This case cannot be settled with money and these types of news should go far beyond this journal. International communities should learn about this and set precedent so other cases come out to light and justice can be made before other pedophiles die in peace in respected houses. They should die in prison as is the "prison-in-life" they have created for all the abused.
‘Absolute Power’
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Chase Hensel, a retired anthropologist and expert on Yupik Eskimo culture, says the lasting damage cannot be overstated. "You see the alcoholism, the severe mental problems, people in and out of jail," he says, "and you wonder, how do you put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall?"
The Alaskan victims come from some of the poorest, most vulnerable pockets in America. Their great-grandparents faced a wave of epidemics that killed off more than half the indigenous population of western Alaska. Convinced they had been failed by the shamans and old beliefs, many turned to the missionaries. The Jesuits descended on the frontier in the late 1800s.
Only three priests covered in the settlement are still living. They include Father James Jacobson and Father Jim Poole, both in their 80s. Jacobson is accused of fathering a total of four children with four women, as well as impregnating a 16-year-old who had an abortion. Poole, who founded a popular Catholic radio station in Nome that can still be heard in the villages, also allegedly impregnated a girl. According to court filings, Poole told her to abort the fetus and blame it on her father. According to Father John Whitney, the head of the Jesuit Oregon Province, the priests are under close monitoring at a senior care facility run by the order in Spokane, Wash. Neither could be reached for comment.
Patrick Wall, a former Benedictine monk and Catholic priest who has served as a consultant to Roosa and other lawyers in the Alaska suits, said the Jesuits knew these missionaries were predators. These priests "had abused elsewhere," he said, "and then were unleashed in the most uncontrolled environment."
The Jesuits contend that they did not know that the priests were pedophiles. "These were the most difficult missions in the world," said Whitney, "and that is why it's quite challenging for us to reconcile that some of our heroes have now ended up named in these accusations."
To this day, many middle-aged men in St. Michael recall that it was Lundowski who gave them their first drinks. They say he kept a wooden barrel of homebrew in the bell tower. After catechism or Sunday mass, the boys often hung out in what Lundowski called "the monkey room," where kids played checkers and board games and watched religious movies. Lundowski doled out candy, juice and food, along with holy wine and his sour homebrew. Adjacent to the monkey room was a bedroom.
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