by William Skink
The title of this post is inaccurate. Mark Tokarski isn’t an apologist for pedophile priests because you can’t be an apologist for something you don’t think actually happened.
How does one arrive at such a mind-bending conclusion? By making thoughtful claims, like this:
Last night I picked up the iPad to read Miles Mathis’s latest paper concerning the movie Spotlight. I too have had the insight that if the mainstream press is behind exposure of a scandal, then something is rotten, and it is not Catholic priests. After all, we do not have real journalism in this country. Instead we have lightweights, actors, poseurs and outright fakes. Real research is done by blogs like this and so many others, and by people like Mathis.
The “article” this claim of fakery leans heavily on is an odd mix of jew-genealogy and a curious parsing of what actually constitutes pedophilia. Here is an example:
OK, I found enough data to make you very suspicious of this story. But what was it all about? Why fake a major story about pedophilia in the Catholic Church? Strap yourself down, because I still have a lot of things to hit, and many of them may not have occurred to you. Some may be difficult for us both. We will start with pedophilia itself. It is a word thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? It means (sexual) love of children. Legally, a child is a person who has not gone through puberty, so we are talking about persons under 12-14, say. It varies, because not everyone goes through puberty at the same age. I mention this, because there is some confusion, and that confusion has been promoted on purpose.
What neither Tokarski, nor his go-to decoder ring, Miles Mathis, acknowledge is the fact there are thousands and thousands of real victims abused by predator priests who were systematically protected by the church.
Before I left my job at the shelter I had a brief conversation with a client who was expecting a small settlement from legal proceedings regarding abuse he experienced as a child by a priest. And during a vacation I took in Costa Rica, my wife and I nearly stayed at a hostel we later learned was being run by Catholic priest kicked out of the states. We were told this by the proprietor of the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at after leaving the hostel because my wife got a bad feeling about the place and didn’t want to stay there.
I am one person with two anecdotal stories. I don’t say that to prove anything other than backing up my audacious assertion that widespread sexual abuse happened, was systematically covered up, then eventually exposed.
Are there agendas behind how the sexual abuse scandals (plural) were exposed? Are intelligence agencies involved? It’s quite possible, but to simply dismiss the scandal as “fake” is utter bullshit and incredibly offensive to survivors.
Mark Tokarski makes a lot of bullshit claims about people, mostly celebrities, but still people. These claims are backed up by the kind of evidence that convicted witches in Salem (also a hoax, according to Master Mathis). I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t perhaps more to his years of antagonizing the MT blogosphere.
And I’m also beginning to wonder about Steve Tokarski:
It’s talked about in the church parking lot, after meetings and over coffee following Mass, but the pedophilia crisis has not yet been a topic in the pulpit of St. Pius X Catholic Church in Billings.
This will soon change, said the Rev. Steve Tokarski. “The heartache and dismay and sadness” caused by the crisis will not be healed through avoidance, he said.
“At some point I’m going to need to address it. People are disheartened, discouraged, scandalized. I think I have a responsibility to speak publicly in a weekend homily.”
Tokarski is not yet sure what he will say. He’s still trying to make sense of it himself. Nothing in his three decades of priesthood compares with the shadow cast by the scandal, he said.
“In the course of 34 years, it’s like going from the age of innocence to where we are now,” Tokarski said.
JC
We try to get through to you, but you are impermeable. You have this habit of extremes, that it must be one way or the other. We explain to you that pedophiles exist, but are not stalking about, are few in number, don’t organize rings, and generally stick to family members. You bring in an anecdote to blow it all up again. Yes, in this very large country, there have been incidents of pedophilia among priests, but generally speaking, it has been with older children, as Mathis tried to communicate, and I just realized you did not read the whole paper. You skimmed, did a JC drive-by. I explained to you that a friend of my brother’s was defrocked, that the problem is far more pervasive among public school teachers, and is present in all religions, and you just don’t care to hear. You seem to need these great evils … it somehow completes you.
I sometimes wonder why I came to this website, as it is tedious repetitive politics where nothing ever changes or gets better. You seem on a tear for moral and intellectual superiority over party players, but even if you win, what have you win? You got to kick around some munchkins? Partisans are not bright, will not change, so that ten years from now if you are still at this, you will be right where you are at now, spinning your wheels. I got,out of it, went on new paths of discovery. I don’t care if people don’t see it my way. I see you just quoted Jimi Hendrix in passing.
I was just on Facebook earlier where a poem was printed about “a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…” and then I came across this thing you wrote above. I wonder, Skink, if you’re ever going to grow a little, experience change, come upon new awareness, change a viewpoint, self examine. You’ve become so tedious. Or always have been. I am not sure. I know I have changed.
Anyway, here is what I wrote to Mathis today: “My older brother was a Catholic priest, and an excellent man. In fact he was my father figure growing up, eight years my senior. Real Dad was absent. Steve was devastated by the pedophilia scandal. I was wishing he could be here to read the paper. He died in 2011. He was a good man who happened to be a priest too, who helped thousands of people over his lifetime, including his kid brother.” Steve believed it was all real. he read newspapers, the New Yorker, Atlantic, trusted American journalism … he was wrong. And so are you. He might have come around. I have doubts about you.
And, of course, blogs being what they are, this comment will not see light of day.
Leave me out of this. You don’t have a clue how, or if I read Mathis’ papers, so quit pretending I do “drive-bys”. Today, I’d rather not waste the time with him as most everything he writes is phony and nothing more than deflection.
Oh, cut the crap JC. I read you like the back of a cereal box. It is not that hard, but it is tedious.
Ever the thought cop, no?
I looked up tedious and there was a picture of you next to the word fake.
but seriously, Mark, I think you’re fucked up and I regret spending any energy defending you.
I grew up in the Church – and even though I personally can’t imagine those strait-laced priests behaving like that, but saying there was no scandal or coverups is about in the league of believing the earth is 6000 years old.
Perverts and deviants learn at an early age that they are attracted to children, and they pick professions that put children within easy access, like teachers, coaches, priests, etc.
Asshole on asshole violence: how novel.