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Blog Against Sexual Violence

April 1, 2008 · Filed Under Activism ·  


sexual assault

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Sexual assault awareness is very close to my heart, as a survivor myself and April is a very important month to me, especially this year since abyss2hope is creating even more outlets for awareness by hosting the second annual Blog Against Sexual Violence.

On April 3rd, bloggers from across the blogosphere will have the opportunity to speak out about sexual violence and how important it is to end the pandemic that exists across the world and within every culture.

I cannot urge bloggers enough to get involved with this and I hope to see a lot of positive posts on ending sexual violence this month.

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Stop Protecting Pedophiles

February 21, 2008 · Filed Under Religion ·  

priest I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–The Roman Catholic church is absolutely fucked. But wait! Before you go sharpening your crucifixes and sending the “You’re going to hell!” emails, I have very valid points to back that statement up!

There have been so many cases of sexual assault crimes committed by priests that have come up in just the last few years that the Fort Worth, Texas Roman Catholic Diocese, as only of a million examples, has 700 pages of “secret files” that were part of a sexual abuse lawsuit settled in 2005. One lawsuit, 700 pages and six priests of the Fort Worth Diocese that had been brought to court on sexual abuse charges–One of which being Rev. Philip A. Magaldi.

Magaldi has made quite a record for himself through the years, serving in parishes for nearly four decades in two states–Providence, Rhode Island during the years 1960-1990 and in the Fort Worth area in Texas from 1990-1992 and 1993-1999.

If you’re like me, you immediately noticed the “hiatus” period in 1992-1993. Well, that is due to Magaldi serving time in prison after embezzling about $200,000 from his Rhode Island parish. Nice, huh? You would think that this would be their first clue that Magaldi probably isn’t the best person to have around. However, the church never does take to clues and hints kindly, as there had also been three separate allegations reported against Magaldi in 1998, 2002 and 2007 for sexual abuse of minors. So, as the church does with any priest caught lying, cheating, embezzling, molesting, raping and the list goes on, they relocated him to another church in another state to be their problem, instead.

While in the Fort Worth parish, another pastor at the church later apologized for not speaking up about Magaldi and the obscene nature of files on his computer involving minors. As of now, Magaldi is 71 years old and living in a retirement center in which the diocese refused to give the name of…of course; and while obviously in the late years of his life, he is probably kicking back, relaxing, thinking that all of this trouble is behind him when suddenly word gets out that this man has not only been sexually abusing minors, but has been HIV positive since at least 2003.

The first thing that went through my head was “Good for him!” since I don’t believe that anyone who is accused of sexual abuse goes the rest of their lives without karma getting to them–and karma is a bitch. However, this man had sexually abused at least five different minors during his four decades serving as a priest and not only do those children have to live with being sexually abused, but they may have also contracted a terminal illness, since HIV causes AIDS.

The church needs to stop protecting, condoning and relocating pedophiles. There are hundreds of these cases that have come to light and many others that have not, since not all people who have been sexually abused ever come forward with their experiences and in those cases, this cannot be the first one in which the scumbag priest has HIV; this is just the one that made the news.

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