If I’m going to spend the next 40 years writing about sex crimes in the Catholic Church at least there’ll be a lot of laughter in my life, as I have to admit, the more I research and learn about the schemes and lies of men in robes flitting around altars and rectories, the more I have outbursts of uncontrollable laughter. The Catholic priests in America provide so much fodder for off-color jokes that Comedy Central and Mad TV writers will never be without filler material.
With a Salesian case headed for jury trial November 5, I called Joey Piscitelli to talk about his case against the Salesians that went to trial in July 2006 in Northern California. “What happened in my case," he said, "is you have to have notice that they knew or should have known. And how I had enough notice was the very first time Whelan masturbated in front of me Brother Salmaloski was watching.”
I burst out laughing and so did Joey. I mean they established prior notice by showing that another priest from the same order was taking part in the sex act as a voyeur? That's notice for ya. And with each laugh comes a flush of healing.
Wednesday morning is another hearing regarding Salesian cases heading for trial November 5 in LA Superior Court. Plaintiffs are asking the judge to grant their Motion to Compel Answers From FATHER WILLIAM SCHAFER and FATHER NICHOLAS REINA and Motion to Compel depositions of MICHAEL J. ALVAREZ & THOMAS PRENDERVILLE (re cases BC308301 & BC308555) City of Angels Lady will be there Wednesday morning and report on the hearing.
“Brother Salmaloski served eight years for 38 counts of child molestation himself. Now this is this the guy that was watching, not the guy that molested me. So he was in San Quentin, right.
"They put him on the witness stand to say I was a liar.
ME: [UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHTER] I’M SORRY, THIS IS NOT NICE OF ME TO LAUGH AT THIS HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE IN YOUR LIFE.
JOEY: It is hilarious. It is hilarious.
Dealing with the horror of these experiences over a prolonged period has made my emotions like extreme-stretch elastic. Sure I cry barrels of tears in rages that last days at a time, but lately I also seem to have just as much elasticity in the amount of humor I can feel. When Joey said those words in that matter of fact tone, the laugh was from deep in the belly of the soul, healing, long lasting, exhilarating.
Last week the Salesians tried to get their cases in LA dismissed before the trial because the plaintiff Ron H wasn’t just raped by Titian Miani, but apparently Brother Ralph Marguia and Father Larry Lorenzoni raped him as well, with Church Attorney Steve McFeely arguing that somehow since he was raped by more priests than Titian Miani it was grounds for dismissing the case. He lost.
“Their leader Don Bosco, the one who started the Salesians,” Joey Piscitelli said. “He was with real young boys. And with the Salesians history of child molestation, my opinion is that Don Bosco was a pedophile and they followed in his tracks.”
Piscitelli said the Class of 1959 Salesian High School in Richmond had a class reunion recently and as reported in San Francisco Weekly: “There were 20 boys in the class,” Joey said. “Out of the 20 boys 15 of them said they were molested by priests at the seminary.”
I’m beginning to think that a few centuries ago Catholics set up the whole altar boy system so the priests who were trying to be celibate could still have sex with somebody.
Bosco created the Salesian Order to bring vulnerable boys from poverty stricken homes into the church when they're young. In Salesian rectories, schools, and camps the sex crimes were blatant and carried on out in the open. It looks to me like Don Bosco in the early 1800s just set out on his own to get even better access to little boys than they had with altar boys and Sunday Mass.
I think Don Bosco set up the Salesians to create a way to have access to young boys.
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