​Welcome!

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St. Catherine’s is a project of Familia Victricis, a 501c3 not for profit, EIN #82-2819403.

 

Dear Friend,

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Thank you for taking the time to learn about a critical mission during this unique time of great need.  This is, if you will, your recruiting letter, like one I once received, seeking your participation in this mission. Those with hearts like yours, who seek to respond with real action in times of crisis, constitute the ranks of history's heroes. Please allow me to share the story that led this letter to you.  

 

My name is AnnaMaria Cardinalli, and friends call me CC.  If you ever happened to have heard my name, it was probably in the context of music.  I’m an opera singer and a concert guitarist.  That, however, was often a public facade helping to conceal my real work, which I now rely on your help to continue.  Following the events of 9/11, after graduating from Notre Dame with a Ph.D. in Theology, I joined the FBI as a counterterrorism analyst.  

 

Once the war in Iraq began, I was selected for transfer (TDY) to the Joint Special Operations Command and deployed to Iraq.  Every day, I witnessed our forces saving the innocent lives of good people, and I longed to do the same in uniform myself.  So, upon returning home, I applied for a Commission in the U.S. Navy.  Then, as the war in Afghanistan unfolded, an incredible opportunity to be of the kind of service I had witnessed presented itself.  

 

Just as the Marines began to take the far tribal reaches of Taliban-controlled territory, I accepted a federal position as the Senior Social Scientist on the first Human Terrain Team (HTT) embedded with the USMC.  I also jointly trained and served on the first USMC Female Engagement Team (FET).  HTT  and FET work both involve patrolling villages, usually with infantry and medical teams, in order to interact with local communities and gain perspective on their cultural context.

 

The problem is that I did begin to understand the cultural context of the war we fought, and it was horrifying.  Boys as young as preschoolers were taken from their mothers and trained to fight for warlords while being sexually abused until the age at which they grew beards.  In neighboring countries, if the children happened to be of some minority class, usually Christians, their fate in slavery was much worse, up to and including crucifixion for boys and stoning for girls if forced conversion was not achieved.

 

The work I did to bring this to the attention of my commanders was released on WikiLeaks and was soon reported through major news sources.  While such work being leaked with my name associated put an end to future covert positions in the intelligence field, it was a blessing more important than my career because it brought the world’s attention to the issue.  To clarify the reporting, I was offered a book deal and wrote Crossing the Wire: One Woman’s Journey into the Hidden Dangers of the Afghan War (Casemate Publishing and Open Road Media).

 

On American soil once again, I felt my life’s calling revolved around the protection of these innocent children.  As a Catholic, I took vows in an emerging order of sisters who shared this passion, and I rolled up my sleeves to do more.  My report, along with the book, resulted in the passage of a U.N. resolution against the recruitment of children into Afghan military and police forces, and I gave congressional testimony on the issue when an investigation was demanded.  

 

However, a subsequent meeting of the UN revealed no progress on enforcing the resolution and an incoming US administration deemed the sexual abuse of children a “cultural issue” that must be respected.  (See here.)  Needless to say, the trafficking, enslavement, and sexual exploitation of children is not a cultural issue but a criminal one.  It is a violation of Afghan law, a war crime, and, due to its efficacy in forming radicalized fighters, a security threat to the U.S.

 

This failure to help save the children from their abusive circumstances, however, taught me an important lesson.  I didn’t need to appeal to government and international authorities to protect the most vulnerable.  It didn’t work.  I simply needed to protect as many individual lives as I possibly could.  Finding myself now service disabled from the long-term effects of a TBI and eye injury in Afghanistan, I sought new ways to do this.

 

I opened a licensed private investigative firm in the U.S. and shortly realized, when desperate clients reached out to me, that human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children is as tragically prevalent on our own suburban doorsteps as it is overseas.  In an average U.S. town, a child is typically approached by traffickers within 48 hours of leaving home or foster care, and children with the most difficult or abusive circumstances have the greatest likelihood of leaving their home or care setting.  

 

They are also the least likely to ever be reported as missing.  These beautiful, innocent children simply “disappear.”  They can be saved from a horrible fate only if someone intervenes in the narrow window of that first 48 hours and offers a place of safety and security.  St. Catherine’s is working to offer that and so much more–enough to mean all the loving care necessary and a lifetime of opportunity to the young people who come to us.