Sexual Predators In the Vatican and the White House

Can Anything Keep These Guys on the Straight and Narrow?

Third Time’s the Charm? This satiric 12-foot statue showing Donald Trump frolicking with Jeffrey Epstein—the one time friend and sexual predator who has emerged in death as Trump’s most potent political albatross--at the mall of the Washington Monument. The statue has been removed from the mall twice, but is now back up in Washington DC, but this time on private property. | Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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BE KIND TO THE LADIES: I’m not entirely sure when I first bumped into Father Mel Jurisich, the former Provincial — a title of considerable clout — with the order of the Franciscans, headquartered up in Oakland. I remember he was a prickly badass. At the time, I thought he was a classic Catholic School bully, a genus with which I — as a card-carrying survivor of Catholic schools — had some familiarity.

In hindsight, I suspect I may have misjudged.

At the time, Father Mel was attempting to corral the firestorm of the Franciscans’ sex abuse scandal, then out of control up at what used to be St. Anthony’s Seminary on the upper East Side. The story first blew up in the early 1990s when the victims started to come forward. It blew up again around 2007 when the victims showed up again, but this time accompanied by attorneys.

As scandals went, St. Anthony’s hit a nine on the Richter scale. Back in 2012, 54 of the 76 identified victims of Santa Barbara’s priest pederasts since 1958 attended St. Anthony’s. More recent figures indicate that to date, 50 friars have been implicated — “credibly accused” is the legal term — in the abuse of 122 victims. Most but not all, originated at St. Anthony’s.

One case, with multiple plaintiffs, settled for $28 million. In 2012, that was still real money.

Ultimately, the Franciscans of California declared bankruptcy because the state legislature, infuriated by the church’s egregious abuse of trust, kept extending the statute of limitations to allow new lawsuits that otherwise would have exceeded their legal shelf life long ago.

The Franciscans declaring bankruptcy? That’s tectonic. Without them, there would be no California as we now know it.

When Father Mel and I encountered each other — mostly by phone — I was an unapologetic punk-ass. He was openly unimpressed and kept a fire extinguisher at the ready for people like me. At one point, he challenged me, demanding ever so sarcastically whether I was one of those people who believed priests would be less likely to molest their students if they were allowed to get married.

I wish I remember his exact words. But they dripped with scorn for my presumed naïveté when it came to the human condition and the nature of sin. If I weren’t so stupid, his tone suggested, he might feel some pity. But fools, as the whole world knows, forfeit any claim to compassion.

Naturally, Jurisich was right. That’s exactly what I thought. In my mind, I remember retorting, “That’s precisely the sort of self-serving, cover-your-ass question I’d expect someone trying to defend the indefensible to ask.”

And I still believe that. But it’s also more complicated. Not a day goes by when Father Mel’s contemptuous words don’t cross my mind. He knew the geography of the dark side better than I.

Every single day, newspapers carry story after story detailing cases of married men — or men otherwise not bound by any external rules of celibacy — taking sexual advantage of younger women. Sometimes older women in nursing homes too. The preemptive distrust I once reserved for priests, I now have for volleyball coaches, gymnastics coaches, swimming coaches, basketball coaches, bosses, supervisors, teachers, dance instructors, prison guards, babysitters, Boy Scout leaders, you name it.

Not every woman I know has been raped, abused, assaulted, groped, or harassed. But in my life, these have been the exception. I know men who have been victimized, some violently. But I would say that they, too, are more the exception than the rule.

“The preemptive distrust I once reserved for priests, I now have for volleyball coaches, gymnastics coaches, swimming coaches, basketball coaches, bosses, supervisors, teachers, dance instructors, prison guards, babysitters, Boy Scout leaders, you name it.“

Naturally, all this was all simmering on low boil when news broke this past week that Congress had miraculously rediscovered its backbone and voted — just one vote shy of unanimously — to demand the Department of Justice release the file on Jeffrey Epstein, the predator pimp who is making Donald Trump so jumpy.

Being a true genius of public spectacle stagecraft, Donald Trump did a 180 and leaped in front of the marauding steamroller that would otherwise have flattened him, so he could pretend he was leading the parade.

But in reality, everyone knows otherwise. Trump did his very utmost to block the release of these files. When Georgia Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene — a true hair-on-fire MAGA nut — would not relent about releasing the files, Trump called her a “traitor.”

When Colorado Congressmember Lauren Boebert, another MAGA stalwart with more than a few QAnon overtones, wouldn’t back down, FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi were dispatched to host a two-on-one meeting with her in the top secret Situation Room The Situation Room? That’s where top brass meet with the Commander in Chief to figure out how to respond to national security crises.

And I’m not sure what arm-twisting was applied to Congressmember Nancy Mace of South Carolina, another MAGA character, but she didn’t fold either. Little wonder. Mace, it turns out, was the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, a previously infamous military prep school known for exceptionally abusive treatment of its cadets. That she did so after being raped at age 16 just proves just how tough she is.

I don’t want to dismiss Republican Congressmember Thomas Massie from Kentucky’s role in this, or Ro Khanna of California, the sole Democrat of this inner circle. But without the women on board, I doubt this wagon-train would have ever launched.

Is this one of those truly historic moments where some national fever breaks? Like when Barry Goldwater, the über-right wing Republican Senator from Arizona, persuaded Richard Nixon he should resign before getting impeached back in the 1970s? Or when in 1954, a floppy-bow-tie-wearing attorney named Joseph Welch popped the balloon of “Tail-gunner Joe” McCarthy, the drunken anti-Communist demagogue and self-loathing mama’s boy from Wisconsin, by demanding, “At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?” on national TV?

I like to think so, but liking doesn’t make it so.

It’s worth noting here that Joe McCarthy’s hatchet man at the time was another self-loathing gay guy named Roy Cohn, who a few decades later would become political mentor and consigliere to a brash, spoiled rich kid from New York City named Donald J. Trump. When things got tough during In his first term in the White House, Trump would wail, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Cohn died of AIDS at age 59 in 1986. Stories vary but one account holds that he called Cohn 15 times a week to see how he was doing. Another indicates that right after Cohn’s last visit to Mar-a-Lago, Trump would complain of having to spend a fortune getting all his dishes and silverware fumigated. What we do know for certain is that Roy Cohn’s last words on Donald Trump were, “He pisses ice water.”

Right now, for reasons one can only wonder about, Trump appears to be pissing an ungodly amount over the release of these files. I got news for you: It won’t be enough to put out the fire.

“What we do know for certain is that Roy Cohn’s last words about Donald Trump is ‘He pisses ice water.’” Right now, Trump appears to be pissing an ungodly amount over the Epstein files. Given all that we have already heard, it beggars the imagination to guess what he has left to hide.”

For about 15 years, Trump and Epstein were well-documented buddies, hitting the party circuits of New York and Florida like a couple of gale-force winds. Equally well-documented, they both spent a lot of time chasing after women. Based on court records, Trump was none-too-pretty about it. How many presidents have been publicly accused by no fewer than 28 women of sexual assault?

Really, 28?

It’s amazing all the facts we as human beings can shut out.

Given all that we have already heard, it beggars the imagination to guess at what Trump has left to hide.

Not all accusations have been adjudicated, but the one that stands out involved the writer E. Jean Carroll, who in 2022 sued Trump for an encounter she wrote about in 2019 for New York magazine. She charged that in 1995, Trump — whom she had met before — sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a high-end department store. It was a civil case, not a criminal one. And the jury found Trump guilty.

The judge explained that what the jury found Trump guilty of was based on the common understanding of what rape entailed: forcible, non-consensual vaginal penetration. But in New York State, rape must involve a penis. In Carroll’s case, Trump used his fingers. Hence, it was not technically “rape.” Either way, the jury awarded Carroll $5 million for defamation of character by calling her a liar.

After the verdict, he called her a liar again. Carroll sued again. This time, the jury awarded her $83 million. Trump sought to shield himself by asserting executive privilege. At least this time, it didn’t fly. When Trump sought to counter-sue Carroll, the judge threw his case out writing that Carroll’s accusation of rape was “substantially true.”

It’s amazing how much a human being can shut out.

Trump has always been a sexual predator hiding in plain sight. It makes you pine for a fig leaf of hypocrisy.

In 2016, we all saw the Access Hollywood tape so many times we can recite it by heart. In it, Trump tells show co-host Billy Bush — in 2005 — how being a reality TV show star gave him special perks with women. “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Later Trump would apologize: “I said it. I was wrong. And I apologize.” A little later, he would dismiss it as “locker room talk.”

No prosecuting attorney could deliver a more incriminating indictment.

This Tuesday, a handful of Epstein survivors showed up for a press conference in front of the Capitol as Congress got ready to vote on the files. One displayed an enlarged photograph of herself at the time she was groomed by Epstein into a life of transactional sex. She was 14 years old. “I was a child,” she stated. Others showed similar photos. One was 15. Another was 17. They were all children.

Epstein’s operation was the QAnon nightmare exemplified. The rich and powerful were ferried to and fro on Epstein’s personal jet, flying safely above the law’s grasp, grazing on the young flesh of sex-trafficked victims.

When the files are released — and the video records revealed — who knows who we will see? No doubt, all the best people. And from all political parties.

Not to belabor the obvious, but Trump’s comments about his own daughter’s looks — when she was about 15 — were cause to call child protective services. In a Rolling Stone interview, Trump commented, “If I wasn’t happily married and, ya know, her father….” You can fill in the blank. And there’s more.

“This Tuesday, a handful of Epstein survivors showed up for a press conference infront of the Capitol as Congress got ready to vote to release the files. One displayed an enlarged phot of her self at the timeshe was groomed by Epstein into a life of transactional sex. She was 14 years old. ‘ I was a child,” she stated.’ They were all children.”

Many of us have been endlessly wondering whether Trump was immune from the normal laws of physics. Is there anything he can not get away with? Did a bridge too far exist where he’s concerned?

Maybe we are there.

Maybe.

But to get back to the Franciscans and Father Mel and his pointed question: Here’s how I should have answered. Would married priests have prevented the wholesale sexual abuse that took place? Not likely.

You know what would have?

Women priests.

It’s not too late.