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INTUITION Protecting Yourself.  Protecting Your Children.

2/22/2019

 
INTUITION
 
Protecting Yourself.  Protecting Your Children.
 
By Kathleen Hoy Foley
 
 
Intuition is the one defense–sometimes the only defense–consistently available to us.  Intuition offers protection against cunning perpetrators who employ camouflage and deception to gain the trust of vulnerable, powerless, and unsuspecting prey for the specific purpose of carrying out acts of sexual violence, most times with impunity.  These skilled predators flourish by exploiting their social status and profiting from the atmosphere of complicit silence, unearned trust and respect, and their own awareness of the blanket approval they enjoy.  
 
From priest to babysitter and all in between, these sexual predators slide easily into normal life with their offerings of personal attention and emotional support while enjoying broad, unwarranted privileges that go unchallenged by those too naïve, too distracted, or simply unwilling to notice. 
 
Skilled predators are exceptionally difficult to identify and impossible to expose.  Why?  Because exposure falls on closed eyes and deaf ears.  Because blind faith and deep-rooted guilt overrides any suspicion.  So it is that despite flashing red-alerts, pedophiles and other sexual abusers succeed by hiding in plain sight while the intelligent, sacred power of intuition is ignored, ridiculed, and finally obliterated, assigned to the trash heap of hysterical emotions; condemned as psychic nonsense; and judged as woo-woo.  And victims and potential prey are rendered powerless.
 
Only we are not powerless.  We just believe we are.
 
Of the eight Catholic churches I belonged to during my time as a Catholic, seven of them harbored pedophile priests.  Saint Ann’s Catholic Church in Browns Mills, New Jersey gave refuge to Father Frank Iazetta, a barrel of a man with a big mouth and a domineering swagger, and a nasty habit of belittling women from the pulpit.  The instant I met him alarm bells I never knew I possessed blared like a cacophony of screeching bluejays alerting to an approaching cat.  
 
But it was the era of Marriage Encounter where the superficial, exhilarating emotions of la-la land love ran high and the overarching spiritual message called for dissolving boundaries between us all–since we are all one–and proclaiming unconditional love by gluing clever, sanctimonious catchphrases onto colorful banners.  I was besieged by the heady emotions of devotion to the Church, convinced of the unquestionable authority of the finally enlightened clergy.  Passionately and recklessly I nose-dived into my newly discovered religious evangelism and plunged both joyfully and solemnly into my mission of obedience and dispersing la-la land love to one and all. 
 
Submission–that was the missing piece: submission to God the Father.  To Jesus the Son.  To the Holy Spirit.  Submission to the laws of the Catholic Church.  Submission to the authority of the priests.  Paramount was dissolving my boundaries and resistances.  Saying YES to whatever was asked of me, despite my misgivings, despite my screeching intuition.  Obedience.  That was my path to forgiveness for whatever sins I was guilty of, the way to earn my place in heaven.  Obedience equaled love.  And I wanted lots and lots of love. 
 
So bowing to the law of religious obedience, I managed to override my shrieking intuition about Fr. Frank Iazetta.  That is until he openly began recruiting young boys for overnight camping trips.  Suddenly I became unhinged, a caged animal frantically bouncing off live wire, pointing and screaming at the air, begging my friends not to let their boys go with him.  They laughed at me.
 
You know where this is going.  Merely days ago, Fr. Frank Iazetta appeared on the list of pedophile priests made public by the Catholic diocese of Trenton, New Jersey.  Multiple, credible accusations of sexual assault it read.  I was heart-slamming-in-my-chest sickened.  But not surprised.  Forty some years later and my intuition–my visceral instincts–were validated. 
 
The woo-woo myths surrounding intuition have successfully invaded our culture managing to dismantle and demonize this holistic connection to our inner and outer worlds, and instilling us with fear of this natural, instinctive process.  Intuition is not a mystery.  It is not an exclusive, psychic gift granted to a select few.  Intuition is an inborn, perceptive sense–a practical instinct–responsible for our protection and evolution. 
 
All things radiate energy.  People radiate energy.  Energy is information.  Intuition is a beacon seeking information, seeking truth.  It is an inherent, personal sense organically connected to the powerful energy of the universal intelligence–the vital force of life–that flows within and around everything that exists.  Intuition is in attunement with the harmony of truth.  It is a personal private detective–it gathers intelligence. 
 
Intuition is a responsive sensitivity to our environment, to the vibrational energy that exists around us.  It collects information like radar for the purpose of expanding our knowledge and offering clarity.  Intuition guides.  It empowers.  But we are not taught these things.
 
We are taught to fear our inner guidance.  We are taught to mistrust ourselves in favor of following directions from somewhere outside of our intrinsic knowing.  We are taught that intuition is an impulse, dangerous to our wellbeing.  We are taught to doubt ourselves and entrust our decisions to others.  We are warned not to judge, though we judge ourselves harshly, thereby constricting our potential, and allowing our physical, mental and spiritual health to be poisoned by fear.
 
The power of intuition is obtainable to anyone prepared to do the inner work necessary to cultivate it.  Its light exists within everyone and is readily available to all those willing to make the effort to develop the skills of conscious seeing, hearing and listening.  Intuition is our clear window into ourselves and into the world around us.   
 
A sexual predator can sense prey from across the room.  With expanded intuitive awareness, you will be able to sense a predator from across that same room.  It may turn out that your intuition offered you and your children the protection that you did not know you needed.  And you will have listened because you are no longer gullible.  You know that the Father Franks of the world exist.  And your children will benefit from your wisdom.
 
 
Namaste
​

Pedophile Priest

2/15/2019

 
Pedophile Priest
 
FR. JOE PUNDERSON
 
By Kathleen Hoy Foley
 
 
In less than 60 seconds I could conjure up a list of men, including priests, whose predilection for sexually assaulting children and other vulnerable members of society would not surprise me.  They would be the testosterone-fueled meatheads; men who feed on their power and authority and rule through fear; and men conditioned into cruelty and arrogance by prejudice and propaganda.  Fr. Joe would have never made the list.  Not ever.
 
I only knew him briefly back in the 1980s.  I was drawn to him by his kindness; his openness.  Phil and I were participating in a charity bike ride, Anchor House, to be exact, and we were headed to our destination on a tour bus.  It was a long day’s journey to our starting point.  Fr. Joe sat in the seat behind us.  He was somewhere in his thirties, as we were, and was soft spoken and friendly.  He chatted about his dreams of one day being called up to go to the Vatican.  I remember the three of us laughing a lot.  Especially about the enormous, dirty, big-flush toilet I encountered at a seedy rest stop.
 
The first day of the bike ride my bottom was suffering and Fr. Joe offered me his sheepskin seat cover.  What a gentleman!  Though I didn’t use it for too long.  We hadn’t gone twenty miles along that country road before I hit a ditch and fell off my bike and was injured.  He helped me up.  How considerate.
 
When Phil first informed me that Fr. Joe Punderson was among the Catholic priests in the Trenton, New Jersey diocese confirmed as pedophiles, I felt as if I was floating in the middle of a calm lake.  Blissfully detached from reality.  Unwilling to allow the echoing terror of cornered children into my consciousness, so powerful was my attachment to the sweet Fr. Joe I’d met and spent time with all those years ago. 
 
I didn’t want to let go of my fantasy and replace it with horror.  I didn’t want Fr. Joe to be a pedophile.  I didn’t want Fr. Joe to have succumbed to his perverted sexual compulsions; to have abused his absolute, church-given authority; and to have created perfect opportunities for himself to rape children. 
 
I didn’t want to inconvenience myself with the truth.  I didn’t want to disturb my nice memories of him.  I wanted to continue floating detached and undisturbed on my make-believe lake remembering Fr. Joe as a soft-spoken, kindhearted soul, a rescuer of injured women.  But I am not a coward.  And if I ignored the vile facts in favor of fostering my feel-good fantasy, then I am complicit in his brutality.  If I deliberately close my eyes to what is too painful to look at, if I turn away from his victims, then I reject profound love. 
 
Fear breeds complicity with abuse.  Fear of losing.  Fear of knowing.  Fear of being forever lost.  Fear of being disloyal.  Fear of speaking.  On and on.  It is only, only through confronting difficult truths and making inconvenient, tough decisions based on those truths that the profound reparative and restorative powers of deep love and connection to divine love becomes available to us.
 
The path of profound love is intense and inward.  It is oftentimes difficult and oftentimes painful.  It requires us to grow far beyond our vision.  It calls for us to evolve further than our imagination or desire can currently take us.  It challenges us to become fully empowered.  Profound love insists that we stay attached to truth.  When we tap into the universal power of love we begin to see, we begin to understand and we develop the courage to take the difficult actions that support our highest good and the universal highest good.
 
Profound love does not pretend or masquerade, or offer petty, superficial assurances of wholesale forgiveness.  Profound love radiates light into the darkest corners, and offers deep knowledge and wisdom, and requires courageous action.  It is the path to our inner light; it connects us to our soul; and connects our soul to the universal light, to universal love. 
 
This is true for Fr. Joe Punderson’s victims.  This is true for Fr. Joe.  This is true for all of us.
 
Namaste
​

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    About the Author

    In the provocative spirit of Matilda Joslyn Gage, Gloria Anzaldua, and Mary Daly, Kathleen Hoy Foley expands and deepens the voice of female experience.

    Raw. Uncompromising. Compassionate. Deliberately antagonistic. Kathleen writes to awaken the courage within the reader.


    TO THE SURVIVOR
    If you are a person who was victimized as a child or as an adult, I am so very sorry you ever had to suffer at the hands of a predator. 

    I am sorry you were abused, sorry no one protected you, sorry you have felt so alone, sorry you have been so afraid then and in the now. I am so sorry for the loss of your innocence. 

    You were and are entitled to you life. And you had a right to inherit your own body. And no matter what you did or what you think you failed to do you are not to blame. Sexual abuse is never a victim's choice. Sexual abuse is something that was done to your body not something you wanted. 

    This is an excerpt from: 

    http://web.archive.org/web/20130101063123/http://true-perspective.org 

    Kathleen and I encourage you to visit this site for perspective on your ordeal. Live happy and whole. Claim you power! 

    You are your own authority.

    Question Everything.  Including social, religious & political authorities

    Learn to listen and respond to your intuition.  It is never wrong.

    Learn to be impolite.  It must be part of your defense system.

    Nothing is unspeakable.

    Stare truth in the eye and speak it.

    You name abuse.  Listen to your body.  It will tell you.  It is never wrong. 

    Stare abuse in the eye and speak it.

    Stare abusers in the eye and name them.

    Use your voice.  Use your words. 

    BE LOUD.  Violence against girls, boys, women and men hides in the silent shadows.

    Know that you are powerful.

    KNOW THAT YOUR VOICE IS POWERFUL.   USE IT.



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