Cover Photo: Dan Horn with Fr. Alden Sison and visiting religious faculty
I recalled the Columbine shooting only four months earlier [1999] and challenged the students [Class 2000] to live the lessons learned from that horrific event. No one should feel like a stranger in his own school. We all have a place at the table of St. Genevieve. And by making a place for all at our table, we have an opportunity to leave a legacy of welcome and acceptance at this school.
Dan Horn, “Anointed Moments” (2014).
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’” Charles Dickens, [British novelist] once wrote. This shows at the end of the day, it depends on your goals and what you want to achieve and how you would want your high school experience to be. I like St. Genevieve High School because of its close community, which helps you [to] know your classmates more.
Ethan Castro, Class of 2019
Melanie C. Brooks and Jeffrey S. Brooks, faculty of Monash University and RMIT University in Australia and authors of ‘Culturally (ir)relevant school leadership: Ethno-religious conflict and school administration in the Philippines’ (2018), wrote this tenet in the International Journal of Leadership in Education: “Culturally relevant school leaders help establish and nurture school cultures that support the academic and social success of all students.”
Photo courtesy of St. Genevieve’s Christian de Guzman during the Carters’ visit on Feb. 2, 2018: John Davis and John Mina with former Pres. Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter at the launch of the “Dear Rosalynn,” a documentary on former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, created by St. Genevieve students.
It was informed by their research centered on school principals in Northern Mindanao, Philippines, whose region has a long history of ethno-religious conflict, which has displaced
Class of 2022 in front of St. Genevieve Church (Photo by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz)
thousands of people for 40 years. Their research findings “make explicit the importance of meaningful principal preparation and professional development programs that interweave culturally relevant leadership skills, reflective practice and intercultural understanding in ways that can be locally applied.”
Their tenet on ethno-religious conflict and culturally relevant leadership from school principals converged with what I observed at St. Genevieve High School in Panorama City, California.
The incoming freshmen walk through the people-formed tunnel during the Welcome Day. (Photo by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz)
St. Gen, for the 2018-19 school year, has 550 students from K to 8th grade, 600 in high school, with 162 freshmen from all diverse ethnic groups.
On four red brick columns in its front gate are engraved gold plates of these character values: caring, respect, trustworthiness, citizenship. Two more traits are taught to the students: kindness and responsibility.
St. Gen is located in Panorama City, the first planned community after World War II, where homes were built by Fritz Burns and Henry Kaiser and sold to white-only families with loans from GI bill, and with restrictive, racist covenants: “not to be used or occupied by any person whose blood is not entirely that of the white or Caucasian race.”
20th Welcome Day inside St. Gen’s Madonna Hall. (Photo by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz)
Burdened by a context of a discriminatory past, St. Gen has turned towards light and with inclusive practices, whose front gates are opened wide to all ethnicities, including spaces for international students, who currently matriculate from China, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and Mexico.
That cultural change was made possible by the legacy left behind by the Class of 2000 “who decided that instead of bullying the incoming strangers, they would make them feel welcome in their new home,” Principal Dan Horn wrote in his book, “Anointed Moments.”
The football team, which now includes its first female member, gets ready to dance for the 20th Welcome Day. (Photo by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz)
Horn’s culturally relevant leadership has transformed this high school by keeping the lessons of Columbine High School alive. Columbine was where 13 folks perished from two hate-filled high schoolers gone mad, but also showed Rachel Scott’s martyrdom from her Christian faith, lessons of character that begot the survival of Craig Scott and those he led in prayer inside the library during the shooting.
Former Pres. Jimmy Carter credibly affirmed the change when he addressed a gathering and asserted that “St. Genevieve is the best high school in the world,” for him on Oct. 25, 2010.
Columbine’s character lessons are kept alive through formal retreats of the faculty, seniors, and incoming freshmen retreats, one for boys and another for girls at St. Gen.
“If that [legacy of welcome and acceptance] is what we are about, we won’t have to worry about a shooting happening here. If that is what we are about, people will stop looking down at our school and begin looking up to us because we will have chosen to be our best selves every single day. That is the best way I know how to honor those who died at Columbine,” Horn wrote in “Anointed Moments.”
Horn was the principal for nine years at St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School in Pico-Union, in Los Angeles, known to have clusters of gangs and random violence, as any dense zip code in the city of LA. But, through culture change accomplished with a hardworking team of teachers and students and supportive parents, the school he led received a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award on Dec. 17, 1992, from the U.S. Department of Education.
Horn then became St. Genevieve’s principal and its animating source of culturally relevant leadership, as well as his inner circle of faculty leaders and student leaders, for 20 years now.
From 1999-2003, St. Gen started character education. On October 17, 2003, it became the “first high school in California – and the first Catholic school in the nation designated as National School of Character from the Character Education Partnership based in Washington, D.C.
Today, the school has boldly undertaken a strategic campaign for its Inspiration Building, now at $26 million, short of $4 million of their $30-million goal. This building will be the site of inspirational leaders’ talks to parents and students, but also where the students can freely express their music, cheerlead, dance and perform their musicals like “Bye, Bye Birdie,” “The King and I” and “The Little Mermaid” and even their school events.
In an interview with the Asian Journal, Horn shared his intentions behind the sustained culture change in our second visit – “even without the hanging crucifix, what if everyone felt the presence of Christ by our love and kindness?”
Welcome Day for Freshman: An explosion of joyful songs and dance
This writer was invited by Horn to attend the Welcome Freshman Day, making it the third visit to this school.
Dazed and bewildered freshmen were greeted by the marching band, with shouts of welcome, continuous clapping from a people-formed tunnel, where sophomores, juniors, seniors and teachers lined up both sides, a 20-year-old tradition that makes the school feel welcoming and emotionally safe to just focus on learning.
Of course, they experience problems, like any other school, but instead of punishment, they make the outlying incident a teaching moment, a form of positive leadership. For example, a student wore her St. Gen’s uniform at a Planned Parenthood rally and posted it on Instagram.
A dialogue ensued that the rally was for a specific cause to which not all the school community subscribe to, so wearing the school’s uniform and posting it on social media were inappropriate and how to balance that with the student’s right to be heard, promoting women’s rights. Can you blame this student for wearing her uniform as she took pride in her school?
Perhaps not, but by showing empathy, not necessarily an endorsement of her actions, it became a lesson in understanding the humanity of someone who thinks differently and from her point of view, progressively for social change.
I got goosebumps and even cried at some point, watching the line-up when freshmen students were welcomed, with activities fit for royalty: marching band, color guards, cheerleaders, over 300+ inside the Madonna Hall, welcome posters introducing each of them with four welcoming letters, one each from sophomore, junior, senior and faculty, and songs sung together.
The highlight of the program that got everyone cheering was the male football team members, with their first female member (a soccer player) welcomed into their team, dancing for the freshmen. It was so well-choreographed that the students were cheering them on replete with individual exhibitions of prowess to lifting their dance partners.
The last time I experienced the presentation of color guards, ROTC Salute, was during Silliman University’s Distinguished Alumni Week in Dumaguete in heat-scorching August for a good friend I supported.
That same heat-scorching temperatures are what we are experiencing this welcome day. The double-digit summer temperature matched the warmth of Marlon Archey’s voice, the director of athletics, in welcoming everyone. He shared that his son graduated from St. Gen in 2009, while his daughter in 2016, and both still treasure and had kept their welcome posters they got at St. Gen years ago.
Incoming freshman Christopher Avendaño, a middle school graduate from Immaculate Heart of Mary School and a member of IHMC’s Children’s Choir, who sang for Pope Francis. (Photo by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz)
Freshmen are individually cheered on with artistic posters made by the students. Their first names with glitters and colors appear on the front of the poster while in the back are four letters: one each from a sophomore, junior, senior and a teacher.
Three upper-class men and women with the student body president spoke about coming to St. Gen, feeling lost and overwhelmed, at first, until the seniors and the teachers helped them out.
Juan Jasso of admissions sat next to me. Jasso shared the story of the Iaccinos, a family whose grandpa and grandma met at St. Gen and had 7 children, who then all went to St. Gen. Now, their grandchildren are attending preschool. A ringing endorsement of the quality of a school, don’t you think?
Buoyed by the explosive welcoming spirit, Fr. Alden Sison ran to the front of the room to lead everyone in prayer to the Holy Spirit. He reminded everyone that as “they attend the field of games, listen to the whirlwinds of sounds and drums, it is Jesus Christ who animates us daily.”
About a dozen or more students stood by the front stage wearing black t-shirts lettered with “Building St. Genevieve Heart.”
I asked Dan Horn and his circle of staff and student leaders, assembled for the interview what are some of the qualities at St. Gen that principal, staff teachers, librarian and student leaders are proud of.
In their own words, these traits are:
*Love and genuine understanding – true love of a Christian Catholic; here is a tight community. Teachers make an effort to attend funerals of families of their students. They check in with one another and take the time to do it.
*Family – Celebrate each other’s successes and comfort one another.
*Acceptance – where all are welcome. Being gay is accepted and gay students are not treated differently. Treat others the way you want to be treated, whether as a faculty member or as a student.
*Vibrant Spirit – Kairos retreat leader encourages folks to open up, share their burdens and to have a clear state of mind, unburdened by personal challenges, by reminding each one – I can change whenever I want; I can change my thought process.
*Drama mask project –Dani Brown (a teacher) has succeeded in getting kids to open up, by teaching students how to do plaster casts of their faces, and then have the students to touch the masks of their faces and the realization that their masks hide their truths. She gives them the space of using their arts as personal expressions of their journeys. The masks become the doorway for students to freely interact, to be themselves.
*Extend yourself. Be open to what St. Gen has to offer – whether in sports, drama, musical band, student government. Allow others to encourage you, while you encourage others to do different school activities. If you do not have confidence to perform at your best, you have primed yourself for disappointment.
*To live with honor – character is the foundation of our school, to behave our best when no one is watching, to do the right thing. You can never go wrong when you do the right thing.
*Follow the lighthouse, St. Genevieve. Discover who God intends you to be.
Can you now see how a principal’s culturally relevant leadership principles have created a transformative culture in a school, but also the best character in its teachers and students?
I have never seen a more joyful bunch of students greet each other with high fives, as well as their teachers. Perhaps they see that in their principal Dan Horn daily?
Recall the prescient words of Ethan Castro, who came to this high school a very shy and quiet boy? He is now a self-assured and high-performing student, with his own wisdom garnered from being here at St. Gen for three years. He will be graduating in 2019.
Cover Photo: Dan Horn and core faculty team with students inside St. Genevieve's library
St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians tells them that he kneels before the Father praying, “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” He yearns for them to “know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” This is exactly what we want for our own hearts, to be filled with this “strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of God. This is what we want for the hearts of all our loved ones, for the hearts of all people. And this is the gift Jesus gives us in giving us his Sacred Heart.
“Pondering the Word, The Anawim Way: Liturgical Meditations,” 2018.
Kindness can save a life…don’t let your character change color with your environment. Find out who you are and let it stay its true color. Go after God. Whatever it takes, do it. And don’t give the excuse, I am just a teenager or I’ll do that when I grow up, because it doesn’t work that way. God wants to know you NOW.
Rachel Joy Scott, as told by Beth Nimmo to St. Gen’s Parents/Students Assembly, for their Character Education Speaker Series, on April 12, 2018.
What would it be like if we all “live in, dwell in and remain in” all the fullness of God and the Sacred Heart of Jesus? What if folks are received this way in any environment, especially in a school? Would you perform your absolute best?
Dan Horn, Principal with Amanda Allen, Executive Director Photo taken by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz
Niche’s Ranking of Private High Schools in America places St. Genevieve in Panorama City at #3 of best diverse private 476 high schools in California. Similarly situated high schools at a comparable zip code, like Bishop Alemany High School, ranks #68 of 476 high schools and with higher student density per teacher, while Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES), ranks #10 of the best high school magnets in LA and #90 out of 1, 510 public high schools in California.
Dan Horn with Fr. Alden Sison and Pastor Brandon Patterson of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, where former President and Mrs. Carter are long-time members. Photos taken by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz
St. Gen has 600 students in high school and 537 students in elementary with a multiculturally diverse population: “5 percent African American, 9 percent Asian, 8 percent Caucasian, 17 percent Filipino, 52 percent Hispanic/Latino, 8 percent Other/Mixed, and [the] majority are Catholics,” with even some international students from China.
Incoming students at St. Gen learn that hatred and deep rage led to massive loss of lives, as in Columbine’s young martyrs of faith and its opposite: “trust, honesty, compassion, love, and the desire to believe the best about people,” that Rachel Scott wrote about: “My codes may seem like a fantasy that can never be reached, but test them for yourself, and see the kind of effect they have in the lives of people around you. You just may start a chain reaction.”
Dan Horn with the inner circle that includes Marlon Archey, teachers and student leaders, during the Asian Journal interview.
In “Real Diary of Faith: The Journals of Rachel Scott,” adapted by Beth Nimmo and Debra Klingsporn, they described, “Richard Castaldo was the first person shot and Rachel Joy Scott was the first person killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. As Richard lay stunned and Rachel attempted to crawl to safety, the shooters began to walk away, only to return seconds later. At that point, Harris grabbed Rachel by her hair, held her head up, and asked her the question, ‘Do you believe in God?’”
School Wall dedicated to One in a Million Friendships of St. Gen with Pres. Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter and other supporters.Photos by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz
“‘You know I do, Rachel replied. ‘Then go be with him,’ responded Harris before shooting her in the head. Four bullets from Eric Harris’s gun killed Rachel. Richard described Rachel’s death to his mother in the initial days after the shooting, but has since blocked those details from his memory. Although Richard survived more than half a dozen gunshot wounds, he remains physically paralyzed and emotionally traumatized as a surviving victim…” of what was considered the most deadly school shooting in U.S. history until the incidents at Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012) in Newtown, Connecticut and Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida (2018).
The lives of Rachel Scott and the survivors of the Columbine High School mass shooting become reflection points at St. Gen’s school year opening retreats, one for incoming girls, and another for the boys. They ponder on the invisible hand of God that continues to create bittersweet symphonies about Rachel’s life, a spiritual giant gone too soon at 17 years old, and with help from St. Gen’s seniors, these freshmen develop their school goals.
A year before Rachel Scott died, she wrote to her friend Sam about having a heavy heart: “I have gotten what I want Lord. Thank you. The world you have created is making my death. I am a warrior for Christ. Create in me the church so that wherever I go I find sanctuary.”
Rachel drew 13 roses, symbolic perhaps of her prescience that she would be one of the 13 killed, a year after.
“You are free to choose, but you are not free to choose the consequences of your choice,” Craig Scott — brother of Rachel Scott, who witnessed two of his high school friends die that day — said to a packed assembly of students and parents in April 2018 at St. Gen.
The killers of Columbine planned to kill 400 to 500 students that day, but their plan failed, as the bombs did not go off.
“These boys were addicted to violence yet, their addictions increased their pain and changed their character,” Scott told the assembly.
Inspirational thoughts, quotes, and posters are prominently displayed throughout the corridors and classrooms of St. Genevieve.
He continued, “Shooter was writing about how he was being treated badly at home. What if our world was kinder? We have a lot of heart problems in America. We have a lot of broken hearts. He was looking for respect. Hurt people hurt others. They feel so bad about themselves. Bullies are flashing a card: I have no respect for myself.”
Free to be one’s self at St. Gen
Anthony, a transfer student from El Camino Real High School in West Hills, captured St. Gen’s impact, “I became who I am because of the people who care for me – there’s no reason not to be who I am. There is no reason to not be myself. This is the environment I embrace. The foundation is welcoming.” He is a baseball player, a football player, takes four honors classes and one Advanced Placement course.
“If you see your teachers working long hours till 6 p.m. with open doors to you, you simply walk in and ask for their help in the topics you did not understand in class,” Anthony said.
Christian, a sophomore football player who towered at 6’8”, is not just a skilled athlete who is also a graceful liturgical dancer. He was inspired by Hines Ward, a former Pittsburgh Steeler and MVP of Superbowl XL who has spoken at St. Gen twice.
“When I meet people, I am constantly reinforced. I love it,” he said.
With an affirming and welcoming atmosphere, students learn to respect the school, but mostly respect for one another.
Take a knee
Before Dan Horn became the principal, St. Gen was known as the gang-ridden school in the Valley, with low-performing academics and athletics. Why would families come and watch athletes lose a game after another? High school enrollment was at 300, waiting simply for a shutdown.
“‘Your athletes make this league look bad,’ one angry principal approached Horn. Then, as Horn listened to the bench-clearing brawl, he realized St. Gen’s girls started the fight, and that made him recognize there was definitely room for some character development,” he wrote in his book, “Anointed Moments.”
Horn recruited a new athletic director, Marlon Archey, and working with him, brought on new hires.
After years of a bad reputation and the longest losing streak in their division’s history, St. Gen’s team had a chance to make playoffs in 2000 if a coin toss would favor them.
“One of the players commanded, ‘Let’s pray to St. Genevieve…take a knee. Following his command, the team, coaches, and I [Dan Horn] went down on one knee, and as this inspiring young man held out his hands to his teammates beside him, every man on the ground became connected by hearts as well as hands. The rough patch of asphalt became our holy ground. The dim glow from the overhead streetlight became a candle. The men kneeling and holding hands were the church, and the baritone voice praying confidently, ‘Sweet Genevieve, help us,’ became our inspiration,” Horn wrote.
These thugs became valiant leaders, but their faith preceded their attitudes and the coin simply followed: the toss came out heads. From then on, their internal software programmed them to be winners.
“From 1990-1999, St. Gen HS had various teams make the playoffs 11 times. From 1999 to Feb. 2014, the various teams make playoffs 101 times, Horn cataloged.
“Coming to St. Gen is an adventure, but also, you leave with a smile,” Archey said to a television reporter.
Nurture their hearts and artistic spirits
Archey, the parish school’s athletic director now for 16 years, describes the six pillars of character development they train students at St. Gen: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, caring, fairness and citizenship.
Archey, during an interview with Dan Horn and his inner circle (St. Gen’s teachers and student leaders) in the school library, shared his coaching intentions: “I am nurturing the souls of these students. I am focused on ingraining in them kindness and how to be welcoming to one another. I am nurturing their spirits, taking where these people are at, this is what they are, this is where they are going to be [for four years]. So why not meet one another, and [know] each of their personalities?”
As the physical education and athletic programs got stronger, Horn was concerned about building the performing arts component. His earlier experience as St. Thomas elementary school’s principal in Pico-Union taught him that performing arts can bring out students’ potentials, illustrated by his befriending Helen Reddy to perform at this elementary school and the children got transformed by these onstage experiences, Horn observed.
Horn convinced St. Gen’s seniors on the football team to sing and dance for the Welcome Freshman Day in August 2000. It became a bonding experience as they spent time practicing but it also encouraged the freshmen to attend football games. Even the Los Angeles Times wrote about the football team’s “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” interpretation and since then, they have been the media darlings of local television stations.
St. Gen’s values came to be known as: “to know God, to live with honor and to change the world.”
Dr. Gerald Durley, an inspirational speaker invited to the Character Education Speaker Series, was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s foot soldiers who spoke of “loving ourselves more, to love humanity more, to never give up, and to always find the best in ourselves in order to find the best in others. One of his most memorable phrases, always delivered in impassioned style was: The only time you ever have a right to look down on another human being is when you’re offering them help in getting back up,” Horn wrote.
In a Kairos retreat, students often share personal stories about what they have gone through. A student questioned where was God when tragedy happened to him, to which, Horn replied: “It boils down to faith. God is everywhere. God does not cause tragedy, but God is there during the tragic moments. At a time of suffering, if we look hard enough, we can see God. We can find the spirit of Christ in those who are there to help.”
Horn memorialized in his book, “By revealing what happened to you, it allows us to get you some help and it opens the door for others in the room who have suffered silently to step forward and reach out for assistance in dealing with their own heartaches and pain. You’ve become an angel tonight. Always remember to look for the angels and you will see God.”
On October 17, 2003, “St. Gen teachers John Van Grinsven and Maxine Bush took the stage at the Crystal City Marriott across the Potomac River from D.C. to accept the National School of Character Award,” Horn wrote. This accolade made St. Gen “the first high school in California — and the first Catholic school in the nation — a “National School of Character”.
It is now on a huge banner hung at the school entrance heralding for all what this school has gone through, but also, as an aspiration for each incoming school year.
Part II is on the nuggets of wisdom derived at St. Gen and Part III is on their church pastor, Fr. Alden Sison.
Some journalists, sad to say, equate objectivity with neutrality. They let both sides of the warring fence say their version of the ‘truth,’ no matter how misleading, and let the people decide. For the years I have spent as editor of different publications, I have fought against this kind of practice, one mistakenly called “journalism.” To me, journalistic objectivity belongs in the manner by which evidence, statements and documentation are gathered. These proofs are then weighed for their integrity and credibility, and analyzed in light of their historical context. All this is done with the mind to arrive at the truth. That is the goal. Journalists are called to be objective, yes, but never neutral. Neutrality is synonymous to inaction. Objectivity, however, is action, made stronger by the knowledge of how and where to get the right information based on context. Background information and context woven into the fabric of gathered documents and statements will eventually reveal the truth. Common sense tells you that asking the right questions gives you a better chance of arriving at the right answers. And what better time to ruffle some feathers than in our darkest hour.
Joel Pablo Salud, July 25, 2018
We are usually conditioned to be objective, not to jump to any conclusion. Yet, when there is a pattern of wrong-doing, do we make an attempt to discover the truth? Or do we simply ignore and on blind faith, assume there is no credence to the allegations?
When I heard a Catholic pastor in 2018 reveal that $1 billion has been paid out to settle sexual abuse cases done by priests and staffers, I wondered if that was a national figure? I was told $1 billion was paid out by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Shocking, right?
Over a decade or so, the real estate assets of the Archdiocese in LA were being liquidated: the sale of Daniel Murphy school in Hancock Park, the sale of a prime 12-story Wilshire Blvd building, and from anyone’s observations, the allegations of sexual abuse were getting traction. Still, it was just personal observations.
“On January 22, 2008, Tod Tamberg announced that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles had sold its 12-story Archdiocesan Catholic Center on Wilshire Boulevard to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million to raise funds to pay for its $660 million 2007 settlement on sex abuse by clergy. The building had been donated in 1995 by Thrifty PayLess,” Wikipedia disclosed.
But, relying on Wikipedia was not enough. I checked other sources for verification.
“Cardinal Roger Mahony, the leader of Los Angeles’ Catholics, yesterday apologized to hundreds of victims of predatory priests after the archdiocese agreed to pay $660m to settle claims of sexual abuse. The settlement, agreed on Saturday, was the largest since the revelations about sexual abuse within the church surfaced in Boston in 2002, and comes amid allegations that church leaders had helped to shield predators for years. “There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them. The one thing I wish I could give the victims … I cannot,” Cardinal Mahony told reporters yesterday after presiding over morning mass. “I apologize to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. It should not have happened, and it will not,” as The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg wrote on July 16, 2007.
It involved more than 500 folks, who were sexually abused by more than 220 priests, teachers and other church employees over several decades, according to Ms. Goldenberg. How did these criminal behaviors remain unrecognized?
Recently, we came across an archbishop’s perspective of how it came about.
America, The Jesuit Review’s John A. McCoy highlighted on July 23, 2018, that “The Seattle Times reported that from 1987 to 2010, the Seattle archdiocese paid about $42 million to 300 abuse victims. The Helena diocese, facing more than 360 abuse claims, filed for bankruptcy in January 2014 and offered a $15 million payout to victims. The archbishop conceded that he had been naïve about sexual abuse. Early on, he had been too slow to respond and too hopeful about treatment. By 1985, he got it. He had county prosecutors and the state attorney general’s office review all suspicious priest personnel files. He created an outside, independent review panel of legal, psychological and sexual assault experts to evaluate abuse allegations against clergy. Proven pedophiles were removed from the priesthood. Jason Berry, the journalist credited with sounding the alarm on the church’s sexual abuse scandal, described Archbishop Hunthausen as the first church leader to deal with the problem publicly.”
In 2007, the Guardian’s Goldenberg reported “The [$1 billion] settlement is far greater than those reached by jurisdictions in Boston, where authorities paid out $84m in 2003, and Portland, Oregon, where the archdiocese agreed this year to pay $52 million. It raises the total the Catholic church has had to pay out to settle claims of abuse to more than $2 billion. The demands for retribution led five dioceses to apply for bankruptcy protection, and forced church authorities to close churches and schools, and sell off property across the US.”
It took Archbishop Hunthausen to pioneer the right approach in 1985, yet, that approach eluded other archdioceses that 22 years later, Cardinal Mahony had to announce close to $1bn settlement of over 500 sexual abuse cases and 33 years later, Chile is still confronting that issue. The National Catholic Reporter’s Jack and Diane Ruhl reported on Nov. 2, 2015, “The U.S. Catholic church has incurred nearly $4 billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports, databases and church documents.”
So, did the Catholic pastor tell the truth from you, our dear Asian Journal’s readers’ points of view?
In Jan. 15, 2018, Pope Francis went to Chile. There, he found the low credibility of the Catholic Church as Fernando Keradima, “the lord of hell” came to light as the most harmful sexual offender in Chile, alleged to be protected by Bishop Juan Barros, and whose proofs of his wrong-doings have not surfaced yet, according to Pope Francis.
Truth is the anchor of an institution’s existence
I am writing this piece to remind us all that human institutions are made up of fallible men and women who are subject to mistakes. Before we condemn, we must have proofs of wrong-doings. While mistakes and patterns of wrong-doings rise to become crimes against several persons, properties and institutions, it is important to remember that an institution’s existence is anchored on truth and truth must embody its daily practices, not just allegations.
Had there been training for the Catholic Church to recognize sexual abuse is a crime and that pedophiles are not legitimate stewards of the Church, and should be removed, I believe the institution would have responded by not giving these men of the cloth their institutional protection.
These priests would likely remember that truth is not a garnish, where one sprinkles a dash to season their homilies and daily encounters with parishioners.
But, recall how the USCCB – the US Conference of Catholic Bishops incorrectly popularized that birth control pills induce abortion and inappropriately encouraged their flock to denounce Obamacare aka Affordable Health Care Act?
I was attending mass in New Mexico when a Bishop in New Mexico angrily delivered his homily incorporating that false statement, contemporaneously disseminated and propagated by the CBCP (Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Philippines), using the same misinformation from a physician and reflected on their website for some time.
Why was there an aversion to truth? Why did these two associations of bishops propagate a lie that women who wanted reproductive freedom and control over their bodies are labeled baby killers opting abortion? Why has the institution not evolved to support and affirm women to gain their rightful place in society, able to earn their living? That to do so, women would have to either postpone having children or to have children, they would need child support?
That to delay having children does not mean they are baby killers? That false notion stuck to the Democratic Party’s front runner in 2016, that Hillary Clinton favored killing babies, a lie propagated by the Catholics and the Evangelicals, and made even worse when multiplied a thousand times, by what we now know as Russian hackers and trolls who took thousands of ads in social media repeating that lie and influenced the elections to favor Donald Trump.
Lies have become a daily habit in the White House’s press conferences that reporters are questioning Sarah Huckabee Sanders of her periodic evasive answers and denials ad infinitum. It is doing damage to her credibility that at one point, a reporter stopped her and asked why she continues to lie to them? She responded with a scripted answer that daily, she does her best to answer their questions. She keeps forgetting that truth is the anchor of decency, rule of law and reliable public demeanor in America – it is not happenstance, it is not a “walkback” to it three times, much like the Helsinki summit that the President had with Putin, where the President had to essentially change his story three times to reveal what is true as he kept saying one lie after another.
Truth is what we teach our children, grandchildren and it is what we expect in food labeling, in restaurant menus, in books, in news stories we read and in all that we encounter in America. When we make truth an optional condiment, a garnish, a seasoning to pepper our words, we develop a collective mistrust for one another and where our words are now parsed and scrutinized – are they true or not?
We may be in our darkest hour as far as truth being evasive in institutions, but here is our collective chance to make sure to ensure we convey only what is truthful in our daily encounters and that we are courageous enough to correct the falsehoods that we hear, as we all collectively pay for the diminished credibility of the institutions that we rely upon in our public lives.
Some journalists, sad to say, equate objectivity with neutrality. They let both sides of the warring fence say their version of the “truth,” no matter how misleading, and let the people decide. For the years I have spent as editor of different publications, I have fought against this kind of practice, one mistakenly called “journalism.” To me, journalistic objectivity belongs in the manner by which evidence, statements and documentation are gathered. These proofs are then weighed for their integrity and credibility, and analyzed in light of their historical context. All this is done with the mind to arrive at the truth. That is the goal. Journalists are called to be objective, yes, but never neutral. Neutrality is synonymous to inaction. Objectivity, however, is action, made stronger by the knowledge of how and where to get the right information based on context. Background information and context woven into the fabric of gathered documents and statements will eventually reveal the truth. Common sense tells you that asking the right questions gives you a better chance of arriving at the right answers. And what better time to ruffle some feathers than in our darkest hour.
Joel Pablo Salud, July 25, 2018
We are usually conditioned to be objective, not to jump to any conclusion. Yet, when there is a pattern of wrong-doing, do we make an attempt to discover the truth? Or do we simply ignore and on blind faith, assume there is no credence to the allegations?
When I heard a Catholic pastor in 2018 reveal that $1bn has been paid out to settle sexual abuse cases done by priests and staffers, I wondered if that was a national figure? I was told $1bn was paid out by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Shocking, right?
Over a decade or so, the real estate assets of the Archdiocese in LA were being liquidated: the sale of Daniel Murphy school in Hancock Park, the sale of a prime 12-story Wilshire Blvd building, and from anyone’s observations, the allegations of sexual abuse were getting traction. Still, it was just personal observations.
“On January 22, 2008, Tod Tamberg announced that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles had sold its 12-story Archdiocesan Catholic Center on Wilshire Boulevard to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million to raise funds to pay for its $660 million 2007 settlement on sex abuse by clergy. The building had been donated in 1995 by Thrifty PayLess,” Wikipedia disclosed.
But, relying on Wikipedia was not enough. I checked other sources for verification.
“Cardinal Roger Mahony, the leader of Los Angeles’ Catholics, yesterday apologized to hundreds of victims of predatory priests after the archdiocese agreed to pay $660m to settle claims of sexual abuse. The settlement, agreed on Saturday, was the largest since the revelations about sexual abuse within the church surfaced in Boston in 2002, and comes amid allegations that church leaders had helped to shield predators for years. “There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them. The one thing I wish I could give the victims … I cannot,” Cardinal Mahony told reporters yesterday after presiding over morning mass. “I apologize to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. It should not have happened, and it will not,” as The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg wrote on July 16, 2007.
It involved more than 500 folks, who were sexually abused by more than 220 priests, teachers and other church employees over several decades, according to Ms. Goldenberg. How did these criminal behaviors remain unrecognized?
Recently, we came across an archbishop’s perspective of how it came about.
America, The Jesuit Review’s John A. McCoy highlighted on July 23, 2018 that “The Seattle Times reported that from 1987 to 2010, the Seattle archdiocese paid about $42 million to 300 abuse victims. The Helena diocese, facing more than 360 abuse claims, filed for bankruptcy in January 2014 and offered a $15 million payout to victims. The archbishop conceded that he had been naïve about sexual abuse. Early on, he had been too slow to respond and too hopeful about treatment. By 1985, he got it. He had county prosecutors and the state attorney general’s office review all suspicious priest personnel files. He created an outside, independent review panel of legal, psychological and sexual assault experts to evaluate abuse allegations against clergy. Proven pedophiles were removed from the priesthood. Jason Berry, the journalist credited with sounding the alarm on the church’s sexual abuse scandal, described Archbishop Hunthausen as the first church leader to deal with the problem publicly.”
In 2007, the Guardian’s Goldenberg reported “The [$1bn] settlement is far greater than those reached by jurisdictions in Boston, where authorities paid out $84m in 2003, and Portland, Oregon, where the archdiocese agreed this year to pay $52m. It raises the total the Catholic church has had to pay out to settle claims of abuse to more than $2bn. The demands for retribution led five dioceses to apply for bankruptcy protection, and forced church authorities to close churches and schools, and sell off property across the US.”
It took Archbishop Hunthausen to pioneer the right approach in 1985, yet, that approach eluded other archdioceses that 22 years later, Cardinal Mahony had to announce close to $1bn settlement of over 500 sexual abuse cases and 33 years later, Chile is still confronting that issue. The National Catholic Reporter’s Jack and Diane Ruhl reported on Nov. 2, 2015, “The U.S. Catholic church has incurred nearly $4 billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports, databases and church documents.”
So, did the Catholic pastor tell the truth from you, our dear Asian Journal’s readers’ points of view?
In Jan. 15, 2018, Pope Francis went to Chile. There, he found the low credibility of the Catholic Church as Fernando Keradima, “the lord of hell” came to light as the most harmful sexual offender in Chile, alleged to be protected by Bishop Juan Barros, and whose proofs of his wrong-doings have not surfaced yet, according to Pope Francis.
Truth is the Anchor of an Institution’s Existence
I am writing this piece to remind us all that human institutions are made up of fallible men and women who are subject to mistakes. Before we condemn, we must have proofs of wrong-doings. While mistakes and patterns of wrong-doings rise to become crimes against several persons, properties and institutions, it is important to remember that an institution’s existence is anchored on truth and truth must embody its daily practices, not just allegations.
Had there been training for the Catholic Church to recognize sexual abuse is a crime and that pedophiles are not legitimate stewards of the Church, and should be removed, I believe the institution would have responded by not giving these men of the cloth their institutional protection.
These priests would likely remember that truth is not a garnish, where one sprinkles a dash to season their homilies and daily encounters with parishioners.
But, recall how the USCCB – the US Conference of Catholic Bishops incorrectly popularized that birth control pills induce abortion and inappropriately encouraged their flock to denounce Obamacare aka Affordable Health Care Act?
I was attending mass in New Mexico when a Bishop in New Mexico angrily delivered his homily incorporating that false statement, contemporaneously disseminated and propagated by CBCP –Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Philippines, using the same misinformation from a physician and reflected on their website for sometime.
Why was there an aversion to truth? Why did these two associations of bishops propagate a lie that women who wanted reproductive freedom and control over their bodies are labeled baby killers opting abortion? Why has the institution not evolved to support and affirm women to gain their rightful place in society, able to earn their living? That to do so, women would have to either postpone having children or to have children, they would need child support?
That to delay having children does not mean they are baby killers? That false notion stuck to the Democratic Party’s front runner in 2016, that Hillary Clinton favored killing babies, a lie propagated by the Catholics and the Evangelicals, and made even more worse when multiplied a thousand times, by what we now know as Russian hackers and trolls who took thousands of ads in social media repeating that lie and influenced the elections to favor Donald Trump.
Lies have become a daily habit in the White House’s press conferences that reporters are questioning Sarah Huckabee Sanders of her periodic evasive answers and denials ad infinitum. It is doing damage to her credibility that at one point, a reporter stopped her and asked why she continues to lie to them? She responded with a scripted answer that daily, she does her best to answer their questions. She keeps forgetting that truth is the anchor of decency, rule of law and reliable public demeanor in America – it is not happenstance, it is not a “walkback” to it three times, much like the Helsinki summit that the President had with Putin, where the President had to essentially change his story three times to reveal what is true as he kept saying one lie after another.
Truth is what we teach our children, grandchildren and it is what we expect in food labeling, in restaurant menus, in books, in news stories we read and in all that we encounter in America. When we make truth an optional condiment, a garnish, a seasoning to pepper our words, we develop a collective mistrust for one another and where our words are now parsed and scrutinized – are they true or not?
We maybe in our darkest hour as far as truth being evasive in institutions, but here is our collective chance to make sure to ensure we convey only what is truthful in our daily encounters and that we are courageous enough to correct the falsehoods that we hear, as we all collectively pay for the diminished credibility of the institutions that we rely upon in our public lives.
“This episode is an attempt to address the question of why so many Filipinos are so damn caring. Why they care so much — for each other — for strangers. Because my experience is far from unusual,” he wrote. “Hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of children have been raised by Filipino nannies. Usually mothers of their own children who they were forced to leave behind in the Philippines.”
He also promised that this was not going to be the last.
“I hope the overseas Filipinos and our fans in the Philippines like this episode more than they liked the last one on our other show. I imagine this time around there will be tears. At least I hope so. We tried to do right by people who’ve been very, very good to us,” Bourdain said. “This is certainly not the definitive show on the Philippines — and it will not be our last show there.”
Today, there are copious tears being shed for Bourdain’s death.
Mr. Bourdain, Tony, that may have been the last show you shot in the Philippines but Filipinos across the globe are thankful and grateful, because you went back a couple of times and offered an inspiring look at a country and cuisine that are oftentimes both overlooked and highlighted not just the flavors of the dishes you ate but also the work ethic and family values of Filipinos like Vangie whom you’ve known for a long time now and those you have met in your travels around the world.”
“Love is who you are. When you don’t live according to love, you are outside of being. You’re not being real. When you love, you are acting according to your deepest being, your deepest truth. You are operating according to your dignity.”- Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Contemplation and Action in New Mexico, 2018.
“Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” – Elie Wiesel
“Stop pretending your racism is white nationalism.” “It is un-American and grossly inhumane, brutal and unconscionable.” “It is unspeakable, gratuitous cruelty, that even animals in the wild or domesticated are not capable of doing.” “Take a look at young birds, do you see them nurtured?” “As part of a pack, cared for by God?”
These were some of the broadcasted messages from news programs’ coverages of rallies to resist the family separation of over 2,300 children.
On Saturday, June 30, over 700 rallies were held in 50 states, and photos were shared on social media and publicized by major newspapers.
Take a look at “Unaccompanied: Alone in America” by Linda Freedman, a short video clip of four minutes and 20 seconds that depicts young children appearing before an immigration judge.
When asked if they know a lawyer, they simply say no. Even the face of the judge changes, formal to empathetic and seemingly teary.
And why not? These are very young children whose important work is to play and who in their right mind would compel them to court hearings? They have no mental capacity to understand the court proceedings. How absurd can our present federal government be to require unrepresented, young children to appear in courts?
These children’s experiences would forever be marked by gratuitous cruelty and trauma, permanently scarring them for life.
It is even made more difficult as some of these children speak in indigenous languages, and not the mainstream version of the Spanish language, spoken by most.
NBC broadcasted a border supervisor, in conversation with a reporter on June 30, that there is a policy to separate the children from their parents when they get to Southern Border. He said, “It is to make the parents afraid and not to cross the border to America.”
A reactive move, isn’t it? When in fact, he also said that border crossings have decreased, whereas, during President Bill Clinton’s time, NBC reported 500,000 crossed this border a year to now, 26,000. It has been decreasing since Pres. Barack Obama’s tenure that the crossings have averted, but a new humanitarian crisis of separating children was created by Trump’s zero tolerance policy towards migrants at the border seeking asylum.
A U.S. president with no moral center
The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot wrote: “The policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern Border was the purest distillation yet of what it means to be governed by a President with no moral center.”
On June 19, over 600 Methodists accused Attorney General Jeff Sessions of child abuse, racial discrimination and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the United Methodist Church and filed a canon law complaint.
Talk to relatives, neighbors, community friends, and the reported news of toddlers and small children in foil blankets inside cages will likely raise their blood pressures, as yours. “God please take care of this president. His evil actions exceed our human capacities,” a friend said.
She is not alone; four living former first ladies have the same outcry.
On June 19, the New York Times reported that four living former first ladies condemned the Trump border policy.
Laura Bush wrote, “Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tents cities. These images are reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of WW II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
“Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged,” Hillary Clinton wrote. “We should be a better country than one that tears families apart, turns a blind eye to women fleeing domestic violence, and treats frightened children as a means to a political end.”
What makes this unprecedented is we have had four living former first ladies join their voices as one, to speak against separating children from their families. Even Melania Trump tweeted that she believes that the rule of law should be followed, but governance must be done with the heart.
Yet, Sarah Huckabee Sanders continued to lie in her official capacity, and claimed falsely: “Frankly, this law was actually signed into effect in 2008,” to which the New York Times reported: ”No law actually requires that families be separated at the border. Pres. Trump ordered the stiffer effort last month.”
Still unconvinced that there is a White House policy of family separation?
A community member shared that parents are at fault, kidnapping their children to travel to the borders. Can you imagine what mentality and heartlessness one has to believe these lies? He was not joking.
Sessions claimed it is biblical to take actions to protect the American borders, prompting this response from Fr. James Martin, “It is not biblical to treat migrant and refugees like animals. It is not biblical to take children away from their parents. It is not biblical to ignore the needs of the strangers. It is not biblical to enforce unjust laws. Do not use the bible to justify sin.”
Nearly 750 resistance rallies in 50 states
USA Today on June 30 had reported: “Hundreds of thousands of people turned out from coast-to-coast Saturday in ‘Families Belong Together’ rallies to protest the Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy and implore their fellow citizens to turn out to vote in November’s midterm elections. While the thrust of the near 750 marches and rallies was to defend the 2,000 children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, the tone was decidedly political.”
David Bacon, a photographer posted on Facebook: “A demonstration of 3,000 people outside the Richmond Detention Center, where immigrants are incarcerated before being deported. Part of a national day of protest, called Families Belong Together – Let Our People Go, people called for ending the separation of immigrant mothers and children, and the detention of immigrants in centers like that in Richmond.”
I asked his permission to publish the photo for this column, as it captures the national sentiments of non-separation of families. He agreed.
Separation of families, intentionally done with callousness and mercilessly, have created these visceral reactions.
The New Yorker wrote on June 30, “Protests, like Saturday’s against Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, allow a person’s individual croak to melt into a collective scream.”
In that collective scream, we reclaim our human dignities and we hear our spirits alive and understand the yearning for the same freedoms as those refugees who come to the U.S. borders.
They simply want to feel safe, as gangs have made it impossible to live their daily lives. One Honduran friend of mine, whose mom and sister still live in the country, described that the gangs pester folks daily: “You are in a bus, they take your watch, or if you own a small store, they impose a $5 fee on you, and that is your whole day’s earnings. Life in the land has become dangerous, that anything outside of the land presents a hopeful, brighter future for families.”
Their lives on land have become dangerous that they dare to cross the borders, the waters, ride the trains, and go to the U.S.-Mexico border, as in Texas, so they can apply for asylum.
Instead, their children are taken from them, many of whom are under 6 years old. After they are separated from their parents, the latter are detained or deported back to countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
Parents and children travel using human coyotes (smugglers) to whom they pay their life savings to be transferred through a series of transports, taking three weeks and when they reach the Southern Border, they apply for legal asylum.
But instead of processing their asylum claims, they are apprehended, the kids are deemed unaccompanied minors, as their parents have not yet attained legal status.
Kids are then taken from their parents, on the pretext of giving these children a bath, but the children are shipped to places, 2,000 miles away from their parents like New York. Do you sense double or triple doses of cruelty here?
We are not this America: We are better than this
Nana, a 95½-year-old woman who has seen U.S. presidents change 15 times to this current one, wondered when will “The Law of Karmic Debt kick in for this 45th U.S. President?
She has seen Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt become presidents in her lifetime, since she was 10 years old.
She added two Kennedys have been assassinated in her lifetime. I wanted to add Martin Luther King and even Malcolm X, but she switched the conversation on how her heart bleeds for these children.
“We are not this America,” she added. She describes that her heart is for the migrants, as she and her family had to wait for their resettlement into America, when no countries would accept Jews as immigrants in the late 1920’s.
How did we get here, America?
In his interview with Chris Matthews, University of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins said, “Families are fundamental blocks to a society, when the state intervenes, it strikes at our values. The rhetoric about these people is demeaning and treats them as animals. You can think what you want about immigration reform but you have to start at decency, you have to treat them with decency!”
But, who stands to benefit from detaining these children? Are foster parents who are paid handsomely per month when these children are placed in their homes by the government? The immigration lawyers? The federal government in imposing hefty bond fees to claim their children?
The New York Times reported on June 19 that $458,000,000 would be spent to detain these children.
“Currently Southwest Key has nearly 5,100 children in 26 shelters in Texas, Arizona and California, accounting for nearly half the unaccompanied minors being held in facilities all over the country. Most of them are older children who weren’t taken from their parents but instead tried to cross the border on their own,” The Associated Press reported on June 27.
The report added, “The nonprofit organization has booked $458 million in federal contracts during the current budget year — half of what is being handed out by HHS for placing immigrant children who came to the U.S. unaccompanied or were separated from their families after arriving.”
Humanitarian initiatives
The American people responded swiftly with mercy and compassion.
On June 28, a 6-year-old Atlanta boy sold lemonade and made $13,000 to benefit these separated children, CBS.com reported.
Here in Los Angeles, Keep Families Together Rally & Toy Drive was organized on June 23 at the Federal Bldg. in Westwood; Christine Oshima agreed to share a photo she took. Thousands attended.
As of 7:15 p.m. on July 1, a fundraiser initiated by Charlotte Willner and Dave Willner on Facebook weeks ago has raised $20, 578,199 from 533,587 folks to reunite an immigrant parent with their child, which included nearly a hundred Filipino-Americans donating.
As of 7:36pm, it grew to $20,578,724 from 533,594 folks, an increase of $525 from seven new donors in 21 minutes. The funds raised would benefit RAICES, which “will directly fund bonds to allow parents to reclaim their detained children. This group will ensure legal representation for every separated family and every unaccompanied child in Texas’ immigration courts.” Their current goal is $25,000,000.
Janne Martin-Godinez, a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl was reunited with her mother after nearly a two-month separation.
“She and her father were detained at the Arizona border in mid-May, a week after her mother had arrived with her baby brother. The family fled their home in western Guatemala because they were threatened by gang members demanding money from them. Martin-Godinez, 29, a nurse, said she was also threatened by a supervisor at the clinic where she worked,” The Washington Post wrote on July 2.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration changed its zero tolerance policy to the indefinite detention of families while their asylum claims are processed.
The 45th president’s administration has yet to demonstrate its respect to human beings regardless of national origins. After all, he took an oath,with his hand over a Bible, to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which provides equal protection to citizens, resid ents and immigrants, as all are deemed “persons,” entitled to a full measure of human rights and should not be presumed to be criminals.
Perhaps, Mr. Trump needs to learn lessons from 8-year-old Diego, “who came up with his own signs for his first public protest: 1) Don’t separate families 2) Don’t make kids cry, make kids happy 3) Broken Families = Broken World 4) We all need = rights 5) Free children and the world will be happy and 6) Help free kids.” Thanks to Cheryl, his mom, who allowed his messages to be shared.
