The Vortex — Good Riddance

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed i'm michael voris the very first bishop on the entire planet to be investigated for sex abuse cover-up under pope francis's new rules and his directives has resigned church milton was the first and virtually only catholic media outlet to bring you details of the horrible story of bishop michael hepner essentially lying under oath certainly being deliberately deceptive while being deposed in a sex abuse civil lawsuit the now former bishop of the crookston minnesota diocese covered up for a priest accused of and being sued for sex abuse involving a male teenager that lawsuit was eventually settled in a secret agreement by the diocese that practice is standard with these bishops they lie cheat beg borrow steal deceive and do anything to keep their homosexual sexcapades under wraps and out of view from gullible catholic laity but with each passing case coming to light their cover is being blown more and more hefner's body deceptions and legalistic wrangling answers were captured on a video deposition which church militant was the first to show you at the time about two years ago so in short good riddance hebner you should have been gone years ago in fact you probably should never been made a bishop hopefully many more like you will get their comeuppance and you all better pray that you get it in this life because to have to stand in front of almighty god and receive a punishment then well you get it but beyond the particulars of this case there is the issue of the circling of the wagons and these still refusal to admit and confess what went on here no serious official statement from the diocese of crookston no serious official statement from the archdiocese of saint paul minneapolis whose archbishop bernard hebda who was tabbed by the vatican to do the investigation nothing nothing serious no serious official statement from hepner himself the offender other than to have the gall to say that when he goes he's going to go live with his sister in a warmer climate and he'll come back for a visit every now and then you aren't welcome in crookston bishop your lies and your deceptions tore that diocese apart for years causing people to choose up sides laity against laity clergy against clergy with a victim traumatized all over again and i told my attorneys i said we need to get this out and they said well you'll never get them because the depositions are never released and i said the world has to know how these guys operate so that gave me the steadfastness to insist that the depositions be released both the written and the video in all those statements not one single syllable of remorse compassion repentance nothing it's monstrous only the absolute barest minimum that can possibly be said or done that's what's said and nothing more and to add insult to injury hepner isn't just slithering out of town like he should a notice was sent to priests of the diocese that get this hepner's going to offer a going away mass at the cathedral for himself a man who lost his job because he lied under oath about covering up sex abuse and trying to extort the victim by threatening him gets to go out to the strains of alleluias and praise as though he were a decent man and he is a rogue he's not a decent man hey bishops one a reason why every faithful catholic believes you to be completely tone deaf and uncaring well we'll put this up front and center for you the bare facts as revealed by the institutional leaders of the church are these after a two-year investigation of bishop michael hepner into accusations that he covered up sexual abuse of a teenage male and threatened to extort that victim he resigned that's it no admission of guilt and in the videos and in the written depositions um you can definitely see the um the lies that that were going on in the deposition and how that they had mishandled the whole whole process from the beginning no open and transparent discussion about the sad tragic history and at least at least the united states clergy and hierarchy of homosexuality not just with each other and consenting adults but also the molestation and rape of minor males a sum of parishioners donations was paid out by the crookston diocese in these settlements how much was it a sum of parishioners donations was paid out to diocesan attorneys to defend hepner's filth how much will hefner be required to repay that amount personally it was him after all that did it who's paying for him to move his stuff to his sister's down south does he still draw retirement pay how much money was spent for his two-year investigation who paid for it where did the sum come from when anything goes institutionally wrong in the secular world there are spokesmen who are right out in front in a press conference setting they read a statement and then they field questions and some of them are pretty brutal or pretty direct why don't the bishops have to do this do they feel they're somehow above all of that do they not feel as though their victims deserve to be vindicated publicly apologized to publicly and given their moment of justice it's a happy day but it's a sad day yeah it's a good day the truth is revealed it's a sad day that it has to be and then it still goes on and that it takes this much effort this much effort lawsuits investigations to get a two-sentence deal from the diocese that said bishop had to resign and that's it what's more likely is the u.s bishops are horrified that the full truth will come out that many of them are either homosexual many practicing or they have covered up for these sins because of their loyalties and sympathies and friendships with other bishops or whatever there is a homosexual rot within the u.s hierarchy and it has been brought has brought the church to its knees and even still to this very day many of the men bishops all over the country are still pushing their lgbt filth while their buddy bishops say nothing these gay bishops practicing or not who look the other way and raid the treasury of the church and re-victimize victims and express not the slightest bit of remorse they offer nothing by way of compassion all of it as the irish would say these men are wastrels there can be no healing in turning the corner in the church here in the us until these men are gone in this particular case it was the tenacity of ron vassak the victim and that alone which brought this wicked bishop down he would not budge on the question of the deposition written and oral being released to the public like crooked bishops always want to do they tried to buy his silence first with threats them with money and bully him into signing a non-disclosure agreement hoping they could keep the public in the dark and of course hefner could keep his job but they didn't realize the quality of the man they were dealing with because they don't understand male nobility ron stood his ground the depositions were eventually released and hefner's evil was on display for the whole world to see and now he's gone right after the diocese gives him a nice big send-off like we said waist rolls we're attaching the entire interview we did with ron the morning the news broke because it provides a very rare glimpse and insight into how these wicked crooked bishops operate because ron got everything released the vatican was more or less forced to can hepner even though they dressed it up as him resign he didn't resign he was dumped he was fired and frankly he should leave in disgrace and never return to crookston please watch this entire interview it's not that long it's vital you understand how business is done in the church when it's run by gay and cover-up bishops well the first question ron is uh in just sort of a brief overview just sort of the touchstones of it uh how did this whole case originate well the case originated uh i guess back in 1972 when i was abused by a priest in columbus ohio um i kept that to myself for 40 some years uh never revealed it to my family my wife my parents anybody and then one day while i was at a newman center with father jason leffer the holy spirit prompted me to tell him what happened and then he started the ball rolling for the fargo diocese to uh inform the crooks and diocese that i had been abused when i was a teenager in columbus ohio by father then father raj groenhaus i was called into the bishop's office in crookston and at that meeting i was basically chewed out for even bringing it up and then sworn to secrecy um a number of years later four years sworn to secrecy based on what you're the victim well based on that this priest was a a very prominent priest and they did he didn't want to besmirch his reputation so did he tell you did bishop hefner tell you uh that you had some sort of moral obligation or you'd be committing a sin or something like that if you told people about this no he didn't say i'd committed sin but what i told him i wanted to tell my wife because and because i had i've been married to her for like 40 years already and she didn't know about it and he said no you mustn't even tell your wife he said there's some things that we have to keep to ourselves and he had just ordained my son about a year earlier not even probably 10 months earlier and uh i already knew what kind of treatment my son was getting from the bishop so i decided that i wasn't going to say anything just to protect my son and to just because my parents were still alive also you know he basically he told me he said that i mustn't tell anybody all right so you obviously did well yeah i i finally did then in 2015 um he called me back to his residence this time and then you know not the office and he had me a letter that he said was written by monsignor michael fultz who was then the victor general of the diocese and he told in the letters said something to the effect that nothing happened in columbus ohio and that he wanted me to recant it and i told him that i i said i can't recap that they said because it's the truth and uh so then i asked him what would happen if i didn't sign the letter and he told me he said well he said if the scandal of groundhouse gets out he said how could i ordain you who would want you where could i put you because you were in the diaspora program yes yeah it was in the document program and then he said and besides it'll be very difficult on your son well i i knew what that meant because he had already been not very nice to my son so i grabbed the letter and i signed it nice i just said give it to me i'll sign it because i wasn't going to let him destroy my son so then i was two months from being ordained and all of a sudden this letter showed up from my pastor was then stating that i shouldn't be ordained for a year and my formation director father bob schreiner couldn't believe it didn't know what was going on he said this is what's going on this 11th hour he said so then finally then after a formation meeting my wife came in to visit with father bob and myself because we were going to talk about what we needed to do and and i revealed to them and my wife for the first time what happened about the abuse about the coercion about just everything that had happened and and then at that point you know we kind of didn't know what to do we tried to do some investigation to find out who we could bring this to because the policy of the diocese says to go to the vicar general or the vicar general already knew about it and was involved in the cover-up so we knew we couldn't go that route we tried a vast number of legal firms to find out what we could legally do and nobody would touch it because it was a diocesan deal and then we talked with a number of canon lawyers uh who gave us suggestions and told us how to proceed said that we needed to we needed to do something with it uh tried to do it within the church but our options there were muted by the fact that the bishop and the victor general already had covered it up so finally we went to jeff anderson who has done numerous probably thousands of abuse cases and we went to him and um they took our case um we stood the bishop for coercion and then we sued the diocese for the sexual abuse part of it and then uh the bishop settled on the coercion charge um basically in my mind he admitted guilt um and then we uh then we went to court and we won the second part of it we got settlements on the uh on the abuse part but in that settlement agreement i demanded two things one was my son's safety out of the diocese of crookston until bishop hefner was gone and the other demand was that the depositions become publicly released we were in negotiations for over nine hours and finally we got what i needed once the investigation what the depositions were released the archdiocese had asked for the depositions because they had had information prior to about this but had no evidence so when the depositions were released then we had evidence of the lying that was happening and to be clear on that and to be clear on that from the viewers perspective ron uh the depositions were videotaped we church militant aired a little portion of those but the depth is in the depositions uh bishop hepner was essentially lying and being extraordinarily deceptive under oath is that a good summation of of his answers well that would be a generous summation on your part yes okay the uh the uh the deposit the written depositions when i read the written depositions and i could not reveal any information that was in those depositions because they were under protective order right and that's why i when i read them i i saw the lies and i told my attorneys i said we need to get this out and they said well you'll never get them because the depositions are never released and i said the world has to know how these guys operate so that gave me the steadfastness to insist that the depositions be released both the written and the video and in the videos and in the written depositions um you can definitely see the um the lies that that were going on in the deposition and how that they had mishandled the whole whole process from the beginning but now it was finally public so that people could see what was going on and uh without the depositions we would have never had a we would have never had the investigation in the bosses so let me ask you this then uh as the big overriding question you for you know going back to 1972 you know you have to live and deal with this whole abuse thing as its own separate standalone issue for you emotionally and everything else then you go into the process as an honest man trying to get justice you have the situation rectified all of that and then you were victimized again and you know threatened your son is essentially threatened with blackmail because he's one of bishop hefner's priests your diaconate program comes to a screeching halt uh you sue uh he lies under oath multiple times and then deflects left and right we've watched a large portion at church military watched a large portion of the interview uh i'm sorry of the deposition of the video deposition it's clear that he's being i guess evasive would be charitable um uh and now had you you ron vasick not absolutely stood your ground and said we are going to expose this and uh had that not happened and not your resolution to say i'm gonna get the truth out come hell or high water bishop pepper would still be the bishop in that diocese today so given the fact that he has now resigned with no statement there's no official anything just he's resigned there's no statement on the vote sd side of it from archbishop hebda there's no statement from the diocese of crookston nothing except he's just resigned uh how does that make you feel uh you know as a victim who has now been as vindicated as is probably you're going to get because they're not going to admit guilt in this publicly so first of all how do you feel about him being gone and second of all how do you feel about the still refusal to just come out and admit their evil well i got a phone call this morning from a good friend of mine and he said that he didn't think it was a coincidence that we we have a fresh white blanket of snow on the day that hefner resigns the the veil of white is over the crooks and diocese excellent which is wonderful um i i really can't answer how i feel uh right now um i'm very happy that the that the uh that archbishop have and his investigative team did a very thorough job i think they dotted every eye a number of times and crossed a number of t's many times just to make sure that this was a very thorough uh investigation being that it was the first one in the world um so i i want to i want to really thank that team for doing the job they did my feeling is that as you see in the in the release from the crooks and diocese there was no admission of guilt there was no remorse right there was no apology to the diocese for for carrying the diocese apart for the last four years there wasn't a word of healing but that's the way bishop hepner flies the arrogance the his attitude towards people uh shows up in in the way that this was uh put out um i i would have i would have felt better and i think it would have been better for the people of the diocese if he would apologize for what what he did and and just for running the diocese through the wringer and and many of the priests and the diocese of priests the priests have had a very hard time with this some are allies of bishop hefners and you know to their credit they're still priests in the diocese and there's a number of priests that stood with me and to their credit most of them are still here um but i i to me in that statement there was no healing right there has been no healing whatsoever um especially for the for the survivors um i feel that this resignation is a victory for all survivors who've been ignored have been bullied who've been lied to who um just pushed to the side and you give a little money and and call it good and there's been no healing there's been there's been nothing there's been no outreach of support there's been nothing at all um even in my case um after the settlement there was there was never any indication that they were reaching out to to uh with contrition or with healing for any of anybody in fact one of the first things that the diocese did was got hold of my person the person that i was going to for um mental health issues they called and said we're not paying for it anymore that was one of the first one of the first acts that they did so that's how much that's how much they care about the people but on the bright side of this it is a total victory for for all abuse victims and survivors who have gone through all the crap that that they've received from the leaders in the church know when i say the church i'm not talking about i'm not blaming the holy church of god right i'm talking about the hierarchy the men that run it that aren't incapable of compassion or have forgotten that they're supposed to be deacons first servants and not kings i mean that's kind of i don't know if i answered your question no no that's very good i mean to to the point of vindication i have to tell you as soon as i saw the news this morning i was like yes yes and i you were the very fr i was like text text ron so and thank you again for giving us the interview i'm sure it's an extraordinarily wacky emotional up down all over the place day for you so again we really appreciate your time for the interview uh let me ask you if i uh if i can the what would you say about the uh how instrumental has the media coverage of all of this been do you feel you know as a lot of people said after the boston globe exposes back in 2002 the spotlight investigations into what was going on in boston which of course on earth the whole country and then again the summer of shame with theodore mccarrick you know going on three years ago now uh a lot of people said you know if it wasn't for the media secular as well as catholic uh you know this stuff just stays you know there is no remorse there's there's not even a hint not even a sniff that any of these men feel like anything they've done is wrong even they're not even just trying to cover it up they just consider that everything they're doing is right and this is the way it's run so talk to me as a victim whose case became very public uh you know partially here through church militant uh talk to me about how important the media exposure of this sort of stuff is well i think it's extremely important um you know right after the press conference i i you know i didn't know about the spotlight thing and i didn't know about the boston globe you know there was things that i that i hadn't but i didn't know about and i started watching some of that stuff and then i said wow i said this is kind of a big deal you know but it was so covered up all the time and as i as i as i was going through well part of the litigation part of it i was also learning about the problems within the within the church within the clergy about homosexual issues and how how that has been so covered up and so preserved by some of these cardinals and bishops and archbishops um and so at the the more i learned about that i was just i was i didn't know how little ron vosik was going to be able to let the let the world know that this problem exists because it was insignificant and then it was like a godsend that all of a sudden this mccarrick thing blew up and all of a sudden the the homosexuality and the cover-ups of all that within the church again here at the church structure not the church of christ right um how prevalent that was and how widespread it was and how how high up to the top it went i i just felt that this was a blessing from god that this came out because my case mirrored so much of what was going on about people not being able to talk about stuff because their parents were still alive or they've been they've told people and nothing happened and that's when i decided okay after we had gone public the first time was press conference then i became even more determined that yes this needs to be told it needs to be said people need to have a voice many people came to me and told me their story and i said i will be your voice and praise god i was able to do that praise god the press has been i think instrumental in putting pressure through the people to get this stuff cleaned up otherwise nobody knows about it because there's there's people in the diocese of crookston that don't even know the story because it's been covered up as tight as they can get it all the time and um so yeah the press has been instrumental in this happening not just the press but you know the the whole system the investigation you know and the people that have been supportive of me and others it's it's all part of the same team but truth finally won yes it did any any final thoughts there ron this is uh this is a very i i can't tell you how happy i am for you as many our viewers i'm sure no i've been to crookston spoken i think two or three times and you know was obviously involved in this case behind the scenes of you know doing our own you know ground you know boots on the ground work and all that sort of thing so i can't tell you how personally i have happy i am for you but you know as you said you uh you were a voice for many victims uh your case was the public part of it but you know many of those victims you know can relish in in your victory because you have you have struck a blow for justice with your determination you've struck a blow for justice with your tenacity and your unwillingness to budge uh from this truth which is of course you know that's there's a lot of dark moments in in that struggle i'm sure you know them we don't have to necessarily get into all of them but you know you question yourself sometimes you look around you wonder you know is there ever a light at the end of the tunnel all that horrible stuff yet here you are years down the road now essentially four years later and god's blessings on you ron congratulations this is tremendous tremendous you deserve all the praise in the world for everything you've gone through not just the abuse which is horrible but everything post that having to be again victimized again uh you know all over again as you're trying to reveal the truth of this so god bless you well thank you yes um i i am it's a you know it's a it's a happy day but it's a sad day yeah it's a good day the truth is revealed it's a sad day that it has to be and that it still goes on and that it takes this much effort this much effort lawsuits investigations to get a two-sentence deal from the diocese that said bishop had to resign and that's it yeah you know i would expect more i would hope that there would be more um i'm not holding my breath but i would hope that there would be more from the diocese uh about this case and about the resignation and why it happened but like i said i'm not holding my breath yeah indeed indeed ron thank you very much for the interview really really appreciate it thank you yeah i just i do want to say thank you to everyone who's been praying for just resolution thank you amen amen god bless ron enjoy the day with your family you deserve it i will i will thank you

Channel: Church Militant

Views: 39,253

Rating: 4.9682212 out of 5

Keywords: Church Militant, Catholic Church, Michael Voris, The Vortex, Church Militant Michael Voris, Vortex, Church Militant Headlines, Church Militant The Download, Roman Catholic, Priest, Protestant, Atheist, Jewish, Islam, Homosexuality, Liberal, Conservative, Agnostic, Democrat, Republican, Culture, Society, Sin, Virtue, Christ, Jesus, Pope, Vatican, Blessed Mother, Virgin Mary, Christine Niles, Headlines, Spotlight, Mic'd Up, Catholic

Id: xhXiEXXMB5U

Length: 32min 0sec (1920 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021