St. Francis Parish will participate in an eight county Sacrament of Penance from 5-8pm on 2.20.2013, as part of the YEAR OF FAITH proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. For that event Fr. Caddy, and Fr. Dool, will urge the school children in 3rd-8th grades to go to confession, and to go through the Ten Commandments as an examination of conscience - when it's the parish adults that need the confession, or a good confession, and the top 10 excuses.
Thinking back to what kids do - the worst are the white lies, the cheating, and the excluding of other kids for spite - the clubs & cliques. What adults do is destroy marriages, careers, the health of neighbors, and their hopes and dreams for their children. Adults destroy other people's children - and it's not the same as kids going at other kids because the advantage is to the adults.
It's not just irregular marriages, or belief in God, or going to Mass that's the Catholic problem - it's the living of the Christian mantra to 'love your neighbor as yourself' that's the problem - the lack of love in the parishioners that give a regular collection as their Catholic manifesto - as their blackmail for Fr. Caddy's silence. And that works.
At 80, or 20, or 10 - the commandments are the same - even if at 80 you can get the Gates Mills police to say that you don't have to talk to the person you destroyed - that they can't come near your mansion & oil well property - property you got with a retirement settlement to 'lie for' from Hillcrest Hospital - for lying about a care situation so that the hospital 'got off.'
Certainly Fr. Dool is 'right' when he says that it's better to be the victim of bad behaviors, situations, and problems than the instigator (cause) - but it's better that those problems don't ever happen Father Dool - trouble is trouble, drama is drama, and no one has the energy to spend a lifetime fighting lies & misinformation - we all have better things to do. None of us were born to fight Botti lies.
It's better that Father Dool would instruct that people tell the truth - and that the truth often 'sets you free,' so that you don't have to worry about the lies for 20 years or more. It's the lies that waste the money, that cause the damage, and that ruin lives. Often in telling the truth the disciplining body is so impressed that they never punish, discipline, fine or suspend - in school or at the Medical Board - but you have to tell the truth to get to that point of forgiveness, healing, and reforming of the system and problems.
With truth telling, you give the system a chance to see the problems, to address the problems, and to not punish because at least with medical mistakes, these are system failures - multiple errors by multiple parties. No medical mistake is ever the fault of a single physician, a single error, or a single point in time - it's a circle of errors.
In this particular situation, there were multiple errors and a failure of a care situation - multiple failures of diagnosis and treatment that the Medical Board of Ohio needed to address 20 years ago - for the safety of subsequent patients at Hillcrest Hospital. So especially in multiple system failure situations, lying helps no one -- and it's better not to be the cause of the trouble, but it's also not good to be the victim. With Medical Board situations, the 'victim' will sometimes commit suicide - unable to cope, rationalize, have faith, pray or believe that the system will work - because it takes years & reforms. Lies work much better, and have a bankability. So maybe Fr. Dool can come up with a better thought than comparing the victim to the cause of trouble - neither really wins - there's no 'better' deal Fr. Dool. And you didn't make Dr. Botti have a twinge of conscience - he's got his retirement.
Fr. Caddy & Fr. Dool are good priests, and totally committed to the school kids and the parish, but they know that abuse does not stop at child abuse, and that some of the adults of the parish have been self-serving in allowing abusive medical care & personal situations for the children of established parishioners - situations where a male MD preyed on a woman MD who was a neighbor's kid for personal needs. Kids in Medicine are the new 'kid' on the Hospital Staff, the 'kid' who just finished a residency or Fellowship, and the 'kid' who just got engaged - one of these kids had to trade her engagement for the Botti's second marriage that needed funding ($). Robert Botti Sr has never been satisfied - he wanted it all.
When the woman MD complained to the State Medical Board, the Bottis lied about it - for their neighbors - instead of getting the guy help, and Dr. Botti making some administrative changes at Hillcrest Hospital to allow for better care of patients when physicians would goof & not be available & better policies as to sexual harassment. There were no sexual harassment laws at the time, and literally anything 'went on' - 'anythings' that women MDs were just supposed to take in stride.
Yes it was 20 years ago, but lies have no statute of limitations, and lives have been ruined for the Bottis to have a second-go at marriage. Lives that could still be resurrected even though they will never be what they could have been. And ironically, it was not Dr. Botti doing the abusing, but Dr. Botti covered it up with outrageous lies - for the payoff. Dr. Botti was as addicted to peer pressure as the most go-along second grader.
There is nothing wrong with a legitimate widow, and widower, pledging a second marriage - but the problem is if they did that based on a substantial windfall of an early retirement that Dr. Botti got for lying about a situation that Hillcrest would have otherwise had to pay legitimate damages on. The damages went to Dr. Botti to guarantee his testimony and signature on a complaint about the woman MD - a totally unjustified complaint as the woman MDs father had (1) saved Dr. Robert Botti JR from a similar situation at Marymount Hospital, and (2) sent the Bottis father-and-son thousands of dollars of referral business for cardiology consultations, catherizations, and other care - invasive & non-invasive.
Dr. Robert Botti SR has destroyed many physicians in his career - first by taking the wrong applicants when he ran the Cardiology Fellowship at University Hospitals of Cleveland - his son instead of a better qualified applicant for starters. Dr. Botti has also been known to tell the Armed Forces not to take anyone who disagreed with him, and in general been the scourge of many aspiring MDs. Dr. Botti has based his life on agreeing that the medical 'code of silence' was what mattered most - that you didn't 'rat' on the other guy even if that guy needed ratting on. And that's no longer the case, and it wasn't even 'right' 20 years ago. Why did Dr. Botti not let the guy MD get caught, who needed to get caught, and thereby stop a pile of bad care situations that ensued? A MD that does bad care doesn't do it once; it is usually a habit especially when the guy quotes that he has 'friends on the State Medical Board of Ohio' and could 'make or break' the woman MD involved who didn't like his personal habits.
Currently physicians, except maybe in Ohio where there are no medical mistake laws, are supposed to admit medical care mistakes and make a plant to undo or correct them - the liability is still there but often if the physician tells the truth and makes an alternative plan, the patient never sues or complains. The physician does not have to admit the mistake, but they have to recognize and refer the patient appropriately. Had Dr. Botti done that when he was asked by several physicians at Hillcrest, referred the mistreated woman MD patient who was close to passing out walking, he could have changed a life. That woman would have been able to have a marriage, and at least 2 kids, who would have maybe been as brilliant as she - gifted with her MENSA IQ. We make society worse by putting our personal needs first, we don't give God a chance to reward us for doing the right thing.
Father Caddy doesn't see this in trying to legitimize the Botti's second marriage for their companionship & mutual profit - Betty the Body is now Betty Botti. It's not Fr. Caddy's decision to trade one life for another, and since Dr. Botti was not at fault except in covering things up - he wouldn't have gotten docked 20 years ago. However now Dr. Botti has now participated in a 20-year fraud - which the Medical Board knows, but so far won't call him on it. Twenty years later it is not any easier to tell the truth.
There's an Examination of Conscience for KIDS published by Catholic Parents Online, and the VIII Commandment reads - You shall not commit false witness against your neighbor - and has the following kiddie questions: (1) Am I honest in my school work?, (2) Do I tell lies to make myself look good?, (3) Do I tell lies to protect myself from punishment? and (4) Do I tell lies that make another person look bad or get them in trouble? These questions apply to adults in medicine and to the Bottis - Betty & Bob Sr. They gave false witness against a neighbor's kid, when that neighbor's kid reported a bad care situation at Hillcrest: an abusive relationship that a close neighbor & friend of Betty's (Dr. Timothy Nice) had with the daughter of another MD in Gates Mills/St. Francis. And it wasn't the first time that Dr. Nice had 'strayed,' he made a policy of this at Hillcrest and Geauga Hospitals - the Gates Mills police know this FACT.
The medical equivalent for the VIIIth: (1) Am I honest with my medical consultations and care advice?, (2) Do I tell lies about other physicians in complaints to the State Medical Board so that they lose their licenses & I get the business?, (3) Do I tell lies so that I get rewarded with early retirement packages, job contracts, and patient care privileges?, and (4) Do I lie so that neighbor's kids get in trouble when they did not cause the trouble, or are held to be 'seductive' when the male MD friend of Betty was preying on the neighbor's kid against her consent (nothing more seductive than Land's End was worn)? It was a 'generation' thing - an older more established male practitioner wanting a little 'understanding' from a Catholic girl a decade younger - the child of an associate MD at the hospital. It was the male version of a cougar - manther - preying on a new woman MD on the staff - the child of another staff MD - someone he promised to give experience to - and not the sexual kind.
Fr. Caddy & Fr. Dool need to be a bit more circumspect, and honest about these situations - that you can't solve them from the pulpit saying that it's better to be the victim than the cause of trouble. That's just justifying martyrdom, and not character. And confession is not going to solve many of these situations - forgiveness will have to include telling the truth.