THE CONFESSIONAL (A SHORT STORY OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS)

The Vatican owns $35 billion in assets yet they can't seem to solve child poverty. When it comes to their priests' sexual exploitation of children, however, they happen to be pretty damn proficient at using their vast holdings to pay off victims of their irreverent deeds.

The Catholic Church recently paid $213 million to 4,445 children sexually abused by pedophile priests in Australia, but (and this is not hyperbole) this is far from a one-off...

[Los Angeles, July 14, 2007: $660 million. 508 victims received an average of $780,000 each. Perpetrators included 221 priests, brothers, lay teachers and other diocesan church employees.]

[San Diego, Sept. 7, 2007: $198.1 million. 144 victims received an average of $825,000 each. Perpetrators included 48 priests and one lay coordinator of altar boys.]

[Oregon Province of the Jesuits, March 25, 2011: $166.1 million. 500 victims received an average of $199,000 each. Perpetrators were not identified.]

[Orange, CA, Dec. 2, 2004. $100 million. 91 victims received an average of $659,000 each. Perpetrators included 31 priests, 10 lay people, two nuns and one brother.]

[Boston, Sept. 9, 2003. $84.25 million. 552 victims received an average of $92,000 each. Perpetrators included 140 priests and two others.]

[Covington, KY. Jan. 9, 2009. $79.082 million. 243 victims received an average of $254,000 each. Perpetrators included 35 priests.]

[Wilmington, DE. Feb. 2, 2011. $77.425 million. 150 victims received an average of $310,000 each. Perpetrators were not identified.]

[Portland, Ore. April 17, 2007. $71.45 million. 169 victims received an average of $342,000 each. Unclear, although diocesan bankruptcy filings list 11 priests as perpetrators.]

[Los Angeles, Dec. 1, 2006. $60 million. 45 victims received an average of $800,000 each. Perpetrators included seven priests.]

[Oakland, CA. Aug. 5, 2005. $56 million. 56 victims received an average of $600,000 each. Unclear, although court records name two priests.]

The Roman Catholic Church is synonymous with child sexual abuse. I owe nobody an apology for saying this because it is the truth. Cases of child sexual abuse and subsequent cover-ups committed during the 20th and 21st centuries by Catholic priests, nuns, and members of the Roman Catholic Order have led to numerous allegations, investigations, trials, and convictions. And with billions continually being paid by the church to settle damning claims around the world- I just knew I had to shame each and every one of these pedophile priests and their perfervid crime enablers in the only way I know how to do it—speaking truth to power through the art of unhindered storytelling. After all, fiction uniquely teaches us about our own stories and seeks to inform, unlike any other medium due to the fact that fiction is often closer to the truth than what surrounds us on a daily basis.

The story I’ve written may be a hard-hitting and uncomfortably probing tale, but it’s minuscule in comparison to the real horrors experienced by those that have suffered at the hands of these men and women of God- boys and girls, some as young as 3 years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14.

The Confessional (a short story with a peerless message) is an execrable horror parable that will take the reader on a surreal journey into the warped psychosis of a pedophile priest and into the spiritual battle a child, nonetheless, is left to confront alone.

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blend the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit https://www.thewriterofbooks.com/list-of-works/ or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this post, write to info@thewriterofbooks.com.

THE 'NFL' CAN GO TO HELL

The plantation owners, with their new collective 'Trumpian' policy amendment, just proved that racial hatred has never been an anathema to her.

Imagine, America, if Colin Kaepernick had taken a knee in support of the #MeToo movement or to protest the lack of action by both state and federal politicians concerning the ceaseless school shootings. Or to remonstrate the rapes, misogyny, and domestic violence in the NFL itself.

The conversation surrounding the NFL's inane new collective 'Trumpian' policy amendment, I suspect, would be entirely different given the aforementioned. But seeing that it happens to be prominent African American's using their clout to way into the tenebrous depths of racial inequality- injustices that continually bombard American citizens that, for the most part, look like they themselves; this is the conversation we're having.

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blend the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit http://www.thewriterofbooks.com/list-of-works/ or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this post, write to info@thewriterofbooks.com.

TRUTH IN QUOTES

"When convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?" - Fox Mulder, The X-Files

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blend the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit http://www.thewriterofbooks.com/list-of-works/ or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this post, write to info@thewriterofbooks.com.

THE NUMBER [ 55 ]

How can this particular movie help author's sell more books? The answer lies in a specific double-digit number.

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blend the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit http://www.thewriterofbooks.com/list-of-works/ or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this post, write to info@thewriterofbooks.com.

WHO’S THE REAL HERO?

Clearly it is San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick whom has put his career and vast earnings on the line to do that basic duty all soldiers like Glenn Coffee took an oath to do, but continually fall way short of doing—defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

"I, Glenn Coffee, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

I understand that Glenn Coffee is a soldier duty-bound to follow the leadership, guidance, and the examples set forth by both commissioned and non-commissioned officers who, like every soldier they lead, pledge a similar oath: 

"I, functionary, having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of [any] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

There should be no kerfuffle as it relates to the recent actions of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick as he exercises a fundamental right afforded to "all of us" by the First Amendment. And therefore I stand firm in advocating that the real hero here is Colin Kaepernick. His form of patriotism came not by physically entering into our armed forces or by pledging an oath that many who serve are undoubtedly ignoring, but through an act of audacious bravery as he continues to take a stand for oppressed racial minorities—freeborn citizens of the United States of America. It’s quite simple, really: are we the land of the free and the home of the brave or are we the land of the free and the home of the forever enslaved?

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blend the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit http://www.thewriterofbooks.com/list-of-works/ or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this post, write to info@thewriterofbooks.com.

OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES

"Hatred taught. Detestation learned. A beautiful cherub, like kindling, set to burn." - A.K. Kuykendall

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blend the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit http://www.thewriterofbooks.com/list-of-works/ or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this post, write to info@thewriterofbooks.com.

ROOSEVELT'S WORDS AND TODAY

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official…" —Theodore Roosevelt

Pragmatic author A.K. Kuykendall has a passion for writing conspiracy, espionage, horror, and suspense literature that blend the concepts of fact and fiction. For more information on his projects, visit http://www.thewriterofbooks.com/list-of-works/ or, to email the author directly for Q&A on this post, write to info@thewriterofbooks.com.