One World Life Systems
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
29 October 2007
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From Altar to Court: Pastor’s Calling On Cardinal Puts the Truth On Trial
Pastor Michael Vincent Crea, who was raped at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Yonkers, NY in 1979, shall tell his story to a jury today at 9:30 am, in NY Criminal Court, 110 Centre St., Jury 1, Room 546. Working five-years with his “Leave Your Gift at the Altar,” a plan for pastoral accountability and responsibility toward persons sexually violated by Catholic ecclesiastics, New York Archdiocesan authorities have failed to respond to his calls. Arrested and acquitted twice before for peaceful, 1st Amendment protests and his long-suffering pastoral duty, Cardinal Egan’s adamant silence, is being broken by a solitary shepherd’s stand for all sexually violated.
Cardinal Edward Egan, 75, has refused to meet personally with New York’s sons and daughters, who have been groped, molested, raped and sexually violated without pastoral recourse from the reticent and soon retiring archbishop. Egan has said aloud he has no need to meet with his own, like other Catholic bishops. Pastor Crea, fulfilling obligations of fraternal-sororotal charity, prayed that all at a St. Patrick’s Cathedral service last April 3 would ask Egan to investigate the pastor being sexually violated. Cardinal Egan’s response was arresting Crea.
Cardinal Egan was subpeonaed as a witness, to the pastor’s protest and to be questioned as to why investigator Msgr. Desmond O’Connor never investigated Richard Doscher, O’Connor’s classmate and alleged rapist of Pastor Crea. Doscher, now, an Episcopal priest in Florida, was denied Catholic ordination after he committed an offense at St. John the Evangelist Church in Mahopac, Westchester. St. Joseph’s Seminary is located also in Westchester, yet, former D.A. Jeannine Pirro joined the Catholic cover-up never following-up Crea’s calls.
Cardinal Egan’s lawyer, allied with an associate Manhattan D.A., had the subpoenae squashed, as the last judge acted against the Pastor’s motion for a hearing in absence of his attorney, having a homicide case the same day. Nonetheless, Pastor Crea’s pastoral plan and peaceful protests have stood the test of time, thus far, standing steadfast on scripture, questioning the integrity of the Cardinal, whose motto is “In the Holiness of Truth.”
Pastor Crea, having no response either from Popes John Paul II or Benedict, attended on June 22 in Rome, the Italian Parliament’s premiere of “Hand of God,” the award-winning documentary on PBS’ “Frontline.” Crea accepted filmmaker, Joe Cultrera’s invitation to accompany him and his brother, Paul, whose own being molested at 11 years, is given a poignant, sober and profound testament of effects of ecclesiastical pedophilia and sexual violations on the violated, himself, their Italian family and Catholic faith community in Salem, MA.
The pastor found a kindred spirit among the members of the Transnational Radical Party [TRP], a United Nations NGO that employs the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi for non-violent, peaceful change of injustices. Pastor Crea and the Cultrera’s joined sponsoring members, Italian Member of Parliament Maurizio Turco and TRP’s UN Delegate Matteo Mecacci in a demonstration at St. Peter’s Square to address Vatican authorities at the doorsteps of Pope Benedict XVI. Breaking the twilight silence of St. Peter’s Square and his successor, like announcing a football goal, Pastor Crea infallibly called on him, “B-E-N-E-D-I-C-T-O! We want Justice!”
Pastor Crea’s “Leave Your Gift at the Altar” [Matthew 5.23; cf. 21-30] celebrated its 5th year, October 25, the first day of his trial for trespass and disrupting a religious service, like Jesus in his own ministry for the poor, unrecognized and persons violated by authorities. The pro bono Pastor, serving freely without a parish, pulpit, paycheck, collection plate or political party, is calling on Egan to end his passive aggression of silent betrayal and respond with pastoral affirmation of blessed scripture. Confident that “the Truth shall set him free,” Pastor Crea, a Staten Island native, hopes in “The Holiness of Truth,” Cardinal Egan learns at last, like other bishops already around the country, here in “New York, New York,” ‘if he can make it here, he can make it anywhere.’
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