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Archive for the ‘Children’ Category

Mother as a verb: three tales, two with tails, one a beast

Posted in Adoption, Children, Family, Nature on July 30, 2010| 4 Comments »

Three stories in the news this morning have me thinking about mothers and what it means to be one. Not that it directly relates, but I have mentioned often in my writing about adoption that “mother” is also a verb which legitimizes the noun. I leave it to readers today to decide which out of the three here qualify for both the action and the title.

mother |ˈməðər|
noun
1 a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth.
• a person who provides the care and affection normally associated with a female parent : my adoptive mother.
• a female animal in relation to its offspring : [as adj. ] a mother penguin.

verb [ trans. ]
1 [often as n. ] ( mothering) bring up (a child) with care and affection : the art of mothering.
• look after kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so : she felt mothered by her older sister.

First, we have a heartwarming video of one mom putting herself on the line to save her baby.

Amateur video has captured footage of a mother bear saving her cub from a fishing net in Anchorage, Alaska.

The mother desperately struggled to save her cub as fisherman Dane Havard pulled the small bear out of tall reeds behind his house with his truck.

The trapped black bear squirmed and thrashed around inside the net, while another small cub watched at a distance.

The mother bear tried to free the screaming cub for several moments before cutting through the net with her teeth and claws.

The mother then ran away with the cub in her mouth.

Anyone thinking there was no actual danger involved will want to check out this story detailing what can go wrong when moms of a certain size and species cross paths with perceived threats of another sort.

Wildlife authorities have captured a mother grizzly bear that they believe killed a Michigan man and injured two other campers in the north-western US state of Montana.

Wildlife authorities then left the mother grizzly overnight to attract her three cubs, two of which were caught in adjacent traps on Thursday.

Officials say the adult bear will be killed if the DNA test results, expected on Friday, link it to the attacks.

These moms are both bears in the wild raising cubs. One is celebrated, the other on death row, both doing what they could to protect their offspring from the havoc that humans bring to their world.

Yes, we’re talking now about animals, their instincts and the potential for mayhem that sometimes occurs when their ‘lesser brains’ and greater bulk set a good part of the mothering agenda.

The third story is also about lesser brains and greater bulk, but taxonomists would actually classify the subject here as human.

A woman in northern France has admitted killing her eight newborn babies but said her husband knew nothing about it, the prosecutor in the case has said.

Mrs Cottrez said she was fully aware of her pregnancies, but that she did not want any more children and did not want to see a doctor for contraception …

Mr Cottrez said he had never noticed his wife’s pregnancies because of her heavy weight, and had no idea she had been getting rid of the babies at birth …

Lest anyone get the idea that this woman is an unparalleled aberration in the species, the article goes on with a disturbing list:

In March, a mother confessed to killing six of her newborn children and hiding them in the cellar of her house in north-west France.

In 1984 a couple in Correze, central France, were jailed for killing seven of their newborn infants over a period of seven years.

In Germany in 2006, Sabine Hilschenz was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the manslaughter of eight of her newborn babies. A ninth baby also died, but too long ago to allow a prosecution.

Somehow, I just don’t see bears doing this …

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When adopted kids grow up … doing it right

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Cambodia, Children, Family, International Adoption, orphans, tagged , on July 25, 2010| 4 Comments »

People outside the adoption community are often surprised to learn that there is no little contention on the issue, that there is a contingent of adult adoptees who are dead set against building families through adoption, that some consider international adoption as “cultural genocide” robbing children of their birth heritage. Those purporting such have their points, and I’m not here … today … to argue claims of wrongness about adoption; I’ve done that before … many times.

Nope. Today is not about what can go wrong in adoption … and, as it is in any case where mere humans are involved, shit does happen … but rather on what is so very, very right.

As long-time readers know, my dear friend Gay has been been heading off to Cambodia to build houses every since we brought Sam home. She does this through the organization Tabitha, a non-profit that does so much for so many … I encourage all to learn more and participate … or, at least, shop their store.

Tabitha was started by a Canadian, Janne Ritkes, personal heroine to anyone familiar with her work and her spirit, in 1994, and she’s been on the ground in Cambodia running the show ever since.

In 1995, Jan and her friend June Cunningham found themselves in charge of an orphanage, Cambodia House, after the person who had establish it abandoned the project and the thirty-two one-to-six year-olds living there.

As Tabitha was just beginning and Cambodia was still very unstable, we decided that running an orphanage was not what was best for the children, so we started a process of adoption. Over the next two years we placed all the children in adoptive families around the world.

While some would see this as a theft of their Cambodian identity, all these years later, the children, apparently don’t.

In the ensuing years, many of the children and their families have returned to Cambodia for reunions and house building. It was good to watch these young people grow and mature. This summer marked another passage for these young people – they are either finishing high school or their first year at university. They came for a reunion – they came to house build.

In the past, a number of these young people would talk about their desire to return to their birth country and work with the people here. They knew firsthand about the poverty and the suffering of so many. As they would say to us as parents, this could have been us.

This summer was no different except that they are now young adults with a vision in mind. Several are training to be teachers, architects, contractors, etc.. Their adoptive siblings are also young adults who have caught the vision.

What was clear was that house building was no longer enough. They wanted to continue impacting their birth country even while they were studying and developing skills. Over the past 6 months, these young people had done fund raising themselves and they had raised enough money for twenty houses. For them and their families it was fun and it was concrete.

We talked about what they could do. We talked about Theoun, one of our children, who had died in a tragic fire a year ago. We talked of his legacy, a school for impoverished children in Kompong Thom – a school that will be finished in August. They talked of their desire to also build a school. And so that is what they will do.

A mom herself to a Cambodian-born daughter, the impact on Janne is very personal.

My daughter Miriam is part of this process. She came home so very emotional about the impact of this past week.

“Mum, these are my brothers and sisters”, she said. “That’s what we call each other – we are all Cambodian, we are all adopted. We all want to help our fellow Cambodians. And their families mum, these are also my family. We know each other, we understand each other, and we take care of each other.”

I wondered at her maturity.

“I want to be a doctor mum, or at least a nurse – then I, too, can come back and help.”

Sam and Cj are still small, but already they have developed a love for and pride in the country of their birth. Over the years, we will visit Cambodia, and Gay has plans now to take them on house-building trips when they’re old enough. I fully expect they, too, will make significant contributions.

I understand well Janne’s point when she says:

As a parent, I often wonder if I am doing the right thing. As Cambodia House Chair, I often wonder if I did the right thing. As founder and director of Tabitha, I often wonder if we keep doing the right things– this week, I know it is right.

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Thumbs up in Afghanistan

Posted in Children, Health, orphans, science, World politics on July 19, 2010| 6 Comments »

Let’s hear a round of applause for a cooperative effort between Afghans and Americans at the National Military Hospital in Kabul … and not only because we have two hands to clap with.

Abandoned as a baby, 12-year-old Haidar has never buttoned a shirt, held a pencil or combed his hair. Born without hands, Haidar has only been able to use his wrists and forearms to pick up objects and manipulate his environment; he has never been able to care for himself properly.

Having neither the expertise nor the facilities at the hospital in Afghanistan to construct hands for this boy, a doctor from the US Navy has been invited to do what Vincent Price was unable to do for Edward.

By July, one month after U.S. Navy Capt. Jerone Landstrom – a surgeon specializing in hand and microsurgery – arrived, Haidar has undergone an operation on his left hand and, while he’ll never have a normal hand, it is now functional.

When in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, so there’s little doubt that this young man’s life and prospects have improved tremendously, and with his case building bridges that span between medical professionals the advantages may be far-reaching.

Given how much time Afghans and Americans spend pointing fingers of blame at each other and palming off responsibility for the horrible things happening in Afghanistan daily, it’s great to see some people from both nations working hand-in-hand.

Okay. Okay. I’m done with the word play … although armed with such handy material I can hardly thumb my nose at the chance …but this is hands down my favorite story in today’s news.

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Witchkids weigh the same as a duck … Burn them!

Posted in Children, History, orphans, Religion, The United Nations, Women's rights on July 18, 2010| 6 Comments »

Not learned much in 600 years, have we ... ?

Lest anyone get the idea that I am inclined to chew on the ass of only one religion, I’ll range more widely today and slam effects of worship all the way to witchcraft.

Subscribing to a bit of the old double, double can seem nothing more than a giggle, but as is the case with all who take hocuspocus as gospel, be it the Eucharist or “He turned me into a newt!”, it always results in damage to some innocent bystander.

Today’s example comes from the BBC in this report on an increasing number of kids in Africa being accused of witchcraft, and the horrible consequences of those accusations.

A new Unicef report warns that children accused of being witches – some as young as eight – have been been burned, beaten and even killed as punishment.

(… burned, beaten AND EVEN KILLED … What the hell sort of sentence is that? Oh … never mind … )

In rounding up the usual suspects, it’s orphans, street kids, albinos and the disabled, mainly boys between the ages of 8 and 14 who are victims.

Unicef … always so good at counting atrocities, but not so hot on preventing them … reports that 20,000 street kids have been tarred with the black magic brush in Kinshasa, DRC alone.

The agency [Unicef] said there was little it could do about the belief in witchcraft itself, and that it was not trying to eradicate the practice. But it said violence against children was wrong, and that it would do everything it could to stop it.

Well … isn’t that special?

Urbanization and war are fingered as prompts for a shift from picking on old crones and focusing on kids as harbingers of evil sorcery as more and more children fend for themselves in ways that just might make some uncomfortable. Of course, there’s always a few folks who have figured there’s a buck or two to be made, as well.

It is reported that some evangelical preachers have added to the problem by charging large sums for exorcisms. One was recently arrested in Nigeria after charging more than $250 for each procedure.

When some of those rituals involve petrol being poured into the eyes, one must wonder at the price of fuel.

As logical as it gets ...

Being me of little faith, the whole disambiguation song and dance has always been a puzzler. I get that paganism, being an outdoor activity that didn’t make a lot of dosh, was an unpopular option to offer potential church members, but didn’t anyone twig to the fact that anyone with the sorts of powers accused could easily avoid the horrific demise those devout Christians so relished?

But it’s never been about sense. As Nietzsche so aptly put it, “’Faith’ means not wanting to know what is true.”

True is that tens of thousands of children are being tortured and murdered over something that J.K. Rowling has made a mint from.

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Latin 101: Mea Culpa means “fess up”

Posted in Children, Health, Religion, tagged , on July 15, 2010| 6 Comments »

I really do not begin each day thinking, “Gee, Sandra, how can you trash the catholic church today?”. Really. But I do read the news and the Vatican delivers fodder on an almost-daily basis. Who am I to ignore these offerings? I learned early in life that when the plate is passed in front of my face, I must contribute.

Du jour, this report on a “… coherent and significant connection between radiation from Vatican Radio aerials and childhood cancer”, and the Vatican response.

The Italian experts looked at high numbers of tumours and leukaemia in children who live close to Vatican Radio transmitters.
The 60 antennas stand in villages and towns near Rome.
The Vatican said it was astonished and would present contrary views to a court in Rome.

The fact that the church’s knee immediately jerks rather than genuflects seems a clear indication that arrogance is included in the Douay version of the 10 Commandments and that confession is not a requirement.

Ten years of investigation into childhood cancers, and deaths resulting from, culminated in a 300-page report that finds a connection between what are now obsolete, but still functioning, Vatican radio towers leaking electromagnetic waves into the bodies of those living near and sick people.

Instead of a Mea Culpa, what do we get?

The Vatican says it intends to defend its position and claims there is no threat to public health through its transmissions.

Defend its position no matter the guilt? Well … that’s no surprise.

Vatican “astonishment” seems a bit overwrought since there has for years been a great deal of data supporting a connection between exposure to radio towers and cancers:

In studies by Michelozzi (2001, 2002), the researchers found that “The risk of childhood leukaemia was higher than expected up to 6 km from the high-power radio station and there was a significant decline in risk with increasing distance both for male mortality and childhood leukaemia.” [Michelozzi 2001, Michelozzi 2002]. Maskarinec also found an increased risk of childhood leukaemia within 2.6 kilometres of radio towers in Hawaii [Maskarinec 1994].

So, why in holy hell does the church feel the need to pull out the alter cloth and wave it around like a toreador’s cape? Doesn’t anyone on that 110 acres of Vatican soil understand that denial is not an easily navigable river in Egypt?

Someone should tell his holeyness that no one is buying that priests live celibate lives and don’t abuse children, that the host is skin, that Mary was a virgin, or that electromagnetic waves don’t get cancer growing in people living near his towers, no matter how emphatic the protestations.

If that doesn’t work, perhaps he can be convinced to hire a better PR firm. The one dealing with the press these days just makes it all too easy for this simple blogger. If I didn’t have pope-on-a-plate delivered so often, I might have to write about other stuff. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

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Pope is pissed … (or how to get a date in Vatican City)

Posted in Children, Health, Religion, Sex, Uncategorized, World politics, tagged on June 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’m almost sorry about banging on so much lately about the Catholic Church, but neglecting to respond to the crap coming from the Holy See-no-evil is simply beyond my powers of resistance.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, church officials are turning six shades of cardinal red over the Belgian government’s attempts to unearth information on allegations of sexual abuse and are reacting about as one would expect someone guilty as shit to react.

The RC royals aren’t accustomed to having authority other than their own consider it a matter of course to look for dirt in the dark nooks and crannies so well tucked away for centuries beneath their voluminous skirts.

Perhaps it’s time they get the message that they no longer rule any part of the world, other than the 110 acres of the country the where the Pope wears the big hat. Yes, they can deal with sexual abuse of children any way they like in the Vatican … that’s what the Swiss Guard is there for … a moot point, since no children live there.

Vatican City is home to approximately 920 full-time residents who maintain passports from their home country and diplomatic passports from the Vatican. Thus, it is as though the entire country is composed of diplomats.

Which, one could suppose, makes it pretty easy to keep a wrap on PR.

(An aside: In looking for info on how many women live in Vatican City, what came up on a Google search was a dating site … “Men seeking women in Vatican City”, Considering the fact that the place is completely surrounded by Rome, it may be safe to assume these guys don’t get out much.)

Anyway …

It was only a matter of time before the Pope-ster weighed in on the “serious and unbelievable” treatment his poor bishops were subjected to, forced to hang around during a police search, and perhaps more than annoyed that keeping them incommunicado greatly reduced the chance of stuffing damning files up their vestments.

As the BBC leads:

Pope Benedict has joined mounting Vatican criticism of raids by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse, calling them “deplorable”.

Note that it’s “mounting Vatican criticism” in the paragraph, and although I have trouble suppressing a sneer when “mounting” and “Vatican” are used in the same sentence, it’s important to catch the fact that people outside the web of the church are probably more than okay with raids, seizing records, even digging up dead bishops for DNA.

That the church’s version of the bishops’ isolation holds less water than a cracked baptismal font doesn’t bode well, either.

Belgium’s justice minister has responded to the criticism robustly, saying normal procedures were followed.

Stefaan De Clerck defended the police action, in a series of TV interviews on Sunday, and said the investigation was legitimate.

“The bishops were treated completely normally during the raid on the archdiocese and it is false to say that they received no food or drink,” he said.
Continue reading the main story

Mr De Clerck said the Vatican’s reaction had been excessive as it was based on false information.

Hm. False information … ? Rather like going to hell if you eat meat on Friday or the sanctity of Christopher? How about covering the asses of child-screwing priests?

Sorry, Old Ben, but your cred is shred.

And you need to clue up to the fact that statements like this …

I hope that justice will follow its course while guaranteeing the rights of individuals and institutions, respecting the rights of victims.

… grate more than a bit, especially amongst real victims.

Those of us outside the grip of the 110 acres very much hope that justice will follow its course, and if part of the process is keeping bishops away from the hard drive for a while, so be it.

Ben’s predecessors may have had the power to run the world on their rules, but those days are over. I can imagine how that pisses him off, but we’re all done with outrage issuing from the palace and insist that confession comes out of the box … and, since it doesn’t, digging is enthusiastically encouraged.

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June 2nd … One year gone

Posted in Children, Family, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Seychelles, tagged , , on June 3, 2010| 8 Comments »

I’m not up to writing about how it felt to mark one year since Jaren’s death; I’m crap enough at sliding identifying gels over the emotions without coming close to slapping words on them.

What I can do is yack a bit about how I spent the 2nd of June and post a few photos. Yes … I can do that.

Thanks to circumstances, and Ernesto, the opportunity to avoid the dismal prospect of passing the day alone on an island I’d grown weary of, instead visiting a vibrant, exciting city I’d long longed to experience more than the shitty airport of with the man I love had me jumping in that direction.

So, I was in Paris on the day.

Since I could not be in Paskenta where my son is buried beside my father and ancestors galore, Paris seemed a reasonable option Jaren would approve.

You see, there is symmetry in a cemetery there, to which I was drawn like a mother to an eternal flame.

Jim Morrison's grave ...

Pere LaChaise Cemetery and the grave of Jim Morrison … who died in the same year Jaren was born … offered what seemed a vital pilgrimage to a mom half a world away.

I paid my respects to the Lizard King, then strolled the ancient paths between graves feeling my son beside me.

Chopin ...

We gave a howdy to Oscar Wilde, hummed a few bars at Chopin and noticed a shitload of names that made me smile big.

No doubt ... Jaren found this one!

All in all, it was a good horrible day.

Oh ... the jokes ...


Yeah ... this one, too ...

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Grief: I’m not doing it right

Posted in Children, Family, Friends, Health, Island life, Loss, love, My Chinese Checkered Past, Seychelles, tagged on May 18, 2010| 11 Comments »

As the first anniversary of my son’s death approaches … on the 2nd of June he will have been gone for one whole year … it becomes increasingly obvious that I’ve not done the greatest job of proper grieving.

Not that there is a wrong way or a right way to mourn; individually and culturally, there are as many ways to deal with death as there are people who die, and that’s about 10,007 humans per minute on this planet, so a lot of variety.

Death rituals can be part of the process when folks are lucky enough to be afforded the luxury of time to conduct them, when death happens by ones and not by thousands and in situations where the rituals themselves don’t deplete resources to the point of costing more lives.

It occurs to me as I write this, that today’s post prompted my first Google search of grief .. an indication of just how not right I’ve been doing this, and in the course of composing a fucking blog post attempt to face my grief, I’m compartmentalizing, as I’ve done from the time I was told my son was dead.

I know why I went to great lengths to encapsulate each wayward bit of grief, then swallow each whole without letting anything touch the sides. There was so much to do … get Sam and Cj sorted out so I could fly to the other side of the planet. That started it. There was no time to fall apart when packing and making sure my kids and my house and my animals would be cared for for the month I would be away, and getting myself from one airport to another had to happen, and being alone meant just that; there would be no one to hold my hand on a 16+ hour flight, and transiting in Dubai could not happen in a puddle.

Once I arrived, there was more to sort out … more than anything I’d ever considered I’d have to consider … the details of death. Jaren’s dad was there, going through this all, too, and my daughter and her family, and much of my family, and friends, all trying to cope with the loss of him.

Again, a reasonably rational mind was required.

I would go through the motions, do what needed to be done. I would meet with Jaren’s dad and stepmom, my daughter and her husband and others as we all tried to understand this sudden tragedy. I went through what was left of Jaren’s apartment, attended memorial services and let others arrange for his body to be transported to the Northern California town where we would have the funeral.

And at the end of each day, I would go to my room, cry and tell myself that if I fell apart, I would not be able to get myself back together.

Once up north, I stayed with my mother, picked out a casket, wrote stuff for the funeral. I hadn’t been in Red Bluff, California in more than twenty years. It was where Jaren was born.

Since Jaren’s dad did not object, it was decided that he would be buried where much of the family has gone, right beside my father in a lovely little cemetery in the foothills. I wandered the grounds for a while, talking to my son and hoping he was happy with the choices made for him.

I spent time with my mother and some dear old friends, and each night I went to my room alone knowing that there was more to do the next day, deciding again the time was not right to slip into grief.

There’s no doubt that I was afraid. Falling apart in an empty room seemed too much like standing on the edge of a dark precipice knowing no one was there to stop a leap, or to catch when I hit bottom.

So, I didn’t. And it got easier. Much easier to keep swallowing the pill instead of chewing the bitterness of it and experiencing all that nastiness.

Now, almost a year has passed and what I find is that through the process of getting good at keeping the pieces of my grief well separated, my whole bloody life is fragmented. I can no longer grasp big pictures, but only shards of here and there. When I find a sliver, I can gaze at it, examine it, ponder it, but I can’t see where it fits.

This doesn’t work so well.

And it seems bottom has hit me whether I jumped or not.

I’ve been told recently that I need to grieve, to move myself higher up my priority list, to start doing things that make me happy again. Okay. But how do I do that? (Writing has been suggested, and I’m feeling shitty enough to go with that thought, hence this post.)

It seems to take far too much energy to talk to people, to explain, so I shut down and stay home. If I lived somewhere else, I could join a support group or go into therapy, but those aren’t options here.

It’s so frustrating being this sad and not knowing how to grieve.

Some random thoughts …

On my facebook page this morning, a photo of Jaren posted by his friend Francisco under the heading: He’s still here. In the photo, he’s playing the guitar that now sits downstairs in my office hopefully protected from this climate by the case on which he had written in duct tape, “No talent”.

I started crying one day, and Cj said to me: “Mommy, you’re sad. Did Jaren die again?”

When Ernesto is here I feel better … or maybe I’m just diverted … but he’s not now, and it’s worrying that I’m so crap at being alone.

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Not Dead, Yet

Posted in Children, Family, Health, Loss, My Chinese Checkered Past on May 16, 2010| 13 Comments »

Still tickin' over ...

I have some deep contemplation to do today … some evaluating, some appreciating, a few James Stewart “It’s a Wonderful Life” moments to ponder … so if I’m pensive, there’s a reason.

Tomorrow, you see, will be my eleventh Not Dead Day.

Eleven years ago today, I was in Singapore enjoying day two of the first holiday I’d taken in years. There were plans to visit the zoo in the afternoon, but the morning was to be passed in the company of a cardiologist who could evaluate my meds and send me back to Seychelles knowing that I was on the right track pharmacologically.

That was the theory.

In reality, however, my quick consultation morphed into a series of tests my body failed miserably, and instead of sharing a banana with my favorite orang utan in Singapore, I was admitted to Mt. Elizabeth Hospital and prepped for an angiogram.

What was discovered during that less-than-pleasant procedure was a blockage in my left descending coronary artery, and what I was told, as I was shifted from gurney to bed with the admonishment that assuming any position but flat on by back could be fatal was:

You have between one and thirty days to live … unless we perform coronary bypass surgery immediately.

So, the next morning they did exactly that.

Mark was there, and spent the time before surgery praying to the wide range of gods on offer in this Asian city; the Buddha of Four Faces in Bugis Street got many oranges and joss sticks that night, which is why one representation graces my house to this day.

The now-ex sent his offerings up with the request that cracking open my chest and tinkering with my heart would give me another ten years. (He now says he should have wished for eight … )

It’s been eleven, so I’ve been swimming in gravy.

There’s something about being able to put a date to the time you might have died that lends itself to mental wandering down that path that leads from then to now, and a lot happens in eleven years.

Had I gone then, I would have died a happy, content woman, secure in home and hearth, loved and cared for, with two grown children and a mother and brothers who’d have grieved the loss of me along with many dear friends.

Apparently, however, the lessons weren’t over.

Of course, Sam and Cj are the biggest bonus my extra years gifted. Missing out on them would have been a loss too huge to let myself consider. I would also have missed my granddaughter … the beautiful bit of my mitochondrial DNA that marches forth in time.

I’ve written a few words over these years that may resonate for a while, and somewhere in the big book of my life those count for something.

And I’ve had many amazing moments, and since life is nothing but a series of moments I’m grateful for each brilliant spark illuminating an hour or a minute or a day.

I have no idea when my last moment will come, but having scored the millions played out since my bypass I’ll not be too disappointed when it does.

Death is a door, and when I do pass through there will be no shortage of people I’ll be happy to see again, and hanging around waiting for others to join … as is inevitable … won’t be a lonely endeavor.

So … while you can … wish me a happy Not Dead Day as you enjoy your moments.

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Hammering the Church … they started it …

Posted in Children, History, My Chinese Checkered Past, Religion, World politics on May 4, 2010| 4 Comments »

There are some who might accuse me of Pope-bashing or, at least, hammering the Catholics … shall we say? … mercilessly.

Well … yeah. But they started it.

All those centuries of burnings and beatings and such rather set a precedent for showing no mercy, and, gee, all I do is give a tongue lashing, and like Blacks can use the “N” word, girls who grew up in the bat-like shadow of Sister Mary Stanislaus and her ilk have license to lash.

Yes, I was a Catholic girl, although I didn’t start that much too late, and had my share of rotten treatment at the hands of black-clad despots, so bear with me.

This story raises a host of ghosts, and we ain’t talking little white bread dots.

… current research and expert opinion suggest that men within the Catholic Church may be no more likely than others to abuse, and that the prevalence of abuse by priests has fallen sharply in the last 20-30 years.

How’s that for missing more than one point in one go?

First, let’s look at the “research” … and feel free to note my bolding of type and call it hammering if you like:

The best-known study on sex abuse by Catholic priests was published in the US, by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops …

Well, grab my head and stick it down a baptismal font! That attribution drips.

Moving right along to more on the point-missing, how’s this?

“The real problem is an abuse of authority, the duty of care that pastors have to their flocks,” says the British historian, and former member of the Jesuit Catholic order, Michael Walsh.

“This has been abused and that is the greatest scandal – that’s what is systemic, rather than sex abuse.”

No, Father Michael … the real problem is that kids have been getting fucked by priests, and the fact that church dudes in big hats and dresses did everything in their vast powers to make sure nobody ever did a thing about it, and that tactics that guaranteed this were engrained into the fabric more clearly than the face on the Turin shroud, just made it more fun.

Trotting out stats is often a dodge, and here’s a classic case of the trots used to suggest that: “There is a big gap between the reality and the public debate … ”

Overall, from 2001-2010 the Vatican has considered sex abuse allegations concerning about 3,000 priests dating back up to 50 years, according to figures given last month by Monsignor Charles J Scicluna, who as the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice heads the office that investigates such cases.

Though the cases were spreading geographically, “the phenomenon itself is much reduced,” he said, noting that there are 400,000 priests worldwide.

Sorry, but the cases the Vatican “has considered about sex abuse allegations” hardly qualifies these numbers as hard data.

My favorite bit of gospel though is this line:

“Celibacy can indeed be a challenge but the vast majority of sexual abuse is not committed by celibates … “

I’ll be charitable and assume this means theoretical celibates …

There’s more, but I have kids to bathe, and if anyone tries to sprinkle them bashing and hammering will happen.

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