c. 2006 Religion News Service
Pedophile Says Sex With Boys Is Sacred Religious Ritual
CLEVELAND (RNS) An admitted pedophile offered a bizarre defense this week to 74 charges of rape, drugs and pandering obscenity to minors.
Phillip Distasio, 34, told a Cuyahoga County judge Wednesday (Aug. 2) that his apartment in Rocky River was a religious sanctuary where engaging in sex with boys and smoking marijuana were considered sacred rituals and are protected under civil rights laws.
“I’m a pedophile. I’ve been a pedophile for 20 years,” Distasio said during a pretrial court hearing. “The only reason I’m charged with rape is that no one believes a child can consent to sex. The role of my ministry is to get these cases out of the courtrooms.”
Judge Kathleen Sutula warned Distasio, a self-appointed friar who compares himself to St. Francis and St. Ignatius, to confine his arguments to secular laws at his trial, scheduled to begin Sept. 11.
“If you want to challenge the law, that’s your right to do so,” Sutula said. “But we’re going to follow the laws of Ohio in this courtroom.”
Police arrested Distasio last September on charges he molested two disabled boys he was tutoring at his home and raped seven other autistic children at a Cleveland school for special-needs students. All but one of the boys was under 13, which carries a mandatory life-in-prison sentence if he is convicted.
Police found journals at Distasio’s apartment in which he described his activities, plus child pornography and videotapes of him engaged in sex with boys.
Distasio tried unsuccessfully in June to fire his court-appointed lawyer, Thomas Shaughnessy, who refused to go along with his religious-freedom defense.
“Not all pedophilia is bad, and sex (with boys) can be healthy,” Distasio said. “It’s an argument that I’m willing to make, but my attorney is not.”
Sutula decided to allow Distasio to represent himself at trial on the condition that Shaughnessy remain as his advisory counsel.
In motions filed with Sutula, Distasio accused prosecutors of threatening to dismantle his church, which he calls Arcadian Fields Ministries.
He described his apartment as a sanctuary, a place of worship, and a safe alternative to prison for a congregation of social dissidents. Distasio said he and his congregation consider the justice system to be corrupt and addicted to punishment, and believe it should be abandoned.
_ James F. McCarty
Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, Former Vatican Ambassador, Dies at 76
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the Vatican’s former ambassador to the United States, died Wednesday (Aug. 2). He was 76.
The Colombian prelate had been convalescing in Rome, according to a posting on the Web site of Vatican Radio. The Vatican has not reported the cause of death, but Montalvo was thought to be suffering from lung cancer, according to Catholic News Service.
Born in Santafe de Bogata, Colombia, Montalvo served as the Holy See nuncio, or ambassador, to Washington from 1998 to 2005.
Apart from his diplomatic duties, Montalvo played a key role in managing affairs between an ailing Pope John Paul II and U.S. bishops, and assisted the late pope in the appointment of new bishops. He retired in December.
Montalvo’s term as ambassador came at a tumultuous time, as the U.S. launched a war in Iraq against the Vatican’s opposition and the U.S. Catholic Church endured a flood of sexual abuses crises.
Though he was a veteran diplomat before his tenure in America, Montalvo said that it was “not without a certain sense of trepidation” that he accepted the post from John Paul II, according to Catholic News Service.
Before coming to the U.S., Montalvo, who was conversant in five languages, headed the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, which trains priests to become Vatican diplomats.
During his diplomatic career, Montalvo also helped broker peace agreements between rival nations, ministered to churches behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and witnessed as Yugoslavia descended into civil strife during the 1990s.
Outgoing Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano said funeral services for the prelate would be held Saturday (Aug. 5) in St. Peter’s Basilica.
_ Stacy Meichtry and Daniel Burke
Wife of Kidnapped Israeli Soldier Tours U.S. Seeking His Release
RIVER EDGE, N.J. (RNS) Karnit Goldwasser has begun an American tour seeking the release of her husband, Ehud, an Israeli reserve soldier who was kidnapped July 12, along with Eldad Regev, by Hezbollah in an attack on Israel near the Lebanese border.
The attack has triggered weeks of massive cross-border assaults, with heavy losses on both sides and international calls for a cease-fire.
“It is wrong to think everything started because of the kidnapping. Hezbollah took precious things from us; one of them was my husband,” she told a crowd of more than 300 people Thursday (Aug. 3) at Temple Sholom. “I know I will bring him back.”
Karnit Goldwasser, 30, and her husband are graduate students studying environmental engineering at the Technion, a university in Haifa. He was completing his last day of military reserve duty when he was kidnapped.
“I know Israelis and Lebanese don’t want this war. They want a normal life,” she said. “We ask Hezbollah to bring us a sign that they are alive.”
Karnit Goldwasser was accompanied by Shlomo Goldwasser, Ehud’s father, with whom she recently traveled to London and Paris, seeking help from government officials to determine Goldwasser’s fate.
Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon six years ago. Hezbollah is a militant Shiite faction operating within Lebanon.
“Hezbollah was armed with thousands of missiles. What for? No one was threatening them,” Shlomo Goldwasser said at the synagogue. He challenged the notion that Israel had “overreacted” to the kidnapping of two soldiers. “Israel is in the front of all the free world against fundamentalists, who are using our morals and our values as a weapon against us.
“Their enemy is the free world,” he said. “If Israel does not finish the job, they will kidnap your sons.”
Karnit and Schlomo Goldwasser also will meet with officials and Jewish communities in Washington and Chicago. “There is no school in the world that teaches what to do when your son is kidnapped,” said Shlomo Goldwasser. “What we can do is travel and tell our story.”
_ Marilyn Henry
Muslims Cry Foul as Berlin Blocks Construction of Mosque
BERLIN (RNS) A decision to block the construction of a mosque and cultural center here has led to public outcries, suspicions of racism and an upcoming court case.
Stefanie Vogelsang, city planner and vice mayor for the Neukoelln district of Berlin, has blocked plans by the Islamic group Insaan to build a mosque. Vogelsang said the proposals do not meet building codes.
But in the past, she has also accused Insaan of having associations with radical terror groups, reported the Berliner Zeitung (Berlin Newspaper). “I am very happy the proposal does not meet standards,” she said as she rejected it Tuesday (Aug. 1).
Insaan said it will present a plan for a smaller mosque to try to meet guidelines. But it has also filed a lawsuit challenging the council’s decision to block work on a previous construction plan. The council blocked that plan, after first approving it, out of concerns that the mosque would disturb residents in the heavily Turkish neighborhood that includes many Muslim residents.
The back-and-forth over the plan has led to multiple outbursts. During one council meeting, Ibrahim El-Zayad, who owns the land for the proposed mosque, disrupted the session to proclaim that he does not support suicide bombers after Vogelsang had publicly mused about his support for terror organizations.
Insaan has presented a host of prominent Germans to vouch for them, including a former president of the German parliament.
Catholic churches have also questioned the wisdom of blocking the mosque, arguing that it would be easier to build ties with the Muslim community if they have public meeting places. “It’s a good sign if the mosques are not hidden in courtyards like they used to,” said Stefan Foerner, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Berlin.
_ Niels Sorrells
Quote of the Day: Military Chaplain Lt. Col. Jerry Powell
(RNS) “It was just part of doing ministry. Gunfire exchanged, we kept moving. It’s a whole lot different from getting caught in a traffic jam (at home) while doing ministry.”
_ Lt. Col. Jerry Powell, a nondenominational military chaplain from Kansas City, who was ambushed while riding in a convoy to conduct a memorial service in Iraq for a member of the civilian police force in Baghdad. He was quoted by the Associated Press.
KRE/PH END RNS
