Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Noah.
Speaker 4: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 4: our super producer Andrew Treforce Howard. Most importantly, are you.
Speaker 4: You are here? That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 4: want you to know? Hold up, hold the phone, fellow
Speaker 4: conspiracy realists, hold off on the emails. This episode is
Speaker 4: about religion. It may not be appropriate for all listeners,
Speaker 4: but I would say, given all of our collective beliefs
Speaker 4: or lack thereof, recognize the vast importance of religion, right.
Speaker 4: It's one of the most fundamental aspects of being human.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, In this episode isn't just about religion. It's
Speaker 2: about religion and abuse.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's why we have the disclaimer there, you know,
Speaker 4: at the very very top, and we may well give
Speaker 4: you a further disclaimer as we dive into it. For now,
Speaker 4: you know, we have to acknowledge whether or not you
Speaker 4: find yourself an adherent of a specific school of spiritual thought,
Speaker 4: whether you're agnostic, whether you're an atheist, religious institutions have
Speaker 4: a deep, indelible impact on your life. If you live
Speaker 4: anywhere other than North Sentinel Island, you know a lot
Speaker 4: about religion.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 5: I mean, whether you yourself are devouts, you surely have
Speaker 5: people in your lives who are on spectrum of religious
Speaker 5: belief and it's sort of just inescapable in day to
Speaker 5: day life and it ends up being something that kind
Speaker 5: of requires a little bit of navigation.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: We talked a lot about like how to navigate the holidays,
Speaker 5: for example, and you know, talking to people with different
Speaker 5: views and different opinions and Ben, you and I were
Speaker 5: actually on a podcast the other day with some buddies
Speaker 5: out of the UK, and one of them mentioned a
Speaker 5: study that essentially mapped the brain when the topic of
Speaker 5: religion came up, and essentially a change occurred that basically
Speaker 5: represented shutting down the idea of the brain, sort of
Speaker 5: shutting down to outside ideas because religion is something that
Speaker 5: can be so set for individuals who don't really want
Speaker 5: to hear alternatives because belief is very very powerful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Matt, that's the podcast that asked you if
Speaker 4: you wanted to go on with us there. It's a
Speaker 4: it's a podcast primarily about cannabis. They enjoyed the conversation
Speaker 4: and they're just brilliant dudes. Name the show is high
Speaker 4: on homegrown nice.
Speaker 2: Well. I think one of the main things personally for
Speaker 2: me about religion is that every one of the religions
Speaker 2: that I've encountered over the course of my foury to
Speaker 2: one years teaches things like selflessness. It's not about you,
Speaker 2: it's about helping people. It's about being a good force
Speaker 2: on the earth for you know, in service of whatever
Speaker 2: deity that religion worships. And at the heart of all
Speaker 2: of them, there's a very positive thing that exists in
Speaker 2: every religion. This episode, and a lot of the problems
Speaker 2: we've encountered in the past in other episodes have to
Speaker 2: do with the people that end up controlling the human
Speaker 2: beings that follow a certain.
Speaker 4: Religion, right, Yeah, the bureaucracy, the doctrine. You know, if
Speaker 4: you look at the essence, that's a beautiful point. If
Speaker 4: you look at the essence of of I would say
Speaker 4: most longstanding surviving religions, it comes down to the idea
Speaker 4: of being a good person, regardless of a deity or
Speaker 4: a concept that is purported or claimed to inspire that.
Speaker 4: Religion has created so many amazing things. Right now, as
Speaker 4: we record, civilization is still trying to figure out whether
Speaker 4: or not religion is solely a human endeavor. Do other
Speaker 4: intelligent animals have religion? This is a double edged sword.
Speaker 4: As they used to say, it's a two sided coin.
Speaker 4: I guess as all three D coins are. Religion has
Speaker 4: also led to at the same time that led to
Speaker 4: billions of positive outcomes those institutions, the bureaucracy. Right, A
Speaker 4: spiritual thing is the creation of a higher power. A
Speaker 4: religion or a dogma is the interpretation of that through
Speaker 4: the lens of human experience. And as such, religious beliefs
Speaker 4: and institutions have been historically responsible for unfathomable atrocities, conspiracies,
Speaker 4: and crimes. And this is not throwing stone at any
Speaker 4: single religion. This is an observation of the patterns and
Speaker 4: the structures, and this is where we get to the
Speaker 4: statistical inevitability of these kind of horrific things occurring over time.
Speaker 4: The one that pops up a lot for us in
Speaker 4: our explorations on this enterprise is, of course, the Catholic Church.
Speaker 4: The largest denomination of one of the world's largest religions.
Speaker 5: And just to say really quickly, the conversation that I
Speaker 5: referenced that Ben and I had on High on homegrown.
Speaker 5: I can't find exact details on the study that was mentioned,
Speaker 5: but there are quite a few very interesting studies on
Speaker 5: religion and the brain, and one that I did see
Speaker 5: was there are ways of making people less religious by
Speaker 5: introducing magnets, certain types of magnets and frequencies into their
Speaker 5: brain that can actually shut down certain parts of the
Speaker 5: brain that are kind of prone to engendering this kind
Speaker 5: of deep, deep belief. But it does hold true that
Speaker 5: this is such an ingrained part that it makes perfect
Speaker 5: sense that people would be kind of guarded in that
Speaker 5: way cognitively when it comes to somebody kind of challenging
Speaker 5: their beliefs or challenging their religion, because the idea of
Speaker 5: a dogma, it's not just about something that guides your
Speaker 5: life or a set of principles. It is belief in
Speaker 5: something that to you very much exists. We are the
Speaker 5: stories we tell ourselves. That is the human experience.
Speaker 4: So sometimes when another person has a different story, or
Speaker 4: when their own story cast you in a different lay
Speaker 4: that you do not agree with. You feel that your
Speaker 4: reality is threatened. That's a very serious thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can also see why if abuse is carried
Speaker 2: out by somebody who embodies that religious belief for you,
Speaker 2: the cognitive dissonance that would occur if the person who
Speaker 2: is both leading you in worship and telling you what
Speaker 2: to do is also your.
Speaker 4: Abuser and consistently gaslighting you. Actually it's pronounced jazz kidding.
Speaker 4: And if they that person in power is consistently telling
Speaker 4: you that these horrific things happening to you, sometimes at
Speaker 4: their own hand, are part of the requisites for you
Speaker 4: to be a good follower in this spiritual system, then
Speaker 4: it creates, you know, as you said, at a massively
Speaker 4: damaging cognitive dissonance. If we look at the conflicts that
Speaker 4: things like the Catholic Church have dealt with over time.
Speaker 4: You know, the recent sexual abuse scandals that rock the
Speaker 4: church to its core and are continuing as we record now.
Speaker 4: You've probably also heard of the crusades as well as
Speaker 4: the inquisition. Tonight, we are exploring a story you may
Speaker 4: not have heard. It's something that popped up in the
Speaker 4: news quite recently, and fellow conspiracy realist we like to
Speaker 4: brain trust and work as a group when we are
Speaker 4: coming up with topics to explore for the show. And
Speaker 4: Matt this stood out to you. You brought us to this.
Speaker 4: The Catholic churches Sodolitium Christiane Vette. Be aware, once again,
Speaker 4: this episode may not be appropriate for all listeners.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after some sponsors.
Speaker 4: Here are the facts, all right. Not everyone is Catholic.
Speaker 4: So we're going to give you the context of Catholicism.
Speaker 4: And this will be familiar to many of us playing
Speaker 4: along at home tonight because statistically, many of us listening
Speaker 4: this evening are in fact Catholic. A lot of people
Speaker 4: are Catholic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, indeed, there are a whole lot of Roman Catholics
Speaker 5: in the world, somewhere in the neighborhood of one point
Speaker 5: three billion, meaning there are more Roman Catholics than all
Speaker 5: other Christians combined, and more Roman Catholics than all Buddhists
Speaker 5: or Hindus. Guys, I've been watching this show called Say Nothing,
Speaker 5: that is about the Troubles, the period of social unrest
Speaker 5: in Ireland, you know, with the IRA, the Irish Republican
Speaker 5: Army basically going to war with the British government and
Speaker 5: that very much was around a divide between Protestant and Catholics,
Speaker 5: the Catholics there being the underdogs because the UK is
Speaker 5: a Protestant nation.
Speaker 4: We have some episodes of ridiculous history on that. I believe.
Speaker 4: To this context of population and practice, there are more
Speaker 4: Muslims than Roman Catholics. However, if you divide Islam by
Speaker 4: Shia and Sunni, think of those as different spiritual traditions
Speaker 4: or denominations or belief systems, there are still more Roman
Speaker 4: Catholics than there are Sunni. There's still more Roman Catholics
Speaker 4: than there are Shia. Catholicism, despite its ginormous size, is
Speaker 4: run by one person. Historically, a guy is called the Pope.
Speaker 4: You may remember having heard about him earlier. This position
Speaker 4: is incredibly important and has been for many, many centuries.
Speaker 4: The Church's central government is the Holy c See. Like
Speaker 4: I see you. It makes decisions on issues of faith
Speaker 4: and morality. And this is not like a democratic government.
Speaker 4: You know, there are a lot of people, for instance,
Speaker 4: in the United States, who might vote for a president
Speaker 4: and then later have problems with specific aspects of what
Speaker 4: that president does. The word of the Church, the word
Speaker 4: of the Holy See, and the pope is indisputable law.
Speaker 4: It is not up for debate, your negotiation if you
Speaker 4: are an ardent Catholic.
Speaker 2: And one of the big parts here is that it
Speaker 2: is regulated internally. So when let's say a judgment is
Speaker 2: brought down from on high, right from the Vatican, often
Speaker 2: it will not be a legal judgment against a crime
Speaker 2: or something like that. It will be an internally regulated
Speaker 2: decision where the Church says, hey, you person who is
Speaker 2: accused of this stuff, We've looked at everything, and now
Speaker 2: we tell you what's going to happen. And it has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with the court of law.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not a second law. Because the Roman Catholic Church
Speaker 4: is a parallel human governance you could call it if
Speaker 4: you wanted to be absolutely technical and diplomatic. It traces
Speaker 4: its history as we go back to Jesus Christ and
Speaker 4: the Apostles. Please check out our earlier episodes there and
Speaker 4: to your point there, Matt. Over the course of the centuries,
Speaker 4: the Church has developed a highly sophisticated theology and an
Speaker 4: elaborate organizational bureaucratic structure headed by the papacy. The papacy
Speaker 4: is the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world. And
Speaker 4: there's a lot of paperwork. There's a lot of procedure involved.
Speaker 4: There are many different layers of we could call them
Speaker 4: stakeholders or influencers that must be included before an official
Speaker 4: decision is made. So for comparison, the Pope is not
Speaker 4: just going on social media as an influencer and saying well,
Speaker 4: I think this today. A lot of interplay occurs internally,
Speaker 4: and there are multitudes. Like any bureaucracy, there are multitudes
Speaker 4: of smaller groups existing beneath the umbrella of Catholicism. Often
Speaker 4: they're known as societies, and they're all around the world.
Speaker 4: Some are international orders, some are national, some are much
Speaker 4: much more localized. For instance, I'm remembering here in our
Speaker 4: fair metropolis of Atlanta, one of my favorite hangout spots
Speaker 4: for a long time is a monastery in the metro
Speaker 4: area called Our Lady of the Holy Spirit. We've talked
Speaker 4: about in the past. Have you guys ever visited.
Speaker 3: You've mentioned it many times.
Speaker 5: Ben and I do have to take you up on
Speaker 5: joining you sometime for a visit there.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a beautiful spot.
Speaker 2: The gift shop was ten out of ten.
Speaker 4: There's a great Bonzia garden it's a firsthand glimpse of
Speaker 4: monastic life for Catholics and non Catholics alike. It's a
Speaker 4: real it's a really peaceful place. They're not going to
Speaker 4: try to convert you or proselytize too hard. Pro tip.
Speaker 4: The one thing to watch out for will be the
Speaker 4: geese around the pond. Those are the most agro things
Speaker 4: you have not visited.
Speaker 3: No thank you, no thank you. I don't want to
Speaker 3: be dragged to my watery grave by a goose. That's
Speaker 3: not how I'm going to go out.
Speaker 4: Then they're cool with the monks. I guess it's just familiarity.
Speaker 3: I just need that monk energy. I don't think I
Speaker 3: have that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, just hang out with one of the monks.
Speaker 4: But yes, it's a beautiful place. They have a museum
Speaker 4: as well, now, which is more than worth your time
Speaker 4: if you happen to be in the area. Anyhow, important
Speaker 4: thing we have to remember about these societies, whatever they
Speaker 4: may be, whatever particular specializations or priorities they hold, is
Speaker 4: this they have to be approved by the Church to
Speaker 4: be legit It's a very high bar to be approved.
Speaker 4: Gaining this approval is a huge deal in theory that
Speaker 4: approval carries with it an equally large share of responsibility
Speaker 4: to the point we keep hammering about bureaucracy.
Speaker 2: Well, and those folks live in are It's not in
Speaker 2: all of these communities, but in a lot of the
Speaker 2: Apostolic communities, especially lay communities within the Catholic Church. Members
Speaker 2: of those smaller communities or fellowships commit when they become
Speaker 2: a member to living in celibacy and in obedience to
Speaker 2: whoever is running that. Essentially they would call it a
Speaker 2: community or a fellowship, but running that small society that
Speaker 2: exists there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and this mention of celibacy, which we'll get
Speaker 4: to you an obedience also, these are going to be
Speaker 4: familiar to a lot of people. Matt. Do you want
Speaker 4: to say a little bit about the difference between, let's say,
Speaker 4: a monastic community and a lay community.
Speaker 2: Sure, a monastic community like that is an all male thing,
Speaker 2: that is like monks. You hear that there's also types
Speaker 2: of these communities for just women. Lay community is more
Speaker 2: I don't know how would you describe it.
Speaker 4: Ben, A lay community is composed of people who are
Speaker 4: not themselves clergy, which later will you know they're like
Speaker 4: picture a priest, a lay community. A leader of a
Speaker 4: lay community can be very important and influential with the
Speaker 4: church entire but they themselves are not part of the priesthood,
Speaker 4: meaning that again they're bureaucratic implications. In August of last year,
Speaker 4: the Catholic Church took serious action against one of these
Speaker 4: societies we're describing a group called Sodilitium Christiane Vitea, also
Speaker 4: known as the Soliditium of Christian Life. The Vatican expelled
Speaker 4: the founder of this organization, Luis Fernando Figari. They conducted
Speaker 4: a deep investigation into longstanding, terrifying allegations of conspiracy, and
Speaker 4: even now critics say this is nowhere near enough to
Speaker 4: address the crisis. It's a multi faceted conspiracy that they
Speaker 4: argue continued for decades, and even now as we record,
Speaker 4: the survivors of these events argue that the Vatican has
Speaker 4: not been doing enough. So the question becomes what happened,
Speaker 4: what is happening, and what happens next. Here's where it
Speaker 4: gets crazy. Let's talk a little bit about Figari.
Speaker 5: Yeah, born Luis or Lewis Fernando Figari Rodrigo and July
Speaker 5: eighth of nineteen forty seven and Lima, Peru, Figari was
Speaker 5: a lifelong Catholic, and in nineteen seventy one he founded
Speaker 5: so d Lytium Christiane Vite, the first of several organizations
Speaker 5: that he would have a hand in creating, including.
Speaker 4: Oh h and real quick that the Latin there just
Speaker 4: translates to Fellowship of Christian Life or something thereabouts.
Speaker 5: And this is just one of several organizations that he
Speaker 5: would go on to create, including the Immaculate Mary Association
Speaker 5: found that in nineteen seventy four, the Christian Life Movement
Speaker 5: in nineteen eighty five, and that Marian Community of Reconciliation
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety one. This is a busy lad. In nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety seven, Pope John Paul the Second approved so to
Speaker 5: Lytium as a society of Apostolic life. And let's you
Speaker 5: know to your previous point in that differentiation.
Speaker 4: Figari was a layman, Yes, yeah, layman with a lot
Speaker 4: of influence in the larger ecosystem of the church. In
Speaker 4: his I mean you just named all these things he
Speaker 4: created right now. In his words, the purpose of SCV
Speaker 4: is to recruit soldiers for God. This was, in a
Speaker 4: larger context, one of several societies created as a response
Speaker 4: or as a backlash to the left leaning theology or
Speaker 4: liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America started in
Speaker 4: the nineteen sixties, and these were both associated with various
Speaker 4: political things. So the left leaning liberation theology is also
Speaker 4: a little more politically left, and the more conservative stuff
Speaker 4: that Fagari is working with continually encounters accusations of being
Speaker 4: a little close with fascism. Yeah.
Speaker 2: To be very clear, well and very close with the money,
Speaker 2: the moneyed powers. There are groups like this that have
Speaker 2: been looked at in Chile and Mexico and a lot
Speaker 2: of places in Argentina that just have the money. It's
Speaker 2: the human means. I have a lot of money, not
Speaker 2: all of you know, not everybody, but that's just where
Speaker 2: it leans.
Speaker 4: That's the I think that's very fair to say, that's
Speaker 4: the trend, you know what I mean. And at its apex,
Speaker 4: in its halcyon days, this group SCV has something like
Speaker 4: twenty thousand members across South America and the United States.
Speaker 4: There are clerics involved. The layman and the clerics are
Speaker 4: collectively known as sodolitz. That's an individual in SCV and
Speaker 4: the members have their specialization or the organization does I
Speaker 4: should say, and their priorities are to quote, this is
Speaker 4: from them to take special care in serving the youth
Speaker 4: and the poor in all spaces where culture develops, and
Speaker 4: to be completely secular about this, again without denigrading any
Speaker 4: spiritual beliefs. This feels in step with activities that larger
Speaker 4: institutions will take to push their own goals, you know,
Speaker 4: like you see student organizations spring up whenever the United
Speaker 4: States desires a regime change, right, or like how do
Speaker 4: you reach the hearts and minds? How do you get
Speaker 4: the people? I think you made an excellent point there
Speaker 4: about the finances, Matt Well.
Speaker 2: But you can see on their website and stuff like
Speaker 2: videos of its young people. Essentially, it almost looks like
Speaker 2: a youth group out there doing service work, you know,
Speaker 2: and serving especially in this case like people improve who
Speaker 2: were impoverished and setting up you know, water systems for them,
Speaker 2: and you can watch them doing it. It seems like
Speaker 2: really good work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, until you get to who do I thank for this? Right?
Speaker 4: And thank us and do the following things? Yeah, SUV
Speaker 4: again taking special care serving the youth and the poor.
Speaker 4: And part that gets me is in all spaces where
Speaker 4: culture develops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an interesting kind of vaguary.
Speaker 5: And the members of this organization live in monk like communities,
Speaker 5: sort of fraternal communities, and they practice celibacy. And this
Speaker 5: isn't unique to this group by any means at all.
Speaker 5: Multiple Catholic organizations advocate for celibacy, which is often seen
Speaker 5: as a means of growing closer to God. I do
Speaker 5: think it is worth mentioning here that while it's not
Speaker 5: actively being phased out, there are conversations happening within the
Speaker 5: Catholic Church of potential removing the requirement of celibacy, because
Speaker 5: I think we've seen in a lot of these abuse
Speaker 5: cases it feels like it could well be a triggering
Speaker 5: event for some folks, you know, this kind of forced
Speaker 5: celibacy and repression. Not to say that by being celibate,
Speaker 5: people are, you know, pushed towards these kinds of unclean acts.
Speaker 5: But if that urge maybe exists within people, the celibacy
Speaker 5: could well be a trigger to kind of committing some
Speaker 5: of these atrocities.
Speaker 4: Well said, Yeah, and I appreciate the point that there's
Speaker 4: nothing wrong with being voluntarily celibate or a sexual or ace.
Speaker 4: It's when you are forcing people to engage with that
Speaker 4: practice and you know, spirituality. We have to say it.
Speaker 4: We sound like broken records, PERHPS, but it's a highly
Speaker 4: personal thing. We're never going to judge a person's faith
Speaker 4: or beliefs as better than someone else's. So long as
Speaker 4: you were not hurting other folks or attempting to force
Speaker 4: them to do stuff, then do as thou wilt, do
Speaker 4: what you want, Satan.
Speaker 3: Shout out Satan, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 4: That's where we run into the problem. You know, despite
Speaker 4: its positive public image, SEV had a dark side and
Speaker 4: it continued for decades in the shadows. Before we go
Speaker 4: to an ad break, one more warning. The following information
Speaker 4: may not be appropriate for all listeners. We're gonna pause
Speaker 4: for a word from our sponsors, and then we're we're
Speaker 4: diving into some very disturbing things with hopefully something like
Speaker 4: a little light in the dark at the end.
Speaker 5: And we're back and we sort of you know, hinted
Speaker 5: at as before the break, But the Catholic Church has
Speaker 5: had something of a rec over the past maybe decade. Well,
Speaker 5: the allegation has been going much longer than that, but
Speaker 5: it would seem like people are being brought to justice
Speaker 5: and there are in conversations now happening within the top
Speaker 5: leadership of the Catholic Church on how to address and
Speaker 5: to deal with moving forward all of these instances of
Speaker 5: rampant sexual.
Speaker 3: Abuse that just keep on, keep it on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't stop.
Speaker 4: And we probably this is the thing that hurts me
Speaker 4: the most. We probably will never know the full extent.
Speaker 4: We can tell you a little bit about what happened
Speaker 4: with sev what's happening now. Dating back to at least
Speaker 4: two thousand, numerous people came forward in one way or
Speaker 4: another and claimed Fagari was far from what he pitched
Speaker 4: himself to be in the public sphere. He was not
Speaker 4: a benevolent celibate man working to spread the word of Christ,
Speaker 4: focusing on helping youth in the impoverished. Instead, they said
Speaker 4: he was a series real sexual abuser of children, especially
Speaker 4: young boys. He was also deeply involved in financial crimes
Speaker 4: and may indeed have been I guess you would say,
Speaker 4: an input channel for fascist organizations. Yeah, and there were,
Speaker 4: you know, by two thousand and three, we're looking at
Speaker 4: multiple allegations of brainwashing, elitism, authoritarianism, conservatism, even really petty
Speaker 4: petty means stuff seeking his dog on his followers, partially
Speaker 4: for punishment and partially to get his own giggles as
Speaker 4: a sadist.
Speaker 2: Yeah. According to some of the reports, they said he
Speaker 2: liked to watch people experience pain and discomfort and fear.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there were separate control tactics within the group,
Speaker 4: yet they all occurred in step, inseparable from this sexual abuse.
Speaker 4: In twenty eleven, they're victims of this guy's abuse on
Speaker 4: record complaining to the Archdiocese in Lima, Peru. But then,
Speaker 4: as earlier, neither the local church, nor the group of
Speaker 4: bishops for Peru, nor the actual Holy See appeared to
Speaker 4: take any action. The archdiocese would later say, hey, we
Speaker 4: turned the case over to the Vatican immediately, which is
Speaker 4: kind of their level of saying, we went federal with it.
Speaker 4: But nothing happened. It did not happen the first time
Speaker 4: someone came forward, nor the second, nor the third, nor
Speaker 4: the numerous other times survivors spoke up. Someone apparently wanted
Speaker 4: to keep things quiet. Speaking of quiet, Figari stepped down
Speaker 4: from leadership in twenty ten, but was still very much,
Speaker 4: you know, like a professor emeritus for the organization.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and he was still physically there, like if
Speaker 2: you went to the main offices. Essentially, the dude is
Speaker 2: still there hanging out just because he's not leading things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but also it's like official versus actual. He wasn't
Speaker 4: officially leading things, but I'm sure if he wanted something
Speaker 4: to happen, that thing occurred, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: So survivors of the abuse then as well as now
Speaker 4: alleged the Catholic Church continually played down these allegations, not
Speaker 4: just of abuse but of financial corruption. And their idea
Speaker 4: is that the Church would have been happy to keep
Speaker 4: sweeping these scandals under the rug were it not for
Speaker 4: a couple of whistleblowers. We want to want to thank
Speaker 4: Pedro Salinas, who, along with the journalist named Paula Ugaz,
Speaker 4: wrote a book that exposed the SCV practices called Half Monks,
Speaker 4: Half Soldiers in twenty fifteen. So this is four years
Speaker 4: after the events of twenty eleven. It is five years
Speaker 4: after the leader Fagari voluntarily steps down. This is what
Speaker 4: finally triggers an independent investigation commissioned by the organization themselves.
Speaker 4: Commissioned by SCV, it takes several years. It's later published
Speaker 4: in twenty seventeen, but what they find is not pretty,
Speaker 4: I guess we should say. Also, independent investigation means the
Speaker 4: SCV didn't take some of their own members to look
Speaker 4: into it. They hired outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and this is really important. Just the thing
Speaker 2: been mentioned already. So the Lima Archdiocese gets word of
Speaker 2: this thing in twenty eleven, as we're saying, they say,
Speaker 2: at least according to them, they immediately sent and all
Speaker 2: of the information that was provided to them to the
Speaker 2: Vatican directly. And then whatever we're talking about, the bureaucracy
Speaker 2: of the Catholic Church, whatever bureaucratic body within the Vatican exists,
Speaker 2: sat on that information and didn't do anything with it,
Speaker 2: and the Archdiocese in Lima in Peru didn't do anything
Speaker 2: with it. It took a book that we just mentioned
Speaker 2: to be out in the public so other human beings
Speaker 2: around the world could read about this and see it,
Speaker 2: you know, in front of our in front of their
Speaker 2: own faces. It took that to get an actual independent investigation.
Speaker 4: And this independent investigation. You could argue that the SCV
Speaker 4: is doing the right thing, right, that's true. You could also,
Speaker 4: as some more cynical people would say, characterize it as
Speaker 4: a pr move right now that this is in the
Speaker 4: public square. The report is helmed by to America and Expert,
Speaker 4: an Irish expert in abuse, and what they find is
Speaker 4: again pretty damning. They say, look, Figari is a charismatic individual,
Speaker 4: but then they also describe him as being and this
Speaker 4: is a quote from the report, narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist,
Speaker 4: and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation of
Speaker 4: SCV members. That's a lot in one sentence.
Speaker 5: Whoof sounds like a lovely fella, not yeah, pretty awful
Speaker 5: traits unfortunately, not that uncommon. And people that wield that
Speaker 5: level of power and control, people who seek out those
Speaker 5: positions often do it for megalomaniacal.
Speaker 3: Reasons, you know, for impure reasons.
Speaker 5: Not always there people that are out there to do
Speaker 5: good and they want to lead a community, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But I do think sort of a N diagram situation.
Speaker 5: Not all people that aspire to this level of power
Speaker 5: are evil, but a lot of evil people might aspire
Speaker 5: to such things.
Speaker 2: Well, And we have to remember this guy has been
Speaker 2: leading this thing he created since nineteen seventy one, so
Speaker 2: a lot of the leadership in the community throughout all
Speaker 2: of these years are people who rose through the ranks
Speaker 2: within his community. And it doesn't mean they definitely experience
Speaker 2: the same abuse by this guy, but maybe they did,
Speaker 2: and maybe, you know, maybe that is another form of
Speaker 2: control to then hold. Basically, all of your bishops are
Speaker 2: all of your people who are beneath you, are people
Speaker 2: you've abused, So there is a certain amount of coercive
Speaker 2: control that exists there.
Speaker 4: Potentially, Yeah, and this is this is the creation of
Speaker 4: a system, of a cycle, a structure. The report found
Speaker 4: that on multiple occasions, there's no other way to say it, folks,
Speaker 4: Fagari sodomized his recruits and then forced them to fondle
Speaker 4: him and each other, and may have also coerced them
Speaker 4: into abusing other newer members of the group. And this
Speaker 4: went beyond sexual gratification. This is a method of control
Speaker 4: common in a lot of cult organizations, a lot of
Speaker 4: coercive communities. Similar to Jim Jones from the People's Temple,
Speaker 4: he would do the same thing. Similar to the disgraced
Speaker 4: UK politician Cyril Smith, humiliation of the vulnerable was a
Speaker 4: way to satisfy personal sadism, while also disallowing dissent. The
Speaker 4: report found that Faghari liked, like, honestly enjoyed witnessing his
Speaker 4: followers experience pain, discomfort, and fear at times his abuse
Speaker 4: and his manipulation tactics, even when they weren't to the
Speaker 4: level of physical sexual abuse, they occurred similar to the
Speaker 4: way Bishop Edie Long assaulted young men here in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: They occurred under the auspice of giving spiritual advice to
Speaker 4: the victims, and sometimes they were told that the acts
Speaker 4: he forced them to perform or that he performed upon
Speaker 4: them were part of his mystical powers. Look the investigations
Speaker 4: find that the abuse documented that we know about began
Speaker 4: as early as nineteen seventy five, just four years after
Speaker 4: the founding of SCV. Faghari molested a fifteen year old boy,
Speaker 4: and at this point, four years in the child and
Speaker 4: his family are already terrified of reporting the abuse because
Speaker 4: Fogari has acquired so much power right and use that
Speaker 4: power and that threat of humiliation or even physical harm
Speaker 4: to the kid's family against him. Fagari, this is the
Speaker 4: most important part, was not acting alone, because he was
Speaker 4: forcing other members of the organization to perpetrate similar acts,
Speaker 4: perhaps as a means of mutual blackmail, perhaps as a
Speaker 4: means of proving one's loyalty. He was not a lone wolf.
Speaker 4: He built an unholy system of abuse and institution of
Speaker 4: cyclical assault.
Speaker 2: It is a huge that's a great phrase, institution of
Speaker 2: assault and mind games. Because this group a lot like
Speaker 2: another group that existed in Chile in the same time.
Speaker 2: There was a priest named Father Fernando Carradma. He's in Santiago, Chile,
Speaker 2: and what he would do, I think is very similar
Speaker 2: to this, where he would abuse a young man. Then
Speaker 2: he would force that young man to go and confess
Speaker 2: his sins, the young man's sins to another priest. That
Speaker 2: priest would hear the confession and hear that he was
Speaker 2: sodomized by the main guy, and that priest would say, oh,
Speaker 2: be patient, be you know you're do this because of
Speaker 2: your sins. Go forward, And that means that the abuser,
Speaker 2: the main abuser, knows this is happening. And another priest,
Speaker 2: not always the same priest, would hear the confessions. The group,
Speaker 2: the circle of other priests would know exactly what was
Speaker 2: going on. Just to really reiterate here, what Fagari is doing.
Speaker 2: It is a whole group of people who are in control,
Speaker 2: who have control over this one major thing in your religion,
Speaker 2: which is confessing your own sins. They are using that
Speaker 2: directly against you.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And you know, again to our earlier point, you
Speaker 4: see the you see the same or similar systems with UH,
Speaker 4: with multiple multiple religious organizations, and also with Jim Jones,
Speaker 4: which may be a comp for the the Yanks in
Speaker 4: the crowd. This leads us to the next logical question,
Speaker 4: how does Fagari respond?
Speaker 3: Well, he denies everything, of course.
Speaker 4: Oh sorry, that's that's a terrible ode to say. But yeah,
Speaker 4: he denies these allegations. Uh, and there are and he's
Speaker 4: you know, he's saying people are mis contextualizing, or people
Speaker 4: are coming from outside his enemies of the church.
Speaker 3: Didn't get what I was going for. Guys, Wow, got
Speaker 3: me all wrong. Wow.
Speaker 4: And this does not stop the investigations. More investigators emerge,
Speaker 4: more survivors emerge, The church itself is digging further, and
Speaker 4: the further they dig, the more they find they have
Speaker 4: to react. But the survivors find the church's reaction insufficient.
Speaker 4: Instead of officially expelling Fagari from SEV the Holy See
Speaker 4: puts him in a no contact situation. You have to
Speaker 4: live apart from the SCV community, you have to cease
Speaker 4: all contact with it. He complies, and the entire time
Speaker 4: he maintains his innocence. In fact, he makes multiple appeals
Speaker 4: over time, as we'll see, to something called the Apostolic signatora,
Speaker 4: which is the oversimplified explanation is that's like the Vatican
Speaker 4: Supreme Court. That's where your ultimate appeal goes. Again, bureaucracy
Speaker 4: and the bureaucracy we all caught this. This seemed to
Speaker 4: be one of the big complications from the Vatican's perspective.
Speaker 4: So we've all heard the stories about priest who are
Speaker 4: found guilty of similar acts of abuse. They can be
Speaker 4: defract they can be excommunicated, they can be made no
Speaker 4: longer priests, they can be kicked out right. But the laws,
Speaker 4: the policies of the Vatican of Catholicism, they didn't have
Speaker 4: a rubric on how to punish a layperson, how to
Speaker 4: punish a non priest founder of a religious community. That's
Speaker 4: where they're coming from from their perspective. We looked at
Speaker 4: the rules and the rule book didn't tell us exactly
Speaker 4: what we should do. Is that an unfair way to
Speaker 4: characterize it.
Speaker 3: I think it's the only way to characterize it. Been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, there's this book, it's called the Bible. You
Speaker 2: could look in there. You can find some really inventive
Speaker 2: punishments to enact on people if you want it.
Speaker 3: Just saying pretty violent text.
Speaker 4: I mean, let's exercise empathy. Let's imagine we're Pedro Salinas.
Speaker 4: You know, we're other survivors of this system of abuse.
Speaker 4: We're scandalized. We feel that our church, which is still
Speaker 4: a core part of our identity, has betrayed us. You know.
Speaker 4: Selenas calls the decision shameful, very similar to the verbiage
Speaker 4: that Pope Francis would use about other cases of abuse
Speaker 4: in the church. And he said, ordering Faghari to go
Speaker 4: no contact and live away from the community was This
Speaker 4: is a quote from Selenas a golden exile. And he says, look,
Speaker 4: Fagari can live comfortably with all of his needs taken
Speaker 4: care of. AKA, he's not really getting in trouble. To
Speaker 4: your earlier point, Matt, about the difference between canonical justice
Speaker 4: r Vatican bureaucratic justice, and secular or criminal justice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a Karadema guy in Chile was talking about.
Speaker 2: For decades, he molested, sodomized, raped young men. And we're
Speaker 2: talking about not a handful, We're talking about dozens and
Speaker 2: dozens of young men. He did that too, and he
Speaker 2: would continue to do that until they were grown, even
Speaker 2: after they were married, even after they had kids. He
Speaker 2: would continue to enter their homes and have dinner with
Speaker 2: their families and then ask the now man who was
Speaker 2: once a young man under his leadership, to go upstairs
Speaker 2: and he would sodomize them again. He continued to do that,
Speaker 2: and continued to do that, and guess what happened to him.
Speaker 2: His punishment was to go live in seclusion and live
Speaker 2: a life of penance and prayer, and he was forbidden
Speaker 2: from having contact with any former parishioners and he was
Speaker 2: no longer allowed to you know, he was defrocked, right,
Speaker 2: He was no longer allowed to perform any public acts
Speaker 2: of ministry. But that's what happened to him.
Speaker 4: And this is Karadimon the el Boss community.
Speaker 2: Yes, he just had to go away, and that's it.
Speaker 2: You just need to go away for.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 5: It sounds a lot like sweeping under the rug sort
Speaker 5: of situation when there was already a six year gap
Speaker 5: and even acting at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is after the Vatican Church found him
Speaker 2: guilty of sexually abusing minors, sometimes by force. That's what
Speaker 2: they said. Yeah, go live a life of penance and prayer.
Speaker 5: And that's after, you know, dragging their feet for six
Speaker 5: years and acting on fogari by the way, in the
Speaker 5: first place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they said the information that they received had gaps
Speaker 4: and was inconsistent. They also pointed out this is another
Speaker 4: thing they'll come up in a third comp They also
Speaker 4: pointed out that the initial complaints were anonymous. Now for
Speaker 4: the safety of survivors and their families. Of course, you
Speaker 4: want anonymity. You're living in a small town for instance, right,
Speaker 4: and your abuser is the most powerful person in the land.
Speaker 4: The Vatican said these anonymous complaints made a massive hindrance
Speaker 4: for their investigation. Yet former SCV members say if the
Speaker 4: Vatican or authorities from the Peruvian Church really wanted to help,
Speaker 4: they could have followed up to wit. Critics claim the
Speaker 4: Vatican did not follow up, and the Church claims they
Speaker 4: originally could not. This led to further investigations. Maybe we
Speaker 4: pause for a word from our sponsor and return with
Speaker 4: more of the recent news. And we've returned. Let's fast
Speaker 4: forward a little bit. January tenth, twenty eighteen, Pope Francis
Speaker 4: has appointed Bishop Noel Londono Botrago of the Diocese of Erico,
Speaker 4: Colombia pardon pronunciation, as the papal commissioner, the guy running
Speaker 4: the continuing investigation. And just to be clear, this is
Speaker 4: not our pal nol right, no no relation, no relation,
Speaker 4: all right. And this bishop is working in step with
Speaker 4: Cardinal Joseph Tobin from the Diocese of Newark. Their investigation
Speaker 4: reveals more of the same, more evidence of sexual psychological abuse,
Speaker 4: financial irregularities. There's so much the story here. Ultimately, on
Speaker 4: March twenty nineteen. On March tenth, twenty nineteen, Cardinal Pedro
Speaker 4: Berreto and other bishops Imperu. They announced the world. They say, look,
Speaker 4: we've been following this the same way as you have, folks.
Speaker 4: We have asked the Vatican and His Holiness to dissolve
Speaker 4: SCV entirely. And there's an interesting quote from Cardinal Barretto
Speaker 4: that I think we should share.
Speaker 3: Right, this is what he had to say.
Speaker 5: Personally, I think that when a religious organization has committed
Speaker 5: a crime because it has to be said that way
Speaker 5: from the point of view of sexual abuse and the
Speaker 5: economic side, where there are also problems, it has to
Speaker 5: be dissolved. The fundamental problem is that the founder is
Speaker 5: a perverted person, and such a person cannot transmit the
Speaker 5: holiness of life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's clearly something the cardinal was not happy
Speaker 4: to write, was not giddy about it, but felt ethically
Speaker 4: and spiritually required to do so. To the earlier excellent
Speaker 4: point about secular versus spiritual or religious punishments. The Peruvian
Speaker 4: government considered criminal charges and everybody was wondering if this
Speaker 4: organization would be reformed, you know, could you cause a
Speaker 4: rise and save the wound or do you need to
Speaker 4: simply get rid of this. This happened in step with
Speaker 4: Oh gosh. They even put in the head sex crime
Speaker 4: investigators for the Vatican, which I did not know existed,
Speaker 4: but they do, the Maltese Archbishop Charles Sicluna and the
Speaker 4: Spanish magistrator Jorde Berdomo. They interviewed more members of the SCV,
Speaker 4: the alleged victims, the journalists who were threatened for talking
Speaker 4: about this case. Because there was an active cover up.
Speaker 4: I don't know if we'll talk about the the SCV
Speaker 4: journalist who was accused of hacking and harassing and compromising survivors. Anyway,
Speaker 4: if we fast forward, it's twenty twenty four. We mentioned
Speaker 4: that Fogare voluntarily stepped down from leadership in twenty ten,
Speaker 4: mentioned that he was put on kind of an exile,
Speaker 4: what critics called a golden exile. A few years later,
Speaker 4: in August of last year, as we record, Faghari was
Speaker 4: officially formally expelled from SCV. No longer a member, no contact,
Speaker 4: get them out, is what they said.
Speaker 2: Well, I think about that situation. So prior to twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, this guy who is a known abuser, all
Speaker 2: of these investigations are showing it. All of these individuals
Speaker 2: know that he abused them, and he is still being
Speaker 2: taken care of by the organization. Like if you ever
Speaker 2: if you've ever been to a church, often doesn't really
Speaker 2: matter what denomination. If it's Christian, it doesn't really matter,
Speaker 2: if it's Catholic, if it's you know whatever. The person
Speaker 2: who is running the church, the person at head, is
Speaker 2: generally taken care of by money that flows in through
Speaker 2: the church, by the local church.
Speaker 4: Right, Professor emeritiths position.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they've often got a place to live, they've
Speaker 2: got all of their expenses taken care of by the
Speaker 2: donations of everybody who's there by the living, by the
Speaker 2: expenses that everyone takes in and then give to the church.
Speaker 2: So it is a weird situation to know that guy
Speaker 2: who's your abuser is still being taken care of in
Speaker 2: some way by your work and your money and your donation.
Speaker 4: Like if you have an abusive family member and now
Speaker 4: they're in an elder care facility and you're somehow paying
Speaker 4: for them to continue existing.
Speaker 2: But it's also directly linked to your faith in God.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where it gets extra complicated.
Speaker 4: It's the bureaucracy. It's confusing for a lot of us
Speaker 4: to hear the idea of exsit but not expulsion, and
Speaker 4: for expulsion to be a separate thing. There is bureaucracy
Speaker 4: a play. The next month, September twenty twenty four, Pope
Speaker 4: Francis expels ten people from the organization, not a no
Speaker 4: contact thing, the same thing as happened with Fagari the
Speaker 4: month previous. There's a bishop, there's several priest or clergy,
Speaker 4: there are lay people, and they are all expelled on
Speaker 4: charges of sadistic abuse. The Peruvian Bishop's Conference says this
Speaker 4: came directly from the Pope, a special decision from Pope Francis.
Speaker 4: This wasn't unprecedented, because Pope Francis, as we remember, had
Speaker 4: previously spoken out against cases of abuse in the church,
Speaker 4: expressing that it was shameful to our earlier comparison with Salinas.
Speaker 4: But it was incredibly unusual in the way that they
Speaker 4: announced this.
Speaker 5: Right the fact that the offenders were officially and publicly named,
Speaker 5: as well as specific details about their crimes, which is
Speaker 5: a lot less sweeping under the rug. Ish about the
Speaker 5: you know, I mean that seems to have been the
Speaker 5: mo of the Catholic Church in the past, I would argue,
Speaker 5: I think maybe we could all say that this seems
Speaker 5: to indicate a more progressive approach to dealing.
Speaker 3: With these kinds of you know, abominations.
Speaker 2: With It's close to where we need to be. I
Speaker 2: think we need to bring back lion fights, make them
Speaker 2: fight the lions, you guys, I'm joking, but also not joking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but publishing the specificity, I'd agree, it's close to
Speaker 4: where it needs to be. But it's it's not quite
Speaker 4: there yet, also catching up with the times by saying
Speaker 4: someone was hacking the communications of survivingse harassing them on
Speaker 4: social media. There were high ranking people expelled in this order,
Speaker 4: the most high ranking archbishop Jose Antonio Igurin. This guy,
Speaker 4: like Thagari, had already been kind of forced out or
Speaker 4: forced into exile. He had resigned as bishop in April
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty four, and the Vatican Embassy realized this
Speaker 4: specificity was somewhat unprecedented, so they went a little further
Speaker 4: and issued a statement where they explain why they are
Speaker 4: expelling this group of individuals. We've got a quote here
Speaker 4: that I think will give us a little bit of
Speaker 4: insight into their internal logic.
Speaker 5: To take such a disciplinary decision. Consideration was given to
Speaker 5: the scandal that was produced by the number and gravity
Speaker 5: of the that were denounced by victims, which are particularly
Speaker 5: contrary to the balanced and liberating experience of the evangelical councils.
Speaker 4: Which seems overly I mean overly wordy. Perhaps definitely not dismissive,
Speaker 4: but in plain English, they're saying, so many people experienced
Speaker 4: so many terrible things that are in direct opposition to
Speaker 4: why like the point of these organizations existing, we had
Speaker 4: to do something. And then Pedro Salinas, again a whistleblower,
Speaker 4: hero of the story, he talks with the Associated Press
Speaker 4: and says, look, this is very good news, but remember
Speaker 4: for twenty four years of impunity. And he also said,
Speaker 4: still not good enough. Close to where we need to be,
Speaker 4: but not close enough. You should dissolve this organization entirely.
Speaker 4: And you did not get everyone. You only got what
Speaker 4: eleven out of how many We still don't know how
Speaker 4: many people were abused, how many people participated in the abuse,
Speaker 4: and to your point, know what the then diagram of
Speaker 4: that institution of abuse may be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hard to wrap your head around.
Speaker 2: It's just horrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: An SCV, by the way, remains active as we record.
Speaker 4: Fagari is alive as well. He's not incarcerated, live in
Speaker 4: that golden exile, I guess.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, And there are videos of the guy leaving
Speaker 2: and he just it's I don't know, go look at
Speaker 2: a picture of him.
Speaker 5: Just there's a vibe, there's a gutaway vibe.
Speaker 3: And you know, and I think we've.
Speaker 5: Something that we talk about in the show all the
Speaker 5: time is kind of the banale body of evil, the
Speaker 5: absolute commonplace nature of it. It's unfortunately not unique at all,
Speaker 5: nor is this situation. And I forget who said this earlier,
Speaker 5: but the fact that this is what we see, what
Speaker 5: about the ones that we don't see. There's so many
Speaker 5: cases like this that have almost certainly been completely buried.
Speaker 5: So just as the SCV itself isn't unique, neither is
Speaker 5: it scandals and conspiracies.
Speaker 2: Well, there are a lot of organizations out there that
Speaker 2: are essentially on paper, and when you go and talk
Speaker 2: to somebody who's a representative of the organization, it seems like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do God's work here. I'm going to
Speaker 2: help people who are less fortunate than I. I'm going
Speaker 2: to help people who are in need, especially children especially,
Speaker 2: you know, just anyone who needs water and food and clothing.
Speaker 2: I can go and do that, which is what the
Speaker 2: Bible tells you to do. You to give up all
Speaker 2: your worldly possessions and go help people if you're actually
Speaker 2: following the Bible. But and this is these are organizations
Speaker 2: that on paper say that's what you get to do.
Speaker 2: But there and there were many of them, just like
Speaker 2: the one that we mentioned earlier, right the Bosque community
Speaker 2: that we mentioned with the Fernando, just like that organization,
Speaker 2: Just like there's another one in Mexico that was exactly
Speaker 2: the same, same type of abuse from the leader, the founder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Legion of Christ. The founder, Marcille Marcel de
Speaker 4: Gaiado was similar to Fagari, was quite influential and powerful
Speaker 4: in the overall structure of the Catholic Church. He was
Speaker 4: one of the boys of Saint John Paul the Second.
Speaker 4: He was friends with him, they hung out and he
Speaker 4: was later del Gliado was later found to be a
Speaker 4: serial sexual abuser. He fathered as many as six children.
Speaker 4: He possibly abused several of his own children as well,
Speaker 4: and he built a secretive cult like organization to hide
Speaker 4: his double life, to bring people into this unholy activity.
Speaker 4: The Vatican sanctioned him in two thousand and six after
Speaker 4: decades of allegations. And the folks who sanctioned him, who
Speaker 4: slapped him on the wrist and put him in exile,
Speaker 4: that was the same investigative body, or they called a
Speaker 4: congregation that received the SCV complaints. We've already talked about Karadima.
Speaker 4: We're showing you the larger picture, right, this case of
Speaker 4: fugari is we could argue at least a partial win
Speaker 4: for the good guys and the survivors, because think about it,
Speaker 4: you know, enormous odds are against them, socioeconomic, socio political,
Speaker 4: even the spiritual odds, the bureaucratic, spiritual odds, the dogmatic
Speaker 4: odds are against them. But because of their courage, the
Speaker 4: conspiracy was uncovered. At least some people are held accountable,
Speaker 4: and our hearts, I think we can say this unanimously,
Speaker 4: our hearts go out to the survivors, and go out
Speaker 4: to your loved ones, and thank you again for speaking
Speaker 4: truth to power. But this all brings us to the
Speaker 4: following question, what's next? You know, Noel Matt we I
Speaker 4: think we all. We all pointed out at various times
Speaker 4: in this investigation that the church has weathered a lot
Speaker 4: of similar scandals, and it's fully possible that more scandals
Speaker 4: have yet to come to light. The thing that really
Speaker 4: bothers me is it's fully possible that scandals like this
Speaker 4: have been successfully covered up in the past and the
Speaker 4: public may never know.
Speaker 3: There's no doubt.
Speaker 2: What bothers me is that these scandals come to light,
Speaker 2: facts are known, and the punishments are still internal and
Speaker 2: not automatically turned over to you know, US authority or
Speaker 2: a country's investigative authorities. It reminds me. It reminds me
Speaker 2: a lot actually of the Camp Hell show that our
Speaker 2: buddy Josh Thain created and we talked to him back
Speaker 2: in June of twenty twenty one and Awake, Yes called
Speaker 2: Camp Hell and Awake. You can go listen to it
Speaker 2: now if you want. But it reminds me of that.
Speaker 2: Like in that case, it's Wilderness Therapy. It's not a
Speaker 2: service organization. It's not linked directly to a church, but
Speaker 2: religion is heavily baked into it, and it is just
Speaker 2: a human being or set of human beings that founds
Speaker 2: an organization that in some way is based on service.
Speaker 2: Because again, in that organization, it was just a bunch
Speaker 2: of kids out there building stuff out in the woods.
Speaker 2: In this case, it's mostly kids out there building stuff
Speaker 2: in impoverished parts of the country they are living in
Speaker 2: and they're just being abused by the human beings that
Speaker 2: started the organization. Yeah, yeah, and they just need to
Speaker 2: go to jail or freaking fight a line.
Speaker 1: Heed.
Speaker 4: There need to be real world criminal and secular punishments, right,
Speaker 4: This shows us, I think one of our most crucial
Speaker 4: points here. It's not just the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church,
Speaker 4: due to its size, due to its reach, due to
Speaker 4: its power and its long history, is more visible. But
Speaker 4: you don't need a Catholic Church for this kind of
Speaker 4: evil to exist. And it brings us to ask what
Speaker 4: else is out there? What else is there that people
Speaker 4: in power don't want us to know?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, you know, there certainly feel like there
Speaker 5: are parallels with what's the allegations against p Diddy, for example,
Speaker 5: the facts of the case of Jeffrey Epstein and who
Speaker 5: was involved with him. People that we think of as
Speaker 5: being completely safe, you know, in terms of like celebrity types,
Speaker 5: it would never imagine be running in those kind of circles.
Speaker 3: It's just you're right.
Speaker 5: Evil is not unique, and with great power comes the
Speaker 5: possibility for great abuses of power, and those types of
Speaker 5: folks that seek that level of power and influence can
Speaker 5: have very unclean motives.
Speaker 2: In the end, it's coercive control sought by those evil things.
Speaker 4: Yep, we are on the same page here. Survivors anybody
Speaker 4: affiliated with this specific organization or organizations of similar ILK
Speaker 4: We're holding you in our thoughts and we want to
Speaker 4: hear from you, so let us know what you think.
Speaker 4: We try to be easy to contact. Send us an email,
Speaker 4: call us on a telephone, find us online.
Speaker 3: That's right.
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Speaker 5: we exist. On Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where
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