Hey, there are folks, skeptics and non skeptics alike. Abuse survivor support
groups in Western Australia have sounded an alarm regarding the frequent use of permanent stays
by churches and institution to halt claims for justice by survivors of sexual abuse.
These tactics, which prevent fair trials, are being scrutinized by the Western Australia
Parliament as it explores barriers to justice for survivor Advocacy groups argue that permanent stays
are disproportionately applied, especially in cases involving deceased perpetrators or institutions that fail to
investigate abuse allegations properly. They urge legislative limits on stay applications, emphasizing the
need to prevent institutions from exploiting these delays to the detriment of survivor's quest for
justice. This article is entitled Bids for Sexual abuse justice in Western Australia quashed
by permanent stay tactics. Inquiry told from the Guardian by Christopher Nass, published
September eleventh, twenty twenty three. Kelly, I'd love to get your thoughts
on that opening, Oh, you know, the whole ideas dishonest to me.
I have a hard time doing a child abuse stories, so forgive me
if I'm a little nervous doing this one. I understand the original intent of
the stays, but it seems like it's being abused now. And I don't
pretend to understand US law. I don't even play a lawyer on TV and
I and so to understand Australian law. And I was hoping that we had
somebody here that knew law a little bit better than we do. Unfortunately that
didn't make it. But it just seems like the people who are using these
stays are using them in a dishonest way to basically wave a magic wand and
make the whole lawsuit go away. And it doesn't seem right to me.
It seems like all you all these people would have to do is just magically
lose their records all of a sudden, you know, and boom they're safe.
It Just like I said, it just seems completely dishonest to me.
I don't know how something like this could happen. Infandel, do you have
any thing you want to follow up with? Well, you know, I
have to say that in this recurring nightmare because you know, as you know,
we've covered this on more than one occasion, and we'll cover it many
more. Here we see sexual assault victims by church clergy, many of them
having to deal with decades of guilt, shame, self harm and victim blaming,
are once again being victimized by the Catholic Church. You know what's really
odd is the case that gives them this shield, The one that caused the
initial stay, was a horror show within itself. The court documents showed that
the church was aware of abuse complaints against the priests long before and after the
complainant was abused, but of course in typical protect the protect the priests Catholic
mode. But this turd was moved between four parishes. Church records show he
had complaints sexual abuse complaints in all four of them. The church's motives are
to protect their bottom line, that's clear, not people, you know,
not those who have suffered under their tacitly approved sexual assault club. If they're
if they really wanted to make a change, it doesn't matter what they're what
legality they could hide behind, they would do what's right. Now you have
another case where France's cable was already convicted of abusing twenty four children. The
church delayed the case for over two years, waiting for their child rapists to
die, and when he did, they claimed they're unable to mount a proper
defense without them. Honestly, I'm not sure what kind of defense you could
expect with them already having twenty four convictions. Once again, they're hiding behind
a legality. They want to do what's right, then nothing is stopping them
from doing that. You know, I saw this Ross Coffelo, he's represented
the abuse victims of a Catholic church for the last thirteen years, saying they're
using this as a threat and just trying to reduce the amount of damages.
You know, if you don't accept this sort of money, we'll put a
state put a stale application in. This is just mob Boss one oh one.
The crime syndicate we know as a Catholic church has covered up decades long
clergy abuse and now they're telling the victims they waited too long. You know,
the average weight is twenty two years between the mission of the crime and
being reported. In these Catholic Church victims. This is nothing less than abusing
them all over again. Now we know, the Catholic Church knows a lot
about covering up crimes. It really is unfortunate their clergy has a problem keeping
themselves covered up. It's disgusting. Jimmy, what do you have? Yeah,
yeah, no, I think that's great. So I was a little
torn about how I was going to go about speaking about this topic, because
you know, as always, we prepare for the show, and we prepare
for the recording, and we come up with a lot of good data,
and we want to take breaks and kind of break up the conversation. But
I kind of feel like I'm at a point where I'm just gonna let loose
for a second and I'm gonna go on a little bit of a tirade.
And I never do this, but I'm gonna give a little bit of a
tirade, and I'm going to get back to you, okay, because you
know, I do the show twice a month and we're always talking about this,
and so I just want to start off by this old adage that absolute
power corrupts absolutely an environment in which the clergy are at the top of the
food chain, existing under a system in which they face no punishment for their
transgressions breeds the most treacherous, hypocritical, and downright despicable attempts to cling to
power rather than do what is right. Religious institutions claim the moral high ground,
but their actions and their histories are anything but. In fact, these
institutions are characteristic of the most heinous of offenses known to human kind, those
which target children in a sexual manner. At that Catholicism is not alone in
these injustices. The Hindu and Muslim religions also have histories of child sexual abuse
which continue to permeate their societies. And for some reason, no matter the
culture, no matter the part of the world we hail from, our societies
tend to grant clemency to religion seemingly for no good reason. And why so
we've uncovered that a legal stay has been morphed by the church, and this
happening in Australia. A legal stay, according to Australian law, a stay
of proceeding is a legal term that refers to a temporary halt or suspension of
a court case. The stay can be ordered by the court or requested by
one of the parties involved in the case. It essentially puts the case on
hold, effectively delaying any further legal proceedings until the stay is lift. There
are various reasons why a stay of proceedings may be granted, including to allow
time for negotiations, to give parties time to gather evidence, or to wait
on a decision in a related case. Ultimately, the stay of proceedings can
provide parties with some breathing room to reassess their positions and potentially reach a resolution
without the need for further litigation, and this I think is counterproductive to the
idea of justice. In fact, a legal stay, in my opinion,
is an oxymoron, and what we practice here in American society is not much
different than what's happening in Australia. And so, according to our legal system,
a ruling by the court to stop or suspend a proceeding or trial temporary,
temporarily, or indefinitely. A court may later lift the stay and continue
the proceedings. Some stays are automatic, but others are up to judicial discretion,
usually the pendency of an appeal YadA, YadA, YadA. Other parties
will not be harmed, the public interest will be served by granting the stay.
I don't see how that's possible or out how any of this is relevant
or should be considered in any case, if there's a crime to be answered
for or an appeal to be heard, then they should be answered and heard
and not paused due to extenuous, extenuating external circumstances. And I'm going to
pause there before I continue, because I want to give you guys a chance
to respond. I mean, right here, you know, it seems like
the churches are not only masters of protecting each other from the law, but
they are masters covering up or excuse me, covering up their own crimes.
But also masters are protecting each other so anyway and manipulating the law. So
I'm sorry I digress a little bit there. But Kelly, what do you
have to say so far about all that? You know? I'm I'm glad
you had a lot to say, because, like I said, this topic
always kind of gets to me a little bit. I get a little nervous
energy about it, and the more everybody else talks about it, the better
if I am about it. But I'm wondering if couldn't companies or churches or
whatever organizations just prevent this whole problem of sex abuse. I'm sorry, Like
I said, I get a little upset about these sex abuse cases in the
future just by Hey, you know, it's just our common practice. We
only save records for twenty years, and we don't have the room restore all
this. We just destroy them after twenty years. Is there something preventing that
from happening? I mean, I'm not sure. And I know how in
the United States that churches don't have to open up their records, so it's
kind of except like if they get warrants and stuff. So if they're not
showing open books, couldn't this just be like an open invitation to keep doing
sexual abuse and not being caught with it. It just kind of blows me
away. And now again, I'm not in any way an expert in the
law. I can't. I can't even guess what Australians are thinking down there
and down there and the antipities walking upside down, so all the brains rushing
through their heads. I don't, you know. I just like saying antipities.
I had to get that in there, but I have a hard time
putting my head in that place. But you know, I mean, Australia
was largely populated with criminals from Great Britain, of course, because the Thirteen
Colonies won their independence and they couldn't send the criminals here anymore, so they
started sending them there. But you would think that they'd be a little more
careful with the law. And maybe that's the problem. Maybe they're just made
it too easy to skirt around the law. And because they were all criminals,
criminals, maybe I should be living there. I'm not sure they let
people like me into the country anymore, though, I'm not do they stop
letting petty criminals into Nostar? Does anybody know? You know that I don't
know, but I have to say that it's it's it's quite a quite a
cycle. And we see this time and again, this rents and repeat of
hiding, hiding, the hiding the criminal by the Catholic Church. And you
know, I think you hit a really valid point, Jimmy, because the
truth is is that it's an oxymron to say a stay uh, you know,
when you're when you're talking about justice, because you're doing quite the you're
delaying. Then you're trying to obuskate, not to make something easier. And
the truth is is that if the Catholic Church wanted to show that they wanted
to step past this and and turn a new leaf. First, there would
be the requirement of admitting that there were some huge mistakes and not just saying,
oh, we made some mistakes and pretending everything's fine now. But there's
a reason why they're paying over three hundred million dollars a year defending child predators.
Right now, well, maybe it's time to say, you know,
we don't have the records to prove that you were molested by this person,
and we can't interview them anymore because well they're dead because we delayed it.
No, just realize, yeah, we've made some serious mistakes, and maybe
it's time to air on the side of the victim rather than saying, let's
protect our bottom line. Now we know that's not going to happen. I'm
I'm not going to pretend that's something that's really going to happen. And that's
why you talked about about how things should proceed and not stay and get tied
up forever. And the legal aspect does count so much because the victims deserve
something. Does it take away what happened? Of course not, But does
that mean people shouldn't bear responsibility for hiding these people for now generations, So
no, they need to pay the price. And I know I mentioned it
here before, Jimmy, you said that, you know other It's not something
limited to just the Catholic church. My my brother in law brings and sits
his church, his family's ass down in front of a preacher who's facing two
cases of sexual assault against a minitor repeatedly sexually assaulting, and he's giving his
time, money, effort and putting his family in front of that person.
I don't know how that happened, but I would say that if you're a
Catholic, and I know there's some good Catholic people, and please don't misunderstand
that we're saying anything at all about you being a bad person. But what
we are saying is look around, realize what you are aligning yourself with,
because you are being aligned with these people, and quit supporting them. Quit
being a pawn in their game because they don't care about you any more than
they care about the victims. And once again, Jimmy, no reason to
cry about a rant or complaint or apologize about a rant you made, because
I agree with every word of it and would have a menu if that would
have been acceptable On a secular show. But I'm with you all the way.
So what else do you have to say, Jemmy, Yeah, I
appreciate that, and uh well, I mean there's always so much to say
here. You're right, though, I do want to harp on something.
You know, there are very good religious people out there, and I like
the old adage or the saying that we have frequently on our shows. You
know, hey, we don't hate you, We're just not convinced, right.
I don't hate any any people who or anybody who becomes a victim to
this line of thinking. But this is the kind of conversation that we need
to keep having because these priests, right, their brainwashed their entire lives.
Then they find themselves in a system where even if they disagree with it,
they have no way out. And that's why I think the Clergy Project is
such a great, great tool for people who find themselves in this scenario.
But honestly, a lot of people just find themselves stuck in this system and
if they came forward, if they actually acknowledge the atrocities that they were responsible
for, it might all fall apart and then they would have nothing. And
like I said in the beginning, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that is
what they want to have. We do need to explain why they're defending religious
child molesters, and those people need to explain why it is that they prioritize
this fantasy and magic over common human decency. If it isn't the Taliban abducting
children from orphanages to use as concubines, that it's Russians that are kidnapping children
from Ukraine or some other atrocity and some other part of the world. Child
rape, excuse me, child rape in India has gotten so out of hand
that it's now punishable by death. Honestly, I can't say I disagree,
but it's clearly not just an Australian issue and not just an American issue.
It's a global issue. Thirty three states right here in the US are exempt
from the same laws that require teachers, physicians, and psychiatrists from reporting child
abuse and infidel I think you mentioned that earlier, but it's called the clergy
loophole, and where conversations with religious authorities just happened to be protected from legal
disclosure, and that allows things like child moles molestation to keep being perpetrated.
A recent investigation into the Illinois Catholic clergy found that four hundred and fifty of
them molested two thousand children between nineteen fifty and twenty twenty one. Similar statistics
exist in Colorado, and I spoke about it a few weeks a few weeks
ago, and the Archdiocese of Colorado Springs still employs a repeat abuser, father
William Martinez. In the last eighty years, one hundred and fifty clergy abused
six hundred children in Maryland, and a recent investigation into French Catholicism found that
three hundred and thirty three thousand children were abused over the last eighty years.
So when will enough be enough? When will people face the facts and knowledge
that they're made up? Gods are not coming, They're not going to fix
this. The religion is fake and it's nothing more than a way for people
that it gives power to to stay in power without being accountable to anyone.
And yes, I made a claim the religion is fake. I think these
examples serve kind of as proof to that and this oath of celibacy that these
clergy take the unchecked power, being unpunished, fabricating this moral high ground that
conveniently only fits their needs. Only their needs all work together to create a
situation where the weak and vulnerable become exploited, and we need to stop supporting
them and people need to open their fucking self. That's the rest of my
rand. Thank you for letting me break that up into two sections. I
think you guys have helped me hammer home a lot of points that I probably
would have almost forgotten. So Kelly, what do you say? I mean,
where are we at? I'm glad that you were able to be so
eloquent about that because I can't be on this subject. I have a really
hard time talking about it. So I want to thank you both for filling
in for me on that one. I'm always a little nervous talking about this
kind of thing, so I appreciate it. Hey, everybody, we got
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