12/17/18

Father Poole Who Was a Serial Sex Offender in Alaska and the Lower 48 Worked at St. Joseph's Hospital at the Same Time I Did

Being INFJ I sometimes just know things and spent most of my life trying to push down my intuitive thinking, not anymore. Awakening around 5 AM with a feeling of dread I thought, oh great I am going to find out something today that is not good or something bad will happen. That is how it works.

Then I saw the article about Father Poole being kept under the protection of Gonzaga University.  While researching I found a picture and thought he looks kind of familiar. 

I am in shock at the craven protection of men who harmed others by the Catholic Church. Not only did they protect them, but allowed them to continue to offend and helped them get positions, reassigned them knowing full well they would sexually abuse the vulnerable. I almost vomited reading this article because I came to the realization of something creepy.

From ABC News:

The following year, Father Frank Case, the head of the Oregon Province, endorsed Poole for a new position. Case is currently vice president at Gonzaga, an adviser to the school's president, and chaplain for the school's nationally ranked men's basketball team, the Bulldogs.

He wrote a letter to the Catholic chaplains association backing Poole's application to become a chaplain at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington.

"(Poole) is a Jesuit priest in very good standing, and it is my strong expectation that he will serve in such a ministry in a manner that is both generous and effective," Case wrote. Poole got the job, working at the hospital until 2003.

In a 2008 deposition, Case said he did not review Poole's personnel file before writing the letter because he had no indication of misconduct. In a statement through Gonzaga University's public relations office, Case said he did not have access to Poole's personnel file.

I lived in Spokane, went to college in the area to get a BSN in nursing around the mid 1980s. My first job after graduation was at St. Jospeh's Hospital in Tacoma Washington, a couple decades later I moved to Nome Alaska where I have my own personal story of unbelievable abuse and observed the abuse of the Native people. While living there I knew nothing of the massive abuse of women, boys and girls by priests and others in that area, except that it had gone on at the schools the Native kids were forced to go to away from home. While in Spokane I did volunteering with the Catholic Church in the early 1980s as many services such as Hospice or working with the homeless were not paid for by insurance, the government or non-profits.

Here is what shocked the hell out of me, Father Poole who had abused Native women and girls in Nome Alaska and other places was hired by St. Joseph's Hospital in Tacoma Washington which I worked at in the 80s and 90s. I provided a link below to a chart which shows he was at St. Joe's when I was there and I remember that priest. He was at St. Joseph's hospital around 1988 when I was a new nurse working my first job as an RN. I don't remember names, but remember a very charismatic priest who was always talking about "pus pockets." St. Joseph's Hospital had a huge problem with abuse of nurses and the second time I worked there they intentionally hired a psychopathic CEO who then hired hench-people to go after nurses, especially the well educated intelligent patient advocate types. Despite the abuse there were amazing nurses working at St. joe's back then.

Later a supervisor at another hospital said I was put on a trouble maker list and secret codes were used to indicate certain things about nurses applying for jobs. When I asked her if it was St. Joe's she said yes. That psychopathic CEO I mentioned had been at St. Elizabeths in Yakima which I worked at in between the two times I worked at St. Joe's. He caused a strike, told people in the community nurses were not worth what they were being paid and was fired by the nuns, but he lied about it telling the story like he just got a great job offer. Yes, I did tell that story when I went back to St. Joes and was horrified to find him as the new CEO. He would be the type to orchestrate retaliation.

The Catholic church does many evil things to people and I was not much of a trouble maker back then, but thanks for helping me in developing the skills to become one, appreciate it. I remember they did personality testing which we all thought was benign, guess they found out I am INFJ, a natural born change agent.

In Anchorage Alaska the Archbishop is in charge of Catholic Social Services which ran Brother Francis, the homeless shelter. He refused to even have a meeting about the horrible conditions and abuse from a man who hated women and did horrible things to me. People told me that man went to the bus station hunting for teenage boys to have sex with. I did not really believe it until I saw him there myself. No one at the Catholic church listens to reality which is one of the signs of a cult. And they aren't the only ones, religious cults disguised as mainstream churches are epidemic.

This website has a list of all of Father Poole's assignments and the years he was in them along with the name of those who supervised him. 

This list shows he got around all over the place which means people knew and kept sending him to abuse the vulnerable. It is so disgusting, but people knew and stayed quiet about it, protected the perpetrators, not just the church, that includes law enforcement and politicians. They are continuing to protect perpetrators of rapes of the Alaska Natives. The Catholic Church like so many other religious organizations decided the Native people of Alaska were inferior and allowed them to be used by their serial sexual abusers and pedophiles. Such a long, long history of allowing the Alaska Natives to be abused in so many ways. Is it any wonder that the trauma leads to problems with alcohol and drugs? But then those medical conditions which are secondary to misdiagnosed or undiagnosed trauma illnesses are used to discredit and stigmatize them.

In many wars sex is a weaponized tool, so I have to wonder if the hush, hush secrecy cover ups were done for more reasons than to protect the Catholic Church which is certainly involved in world politics.Then there were law enforcement and the politicians. I expect the situation was very similar to the Native women who are raped now and then the police do nothing.

This is all so disgusting and it is so hard to believe those in charge not just in the Catholic Church, but those in law enforcement in Alaska did nothing to help the victims of these predatory priests or bring them to justice. Those who protected them are very often not even fired. It reminds me of cointelpro set ups to have people falsely arrested, the perps they use to commit crimes against the target are never charged with the crimes used to traumatize and set up innocent people. No, they are given promotions, high paying jobs and political appointments, in the political arena or at the Catholic Church. 

I was in Spokane where Gonzaga University gave this serial sex offender protective refuge later, then it appears I worked at St. Joseph's Hospital with Father Poole in the late 1980s after he left his career of sexual abuse in Alaska, but had abused others in the lower 48, then my journeys took me to Nome where he had harmed many in the community. I did not know the story while living there. I am INFJ, but this story is even freaky for me. I knew about the police in Nome Alaska not arresting men who raped women, but found out after leaving about the priest abuse.

What a country we live in. Allowing all of this to go on for decades. We certainly do live in a psychopathocracy.

I contacted St. Joseph's administration department where of course all I could do was leave a message. I would like them to verify that he was indeed the priest who was the hospital chaplain when I worked for them and get a statement about how the organization feels about the Catholic Church sending him to work at an acute hospital. If the nurses had known his history we would have scheduled him for a bilateral orchiectomy.

No comments: