The Reverend Charles Newman, former president of Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia, was sentenced on Friday to three to six years in prison for stealing almost $1 million from the school, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
As if that isn’t bad enough, prosecutors say that Newman gave about $54,000 to Arthur Baselice III, once a student at the school, as “hush money” so he would keep quiet about their sexual relationship. Authorities contend that the abuse began when Baselice III was 16-year-old junior at the school. He graduated in 1996. Ten years later, on November 30, 2006, Baselice III died of an overdose in a drug house.
During Newman’s sentencing, the young man’s mother, Elaine Baselice, addressed the court. “He plied my teenage son with alcohol and drugs so that Arthur could be more easily abused,” she said, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. “Newman had me believe my son was full of demons. Standing in the courtroom today, I am faced with the true demon!”
Newman was not charged with sexual abuse because the statute of limitations had expired. He was charged only for the theft. The priest spoke briefly during the hearing in disjointed remarks, but did not apologize to the Baselices or explain what happened to the money. The court didn’t buy whatever he said.
“Your explanations are sorely lacking ”¦ and that’s putting it mildly,” Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi said. “Your explanations are bizarre.”
Reading the coverage of this case, it seemed to me that the Reverend Charles Newman fit the profile of a sociopath.
More info:
Philadelphia Inquirer: Ex-principal gets 3-6 years for theft
Philadelphia Daily News: ”˜Detestable’ conduct nets priest 3-6 years
Child abuse in Ireland
The Newman case was bad, but not nearly as shocking as another story now in the news—the endemic rape and abuse of thousands of children in Ireland, from the 1930s to the 1990s, by Catholic priests and nuns.
On May 20, a 2,600-page report by Ireland’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was released. It found that children in 250 church-run schools, orphanages and other institutions, supported by taxpayer funds, were routinely abused and molested. Catholic religious orders ran more than 50 workhouse-style reform schools. One of the orders, the Christian Brothers, which ran several boys’ institutions, harbored serial child molesters and sadists on its staff.
The report took nine years to complete. Thousands of still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, testified, some traveling back to Ireland from America or Australia.
“A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys,” the report stated. “Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.”
At the time, however, the religious orders were concerned only about preventing scandal, not the danger to the children. According to the Associated Press, “The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care,” the commission found. “At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely.”
The report may not lead to prosecution of the perpetrators because in 2004, the Christian Brothers successfully sued to prevent them from being named. “Most leaders of religious orders have rejected the allegations as exaggerations and lies, and testified to the commission that any abuses were the responsibility of often long-dead individuals,” AP reported.
The Irish government has paid 12,000 abuse survivors an average of $90,000 each, a total of more than $1 billion, and another 2,000 claims are pending. But in 2001, Irish Catholic leaders cut a deal with the government that capped its contribution to the claims at $175 million—a fraction of the total cost.
More info:
The Independent, London: Thousands were raped in Irish reform schools
Boston.com: Catholic Church shamed by Irish abuse report
Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse: Executive summary
Betrayal by Spirit
In The Betrayal Bond, author Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D., specifically discusses how abuse by clergy affects victims. “It is generally agreed that the impact on survivors of sexual abuse by spiritual leaders is greater than survivors of other forms of power abuse,” he writes. “Since part of coping with trauma is spiritual, sexual abuse by a spiritual leader further complicates the recovery process.”
Why is this so? Carnes writes:
Every journey or recovery depends on the survivor coming to a point where all that person has gone through means something.
Betrayal by the spirit means that the person who betrays the victim also plays a critical role in the resources the victim has for defining meaning. The victim’s spiritual path is blocked. The fundamental question all victims have to answer for themselves is, ”˜Why do bad things happen to good people?’ It is a far more troubling question when the cause of the problem is supposed to be the resource for the answer.
Close to home
For me, all of this scandal hits very close to home. My cousin was abused by a priest. His was one of the early cases—he got a settlement at least 15 years ago. I don’t know how much it was, and I don’t know exactly what happened. According to the terms of the settlement, he’s not allowed to talk about it.
But I do know this: My cousin’s life is a disaster. His marriage fell apart. He was never able to hold a steady job. He spent his settlement money buying drinks for friends in bars. He became addicted to heroin. He assaulted his elderly father. His brothers want nothing to do with him.
When my cousin and two other men first pursued their claims against the priest, his mother, my aunt, took the word of the church over the word of her son. She went to her grave believing that my cousin lied about the entire thing.
I wonder if my aunt could believe today’s news.
(lol. my capacity to spell is definitely not mine.;)
Blueskies: Unless someone has been manipulated by an S/P — and has come to REALIZE it! — they wouldn’t believe how skillful these people are as manipulators. It’s not just our blindness. It’s also their tremendous ability to persuade us that black is white, up is down, and poison is good for us!
Denial is also a survival mechanism. It’s what lets us run on a broken leg, if that’s the only way we can survive. But at some point we need to know the truth if we are going to become fully awake in our lives.
I also want to say(and no offence to Jen cuz I think she’s ace) that I dont for one second buy the idea that a life of celibacy can lead to peadophillia. What a crock. I dont have a particularly good opinion of the catholic church, but that is based on my own experiences with individuals involved in it.
A neighbor of mine where I used to live, was a single parent, eventually got busted for child pornography. In his statements to the press he said that he had become isolated and lonely(as a single parent) and it had lead him to act in this manner. BS!!!!! I dont buy it. I am a single parent. I sometimes get lonely. I have been without sex for years at a time (sniff;) But it is just not in me to behave like that. Certain institutions are set up perfectly to enable these SICKO predators to operate and so they are drawn to them. The Catholic church is one because it is doing the big denial dance. The s/p I knew is an NP and wants to work ( he says help) in poor and isolated communities, I wonder why. help himself to people with no power to stop him.
Rune,
” their tremendous ability to persuade us that black is white, up is down, and poison is good for us! ”
You are so right. There’s no warning people about Sociopaths. They either get it, or they don’t. If people don’t get it, they will give the Sociopath chance after chance to “reform”. They’ll believe every word the charming sociopath utters, and defend the sociopath against all comers, particularly his/her victims.
Churches are particularly vulnerable, because they are predisposed to believe anyone can change. They also tend to have a need to believe that all the bad people are outside their church, and the people inside their church are blameless.
In our age of litigation, most churches have conceded that they need insurance. What they haven’t conceded is that they need to follow their insurer’s guidelines. Their liability insurance will not cover them in circumstances where they’ve failed to perform appropriate background checks on volunteers/workers or failed to respond immediately to allegations of malfeasance.
It’s going to take a 2nd wave of litigation for the churches to wake up to their responsibilities. Right now they think their insurance and good intentions protect them from their irresponsible choices. When they realize that they are not covered by insurance in cases where they’ve failed to follow the insurer’s guidelines, they will finally act responsibly.
It’s impossible to reason with naive, well intentioned Christians who are headstrong in their conviction that they are right to “forgive and forget” all transgressions, including transgressions made not against them, but against others. So confident are these people that they “have the mind of Christ”, that they stubbornly accept into their midst, harbor and eventually protect Sociopaths from all consequences.
This has cost Christianity untold suffering, and yet the only hope for change lies in the civil courts. These proud, stubborn men will not bend until wave after wave of litigation begins to nibble away at their bottom line.
Elizabeth Conley: You sound like an uppity woman who doesn’t know your place. Good for you! I came from a very religious background, and I have seen everything you say. And I know that my belief in that dogma was a large part of why I stayed married to a very toxic person for 6 years in my very young life.
We are so fortunate that we have “had the scales drop from our eyes” so we can see these predators — or even acknowledge that they exist so that we are willing to listen when someone else recognizes one!
Yes Rune. I am one uppity woman.
My trust in various dogma about humility and obedience made me vulnerable to predators too. Until I got “uppity”, I was little more than a roll of toilet paper to “nice” Christian men.
Now I’m uppity, and the men still comfortable in my company are good, strong and wise. The mama’s boys and the cluster Bs have run for cover! No great loss there!
EC: So that WAS you I saw on the poster advocating uppitiness! I notice you weren’t barefoot, either.
We need role models of women who can stand up for themselves, and also retain their feminine presentation of strength. Good for you. Your daughter is lucky. And so is your son.
Also, ED, some churches are so “enabling” (afraid to offend anyone even if what they are doing is OPENLY BAD) churches used to take “disfellowshipping” more seriously and when a member was caught in BAD ACTIONS they would publicly toss them out! Seldom is this done any more. The biggest known hypocrits sit on the “front pew” and I guess also CONTRIBUTE MORE.
These people give all Christians and all churches bad names, and when a church deliberately hides “secret sin” like child molestation on the theroy that the perp has “repented” and give them another opportunity to “sin” against children, then I think they should ALL be strung up by their U_NO_WHAT’S.
I was raised to forgive and FORGET with emphasis on the FORGET or “pretend it didn’t happen” and to keep all the “secret sins” of family members QUIET! OR ELSE. It never set well or seemed right but it was what I was taught and it almost turned me against God…fortunately I got out of that mind set and see that this kind of “forgiveness” is NOT what the Bible or good sense either teach.
One of the most loving, kind, caring and naive ministers I ever knew does in prison ministry (that’s how I met him) but I have educated this wonderful caring man to psychopaths (many of his “parish”) so that he is hopefully not so likely to get hooked into their pity stories. My P son is a good “Christian con” with the best of them.
Jesus himself was not a “namby pamby” person, and He called a “Spade a spade” and challenged the hypocrits in the Temple. It is what got him crucified. It will get us “crucified” shunned and tossed out on our ears many times if we try to expose these people and bring their “sins” to light. The BLIND believers were summed up by jesus when He said “have eyes and do not see, have ears and do not hear.”
As the psychopaths on their blog call those people “SHEEPLE” and so they are! DUMB sheep which is about the best thing I can say about sheep. If any animal higher than a flat worm has as little intelligence as a sheep I don’t know what it is.
I am tired of being a SHEEP and blindly following what ANYONE “teaches” me with the “voice of God”—I can read it for myself.
I was persecuted and ridiculed in my living history group for wanting a convicted and former inmate member (child porno) expelled from our group and working with kids! I was totally dumbfounded when I got that response from people I had RESPECTED and people I thought were intelligent and caring. Coul’a’fooled me!
OxDrover,
“Pretend it Away” Christians make abuse possible. Enablers is the nicest thing we can call them.
“I was persecuted and ridiculed in my living history group for wanting a convicted and former inmate member (child porno) expelled from our group and working with kids! I was totally dumbfounded when I got that response from people I had RESPECTED and people I thought were intelligent and caring. Coul’a’fooled me”
Nice Christian people have a fit when you suggest that Sociopaths and Psychopaths need to be dealt with cautiously. If you suggest this you’re mean, unforgiving, unsubmissive, yada, yada, ya. They put the fox in charge of the hen house time after time. Then try to pretend there are no chickens missing.
EC said: “Churches are particularly vulnerable, because they are predisposed to believe anyone can change.”
I read several newspaper articles and also a book about Jimmy Swaggart. The book covered alot more detail about his ongoing bad behavior, than just the several “well known falls” he had. He is a perfect example of the type some Christians think can change and should be forgiven—again and again and again–and lets keep him in the pulpit. He is a showman who knows all the “pretty” and “right” words to say, but man his bad behavior through the years and years and YEARS has been something else!
But on the flipside, it is unfortunate that the “bad” ones who get the publicity cast a bad light on the ones who are sincere in their beliefs and try to follow the righteous life, in spite of their human imperfections. I grew up with a Preacher (he died just a few years ago) who was one of the finest men I’ve ever known. He was honest about his imperfections, that Preachers are subject to the same temptations as the rest of us, and he tried and IMO suceeded, in living his life as true to his beliefs as possible. God bless him.