ME: What Cardinal George called you?
“Yeah it’s really unusual for him to call,” Mary Lou agreed.
Both these women identify themselves right off the bat as "stay at home moms." You can hear the smile in their voices and they are both quick to laugh. A picture of Kate Bochte in a news story shows she’s got the blue-eyed reddish haired angel face of so many Catholics with Irish roots.
Yet to hear the people at the CTL website describe Kate Bochte and Mary Lu O'Halloran you’d expect them both to be shrill-voiced hard-swearing radical feminist lesbian barflies.
Kate Bochte continued:
“Cardinal George and I talked for quite a while about one, the bishop isn’t following the charter, he hasn’t addressed the parish, he’s done nothing for the victims.
“Number two we've got this priest Jarmoluk threatening to sue us, hiring attorneys, putting out reports about us with lies.
“Cardinal George says, well as far as the charter, that's not good if it’s not being handled, and George says, at least they're better than Rockford. He goes, what I can do is as a friend, as a fellow, as a brother bishop, I could just mention something to Bishop Doran if you want me to to.
“George says, as far as that pastor, I can’t tell him what to do with his priests, but if you want I could mention it to him as a friend
“I go you're the cardinal and archbishop and he’s just the bishop I thought you’d have authority. He goes, no, it’s the Pope. Every bishop answers to the Pope and only the Pope
“That's when I realized if change is ever going to come it’s going to come from the laity,” Kate Bochte said, “the people in the pews, not from anybody in the church hierarchy.”
*****
Kate Bochte started a website of her own: wearecatholics dot com that today is like a localized version of the Abuse Tracker blog by Kathy Shaw.
“I started just saving articles and other things we’d get,” said Kate Bochte. “The pastor’s attorney put out this document, the second appellate court ruled against the diocese, all these documents.
“I just figured about a year ago to start a website. Now I don't know anything about websites or computers, so I got a book and I got a software and I still don’t know half of what I'm doing. I was trying to get factual information and stuff about healing for individuals and the whole community.
“I just took whatever I had uploaded it, newspaper articles, documents and stuff like that, and that took a while. But now what I do daily is every time there’s a newspaper article relating to it, I put it up there. Now it’s just kind of maintenance.
“This is what happens when the allegations are not properly addressed, it doesn't go away, it doesn't get better. We probably have 300 articles and letters to the editor from just this one year.
“It hasn’t gone away.
“Yeah it’s really unusual for him to call,” Mary Lou agreed.
Both these women identify themselves right off the bat as "stay at home moms." You can hear the smile in their voices and they are both quick to laugh. A picture of Kate Bochte in a news story shows she’s got the blue-eyed reddish haired angel face of so many Catholics with Irish roots.
Yet to hear the people at the CTL website describe Kate Bochte and Mary Lu O'Halloran you’d expect them both to be shrill-voiced hard-swearing radical feminist lesbian barflies.
“Cardinal George and I talked for quite a while about one, the bishop isn’t following the charter, he hasn’t addressed the parish, he’s done nothing for the victims.
“Number two we've got this priest Jarmoluk threatening to sue us, hiring attorneys, putting out reports about us with lies.
“Cardinal George says, well as far as the charter, that's not good if it’s not being handled, and George says, at least they're better than Rockford. He goes, what I can do is as a friend, as a fellow, as a brother bishop, I could just mention something to Bishop Doran if you want me to to.
“George says, as far as that pastor, I can’t tell him what to do with his priests, but if you want I could mention it to him as a friend
“I go you're the cardinal and archbishop and he’s just the bishop I thought you’d have authority. He goes, no, it’s the Pope. Every bishop answers to the Pope and only the Pope
“That's when I realized if change is ever going to come it’s going to come from the laity,” Kate Bochte said, “the people in the pews, not from anybody in the church hierarchy.”
*****
Kate Bochte started a website of her own: wearecatholics dot com that today is like a localized version of the Abuse Tracker blog by Kathy Shaw.
“I started just saving articles and other things we’d get,” said Kate Bochte. “The pastor’s attorney put out this document, the second appellate court ruled against the diocese, all these documents.
“I just figured about a year ago to start a website. Now I don't know anything about websites or computers, so I got a book and I got a software and I still don’t know half of what I'm doing. I was trying to get factual information and stuff about healing for individuals and the whole community.
“I just took whatever I had uploaded it, newspaper articles, documents and stuff like that, and that took a while. But now what I do daily is every time there’s a newspaper article relating to it, I put it up there. Now it’s just kind of maintenance.
“This is what happens when the allegations are not properly addressed, it doesn't go away, it doesn't get better. We probably have 300 articles and letters to the editor from just this one year.
“It hasn’t gone away.
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