortion bill a “Trojan horse” which will lead to more broad provisions down the road.  They are 100 percent correct.  Irish Americans can provide guidance on this issue.

Like most U.S. Catholics, they are in favor of birth control and pro-choice on abortion. It is the 21st century.  Deal with it.

America, of course, is not perfect on these issues.  In Texas, the state that gave us George W. Bush, anti-immigrant sentiment remains strong and controversial anti-abortion laws are about to set off a full-blown culture war.

Sounds a bit like Ireland, no?


(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Fox’s Bill O’Reilly seems to understand importance of immigration reform but is he anti-Catholic?

Bill O'Reilly

Big news from the No Spin Zone. Bill O’Reilly has come out in favor of immigration reform.

“Talking Points’ supports immigration reform even though I well understand the new law will be somewhat chaotic and will be a magnet for even more people to come here illegally, which is why we need stepped-up security on the border,” O’Reilly said.

“For conservative Americans the issue is a difficult one because immigration reform would reward bad behavior — the illegal entry into the USA. But please keep in mind that part of that illegal behavior was actually encouraged by the federal government, which for decades did nothing to stop it. Also, some business people who make money from cheap labor aided and abetted illegal immigration.”

It’s pretty clear that a recent trip to Ireland spurred O’Reilly to think long and hard about this complex issue.  While on a trip to Galway last week, O’Reilly wrote in his syndicated column: “The intense debate over immigration reform in the USA has riveted many in this bucolic area in the west of Ireland.”

God bless O’Reilly for understanding the historic and economic importance of immigration to the U.S.

One problem. For all of his high-minded contemplation on this topic, O’Reilly bought into some of the worst kind of myths about immigration. 

Maybe it should be no surprise. Irish American conservatives are particularly prone to these comforting but ultimately false myths.

“Back when my people arrived from Galway in the 1840s, there was little social welfare or entitlements,” O’Reilly wrote. “You either earned your way or you wound up in the street. America did not support immigrants; it simply gave them a chance.”

Irish Americans and other second- and third-generation white ethnics love to peddle the notion that “back then” all immigrants worked hard, while today’s immigrants are too lazy to pick up their food stamps and welfare check.

Of course, O’Reilly is correct that at the time of the Famine there was little of the New Deal-style government programs aimed at alleviating poverty. 

But perhaps O’Reilly has never heard of the pugnacious immigrant from Tyrone whose stated mission was to provide cradle-to-grave social welfare for the Famine Irish, what he called “the scattered debris of the Irish nation.” 

Who was this Communist?  None other than Archbishop “Dagger” John Hughes, who understood the depth of Protestant disdain for the Irish and decided to simply create a Catholic world within a world for the Irish in America.

One shivers to imagine what would happen if a guest on O’Reilly’s TV show made such a glaring omission, erasing the vast tradition of Catholic charities from  American history.  I daresay O’Reilly might even accuse the poor fellow of being anti-Catholic.

Does that make O’Reilly himself anti-Catholic?  No. But he did make the same mistake quite a few WASP-centric historians make by failing to acknowledge the vast contribution the church made improving the lives of immigrants in mid-19th century America.

In fact, it was Hughes, in order to battle anti-Catholicism in education, who pushed for the removal of explicit religiosity in public schools.  Inadvertently (thanks to Protestant bigots), Hughes encouraged the construction of a strong wall separating church and state.

Combine Catholic social services with a fair bit of charity -- tainted by corruption or not -- from political machines such as Tammany Hall, not to mention good old government jobs serving as police officers and firefighters and its pretty clear the Irish, for all the bigotry they faced and hard work they put in, did have some help along the way.

Is it somehow better that Irish immigrants were “helping their own”?  You could argue that if it makes you feel better.

But I also suspect the prospect of today’s immigrants creating a dominant, Tammany Hall-style political machine to help “their own” would make more than few people uncomfortable.

O’Reilly and I can agree on one thing: “(M)ost illegal aliens are here to feed their families, not to cause trouble.”

(Contact Sidewalks at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Whitey Bulger’s trial tells tale of how Irish snitches get riches

An artist rendering of Whitey Bulger from his trial in Boston.

HEY, 1987 called!

They want their Irish gangsters back!

I can’t help but think that when I read the daily reports from the Boston trial of infamous kingpin James “Whitey” Bulger.

As the search for Bulger dragged on, through the 1990s and 2000s, it was almost humorous to read the occasional update about this or that Whitey sighting, in Boston or Dublin or San Diego.

Or at least as humorous as a reference to an alleged killer next to Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s Most Wanted list could be.

Over those years, with Whitey on the run, the myth of the Boston Irish criminal grew by leaps and bounds.

The likes of native sons such as Ben Affleck (The Town) and Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) cemented their star status by playing sinners or saints in the slew of Boston Irish criminal movies that hit the big screens.

Liev Schreiber is just the latest star to exploit the Boston Irish mythos with his new Showtime series Ray Donovan, which transplants a Boston Irish tough guy and places him in sunny Los Angeles to solve the problems of the rich and famous.

But this sense of traveling back in time didn’t really kick in until Tuesday, when I read that an ex-convict by the name of Kevin Patrick Smith was arrested following an FBI raid.

It seems that Smith had made a “to do” list for the day, and one of the items on the list (and this is true, according to police) read “rob bank.”

Smith had planned to travel from Manhattan to upstate Ulster County, New York, to knock over a Wells Fargo in the college town of New Paltz.

Turns out Kevin Patrick Smith was a member of a little group known as the Westies.

Perhaps you’ve heard of them -- arguably the most feared and certainly most mythologized Irish gang of the 20th century.

True, Reagan was in the White House when things started going south for the Westies.

But as Kevin Patrick Smith’s arrest shows, some of these boys are still trying to get back into the business.

Before the heist went down, the FBI arrested Smith at his Upper East Side home, which is where they found the “rob bank” note, according to the New York Post.

Which raises the question -- what in the good Lord’s name is a Westie doing on the Upper East Side?

More importantly, the Bulger trial and the arrest of a former Westie force us to confront the myth -- and the reality -- of the Irish gangster.

One of the most truly surreal moments in the Bulger trial came when the alleged crime boss’ defense team acknowledged Bulger might have done a lot of bad things. But he simply never could have been a snitch, a rat, an informant, simply because Bulger is Irish American.

"James Bulger never ever — the evidence will show — was an informant," attorney J.W. Carney told the jury, adding that being an informant was "the worst thing an Irish person could consider doing."

This sentiment has been well-documented, from Liam O’Flaherty’s guilt-wracked protagonist in his novel (later a John Ford movie) entitled The Informer, right up to Mad Man John Hamm lamenting the “pitiable, misguided Irish Omerta” code of the bank robbers in The Town.

If only real life was like the movies.

In real life, snitches don’t always get stitches.

Certainly, Westies such as Kevin Patrick Smith wish the Irish code of silence was as strong the movies make it seem.

However, it was the Westies own Mickey Featherstone who, facing 25 years on a murder rap, decided to turn informant and sing about Westies top gun Jimmy Coonan. Featherstone went into the witness protection program.

As for Whitey Bulger, many credible (and some downright sleazy) people are on record stating Bulger informed on criminals all over New England.

This is what allowed him to live a nice life, even when it was time for him to go on the run.

See? Sometimes snitches get their fair share of riches.

Even if they are Irish.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

The 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg - how the North won the vital battle of the Civil War

The Fighting Irish at the battle of Gettsburg

This past week, the BBC America show Copper returned for season two.

The show is about an Irish immigrant cop in 1865 New York, just as the U.S. Civil War is drawing to a close.

The drama features a slew of impressive Irish talent, including Dublin native Kevin Ryan, actor Donal Logue and, behind the scenes, writer/producer Tom Kelly, formerly of the smash hit CBS show Blue Bloods about a later generation of Irish American cops.

The timing is good for Copper, because we are about to experience some Civil War frenzy.

July 1 marks the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg.

The battle in the fields of Pennsylvania, between the northern and southern states, raged over three says leaving thousands dead.

Months later, President Abraham Lincoln visited Gettysburg.

There were so many dead in the area officials decided to simply create a cemetery in the town.

Lincoln delivered a simple speech that lasted but a few minutes, and was under 300 words long.

It is easily one of the most beautiful, moving and powerful written works in the American canon.

But the anniversary of Gettysburg brings with it another important anniversary.

A large number of Union soldiers who managed to beat the Confederates in Gettysburg then had to march hundreds of miles east to participate in another bloody fight.

This one took place on the streets of New York City. We have come to call them the Draft Riots.

Imagine having served on the bloody fields of Gettysburg. You‘ve turned away the tenacious Confederates, who are defending their prized way of life, which included the horrific institution of slavery.

Then, just a few days later, you are told that you must head off to New York, where the working class – immigrants, laborers,  vagrants – are rioting, violently striking out against both the very rich and the very poor.

Why? In part, because they do not want to fight the very same war you are currently
fighting. Talk about no rest for the weary.

Sadly, many of the soldiers and cops defending New York were Irish themselves.

It was on the morning of July 13, as many Irish names were read aloud, to be forced into military service, that the riots began.

There were obviously many reasons why working class New Yorkers lashed out during the Draft Riots.

Many felt they had no incentive to risk their lives for a nation they knew so little about.

Many thought it was unfair that wealthy New Yorkers could simply buy their way out of the draft.

And, yes, some believed that to fight a war on behalf of slavery also meant that free slaves would eventually complete with the Irish for precious jobs.

Rioters destroyed property owned by the rich. But they killed and lynched African Americans.

And if the result of the Battle of Gettysburg was that it turned the tide of the war for the North,  the Draft Riots also had long-tern consequences.

After decades of discrimination, Irish Americans and others flexed the only muscle they could – in the streets.

In the wake of the  riots, Tammany Hall saw an opportunity to broker a peace
between New York’s elite and its working class.

Tammany helped devise ways for immigrants and other workers who were unable or uninterested in fighting in the Civil War to avoid service.

This hardly seems patriotic. But it does begin to explain why the Irish were so loyal to Tammany Hall. Tragically, the Draft Riots also cemented a rigid structure in New York.

The elite remained firmly in control, but the Irish and other white immigrants and their children had managed to find a tenuous niche which, at least, was not on the lowest rungs of the ladder.

That, sadly, was reserved for African Americans, who now faced a choice of living in the slave south or the hostile north.

Such  conditions would endure, leading to at least a century of conflict between the Irish and African Americans in New York, Boston, Chicago and elsewhere.

Given such an unfortunate outcome, don’t expect too many grand celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the Draft Riots.

But you can watch Copper. A black character on the show named Sara Freeman lost her brother in the riots.

(Contact Sidewalks at tdeignan.blogspot.com.)