CITTA DEL VATICANO
Bolletino

In fine mattinata la Sala Stampa della Santa Sede ha rilasciato la seguente dichiarazione:

Nella trasmissione "Gli Intoccabili" di La 7 di ieri, mercoledì 8 febbraio, sono state fatte affermazioni infondate e diffuse informazioni false sull’Istituto per le Opere di Religione e l’Autorità di Informazione Finanziaria.

Al riguardo, facendo seguito a quanto già specificato nella Dichiarazione della Sala Stampa della Santa Sede di ieri, 8 febbraio, si precisa quanto segue:

1. L’affermazione che lo I.O.R. è una banca non corrisponde a verità; lo I.O.R. è una Fondazione di diritto sia civile che canonico regolata da un proprio statuto; non mantiene riserve e non concede prestiti come una banca. Tanto meno è una "banca off-shore". Di fatto, nella citata trasmissione viene usato tale termine non per illustrare il vero carattere e la funzione dello I.O.R., ma per creare un’impressione di illegalità. Lo I.O.R. si trova all’interno di una giurisdizione sovrana e opera in un quadro normativo e regolamentare, che comprende anche la legge antiriciclaggio vaticana. Quest’ultima, la Legge CXXVII, è stata adottata proprio per essere in linea con gli standard internazionali.

[English translation via Vatican Information Service]

COMMUNIQUE ON CLAIMS IN AN ITALIAN TELEVISION PROGRAMME ABOUT THE IOR AND THE AIF

Vatican City, (VIS) - Given below is the text of a communique issued early this afternoon by the Holy See Press Office.

"The television programme, 'Gli intoccabili', transmitted yesterday evening by Italy's 'La7' television network, included unfounded claims and false information about the Institute for the Works of Religion and(IOR) and the Vatican Financial Information Authority.

"On this subject, and with reference to the declaration issued by the Holy See Press Office yesterday 8 February, the following points must be made:

"(1) The affirmation that the IOR is a bank is incorrect. The IOR is a foundation in both civil and canon law, regulated by its own statutes. It does not hold reserves or grant loans as a bank does. Even less so is it an 'offshore bank', and the aforementioned television programme used that term not to illustrate the true nature and function of the IOR but to create an impression of illegality. The IOR lies within a sovereign jurisdiction and operates on the basis of a framework of norms and rules which include the Vatican's anti-money laundering legislation: Law No. 127, adopted precisely in order to conform to international standards.

"(2) The insinuation that Vatican norms do not allow for investigations or criminal procedures regarding the period prior to the coming into force of Law No. 127 on 1 April 2011, is untrue.

"The discussion during the aforesaid programme referred to words contained in a 'private memo'. That document has no official value and merely reflects the opinions of the individual who wrote it. Moreover, it does not state that investigations or criminal procedures regarding the period prior to 1 April 2011 are impossible, or suggest that the IOR is unwilling to collaborate in investigations or criminal procedures on events prior to 1 April 2011. As regards cooperation between the IOR and the AIF, the IOR has cooperated in providing information on transactions that took place before that date.

"Therefore, the claims made during the programme are untrue. According to Vatican anti-money laundering norms, the Vatican judicial authorities have the power to investigate suspect transactions that took place during the period prior to 1 April 2011, also in the framework of international cooperation with judges in other States, including Italy.

"(3) Relations between the IOR and non-Italian banks have always been active and, contrary to the claims made, activity with Italian banks has been reduced only to a limited extent. The IOR, like Italian financial institutions, uses the services of foreign banks (Italian and non-Italian) when they are more efficient or cost less. Moreover, all movements in cash are certified with customs documents. As standard practice, all movements of money are regularly traced and archived.

"(4) As regards the norm regulating the movement of money in cash, it must be made clear that the IOR monitors, and has monitored, step transactions for a total of euro 15,000 in ten consecutive days. Furthermore, article 28 paragraph 1(b) of the new text of Law No. 127, modified by Decree of the President of the Governorate on 26 January 2012, states that the parties subject to that Law (including the IOR) must honour 'their obligation of adequate monitoring ... when they carry out occasional transactions the value of which is equal to or more than euro 15,000, irrespective of whether they are carried out in a single transaction or with a number of interconnected transactions'.

"(5) The affirmation made by the magistrate, Luca Tescaroli, according to which the Vatican failed to respond to rogatory letters concerning the case of the Banco Ambrosiano and Roberto Calvi, is untrue. On this subject, it must be made clear that there is no record of the rogatory letter of 2002 having reached the Vatican. Nor, following a preliminary search in the archives, is there any record of the international rogatory letter presented by the Tribunal of Rome in 2002 ever having reached the Italian embassy to the Holy See. The other two rogatory letters received a regular reply, addressed to the Italian embassy to the Holy See. As yesterday's declaration said, the Holy See and the Vatican authorities have duly cooperated with magistrates and other Italian authorities, and this is evident from documentation in the possession of officials both of the Holy See and of the Republic of Italy.

"The facts described above show that the presentation given in the aforementioned programme was biased and does not contribute to forming an objective picture of events".

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

New reply from the Vatican Press Office to the TV show ‘Gli Intoccabili' (The Untouchables). According to the Holy See the show shows only partial reconstructions of events

Vatican Insider Staff
Rome

It's one denial after another. Only a few hours after the note written by the Vatican to disclaim some information published in the last few days, in particular an article by the Italian daily newspaper L’Unità entitled “Money laundering. Four priests under investigation. The Vatican keeps quiet.” Father Lombardi talked once more about the IOR (the ‘Pope’s bank’) which was the main topic of the talk show “Gli Intoccabili” (The Untouchables) aired yesterday 8 February on the La7 television channel. The spokesman of the Vatican defined the show as ‘partial’ and said that in his opinion the show does not give an ‘objective picture of the realities it describes.’

“The IOR,” stated the Vatican Press office, “is not a bank. It is a foundation founded on civil and canonical law with its own regulations. It does not have reserve funds and does not lend money like a bank”. “It’s also not an off-shore bank –“ continued the statement released by the Vatican. In truth the television show used that expression not to illustrate the true character and function of the IOR, but to give a sense of unlawfulness. The IOR is under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state, the Vatican, and it operates within laws and regulations that include the new Vatican law against money laundering.” This rule, Law CXXVII was introduced by the Vatican to comply with international standards.

WISCONSIN
Fox 11

OSHKOSH - A trial to determine if a former priest should be committed as a sexual predator has been taken off the calendar, as a deal may be in the works.

Norbert Maday was convicted in Winnebago County in 1994 of sexually assaulting teenage boys. His criminal sentence has been completed for several years, but the state is trying to have him committed civilly as a sexual predator.

A trial on the issue was scheduled for Feb. 14, but the trial has been removed from Judge Daniel Bissett's calendar.

According to online court records, "parties agree that jury trial shall be taken off court calendar and a pretrial conference shall be scheduled to ascertain whether there is a mutually agreed upon settlement or if a jury trial will need to be rescheduled."

NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY KIBRET MARKOS
STAFF WRITER
The Record

A 64-year-old Teaneck rabbi was indicted on Wednesday on charges that he molested two 13-year-old boys at his home.

The indictment charges that Rabbi Uzi Rivlin made sexual contact with the two boys on several occasions in 2009 and 2010.

Authorities have said the boys were visiting from Israel and stayed at the rabbi's home during two summers as part of a scholarship program Rivlin had helped set up. Rivlin also was a teacher at the Temple Beth Abraham in Tarrytown, N.Y., they said.

Bergen County prosecutors said that after the boys returned to Israel, they complained separately to Israeli authorities that Rivlin had molested them.

TEANECK (NJ)
Patch

By Patch Staff

A Teaneck rabbi was indicted Wednesday on charges he sexually abused two boys who were visiting from Israel as part of a scholarship program, northjersey.com reported.

Rabbi Uzi Rivlin, 64, was arrested in August after the FBI alerted Teaneck and Bergen County investigators to the sexual abuse allegations, authorities said at the time. The two boys first made separate complaints to Israeli police, prosecutors said.

Rivlin, who is married, met the boys through the Scholarship Fund for the Advancement of Children in Israel, which he partly sponsored, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office said. The program brings children from Israel to stay in the United States over the summer.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 09, 2012

Two US experts told Vatican officials yesterday that roughly 100,000 boys and girls in America have been sexually violated by Catholic priests. We believe that this is a very low estimate, especially since there are an estimated 6,000 predator priests in the US. (see: BishopAccountability.org )

This is almost ten times the estimate that has been offered by US bishops for the past six or seven years. It’s a dreadfully sobering figure. Our hearts ache for these wounded men, women, teens and children.

We hope that this staggering estimate prods secular authorities to step up their efforts to expose child molesting clerics and the corrupt church officials who continue to move and hide and protect and enable them.

ROM
Die Presse

Mehr als 100 Bischöfe nehmen bis Donnerstag an der Konferenz "Heilung und Erneuerung" in der Gregoriana-Universität in Rom teil. Benedikt XVI. fordert den effektiven Schutz und Hilfe für die Opfer.

Zum Auftakt einer Konferenz der katholischen Kirche zum Thema Kindesmissbrauch hat Papst Benedikt XVI. eine "tiefgehende Erneuerung" der Kirche gefordert. Die "Heilung" der Opfer müsse für die christliche Gemeinschaft von größter Bedeutung sein und Hand in Hand mit einer Erneuerung der Kirche "auf allen Ebenen" gehen, hieß es in einem Grußwort des Papstes an die Teilnehmer der am Montag in Rom begonnenen Konferenz. Benedikt XVI. mahnte in der vom Vatikan veröffentlichten Botschaft zudem eine "rigorose Kultur des effektiven Schutzes und der Hilfe für Opfer" an.

DEUTSCHLAND
Wolfaburger Allgemeine

Der wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs vor dem Landgericht Braunschweig angeklagte katholische Priester ist am Donnerstag zu sechs Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Der 46-Jährige hatte zugegeben, sich zwischen 2004 und 2011 in 280 Fällen an drei Jungen zwischen neun und 15 Jahren vergangen zu haben. Bedeutsam für das Urteil sind 250 Taten. Der Pfarrer war früher auch in Wolfsburg tätig gewesen.

In 214 Fällen liegt laut Gericht ein schwerer sexueller Missbrauch von Kindern vor. Allein 229 Taten richteten sich gegen ein einziges Opfer. Nach Angaben des Vorsitzenden Richters, Manfred Teiwes, gründet sich das Urteil vor allem auf das Geständnis des Angeklagten, das durch Zeugenaussagen untermauert wurde. „Der Angeklagte hat bei allen Opfern und ihren Eltern einen besonderen Vertrauensvorschuss missbraucht, der auch in seinem Priesteramt begründet lag“, sagte Teiwes.

DEUTSCHLAND
Nord Bayern

Würzburg - Ein 56 Jahre alter Priester hat den Druck seines schlechten Gewissens nicht länger ausgehalten und gestanden: Jahrelang habe er den kleinen Sohn seiner Haushälterin sexuell missbraucht. Nun hat die Würzburger Staatsanwaltschaft Anklage erhoben.

Weil er den kleinen Sohn seiner Haushälterin jahrelang missbraucht haben soll, soll ein 56 Jahre alter katholischer Priester vor Gericht gestellt werden. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Würzburg erhob Anklage wegen sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs, wie der Leitende Oberstaatsanwalt Dietrich Geuder mitteilte. Der Priester hatte sich im März 2011 dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten des Deutschen Ordens in Mainz offenbart und sich selbst angezeigt.

ROM
Spiegel (Deutschland)

Von Hans-Jürgen Schlamp

Zu Tausenden sind Kinder und Jugendliche von katholischen Priestern missbraucht worden. Auf einem Kongress in Rom wollen ranghohe Kirchenleute aus aller Welt zusammen mit Wissenschaftlern nun die über Jahrzehnte begangenen Verbrechen aufarbeiten. Das Ergebnis dürfte enttäuschend sein.

Die Kirchenoberen sind, trotz allen göttlichen Beistands in sonstigen Fragen, bei diesem Thema ratlos. Seit Jahren brechen immer neue Enthüllungen über den sexuellen Missbrauch Jugendlicher und Kinder in der Sakristei, im katholischen Internat oder auch im Ferienheim über sie herein. Und sie wissen nicht, was sie tun sollen.

ROM
Zeit (Deutchland)

Erstmals befasst sich der Vatikan öffentlich mit Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegen Amtsträger. Doch die italienischen Bischöfe vertuschen immer noch viele Fälle.

Im öffentlichen Leben Italiens genießen katholische Würdenträger immer noch hohes Ansehen. Entsprechend schwer tut sich die Kirche mit der Aufarbeitung sexuellen Missbrauchs innerhalb der Glaubensgemeinschaft. Doch so langsam tut sich was: In den Gemeinden würden Missbrauchsfälle immer weniger verschwiegen, sagte neulich auch Charles J. Scicluna, Chefankläger der vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation, der italienischen Presseagentur AGI.

UNITED STATES
Irish Central

By
ANTOINETTE KELLY,
IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Thursday, February 9, 2012

A former New York Cardinal has come under fire after admitting he regrets apologizing over the sex abuse scandal in his diocese.

Former Cardinal Edward Egan, who was at the center of the priest abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, told Connecticut Magazine that he believes there is no legal requirement for reporting abuse cases in Connecticut.

Referring to his original apology, the former bishop of Bridgepoint said, "first of all, I should have never said that".

"I did say if we did anything wrong, I'm sorry, but I don't think we did anything wrong."

UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk|Feb 9, 2012

In the year 355, as Christianity was in the process of becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, the imperial brothers Constans and Constantius II issued an edict prohibiting bishops from being haled into civil court ("lest there should be an unrestrained opportunity for fanatical spirits to accuse them"). This privilege, which was extended to all clergy in 412, placed responsibility for handling complaints against church hierarchs with the hierarchs themselves, and not surprisingly the hierarchs have cherished it devoutly ever since. With some notable exceptions (viz. Henry II of England), civil authorities over the centuries have also tended to respect it.

Until the past year, that is. For the first time, prosecutors in the U.S. (Philadelphia, Kansas City) have begun to file criminal complaints against high church officials for failing to report allegations of sexual abuse by clergy to the civil authorities. This has led their stalwart condottiero Bill Donohue to take up arms against such fanatical spirits as the Kansas City Star and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests ("anti-Catholic") and Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti of Philadelphia ("malicious"). For its part, the Vatican seems to have come to the realization that the Constantinian dispensation is finally at an end.

At least that's how I read the public remarks of the Holy See's own chief prosecutor, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, at the conference on the sexual abuse crisis in Rome yesterday. Decrying the bishops' Mafia-like code of silence (yes, omertà was the word he used), Scicluna announced that they should not consider themselves beyond the reach of discipline for failing to abide by official protocols for the handling of abuse cases. As NCR's John Allen reported:

Scicluna said there are actually already provisions in church law to sanction bishops for “negligence and malice in exercising one’s duties,” suggesting this provision should be more strenuously applied. (He appeared to be referring to canon 128 of the Code of Canon Law, which reads: “Whoever illegitimately inflicts damage upon someone by a juridic act or by any other act placed with malice or negligence is obliged to repair the damage inflicted.”)

CANADA
National Post

Father Tim Moyle Feb 9, 2012

I noted with sadness the other day obituaries published in the wake of the death of Angelo Dundee, the man who trained Muhammad Ali to become heavyweight boxing champion of the world more than once. From the ‘float like a butterfly’ days of his early victories over Sonny Liston and Joe Frasier, to the ‘rope-a-dope’ tactics that felled the Goliath George Foreman, all the way to the spanking of Leon Spinks, Dundee guided Ali to victory after victory. Those epic contests of brawn and will captured the attention and admiration of the world like no other sporting event, lifting Ali to a status unmatched as a global icon. And he couldn’t have done it without Dundee.

Given the body shots that the Roman Catholic Church has been absorbing through the ‘Long Lent’ of the sex abuse scandals, Angelo would be a welcome voice at the current Vatican conference designed to share best practices and protocols throughout the Church. Seeming to reel after being pummeled by the multiple revelations of clergy malfeasance, the faithful in Canada can ill afford to receive any below the belt shots as she has suffered at the hands of some who are trying to knock them out of the fight altogether.

Such is the case recently on a Canadian blog dedicated to exposing these scandals and the indolent manner in which they have been handled by bishops in times past. Springing out of the Cornwall Abuses allegations and Inquiry in the 1990’s, its author Sylvia MacEachern has successfully held Canadian bishops feet to the fire to ensure they put into practice the justice they promise to bring to wounded victims. She’s been an effective ‘cut-man’ in the Church’s corner. However, she may have crossed a line recently with recent allegations she has published involving a Maritime bishop and a local accused priest.

Bishop Robert Harris of St. John, New Brunswick is accused on the blog of placing the city’s children at risk by not directly taking to the priest’s parish to indicate that he was being removed due to allegations of child abuse. Instead, he fulfilled both the letter and spirit of Church protocol for removing any accused cleric from office and public ministry. Bishop Harris chose to do so without inflicting a body blow to the priest’s reputation that comes with the taint of scandal until a complete police investigation was conducted. He permitted the priest to step aside on leave for ‘personal reasons’ which preserved the priest’s reputation and the safety of the congregation’s children. Any priest in such a situation is denied the right to publicly minister or celebrate the sacraments effectively removing his from coming into contact with children throughout the Diocese.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Father Lombardi answers those who cast doubts over the Vatican’s will to be transparent.”We are working together with Italian authorities”. The Public Prosecutor office in Rome says “ several millions euro have been transferred abroad”

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

On the 8th of February, a few minutes before the La7 TV-channel aired an episode of the talk-show “The untouchables” (Gli Intoccabili) the first half of which was dedicated to the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion) commonly called the “Pope’s bank”, The Vatican intervened to disclaim some information published in last few days, in particular an article of the newspaper L’Unità (The Unity). Father Federico Lombardi in a note that included the name of the journalist responsible declared that “The article entitled ‘Money laundering. Four priests under investigation. The Vatican keeps quiet about the checks’ shows a serious lack of diligence in the research done by the author”.

L’Unità, discussing the cases of priests investigated by the Italian judiciary system for mobilizing large sums of money which were held in Italian bank accounts linked to the Ior, claimed (just like the La7 talk show did in the evening of the 8th) that the AIF, the Vatican internal information authority for the inspection of financial activities, created by the Vatican itself to comply with the new European laws against money laundering and headed by Cardinal Attilio Nicora, did not give any answers to the Bank of Italy, except in one case.

ROME
The Associated Press

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — A top Asian church official told a Vatican-backed conference on fighting priestly sex abuse Thursday that a culture of silence prevalent on the continent has kept many victims from coming forward, as concerns rise that Asia may be the next ground zero in the abuse scandal.

Monsignor Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila, Philippines, said deference to church authorities in places like the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Philippines may also have contributed to keeping a lid on reports. He said more and more victims have come forward in the past five years in the Philippines, but that incidents of priests keeping mistresses still far outpace reports of priests preying on children.

Tagle addressed the conference, which is aimed at helping bishops and religious superiors around the world craft guidelines on how to care for victims and keep abusers out of the priesthood. The Vatican has set a May deadline for the policies to be submitted for review.

Tagle's presentation made clear that the sex abuse scandal — which first erupted in Ireland in the 1990s, the United States in 2002, and Europe at large in 2010 — hadn't yet reached Asia. But the concern is very real that it might: In November, the federation of Asian bishops' conferences said the church has to take "drastic and immediate measures" to contain the problem before it gets out of hand.

ROME
Inquirer (Philippines)

VATICAN CITY—The Catholic Church in Asia has a “pressing need” for rules against child abuse by priests as the issue has been hidden by “a culture of shame,” the archbishop of Manila said on Thursday.

“There is a pressing need to formulate national pastoral guidelines for handling such cases,” Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle said on the final day of a summit on the clergy abuse scandals at the Vatican’s Gregorian University.

“The relative silence with which the victims and Asian Catholics face the scandal is partly due to the culture of shame that holds dearly one’s humanity, honor and dignity,” Tagle told bishops and cardinals from around the world.

Tagle said Asian Catholics had initially looked on the scandals as a problem “mainly tied to Western cultures.”

ITALIA
la Repubblica

MILANO - Lo Ior, Istituto per le opere di religione non è più cliente di banche italiane ed ha trasferito gran parte delle proprie attività finanziarie in Germania, da circa un anno, ossia da quando Bankitalia ha imposto agli istituti di credito di considerarlo alla stregua di una banca extracomunitaria. Il progressivo azzeramento dell'operatività (nove gli istituti di credito italiani con i quali lo Ior era in rapporti, tra i quali Unicredit e Intesa), è emerso dall'esame dei rapporti finanziari acquisiti dalla procura di Roma nell'ambito dell'inchiesta su presunte attività di riciclaggio legate ad operazioni avviate dalla banca vaticana. Inchiesta scaturita dal maxisequestro di 23 milioni di euro (settembre 2010) dello Ior ritenuti dalla procura oggetto di una movimentazione caratterizzata da omissioni punite dalle norme antiriciclaggio.

ITALIA
L'Expresso

“Gli intoccabili” hanno colpito ancora. La trasmissione di Gianluigi Nuzzi su “la 7″ che ha già fatto tremare le autorità vaticane rendendo pubbliche le lettere d’accusa dell’attuale nunzio a Washington Carlo Maria Viganò, è tornata la sera di mercoledì 8 febbraio a chiamare in causa l’Istituto per le Opere di Religione.

L’ha fatto sulla scia di un articolo di Angela Camuso uscito la mattina stessa su “L’Unità”:

> Riciclaggio, quattro preti indagati. I silenzi del Vaticano sui controlli

Nella tarda serata dello stesso 8 febbraio, la sala stampa vaticana ha replicato con la dichiarazione riportata qui di seguito.

Là dove vi si legge che lo IOR “ha fornito informazioni anche al di fuori dei canali formali” ai magistrati italiani l’allusione è all’interrogatorio spontaneo al quale si è sottoposto il 30 settembre 2011 il presidente della banca vaticana, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. La sua rinuncia alle procedure di rogatoria internazionale tra Stati esteri fu molto criticata dalle autorità vaticane.

ROME
Guardian Media (Trinidad)

A call has come from within the Catholic Church for trained secular authorities to be the ones to make a determination on whether or not allegations of sexual abuse against priests are sufficiently founded in reality to warrant investigation and possible prosecution. Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a psychologist who ran a centre for ten years in the United States attempting to cure priests of their abusive patterns of sexual behaviour, told a conference on the subject in the Vatican Tuesday that priests, like alcoholics, lie, con, manipulate when confronted with allegations of sexual abuse.

“There are false allegations to be sure and it is critical to restore a priest’s good name when he has been cleared, but decades of experience tell us that the vast majority of allegations—over 95 per cent—are founded,” Monsignor Rossetti told reporters at a news conference in Rome. To better ensure that the allegations against the priests are exposed to people who are not disposed to protecting the church and fellow priests, Monsignor Rossetti says trained civil authorities, not bishops, should make decisions having heard the allegations. The Vatican is decidedly against going civil, preferring to leave it to the discernment of bishops to decide on whether or not to go forward with the allegations. Surely, while the Vatican has responsibility over the priests within the church, sexual abuse of young boys by men (whatever their vocation) falls squarely with civil authorities. Therefore, the monsignor, based on his understanding of abusive priests and his knowledge of psychology, prefers professionals to make the determination.

ROME
Huffington Post

February 9, 2012

ROME — A top Asian church official has told a Vatican-backed conference on priestly sex abuse that a culture of silence prevalent on the continent has kept many victims from coming forward, as concerns rise that Asia may be the next ground zero in the abuse scandal.

The archbishop of Manila, Philippines, Luis Antonio Tagle, said a widespread deference to the church in places like the Philippines may also have kept a lid on reports. He said more and more people have come forward in the past five years, but that reports of priests keeping mistresses still far outpace reports of pedophiles.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Thursday February 09 2012

Those Fine Gael TDs who have been loud in their protestations on the decision last year to close the Irish embassy in the Vatican need to get some backbone.

They are worried that they may lose their seats in the next General Election, with traditional Catholic votes in rural Ireland going elsewhere. They have not that many options of political parties to move to.

There are Irish Catholics who were not happy with the closure, but I don't think it is permanent. It may be re-opened in the next few years, after some rapprochement between the country and the Vatican -- and it is the Vatican, not the Government, that has the making-up to do.

ROME
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 9, 2012 / 03:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor says the Church should fight against a culture of silence as it combats the “sad phenomenon” of sexual abuse in society.

“The teaching of Blessed John Paul II that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence or 'omertà' is in itself wrong and unjust,” said Monsignor Charles J. Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Feb 8.

“Omertà” is a term that describes the code of silence practiced by members of the Mafia.

The 52-year-old Maltese cleric was addressing the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium being hosted the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from Feb 6-9. The gathering has brought together over 140 representatives from bishops' conferences and 30 religious orders worldwide.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Nick Bramhill

Thursday February 09 2012

HOPES that the Pope will travel to Ireland this year have been raised after Cardinal Sean Brady said the timing is right.

The Primate of All Ireland said he is hopeful that the first papal visit for more than 30 years would take place in 2012.

Last weekend, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, downplayed the prospect of a visit by Pope Benedict.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 9 February 2012 (VIS) - The Holy See Press Office has issued a communique rejecting claims made in an article entitled "Money Laundering: Four Priests under Investigation. The Silence of the Vatican" which appeared yesterday in the Italian newspaper "L'Unita". Extracts from the communique are given below.

"The article ... unfortunately reveals a considerable lack of serious research by the author.

"We must begin by making two introductory observations. The title of the article refers to silence on the part of the Vatican. ... This is completely groundless because the Holy See and the authorities of the Vatican have duly cooperated with magistrates and other Italian authorities. The claims made in the article are merely a reworking of past criticisms. ... They are, in fact, 'recycled' accusations which the same journalist has already published on a number of occasions in the past. Repeating them once again does not make them true; rather, we must ask ourselves whether the article was not intended as a kind of advertisement for an evening television show.

"As to the contents of the article, we must clarify the following".

"The principal accusation is that the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) has been involved in illegal activity and that is has failed to assist the Italian authorities who were pursuing these individuals" (the alleged money launderers).

ROME/IRELAND
Independent Catholic News (United Kingdom)

Addressing an International Conference on the Sexual Abuse of Children within the Catholic Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome yesterday, Baroness Sheila Hollins stated that very few victims had counselling or therapy, saying: “In Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy. It is believed that very few had received an apology and hardly any had received compensation. But in my experience the lack of an admission of guilt and of an apology is usually the biggest barrier to healing and recovery”.

The Church media office responded by saying: This statement grossly misrepresents the reality and extent of the ongoing outreach to survivors by Irish bishops and religious congregations which exists through the Church’s all-island Towards Healing counselling service.

The Towards Healing service (formerly known as Faoiseamh), now jointly funded by bishops and religious congregations, provides confidential counselling and other support services to survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse with independent and fully accredited therapists. Counselling is offered to survivors within seven days after their initial contact with Towards Healing.

Since 1997, Towards Healing has provided counselling and other support services to over 5,000 survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse, involving 250,000 separate sessions. In 2011 alone there were 29,000 counselling sessions delivered to survivors and the figure annually is over 20,000. In addition, the Towards Healing service offers group therapy, and a bridging service designed to facilitate survivors accessing other statutory and/or non-statutory services appropriate to their needs, such as psychiatry, services for the homeless, medical, dental, welfare and educational services.

NEDERLAND
Friesch Dagblad

Hengelo | De Klachtencommissie van het Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik RKK heeft de klachten van negen voormalige misdienaars van de parochie Albergen gegrond verklaard. Verder vindt de klachtencommissie dat de Aartsbisschop van Utrecht, het kerkbestuur van de parochie Albergen en kardinaal Simons het leed van de slachtoffers moeten erkennen, verontschuldigingen moeten aanbieden en spijt moeten betuigen.

Dat is bekendgemaakt door letselschadespecialist Yme Drost uit Hengelo, die de negen slachtoffers bijstaat.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

By Paolo Gambi on Thursday, 9 February 2012

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Borgias have returned to the Vatican. Consider what has happened in the past few weeks: a fierce internal battle in the Roman Curia has spilled into the public square.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, is desperately trying to defend his position while being besieged by many who want him to resign. His enemies appear to be led by the “old guard” who were ousted after the departure of Cardinal Bertone’s predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

The “Viganò affair” – in which letters alleging internal corruption written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, then a Vatican official, were leaked – is just the tip of the iceberg. But the affair shows the preferred weapons in this fight: smear campaigns in the Italian media, confidential letters sent to anti-clerical journalists and damaging behind-the-scenes gossip. Those who were hindered by Archbishop Viganò’s tight financial controls and by his campaign against corruption used the media to seek his removal. When Archbishop Viganò was removed his confidential letters were leaked, creating an international scandal.

IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

Statement from the Catholic Communications Office February 8th

Addressing an International Conference on the Sexual Abuse of children within the Catholic Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome yesterday, Baroness Sheila Hollins stated that very few victims had counselling or therapy, saying, “In Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy. It is believed that very few had received an apology and hardly any had received compensation. But in my experience the lack of an admission of guilt and of an apology is usually the biggest barrier to healing and recovery”.

This statement grossly misrepresents the reality and extent of the ongoing outreach to survivors by Irish bishops and religious congregations which exists through the Church’s all-island Towards Healing counselling service.

The Towards Healing service (formerly known as Faoiseamh), now jointly funded by bishops and religious congregations, provides confidential counselling and other support services to survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse with independent and fully accredited therapists. Counselling is offered to survivors within seven days after their initial contact with Towards Healing.

Since 1997, Towards Healing has provided counselling and other support services to over 5,000 survivors of clerical, religious and institutional abuse, involving 250,000 separate sessions. In 2011 alone there were 29,000 counselling sessions delivered to survivors and the figure annually is over 20,000. In addition, the Towards Healing service offers group therapy, and a bridging service designed to facilitate survivors accessing other statutory and/or non-statutory services appropriate to their needs, such as psychiatry, services for the homeless, medical, dental, welfare and educational services.

IRELAND
RTE News

Irish Catholic bishops have accused a member of the Vatican's investigation team here of grossly misrepresenting the Irish Church's ongoing outreach to clerical child sexual abuse survivors.

A statement from the hierarchy last night rejected comments by Baroness Sheila Hollins at an international conference in Rome on the sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church.

Psychiatrist Baroness Hollins had remarked that "in Ireland it is said that very few victims have had any counselling or therapy".

Ms Hollins is one of four people appointed by Pope Benedict to investigate abuse in the Archdiocese of Armagh, where she has met dozens of survivors.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Daily Beast

Christine Pelisek

The school district faces a legal crisis as more students come forward with horrifying allegations against an elementary teacher, Christine Pelisek reports.

As more schoolchildren come forward with allegations of sexual abuse, and lawsuits begin to mount, the question on everyone’s mind is why 61-year-old Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt wasn’t arrested earlier. What is more clear, however, is that the Los Angeles Unified School District faces a day of reckoning not unlike what happened with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles. ...

Assuming the horrific allegations are true, “they face massive litigation and there will be a settlement for many victims, and that is a foregone conclusion,” said John E.B. Myers, a professor at Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, who studies abuse cases. “It is similar to the Catholic Church.”

The church sexual-abuse scandal destroyed the reputation of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney and led to the largest civil settlement by any archdiocese—an astounding $660 million in 2007. Myers estimates that the second-largest school district in the nation could also wind up paying out millions to Berndt’s alleged victims.

ROME
Malta Today

Matthew Vella

The Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mgr Charles Scicluna, has called on the Catholic Church to set a good example on the sad phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

The Maltese prelate, 52, was addressing a three-day symposium at the Pontifical Gregorian University on the Church's approach to child abuse by clerics. For ten years, Scicluna has worked with Joseph Ratzinger to fight the phenomenon of child abuse.

Scicluna called for greater collaboration with civil authorities, a bone of contention in Malta where sex abuse allegations heard by the Maltese church's response team are not forwarded to the police by the archdiocese.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L ALLEN JR.
Rome

Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila in the Philippines spoke today at the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium, a four-day summit at the sexual abuse crisis held at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University and cosponsored by a variety of Vatican departments. Tagle traced some features of Asian culture that make both the understanding of sexual abuse, and the church’s response to it, different from Western trajectories.

Tagle said that silence often surrounds the issue of sexual abuse in Asia, related to cultural notions of honor and shame, not just for oneself but also one’s family. He also suggested that some features of Asian Catholicity may facilitate abuse, such as an exalted understanding of a priest’s authority and spiritual status.

Without denying that abuse of minors is a problem in Asia too, Tagle said that to date, there are relatively few reported cases – less, he said, than clergy caught in illicit affairs with adult women. He also said that many victims of clerical abuse in Asia still prefer to handle the situation quietly, inside the church, as opposed to making a formal legal complaint with civil authorities.

MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Sex abuse suit filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings

Written by
KIMBALL BENNION

A third lawsuit alleging abuse by Catholic clergy in Montana was filed Wednesday morning in Great Falls — this time from 10 plaintiffs alleging sexual assault by priests from within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

The only named plaintiff in the case, Timothy Becker, alleged that the Rev. Ted Szudera, who until last month was in active ministry in Stanford, abused him in 1978 and 1979 while Szudera was a priest in Livingston. Becker said in an interview Wednesday that he attended St. Mary's Catholic School and the St. Mary parish in Livingston growing up, and that the alleged abuse occurred both in the church and in the school.

The Great Falls-Billings Diocese denied the allegations against Szudera, saying that an earlier accusation against Szudera brought to the church by Becker in 2006 was deemed unfounded after the diocese hired a private investigator to look into the allegation.

The Rev. Jay Peterson, vicar general for the Great Falls-Billings Diocese, said the other allegations set forth in the lawsuit were never brought to the church's attention.

UNITED STATES
Forbes

John McQuaid, Contributor

Cardinal Edward Egan says he didn’t really mean it when he apologized a decade ago, as Bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., for sexual abuse committed by priests in his diocese, and the media is taking note.

But actually, that’s not really true. Egan, the retired Archbishop of New York, sitting so high in the saddle of his high horse that he must be feeling a bit light-headed, was not retracting an earlier apology. He was clarifying that it was never an apology at all. Rather, it was a non-apology apology: a bit of rhetorical legerdemain designed to appease critics while conceding nothing.

“CT Magazine: In 2002, you wrote a letter to parishioners in which you said, “If in hindsight we discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

EGAN: First of all, I should never have said that. I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong. But I hate to go back over this. I think there’s more to life than that one issue, especially when I had no cases.

MONTANA
KFBB

[with video]

By Rachel Ousley

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings has not been officially served today, but they are aware that ten plaintiffs have filed suit accusing members of the Catholic Church all over eastern Montana of sexual and physical abuse.

Lead attorney, Tim Kosnoff has been handling sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church for the last 16 years. After cases he handled in Washington and Oregon, more and more people are stepping forward to share their stories. Kosnoff describes the sexual abuse in Montana as the worst he has seen so far. He believes the plaintiffs in this lawsuit are just the tip of the iceberg. He explains, “we're talking about the rape and sodomy of 8, 9, 10, 11 year old boys and girls by Roman Catholic clergy, often accompanied by acts of physical abuse”.

Timothy Becker is one of the plaintiffs in this case. He was born in Billings, Montana, but spent most of his childhood living in Livingston, MT. It was here that he attended St. Mary’s Catholic School and trained as an alter boy at the parish. In the lawsuit, Becker accuses Father Ted Szudera of sexually abusing him when he was just fifteen years old.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Lawyers for the Philadelphia cleric accused of enabling priests to sexually abuse boys have asked the trial judge to step down, saying she compromised her impartiality when she said anyone who doubted there was "widespread" child abuse in the Catholic Church "is living on another planet."

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina's remark during a hearing last week suggested she "harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives," the attorneys for Msgr. William J. Lynn argued in a motion filed Wednesday.

"Perhaps the court actually bears no biases. But that does not matter," lawyers Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote. "What does matter is that the public's confidence in the court's impartiality is demonstrably undermined."

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BY SISTER MAUREEN PAUL TURLISH

FOR THE first time in this country, a high-ranking clergyman - Msgr. William Lynn, the former vicar of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia - will be tried on criminal charges for putting children in danger because of his "alleged" mishandling of priests known or credibly accused of the sexual exploitation of children.

No bishop or high-ranking church official in the United States has ever been held criminally responsible for facilitating or enabling the sexual exploitation of a child, but that is about to change with the March opening of Lynn's criminal trial.

It remains to be seen, however, what effect Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's death will have on the admissibility of information contained in testimony videotaped in preparation for the trial.

Testimony from Bevilacqua's 10 grand jury appearances relating to the sexual abuse of children and the subsequent cover-up continue to be under seal.

CANADA
CJME

[The Inquiry]

Reported by Bre McAdam

A devout Catholic is using the web to warn others about molestation and corruption within her religion.

Sylvia MacEachern chronicles the lives of Canadian priests accused or convicted of sexual abuse and one of the men on her website is former Saskatoon priest Father Hodgson Marshall.

Marshall is already serving time in a Kingston Ontario jail for 17 convictions of sexual abuse against young boys. Now the 89-year-old is facing two more charges of abusing boys at Saint Paul’s Catholic High School in Saskatoon over 50 years ago.

The two alleged victims are in their sixties now but they were only 14 when they say they were sexually abused by Marshall.

UNITED KINGDOM
Post

Local authority, church and legal expenses insurers have a role to play in sexual abuse litigation. However, government reform and 
a recent legal ruling may see this change.

By Francis Higney

Few crimes tug at the heart strings more than child sex abuse, with harrowing cases being aired in the media almost every day.

Last month, Nigel Leat, 51, was jailed indefinitely for abusing children at Hillside First School in Weston-super-Mare. Leat, of Bloomfield Road in Bristol, admitted 36 sexual offences at Bristol Crown Court in May 2011.

A serious case review was commissioned after Leat's 2010 arrest at the instigation of the North Somerset Safeguarding Children Board. The review identified 20 pupils who were witnesses or victims of abuse by Leat, describing the failure of the school management as "lamentable". The report revealed that 30 incidents were witnessed by staff but only 11 reported to the headteacher, Chris Hood, who failed to pass the concerns to the local education authority.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Alleged victims of Bernie Fine to urge lawmakers to open litigation window for sexual abuse cases

By Michael O'keeffe / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Two men who say they were molested by Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim’s longtime assistant will appear at a press conference in Albany later this month to urge lawmakers to pass a bill that would open a one-year window for sexual abuse victims to file civil litigation.

Former Orange ball boys Bobby Davis and Michael Lang will appear in Albany on Feb. 28 to support Assemblywoman Margaret Markey’s Child Victims Act.

The Feb. 28 event, which kicks off a three-day campaign by Markey to raise support for her bill, will focus on sexual abuse in youth sports. Kevin Mulhearn, the attorney who represents nine men who have filed a lawsuit that claims Poly Prep Country Day school officials covered up sexual abuse by the private school’s football coach, Phil Foglietta, has also been invited to the Albany event.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 8, 2012

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee will argue Thursday in court that victims of clergy sexual abuse had enough information on the church's handling of cases to have filed fraud claims years earlier, according to newly unsealed documents in the archdiocese's bankruptcy.

The archdiocese, which has consistently denied wrongdoing in its handling of abuse cases, will argue the statute of limitations expired before those victims stepped forward.

The argument is among several raised by lawyers for the archdiocese in motions seeking to bar claims by three victim-survivors who allege they were abused by parish priests and a choir director in the 1970s and '80s.

The attorney for the creditors committee has characterized the church's strategy as a test case that, if successful, could be used to throw out the vast majority of the 550-plus claims filed in the bankruptcy.

MISSOURI
News-Press

Kim Norvell
St. Joseph News-Press
On Twitter: @KimNorvell

A civil suit has been filed against a former St. Joseph priest who was removed from public ministry last June.

The Rev. James Urbanic has been accused of molesting a boy in the mid-1970s at St. Francis Xavier, where he was the associate pastor, and at Bishop LeBlond High School, where he was a religion teacher. The victim was a student.

The priest was removed from active ministry by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and the Missionaries of the Precious Blood after two victims, including the one who filed suit Wednesday, came forward with allegations that were found to be credible. In June, Rev. Urbanic acknowledged the abuse in a statement, stating “early in my priesthood I acted inappropriately.”

ROME
The Kansas City Star

By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A Vatican prosecutor bluntly warned Catholic bishops Wednesday that they could be disciplined if they do not follow church law and standards when managing priests who have abused children.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, who handles sex crime prosecutions for the Vatican, told reporters that bishops would be held accountable under church law for how they deal with abusive clerics.

“It is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one’s duty,” Scicluna told journalists, according to an Associated Press report. “I’m not saying that we should start punishing everybody for any negligence in his duties. But … it is not acceptable that when there are set standards, people do not follow the set standards.”

It’s a familiar topic for Catholics in Kansas City, where Bishop Robert W. Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are facing misdemeanor charges in Jackson County for purportedly not reporting suspicions of child abuse by the Rev. Shawn Ratigan.

NEW YORK
The Citizen

Justin Murphy / The Citizen | Posted: Thursday, February 9, 2012

A review board within the Roman Catholic Church's Diocese of Rochester has upheld child sexual abuse charges against Dennis Shaw, the former Holy Family priest who was removed from his position at the Auburn church in late 2010.

The review board, composed of laymen and clergy members was tasked with reviewing an earlier investigation into alleged abuse dating to the late 1970s and early 1980s when Shaw was pastor at the now-closed St. Francis of Assisi Church in Rochester.

It unanimously found the allegations to be "credible and true," according to a release from the diocese that was read Sunday at Holy Family. The release also disclosed some new details about the alleged abuse. It specifies that Shaw allegedly abused two boys under 16 years old.

ROME
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

IRISH CLERICAL sex abuse survivor Marie Collins yesterday suggested that her attendance of this week’s “Towards Healing And Renewal” conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome has represented a “huge changing point” for her.

Speaking on a day when the Holy See’s promoter of justice, Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, made reference to the “deadly culture of silence or omertà” that has pervaded the Catholic Church’s reaction to the sex abuse crisis, Ms Collins said: “It has been a huge changing point for me personally for how I feel about the church. I came here quite suspicious, quite cynical, wondering if there was sincerity about this.

“I listened to Monsignor Scicluna this morning and I felt everything he said was very clear, very direct.

“Any bishop listening to him could not have been under any misapprehension about what he was saying about reporting, about putting in place guidelines, about secrecy, about everything that we survivors have been asking for.”

MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

Justice for half century of clergy child sex crimes and cover up may well be determined in Milwaukee bankruptcy court Thursday

Archbishop Listecki, waging the most aggressive legal campaign against victims in US, seeking to bar 540 victims from federal court

Victim claims to Judge Kelley likely detail thousands of individual felony sex crimes and dozens of previously unidentified clerical abusers

WHAT
In Federal Bankruptcy Court on Thursday, February 9, Judge Susan V. Kelley will hear arguments from church lawyers who, at the instruction of Archbishop Jerome Listecki, will seek to dismiss the claims of nearly 540 victims of clergy sexual assault. These record number of claims for a single US court action concerning abusive clergy, likely detail thousands of individual acts of rape and sexual assault by dozens of clergy working or living in the Milwaukee Archdiocese and span several decades. Many of these offenders were routinely concealed or transferred by church officials, and were known to be a danger to children by several Milwaukee archbishops.

More detail on Thursday’s hearing and the motions, can be found in SNAP Milwaukee’s February 7th media advisory.

WHEN
Thursday February 9th, the court hearing is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. SNAP leaders and victim/survivors will be available for comment following the conclusion of the court proceedings.

WHERE
The U.S. Federal Courthouse, 517 East Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee

KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

By GLENN E. RICE
The Kansas City Star

A man who alleges that a Catholic priest sexually abused him decades ago filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the priest, his religious order and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The plaintiff, who is a now a police officer living in another state, alleges that the Rev. James Urbanic sexually abused him in the mid-1970s while he was a student at Bishop LeBlond High School in St. Joseph. Urbanic was pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in St. Joseph and taught religion at the school.

Last summer, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood removed Urbanic from his duties after it received what it said were credible allegations of sexual improprieties against two minors in the mid-1970s.

Diocesan spokeswoman Rebecca Summers said the diocese had not received the lawsuit, which was filed in Buchanan County, and could not comment about specific allegations. Summers said after Urbanic was removed from his duties, priests from the Precious Blood order visited each parish where he had served. Those included St. Francis Xavier, St. James in Liberty and Sacred Heart in Warrensburg.

UTAH
Deseret News

Geoff Liesik, Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, Feb. 8 2012

DUCHESNE — A judge has ordered an LDS Church bishop to stand trial on charges of witness tampering and failure to report abuse.

But the defense attorney for Bishop Gordon Moon called the judge's order "a far cry from a ringing endorsement of the prosecution's case."

"I think anyone who reads the bindover order can see that," attorney David Leavitt said Wednesday. "From our perspective, the bindover was something we expected because the burden of proof is so low."

Moon, 43, is accused of failing to notify police about a 17-year-old girl's disclosure that she had been sexually abused by a teenage relative. The bishop also told the girl not to seek a protective order against the teenage boy and the boy's mother when the girl came to him for counsel, according to Duchesne County prosecutors.

GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 08, 2012

■Defrocked minister to lead retreat in Georgia
■In 1999 he admitted abusing boy at a retreat in Texas
■Now, he’s set to lead a retreat in Augusta this weekend
■And church officials are refusing to warn retreat-goers
■Self help group is urging Episcopal bishop to ‘take action’

A convicted and defrocked child molesting cleric will lead a religious retreat this weekend in Augusta and a support group is begging Georgia’s Episcopalian bishop to stop him.

Starting Friday, a registered sex offender, Lynn C. Bauman will lead a three-day event at the Episcopal Convent of St. Helena. Bauman is a defrocked Episcopalian priest who, in 1999, admitted molesting an eight-year-old boy on a retreat in Texas in 1996. Bauman was sentenced to ten years probation.

A Chicago based support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is writing Georgia’s Episcopal Bishop J. Neil Alexander, asking him to step in and remove Bauman himself.

GEORGIA
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
February 8, 2012

A defrocked Episcopal priest, who admitted abusing a boy at a retreat in 1999 and was convicted for his behavior, has resurfaced to lead a spiritual retreat at The Order of Saint Helena in Augusta, GA. A number of clergy sex abuse victims are urging that it be cancelled.

The Order of Saint Helena (OSH) in Augusta is letting the Rev. Dr. Lynn Bauman, 57, lead their upcoming spiritual retreat which has met with resistance from survivors of priestly abuse.

"We are well aware of Lynn's story. A number of us have known him for many years and know the situation in considerable depth," The Rev Sr Carol Andrew of OSH has told officials of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

"Despite these crimes and accusations, the Order of Saint Helena in Augusta is letting Bauman lead their upcoming spiritual retreat. They are doing so without apparently making any mention of the fact that Bauman has been convicted of abusing a child, and has committed this crime while leading retreats such as this one. The event flyer they have put out online has no information about Bauman's criminal history (available here: http://www.osh.org/_flyers/bauman-flyer-feb-2012.pdf)," said David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Lawyers for the Philadelphia monsignor accused of enabling priests to molest children have asked the trial judge to step down, saying she compromised her impartiality when she said anyone who doubted there is "widespread" child abuse within the Catholic Church "is living on another planet."

The attorneys said the remark by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina during a hearing in open court last week suggests she "harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives," including their client, Msgr. William J. Lynn.

"Perhaps the court actually bears no biases. But that does not matter," Lynn's lawyers, Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote in a motion filed Wednesday. "What does matter is that the public's confidence in the Court's impartiality is demonstrably undermined."

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 08, 2012 NCR Today

ROME -- Yet another financial scandal threatened to engulf the Vatican today, in the form of charges that four Italian priests, none of them Vatican officials, are under investigation by Italian prosecutors on charges of money laundering related to accounts they allegedly held at the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), better known as the “Vatican Bank”.

An article outlining the charges against the four priests ran today in the left-wing Italian newspaper l’Unità, and a report focusing, among other things, on the same charges aired tonight on the widely watched Italian TV program, “The Untouchables.”

The newspaper article ran under the headline, “Money-laundering, Four Priests Investigated: The Silence of the Vatican on Controls.” The suggestion was that the Vatican has refused to cooperate with investigation of the charges.

“The Untouchables” is the same program which, in late January, revealed confidential letters from Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, today the pope’s nuncio, or ambassador, to the United States, complaining of “corruption and dishonesty” in Vatican finances.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

COMMUNITY leaders and parishioners in Cheadle and Alton, where Bede Walsh served as parish priest were stunned by the verdicts.

Many members of his former congregations have continued to support and pray for him.

Alton parishioner Stella Heritage, of Castle Hill Road, said: "People are completely shocked and there are a lot of people who support him and do not believe what has come out at his trial. In my dealings with him as parish priest I could not fault him."

Ray James, pictured right, who was mayor of Cheadle in 1996, said Walsh had won acclaim after organising discos in the town, which got bored youngsters off the streets.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Centre Daily Times

By MARYCLAIRE DALE — The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official wants a judge to step down before his child-endangerment trial because of her recent remarks about the child sex-abuse scandal.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina suggested in court that the priest-abuse scandal is "widespread." At a pretrial hearing, she said those who think otherwise are "living on another planet."

Sarmina is presiding over the groundbreaking conspiracy and child-endangerment case of Monsignor William Lynn.

The 61-year-old Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for allegedly keeping predator-priests in ministry. He faces up to 28 years if convicted on all charges.

ROME
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

Cardinal-designate Fernando Filoni, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples presides on Wednesday evening at Mass in the Church of the Holy Apostles for participants in the four day symposium on dealing with the sex abuse crisis. The meeting, organised by the Pontifical Gregorian University, concludes on Thursday with the launch of a child protection centre to provide valuable resources for bishops’ conferences around the world. Philippa Hitchen has been following the symposium for us….

The moral and legal duties of church leaders to respond to all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy was the focus of the opening session of the symposium on Wednesday. In a hard hitting speech by the Vatican’s top expert on child protection, Msgr Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, participants from countries around the world heard how it is essential for them to combat “the deadly culture of silence” which in some places still exists….

“We need to move on and denounce it for what it is…an enemy of truth and an enemy of justice”

On the question of compensation and justice for victims, Msgr Sciclina said it’s important for local Churches to cooperate fully with the civil law of their countries. But he said Church guidelines on dealing with abuse cases should also look closely at these very practical questions…

MONTANA
Market Watch

Ten New Clergy Sex-abuse Victims File Suit Against Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana - from Kosnoff Fasy PLLC

GREAT FALLS, Mont., Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Attorneys on Wednesday filed a new civil lawsuit on behalf of 10 child sex-abuse victims against the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana. One man says that a priest who currently advises the bishop on handling sex-abuse cases is himself a sex predator.

Father Ted Szudera is among five named individuals and numerous unnamed clerics accused of child molestation in court papers just filed in Montana Eighth Judicial District Court in Cascade County. Fr. Szudera allegedly sexually abused a teenager in 1978-1979 while assigned to St. Mary's Catholic church in Livingston, Montana. The victim says that while he was an altar boy, Fr. Szudera abused him for two years, in the church, at school and at the priest's home.

In 2006, Fr. Szudera's alleged victim told church officials about the crimes and said that Fr. Szudera had threatened him that "bad things would happen to him" if he told anyone. Following the 2006 disclosure, the diocese paid for the victim's counseling, allegedly conducted its own "investigation" but apparently took no action against Szudera. He remains in active ministry.

Great Falls Bishop Michael Warfel appointed Fr. Szudera to be on his Review Board, which advises the bishop on child sex-abuse cases. Fr. Szudera apparently maintains an active appointment on the panel. And according to church websites, Fr. Szudera now works at four Montana Catholic parishes: St. Mark's in Belt, Holy Trinity in Centerville, St. Clement's in Monarch and St. Mary's in Raynesford. However, a priest at Szudera's church said Szudera was removed from St. Mark's about a month ago and is reportedly living in Great Falls.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Reuters

By Geoff Davidian

MILWAUKEE, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Milwaukee's Roman Catholic archdiocese will ask a judge on Thursday to throw out hundreds of sexual abuse claims that have thrust it into bankruptcy, triggering a court battle and rekindling anger at the church's mishandling of abusive clergy.

The aggressive stance taken by the archdiocese reminds victims' advocates how leaders of the U.S. church long resisted pleas to deal harshly with offenders and fairly with victims during the decade-long scandal.

It also contrasts with earlier church bankruptcies where most victims' claims of abuse were acknowledged and compensated, lawyers and experts said.

In court papers, the Milwaukee archdiocese is arguing in three test cases that the claims should be tossed out either because the abuse or church cover-up occurred too long ago, involved perpetrators such as a choir director who were not direct employees of the church, or involve victims who had already obtained settlements.

ROME
Vatican Insider

According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Asian Catholic Church is finding it hard to fight paedophilia “because of the cultural differences” that exist and the “varied interpretations of what child abuse constitutes”

Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican City

The problem is particularly accentuated in Asia Mgr. Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith commented during the international symposium on sex abuse of minors by the clergy, organised by Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University. In response to the “Asian emergency”, Mgr. Scicluna recently gathered all leaders of Asian Episcopal Conferences for an unprecedented closed-door meeting in Bangkok.

“Asian Churches are gradually becoming aware that abuse is going on and that something must be done about it.” But except from the Philippines, all other Asian Episcopates are late in adopting the Holy See’s guidelines against paedophilia. “In some cultures is especially difficult for victims to come out into the open and report abuse. We are debating with Asian bishops on how to change a culture that encourages silence,” Scicluna emphasised. This is why there are still only very few cases being reported in Asia compared to the thousands of reports filed in Europe and the United States. Victims need to be listed to in order to be able to understand the problem properly and act prudently and with determination. Churches throughout the world need to be helped to formulate new efficient pastoral care programmes. Prevention and education. Speaking to Vatican Radio, Scicluna also made reference to his and Cardinal Levada’s missions to various parts of the world, including Latin America and Asia, in order to support the work done by local churches to counter these crimes. Mgr. Scicluna explained to Vatican Radio that the symposium entitled “Towards Healing and Renewal” aims to allow the Church to come up with a global solution to the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, and to ensure victims better protection. Delegates from 110 Episcopal Conferences and general superiors from over 30 religious orders will participate in the symposium.

MONTANA
Great Falls Tribune

Ten people have filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, claiming they were sexually abused by priests when they were children.

The sex-abuse lawsuit is the third filed against the Catholic church in Montana since last year and the first against the diocese that covers the central and eastern parts of the state.

The lawyers who filed the lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of the unnamed plaintiffs also represent about 200 others in one of the claims against the Catholic Diocese of Helena, which covers the western part of the state.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs held a press conference this morning to announce the filing of a lawsuit against the Diocese in Cascade County District Court.

MISSOURI
KSDK

[with video]

By Courtney Gousman

Creve Coeur, MO (KSDK) - It's a sexual abuse scandal that's sending shockwaves through a school community. Former students of Chaminade College Preparatory are now coming forward to acknowledge they were abused by two former teachers.

NewsChannel 5 found out what things were like for students attending the school during this ominous time. An attorney representing one of these victims recounted some of the horror stories his client experienced at the hands of two of his teachers at Chaminade. Though the both of these teachers are both deceased, this attorney says the abuse was well-known among students and staff.

"He's heard of people denying that this kind of abuse occurred at Chaminade, and he wants people to believe it," said Ken Chackes.

Chackes represents the man now being credited with bringing sexual abuse allegations to light at Chaminade College Prep. Allegations dating back to the 60s and 70s, and we're told were repeatedly ignored by the school.

UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

by Phil Lawler, February 8, 2012

For well over a decade, the poisonous influence of the sex-abuse scandal has been spreading through the universal Church, shaking the faith and undermining the hierarchy in one country after another. Now the toxic influence of the scandal has seeped into yet another aspect of Catholic life, tarnishing the memory of potential saints.

In a story published January 11, carrying the suitably sensational title “Tainted Saint,” the San Francisco Weekly suggested that the scandal might damage the reputation of the beloved Mother Teresa, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

In making that argument, the Weekly stretches the available evidence well beyond the breaking point. At worst, Blessed Mother Teresa was guilty of misjudging a priest: a mistake that many others made, regarding the same abusive cleric. Unfortunately the same chain of evidence raises more serious questions about another beloved Catholic figure who is now a candidate for beatification: the late Father John Hardon, SJ.

ROME
ADN

Vatican City, 8 Feb. :(AKI) - The Vatican's top watchdog said the the Catholic Church must cooperate with police to crackdown on priests suspected of sexually molesting children.

Speaking in Rome on Wednesday during a four-day closed meeting on sex abuse in the Church, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, "The Church has an obligation to cooperate with the requirements of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the appropriate authorities."

The "Towards Healing and Renewal" international symposium - meant to help bishops design rules to protect children from abuse priests - has been criticized by pedophile victims organisations as being mere public relations. It was attended by around 200 mostly bishops and reportedly some abuse victims.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 08, 2012 NCR Today

Experts reject homosexuality as risk factor

ROME -- Two American experts told a Vatican summit today that the full costs of the sexual abuse crisis – including financial payouts, emotional distress, alienation among both clergy and laity, and damage to the church’s moral authority – is essentially incalculable, but massive beyond any doubt.

Focusing on the United States, the two speakers provided estimates suggesting that the American church has spent at least $2.2 billion settling litigation related to the crisis, and that there may have been as many as 100,000 total victims of clerical sexual abuse.

Before surveying the damage, Michael Bemi and Pat Neal rejected what they described as four “myths” about the crisis, which were:
•The crisis is an American problem.
•The crisis has been exaggerated by a Godless media that is antagonistic to people or institutions of faith.
•The crisis has been instigated by avaricious attorneys whose only objective is to enrich themselves financially.
•Homosexual orientation causes men to be sex offenders. (“Neither homosexual nor heterosexual orientation is a risk factor,” they said, “but rather, disordered or confused sexual orientation is a risk factor.”)

While each of those claims may have “elements of truth,” the two speakers said, “none on its own, nor all of them combined, can even begin to explain and fully describe the misconduct crisis.”

ROME
The West Australian

VATICAN CITY (AFP) - The Vatican's top prosecutor on Wednesday called for stricter accountability for bishops who cover up child abuse crimes and said 1,000 cases had been reported to him in the past two years alone.

"Ecclesial accountability has to be further developed. How do you sanction a bishop? That is something that Canon law reserves for the pope personally," Charles Scicluna said on the sidelines of a Vatican summit on the issue.

"Once you set standards you have to respect them. It would certainly be the responsibility of the pope and the Holy See," he said. He added that he believed a "culture of silence" on the issue of abuse persisted in the Church.

Archbishop Scicluna said his office at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church's top enforcement body, had received more than 4,000 reports of child abuse since 2001 including 1,000 since 2009.

ROME
Montreal Gazette

ROME - A wave of clerical sex abuse scandals have cost the Catholic Church over two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) but the real price is the blow to its reputation, two U.S. experts said on Wednesday.

"It is probably reasonable to estimate that the actual 'out of pocket' cost of the crisis to the Church internationally is well in excess of two billion dollars," Michael Bemi and Patricia Neal said at a Vatican summit on the issue.

The cost could be much higher though as at least some dioceses in the Church "made many confidential settlements over the years, the total value of which may never be known," said the two consultants for the U.S. Catholic Church.

Bemi and Neal asked Catholic leaders from around the world: "How many hospitals, seminaries, schools, churches, shelters for abused women and children and soup kitchens could we have built with this amount of money?

ROME
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- The Vatican's top sex abuse investigator called for greater accountability under church law of bishops who shield or fail to discipline pedophile priests.

Msgr. Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made his remarks to reporters in Rome Feb. 8, after addressing an international symposium on clerical sex abuse.

"It is a crime in canon law to show malicious or fraudulent negligence in the exercise of one's duty," Msgr. Scicluna said, regarding the responsibility of bishops to protect children and punish abusers.

With respect to bishops who fail to apply the church's anti-abuse norms, Msgr. Scicluna said that "it is not acceptable that when there are set standards, people do not follow the set standards."

UNITED STATES
Business Insider

Michael Brendan Dougherty

St. John Chrysostom, once said "The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops."

Here's proof that he was right.

In an interview this week with Connecticut Magazine, Cardinal Edward Egan, withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church's handling of the sex-abuse scandal, which was once read in all New York parishes.

A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, "I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

“I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.” He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities.

MONTANA
KRTV

Posted: Feb 8, 2012 9:36 AM by David Sherman (Great Falls)

A civil lawsuit on behalf of 10 alleged child sex abuse victims has been filed against the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

One man says that a priest who currently advises diocese Bishop Michael Warfel on handling sex abuse cases is himself a sex predator.

The locations of the alleged abuse include Great Falls, Absarokee, Hays, and Hardin; the lawsuit claims that the abuse occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

Tim Kosnoff, attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the victims are seeking "non-monetary reform and healing measures," including asking the court to order the bishop to personally visit schools and churches where the alleged abuse occurred, posting the names of the alleged abusers on the diocese web site for 10 years, and the creation of a toll-free phone and website where anonymous complaints can be made.

ROME
Rome Reports

February 8, 2012. (Romereports.com) At the Gregorian University in Rome, Bishops from all over the world, as well as heads of religious orders and Vatican officials are discussing how to prevent cases of sexual abuse, including ways to protect children.

Inside the conference room, Church leaders heard from Marie Collins. An Irish woman who, as a patient in a hospital, was sexually abused by a priest at the age of 13.

Sexual Abuse Victim
“I was quite sick, anxious and away from friends and family for the first time, but I felt more secure when the Catholic chaplain in the hospital befriended me.”

MINNESOTA
WDAY

By: Stacie Van Dyke, WDAZ

EAST GRAND FORKS, MN (WDAZ-TV) - An East Grand Forks priest is being accused of theft of personal property and misappropriation of donations for Africa.

The Crookston diocese has placed an associate pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Father Carlos Velez, on administrative leave.

The East Grand Forks Police Department has confirmed that an investigation centering on Velez is underway.

According to an email sent by the diocese of Crookston, the 39-year-old is facing allegations for initiating a special collection without permission and failing to follow internal controls regarding the proper treatment of donations to the parish.

MICHIGAN
WZZM

Written by
Bob Brenzing

(DETROIT FREE PRESS) - Michigan Court of Appeals judges will hear arguments Thursday on a case that could have serious repercussions for church members: Can what you confess to your pastor be used against you in a court of law?

A three-judge panel of the court is being asked to decide whether a Baptist pastor in Belleville violated Michigan's priest-penitent privilege by testifying against a church member in a rape case.

"This is a very dangerous case because it could have very serious repercussions for religion," the rape suspect's lawyer, Raymond Cassar of Farmington Hills, said Tuesday. "If a pastor is allowed to testify against a member of his church about privileged communications, no one will want to confess their sins to their pastors anymore."

Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Toni Odette argued in court documents that the privilege doesn't apply in this case.

POLAND
National Catholic Reporter

Feb. 08, 2012
By Jonathan Luxmoore

This is the second of two-part series looking at clergy sex abuse in Poland. Read part one here.

WARSAW, POLAND -- When Ewa Orlowska, a mother of nine, decided to confront her local priest for sexually abusing her as a child, she had little idea what was to follow. The priest, Msgr. Michal Moskwa, had been the parish pastor for three decades in the southern town of Tylawa, and Ewa had been just one of his victims. But when she’d told her mother about the abuse, her mother beat her and ordered her to apologize.

When the case came to light in 2001, Orlowska reluctantly agreed to give a statement to prosecutors. “I thought: When I stand before God and he asks me what I did for those other defenseless children, still threatened by the priest’s pedophile tendencies, what would I say?” she remembers. “Would I say I lacked courage, hadn’t the strength, was afraid of my own shadow?”

Moskwa was convicted in 2004 and given a two-year suspended jail sentence and an eight-year ban from teaching children. He ignored the teaching ban, suffered no canonical sanctions, and his ordinary, Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, returned him to his parish.

The judge reprimanded Michalik, who is president of Poland’s bishops’ conference, for ignoring repeated requests to deal with Moskwa “in the way required by Christian morality.” On the contrary, Michalik assured the convicted pedophile of his “sympathy” in an open letter, protesting the affront “to the good name of our priests.”

CHICAGO (IL)
WBBM

[with audio]

CHICAGO (CBS) — The worldwide priest sex abuse scandal is the focus of a gathering of hundreds of Catholic bishops and priests in Rome this week.

As WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports, more proposed guidelines to deal with priest predators, and to protect children, are to be submitted to Pope Benedict XVI in May. This week in Rome, those who will write those guidelines are hearing from experts and victims.

But Barbara Blaine, the Chicago-based president of the Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests, is skeptical that there will be any real change. She calls this week’s symposium at the Vatican a PR maneuver.

“Unless and until they are willing to take concrete action that changes the way they do things, I suspect that children will continue to be raped and sexually violated by priests, and bishops will continue to cover up these crimes,” she said.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Weekly

By Tara Murtha

As 78-year-old state Rep. Louise Williams Bishop (D-Philadelphia) began to speak to a crowd gathered in the rotunda of the capitol in Harrisburg at a public meeting in November, her voice wavered and shook, belying her decades of experience in public speaking as a polished politician, Baptist minister and radio DJ.

Shaky, Bishop revealed a secret she had held inside for six decades. “I discovered someone in the bed with me. [He was] doing a little more than feeling and touching,” she told the hushed audience, recalling the night when her stepfather first raped her.

Bishop, who was 12 at the time, says that when she awoke to find her stepfather in her bed, she “didn’t know how to react. I was afraid. There was fear. Fear in what my sisters, if they awakened, would think. Fear if I told my mother what she would say. Fear if my grandfather found out, he would have taken a shotgun and killed somebody and went to jail.”

“So I lived with that fear,” and the secret, “all these years.” Even as a minister listening to survivors, who at 35, 40 years old were revealing their own childhood sex abuse, Bishop remained silent about her own. She never even told her husband.

ROME
HLN (Belgie)

De Canadese kardinaal Marc Ouellet, prefect van de congregatie voor de bisschoppen, één van de belangrijkste functies binnen de Romeinse curie, heeft gisterenavond tijdens een boeteviering in een bewust half duistere Sint-Ignatiuskerk in Rome in naam van de Kerk vergiffenis gevraagd'voor hen die kinderen en zwakken seksueel hebben misbruikt.

De viering werd onder meer bijgewoond door de zowat honderd bisschoppen die in Rome deelnemen aan het vierdaagse colloquium dat de strijd tegen het seksueel misbruik in de Kerk wil opvoeren. De bisschoppen hadden hun mijters en bisschopskruis thuis gelaten.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

Slachtoffers van pedofilie in de Kerk kunnen sinds gisteren een schadevergoeding eisen via een nieuwe ‘rechtbank voor seksueel misbruik'. Ze maken aanspraak op een bedrag tot 25.000euro.

Gisteren lanceerde het Centrum voor Arbitrage inzake Seksueel Misbruik een website, waarop een ‘aanvraagformulier voor billijke herstelmaatregelen' staat. De slachtoffers –of bij zelfdoding de nabestaanden– moeten de feiten beschrijven, ook al zijn die verjaard, en ze moeten aangeven of ze al naar het gerecht zijn gestapt.

ROME
Reformatorisch Dagblad

VATICAANSTAD (ANP) – Leiders binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk komen deze week in Rome bijeen voor een conferentie over de middelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen te voorkomen en te bestrijden.

Zij zullen onder meer een gebedsdienst bijwonen, waar vertegenwoordigers van zeven religieuze ordes en congregaties in het openbaar om vergeving zullen vragen voor wat leden van hun organisatie kinderen hebben aangedaan.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

De Belgische bisschoppen van Antwerpen en Doornik, Johan Bonny en Guy Harpigny, wonen deze week een internationaal congres bij in Rome over het misbruik van minderjarigen binnen de kerk. Het congres vindt plaats van maandag tot en met donderdag in de pauselijke universiteit 'Gregoriana'.

Het doel van die bijeenkomst is om ervaringen te delen ten aanzien van preventie. Tijdens het congres zal kardinaal William Levada, prefect van de Congregatie voor de Geloofsleer, een reeks preventieve maatregelen presenteren. Er zou onder meer een portaalsite opgericht worden. Die zou bestemd zijn voor de hele wereldkerk met daarop alle maatregelen en procedures die in geval van misbruik toegepast moeten worden.

ROME
NZG (Nederland)

VATICAANSTAD (ANP) - Leiders binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk komen deze week in Rome bijeen voor een conferentie over de middelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen te voorkomen en te bestrijden.

Zij zullen onder meer een gebedsdienst bijwonen, waar vertegenwoordigers van zeven religieuze ordes en congregaties in het openbaar om vergeving zullen vragen voor wat leden van hun organisatie kinderen hebben aangedaan.

LUXEMBURG
Kerknieuws

De Rooms-Katholieke Kerk van Luxemburg gaat slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door priesters financieel compenseren, ook als het misbruik is verjaard. Alle meldingen die in Luxemburg over misbruik zijn binnengekomen, gaan namelijk over zaken die zijn verjaard.

De kerk richt een onafhankelijke commissie op die de aanvragen voor vergoedingen zal behandelen. Slachtoffers van misbruik dat is verjaard, kunnen een bedrag ontvangen van maximaal 5.000 euro.

ROME
De Telegraaf (Nederland)

VATICAANSTAD - Bisschoppen uit 100 landen en oversten van 33 religieuze orden en congregaties komen maandagmiddag in Rome bijeen om te praten over maatregelen om seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken te voorkomen en te bestrijden. Ook Charles Scicluna, de aanklager in misbruikzaken van het Vaticaan, en de Ierse Marie Collins, die als meisje door een priester is verkracht, praten mee.

Namens Nederland is hulpbisschop Ted Hoogenboom van het bisdom Utrecht bij de bijeenkomst. „Hij heeft veel kennis vanuit allerlei invalshoeken, onder meer omdat hij jurist is. We verwachten dat er wat juridische aspecten aan bod komen. Bovendien zat hij in de commissie die het meldpunt voor slachtoffers vorig jaar opnieuw heeft ingericht, de commissie-Bandell”, aldus een woordvoerder van de Nederlandse Bisschoppenconferentie.

ROME
de Volkskrant (Nederland)

Paus Benedictus XVI heeft vandaag gepleit voor een 'diepgaande vernieuwing' van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Alleen zo kan naar zijn mening het seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken worden bestreden.

In de Gregoriana Universiteit in Rome is vandaag een kerkelijke conferentie over het misbruik geopend. In een boodschap aan de deelnemers schrijft de paus dat het de grootste prioriteit voor de christelijke gemeenschap moet zijn dat de slachtoffers weer geheel mens worden in plaats van louter misbruikslachtoffer. Op elk niveau van de kerk is volgens hem een grondige vernieuwing nodig.

ROME
RTL (Nederland)

Alleen met een stevige aanpak kan volgens de paus het seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen door geestelijken worden bestreden. Op elk niveau is een grondige vernieuwing nodig.

In de Gregoriana Universiteit in Rome is een kerkelijke conferentie over het misbruik geopend. In een boodschap aan de deelnemers schrijft de paus dat het de grootste prioriteit voor de christelijke gemeenschap moet zijn dat de slachtoffers weer geheel mens worden in plaats van louter misbruikslachtoffer.

BELGIE
HLN

Slachtoffers van pedofiele geestelijken kunnen vanaf heden een vraag tot schadevergoeding indienen bij de arbitragecommissie in de schoot van de Koning Boudewijnstichting. Dat signaleert La Dernière Heure. Het formulier is beschikbaar op www.centrum-arbitrage-misbruik.be.

Tot 25.000 euro
De arbitragecommissie zag het levenslicht als gevolg van een akkoord tussen de Kerk en de bijzondere commissie over seksueel misbruik van de Kamer. Het onderzoek van de dossiers gaat vanaf 1 maart van start. Schadevergoedingen kunnen oplopen tot 25.000 euro.

ROME
Het Nieuwsblad (Belgie)

"De genezing van de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik moet een fundamentele bezorgdheid zijn van de christelijke gemeenschap en moet gepaard gaan met een grondige vernieuwing van de Kerk op alle niveaus". Dat zei paus Benedictus XVI in een boodschap aan de deelnemers van het vierdaagse colloquium over seksueel misbruik in de Kerk dat maandagavond in Rome van start ging.

De Amerikaanse kardinaal William Levada, prefect van de Congregatie voor de geloofsleer die het het colloquium opende, zei dat "een kleine groep misbruikplegers groot kwaad veroorzaakt heeft aan de slachtoffers en aan de Kerk".

NEDERLAND
Trouw

Bisschoppen hebben het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik in de rooms-katholieke kerk niet tegengewerkt. Dat stelt aartsbisschop Eijk vandaag in een ingezonden brief in het AD. Eerdere berichtgeving van die krant stoelt volgens Eijk op verkeerde informatie.

In het AD meldden slachtoffergroepen vorige week dat bisschoppen de onderzoeken stelselmatig frustreren.

ROME
HLN (Belgie)

Het vierdaagse symposium in Rome met het oog om de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik in de Kerk op te voeren, is vandaag van start gegaan met de getuigenis van een Iers slachtoffer. Ook verklaarde een psychologisch expert van de Kerk dat er zes fouten gemaakt zijn in de aanpak van de dossiers.

Marie Colins getuigde voor een honderdtal vertegenwoordigers van het wereldepiscopaat, de belangrijkste verantwoordelijken van de Romeinse Curie en een dertigtal verantwoordelijken van de belangrijkste ordes en congregaties. Zij werd vijftig jaar geleden op 13-jarige leeftijd verkracht door de aalmoezenier van het Iers ziekenhuis waar zij verpleegd werd.

ROME
RKnieuws (Nederland)

ROME (RKnieuws.net) - Het vierdaagse symposium aan de Gregoriaanse universiteit in Rome met het oog om de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik in de Kerk op te voeren ging dinsdag van start met de getuigenis van een Iers slachtoffer.

Marie Colins getuigde voor een honderdtal vertegenwoordigers van het wereldepiscopaat, de belangrijkste verantwoordelijken van de Romeinse Curie en een dertigtal verantwoordelijken van de belangrijkste ordes en congregaties. Zij werd vijftig jaar geleden op 13-jarige leeftijd verkracht door de aalmoezenier van het Iers ziekenhuis waar zij verpleegd werd.

ROME
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 8 February 2012 (VIS) - Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, delivered a lecture before the international symposium "Towards Healing and Renewal" being held in Rome's Gregorian University from 6 to 9 February. The event brings together bishops and religious superiors from all over the world and aims to relaunch the Church's commitment to protecting minors and vulnerable people from abuse.

Speaking English, Cardinal Levada affirmed that for Church leaders the question under examination "is both delicate and urgent". It is "important not to lose sight of the gravity of these crimes" as we seek "to form the priests of today and tomorrow to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood".

Cardinal Levada recalled how Blessed John Paul II's Motu Proprio "Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela" clarified and updated the list of canonical crimes, explicitly including the sexual abuse of minors by clerics as one of the most serious crimes, or "graviora delicta". Benedict XVI, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "was instrumental in implementing these new norms" and supported "approving the Essential Norms for the United States". In 2010 Pope Benedict also approved and ordered the promulgation of stricter revised norms.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Channel 3000

MILWAUKEE -- A group representing victims of clergy abuse is asking the Milwaukee Catholic archdiocese to withdraw motions to dismiss some of the nearly 570 restitution claims in its bankruptcy case.

The archdiocese has filed motions in three cases asking they be dismissed because they were either filed beyond the statute of limitations, involved someone who was not an archdiocese employee or involved a victim who already received a settlement. A hearing is set for Thursday.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests estimated the archdiocese's arguments could ultimately get 95 percent of the cases dismissed. They claim the archdiocese misled victims because it never mentioned eligibility restrictions.

ROME
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - Hiding behind a culture of "omerta" -- the Italian word for the Mafia's code of silence -- would be deadly for the Catholic Church, the Vatican's top official for dealing with sexual abuse of minors by clergy said Wednesday.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna made the unusually forthright comment in his speech to a landmark symposium in Rome on the sexual abuse crisis that has rocked the Church in the past decade.

"The teaching ... that truth is at the basis of justice explains why a deadly culture of silence, or 'omerta,' is in itself wrong and unjust," Scicluna said in his address to the four-day symposium which brings together some 200 people including bishops, leaders of religious orders, victims of abuse and psychologists.

Rarely, if ever, has a Vatican official used the word "omerta" - a serious accusation in Italian -- to compare the reluctance of some in the Church to come clean on the abuse scandal with the Mafia's code of silence.

ROME
Boston Globe

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press / February 8, 2012

ROME—Bishops must follow the Catholic church's laws and standards when dealing with priests who sexually abuse children or face possible church sanctions for negligence, the Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor said Wednesday.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse that is designed to help bishops around the world craft guidelines to protect children and keep pedophiles out of the priesthood. Priests and bishops from 110 dioceses and 30 religious orders are attending the four-day workshop ahead of a May deadline to submit their guidelines for review by the Holy See.

Survivors of clerical abuse, government investigations and clerics themselves have long blamed bishops for failing to report abusive priests to police and failing to apply church law to sanction them internally. Victims' groups have denounced the lack of accountability of bishops who were never punished for having moved priests from parish to parish where they could abuse again.

Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said it was "unacceptable" for bishops to ignore church law and standards to deal with abusers and said canon law provides for sanctioning bishops who do -- including being removed as bishop.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

MARY CAROLAN

A Supreme Court majority decision today halting the trial of a priest on a charge of alleged buggery of a teenage boy in 1970 has important implications for other persons charged with buggery offences prior to 1993.

The decision does not affect the trial of the priest on two other charges of indecent assault of the 13-year-old boy and another 14-year-old boy which can proceed.

By a three/two majority, the Supreme Court ruled the priest cannot be tried on the buggery charge because, when repealing the offence of buggery "between persons" in 1993, the Oireachtas failed to enact the necessary saving measures to allow prosecutions for such common law offences committed prior to 1993.

ROME
RTE News

The Vatican's chief prosecutor has said it is unacceptable for bishops or clergy not to abide by "set standards" on child protection within the church.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna said it was possible that clergy or bishops could face sanction under canon law if the non-application of set standards was a result of "malice or fraudulent negligence".

He added that disciplining bishops was a matter for Pope Benedict on a case-by-case basis.

ROME
BlueRidgeNow

The Associated Press

The Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor has warned bishops that they must follow the church's laws and standards on dealing with priests who sexually abuse children or face possible church sanctions for negligence.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna spoke Wednesday on the sidelines of a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse that is designed to help bishops craft guidelines to protect children and keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

Abuse victims have long denounced the lack of accountability of bishops who routinely moved abusive priests from parish to parish rather than report them to police or punish them internally.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Gary V. Murray TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gmurray@telegram.com

WORCESTER — A May 1 trial date has been set in Central District Court for a former church pastor accused of indecently assaulting and beating a woman.

The Very Rev. Charles M. Abdelahad, the former longtime pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral on Anna Street, has pleaded not guilty to charges of indecent assault and battery, five counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and four counts of assault and battery. The indecent assault and battery charge was reduced from a charge of rape last year at the request of prosecutors.

Rev. Abdelahad, of 14 Bryant Ave., Shrewsbury, is accused of biting and kicking the alleged victim, pulling her hair, shoving her head against a floor, hitting her in the face and head with his fists, striking her with a religious icon and wooden replica bat and scratching her with a set of keys.

VATICAN CITY
Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

VATICAN CITY, Feb 8, 2012 (AFP) - The Vatican's top prosecutor on Wednesday called for stricter accountability for bishops who cover up child abuse crimes and said 1,000 cases had been reported to him in the past two years alone.

“Ecclesial accountability has to be further developed. How do you sanction a bishop? That is something that Canon law reserves for the pope personally,” Charles Scicluna said on the sidelines of a Vatican summit on the issue.

“Once you set standards you have to respect them. It would certainly be the responsibility of the pope and the Holy See,” he said. He added that he believed a “culture of silence” on the issue of abuse persisted in the Church.

MICHIGAN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

DETROIT (WTW) — The Michigan Court of Appeals will hear arguments about whether a pastor's testimony related to a possible confession in a child sexual assault case may be used in court.

The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/wpBJxq) a three-judge panel hears the case Thursday.

Court documents say Samuel Bragg confessed in 2009 to the Rev. John Vaprezsan at Metro Baptist Church in Belleville about the 2007 assault of a 9-year-old girl. Vaprezsan testified in March in the case against Bragg, who is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

CONNECTICUT/NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 07, 2012

In a new, rare and stunning interview, former NYC Archbishop Edward Egan made shocking statements about the church’s on-going clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis.

We urge US Catholic officials – especially in New York and Connecticut – to publicly rebuke Egan for these shockingly callous comments that will no doubt heap more pain onto millions of victims and Catholics who are still suffering because they have been assaulted by child molesting clerics or betrayed by corrupt church officials. We especially urge Egan’s successors, Archbishop Tim Dolan of New York and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, to clearly denounce Egan. Ignoring callousness or mouthing vague platitudes aren’t enough. At an absolute bare minimum, Catholics need and deserve explicit, public and repeated condemnations of Egan by his brother bishops.

Among other things, Egan said:
■I don’t think we did anything wrong.
■I’m very proud of how this thing was handled.
■I believe the sex abuse thing was incredibly good.
■There really wasn’t much . . . hidden.
■I do think it’s time to get off this subject.
■I don’t think I should be upset about that, or you should be, or anybody else.
■I never had one of these sex abuse cases, either in Bridgeport or here (New York). And I believe that the cases I had were each handled just exactly as they should have been.
■I did exactly what we were told to do. And as a result, not one of them (the accused priests) did a thing out of line.
■I’m not the slightest bit surprised that, of course, the scandal was going to be fun in the news.
■If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.

CONNECTICUT
WSLS

WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) A psychiatrist hired by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford has testified he disputes that the mental health problems of an alleged clergy sex abuse victim were caused by the abuse, and that the victim had a generally "positive" relationship with the priest.

Dr. J. Alexander Bodkin testified Tuesday in Waterbury Superior Court. The alleged victim, known only as Jacob Doe, is suing the archdiocese for negligence, claiming he was repeatedly abused by Father Ivan Ferguson as a teenager in the early 1980s when Ferguson was principal of his grammar school in Derby.

CANADA
The Sault Star

SUDBURY -- A former principal at St. Charles College in Sudbury is facing more sex charges.

William Hodgson Marshall, who is now 89, has been charged with two counts of indecent assault after two Saskatoon women complained about being assaulted in 1959 and 1960.

Marshall was a priest and teacher at the Saskatoon high school the two women attended, police said Tuesday.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

February 7, 2012
By Kevin McCorry

The funeral Mass for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was celebrated Tuesday at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Center City Philadelphia.

Bevilacqua's close friend and former aide, Monsignor Louis D'Addezio, delivered the memorial sermon. He cited the cardinal's commitment to the most vulnerable in society — especially the young, the old and the sick.

He also mentioned the emotional toll that recent sex-abuse allegations had on Bevilacqua — noting the cardinal's depression late in his life.

"These years have been years of suffering for so many — for all of us in the archdiocese," he said. "Cardinal Bevilacqua did not escape that suffering."

ROME
La Croix

Le cardinal Marc Ouellet a demandé pardon, mardi soir 7 février, au nom de l’Eglise, « pour ceux qui ont abusé des petits et des faibles »

ROME
La Croix

Le colloque international réuni à l’Université grégorienne de Rome, en vue d’améliorer la lutte contre les abus sexuels dans l’Église, s’est ouvert mardi 17 février avec l’audition d’une victime irlandaise.

ROME
La Croix

Invitée à s'exprimer mardi 7 février au symposium sur les abus sexuels organisé à Rome par l'Université Grégorienne, Marie Collins, qui fut violée par un prêtre dans un hôpital de Dublin à l’age de 13 ans, a livré un témoignage très personnel.

FRANCE
La Croix

Bousculé depuis une dizaine d’années par des affaires pédophiles, le Vatican a mis concrètement l’accent sur la parole des victimes à l’occasion d’un colloque organisé début février 2012 à Rome, où une célébration pénitentielle inédite a été organisée en présence de certaines d’entre elles.

Des Etats-Unis à l’ Irlande, en passant par la Belgique où l’Allemagne, ces affaires d’abus sexuels n’ont épargné ni le clergé diocésain ni les congrégations religieuses, notamment les Légionnaires du Christ, ou la communauté des Béatitudes, dont l’un des membres a été condamné à cinq ans de prison en décembre 2011 par le tribunal correctionnel de Rodez.

FRANCE
La Croix

[avec audio]

Alors que le Vatican a consacré, début février, un colloque pour faire droit à la parole des victimes de prêtres pédophiles, le P. Joulain, qui a beaucoup travaillé sur cette question, estime que ce processus de guérison doit comporter une dimension non seulement humaine, psychique, mais aussi spirituelle.

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Catholic Insider

When the Boston Archdiocese recently released the 2011 Annual Report and announced financial results for the year, it seems that few people actually looked closely at the report. So in the next few posts, BCI will analyze and report on a number of concerns. A close look at the annual report reveals several significant issues which Cardinal O’Malley and Vicar General Msgr. Deeley may want to pay closer attention to for the future of the archdiocese. Today we focus just on the budget balancing act, specifically i) whether the budget was in fact balanced or not, and ii) the mix of spending. We will share more issues in the next few posts.

Here is the gist of the questions over the “balanced budget.” As we said in this April 2011 post when the annual report budget balancing games were last played, in a balanced budget, revenues equal expenditures. Simple. But, for the Archdiocese of Boston, the report shows that revenues did NOT equal expenditures in 2011, or in 2010 for that matter. So, if revenues did not equal expenses, how can the budget be “balanced”? It all depends on how you define “balanced.” We cannot find anyone who defines a “balanced budget” the same way the Boston Archdiocese does, but if we are missing something, please let us know and we will correct ourselves.

ROME
The Sun (United Kingdom)

FROM Nick Pisa in Rome

MORE than 4,000 cases of Catholic priests sexually abusing children have been investigated in ten years.

A top churchman admitted it is a "dramatic increase" on the 3,000 in 50 years previously suspected.

Cardinal Joseph William Levada revealed at a Vatican conference the shocking extent of the worldwide scandal.

He told 100 international clergy that the Catholic church has an obligation to report paedophile priests to the authorities.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Throughout the arc of the sexual abuse crisis, Vatican officials have often complained about media sensationalism and bias. In 2002, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos famously took a series of questions in English during a press conference, and then snarled that fact alone “already says something about the problem and gives it an outline.” As recently as 2010, Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former Secretary of State, appeared to compare media criticism to “petty gossip.”

The tone out of this week’s abuse summit has been strikingly different. If not quite fulsome gratitude, speakers have at least offered an acknowledgment that whatever progress the church has made, has often come as a result of media pressure.

To be sure, those concessions have usually been coupled with insistence that church leaders should now get ahead of the curve, rather than waiting for yet another media firestorm. Moreover, trace elements of resentment over perceived media hostility haven’t been entirely absent.

Still, in comparison to Vatican attitudes on other occasions, one might almost say that the media’s role in the crisis is undergoing a rehabilitation.

MICHIGAN
The Holland Sentinel

By Staff reports
The Holland Sentinel

Allegan —

The teens who testified Tuesday that they were sexually abused by a Holland man are three of several victims from at least two counties, a lawyer from the state attorney general’s office told an Allegan County judge during a pretrial hearing.

“There are another number of kids included in this case,” said attorney Paul Cusik. “There aren’t only three witnesses.”

Jonathan King Meyer, 32, will face trial in Allegan County Circuit Court for three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the alleged sex assaults in 2006 and 2007. He was bound over to the circuit court after about 90 minutes of testimony Tuesday in district court.

The charges carry a penalty of life in prison for Meyer, a former lunchroom supervisor at Holland’s West Middle School and youth leader at Christ Memorial Church in Holland.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

The Vatican’s top prosecutor on sex abuse cases today bluntly decried “a deadly culture of silence” on clerical abuse, calling such denial “in itself wrong and unjust.”

Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna told participants in a Vatican summit on sex abuse that while the church now has clear laws to punish abusers, just having such laws on the books isn’t enough.

“Our people need to know that the law is being applied,” he said. “No strategy for the prevention of child abuse will ever work without commitment and accountability.”

Scicluna likewise reaffirmed the obligation of church leaders to cooperate with civil authorities, including reporting abuse allegations to police and prosecutors.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

To all those critics who have clamored for greater accountability for bishops who drop the ball on sex abuse cases, the Vatican’s top prosecutor this morning had a simple message: You’re absolutely right.

“We need to be vigilant in choosing candidates for the important role of bishop, and we also need to use the tools that canonical law and tradition give us for the accountability of bishops,” said Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna.

As a case in point, Scicluna bluntly said it is simply “not acceptable” for bishops to ignore anti-abuse protocols established by the Vatican or by their bishops’ conference. He said the church in Ireland, to take one example, “has paid a very high price for the mistakes of some of its shepherds.”

Sciculuna was apparently referring to a damning government report in 2011 which found that in the Irish diocese of Clone, which founded that both civil laws and church procedures on handling sex abuse complaints were flouted as recently as 2009.

NEVADA
8 News Now

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) - A judge in Henderson set a March evidence hearing for a former fugitive Las Vegas-area pastor who was returned in custody from Mexico to face multiple child sex assault charges.

Otis Holland said little during a brief hearing Tuesday at which Henderson Justice of the Peace David Gibson Sr. scheduled a March 21 preliminary hearing.

The 55-year-old former pastor of the United Faith Church was arrested Jan. 25 in Tijuana, Mexico.

IOWA
Courier

By TINA HINZ, tina.hinz@wcfcourier.com | Posted: Tuesday, February 7, 2012

WAVERLY, Iowa --- Defense attorney Kevin Engels says authorities lied to his client and obtained a search warrant without probable cause.

During a hearing Monday at the Bremer County Courthouse, Engels argued to suppress evidence that could be used against his client, Dennis Brown, 67, of Eldora.

Brown, a pastor at Ivester Church of the Brethren in Grundy County, is charged with third-degree sexual abuse, a Class C felony. He allegedly performed a sex act in May with a 15-year-old boy in Waverly. The pair met online.

MARYLAND
Herald-Mail

FREDERICK, Md. —
The former pastor of a Montgomery County church has pleaded guilty in Frederick to second-degree sex offense with a 10-year-old girl.

Joe Ivey, 74, of Walkersville entered into the plea deal Tuesday. Frederick County prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault and sexual abuse of a minor.

Prosecutors said they’ll recommend at Ivey’s March 28 sentencing that he serve four years in prison, with another 16 years suspended.

Defense attorney Richard Bricken said he’ll ask for no prison time. He cites the lack of a prior criminal record.

MARYLAND
News-Post

By Brian Englar
News-Post Staff

The former pastor of a Montgomery County church charged with abusing a girl from his congregation entered a guilty plea Tuesday in Frederick County Circuit Court.

Joe Nix Ivey, 74, former pastor of Barnesville Baptist Church, pleaded guilty to a second-degree sex offense. Prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault and sex abuse of a minor.

Assistant State's Attorney Tammy Leach asked Judge G. Edward Dwyer to sentence Ivey to 20 years in prison but suspend all but four years. She also asked for five years of supervised probation upon Ivey's release.

MASSACHUSETTS
Cape Cod Times

By SEAN TEEHAN
steehan@capecodonline.com

February 08, 2012

BARNSTABLE — A Cape Cod music teacher pleaded not guilty Tuesday to more than a dozen counts of sexual abuse involving two of his students.

Stephen B. Lindberg, 55, of Marstons Mills, who is also a former music director at a Hyannis church, casually grinned at times during his brief arraignment in Barnstable Superior Court. He is charged with four counts of rape of a child, six counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under the age of 14, three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14 and one count of violating a restraining order.

Lindberg, who has been held at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility since his arrest in August, remained in custody after Judge Gary Nickerson ordered that the total bail of $20,000 from two separate district court cases out of Barnstable and Falmouth be applied at the Superior Court level.

MANCHESTER (NH)
New Hampshire Union Leader

By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI
New Hampshire Union Leader

Published Feb 8, 2012

MANCHESTER — Four victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their advocates appealed to the state's new Roman Catholic bishop to change the diocese's child sexual abuse policies during a brief sidewalk vigil Tuesday.

The six held signs and asked Bishop Peter A. Libasci to make a “clean break from the past” by replacing the lawyers and others involved with the diocese's victim assistance ministries, publicly post the names and addresses of all credibly accused clergy and support any legislative reform that better protects children from molesters.

Libasci succeeded Bishop John B. McCormack as 10th bishop of Manchester last Dec. 8.

“With this new beginning, we're just hoping there is going to be a new era and it will make it easier for victims to come forward and help make New Hampshire schools, parishes and hospitals safer for the children and the vulnerable,” said Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP.

UNITED KINGDOM
Oxford Mail

BANBURY: A Roman Catholic priest who served in Oxfordshire, has been convicted of sexually abusing eight boys.

Alexander Bede Walsh, a former priest at St John The Evangelist Church, in Banbury, was found guilty of 21 sex offences by jurors at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday.

The 58-year-old, who was found not guilty of six other sex offences, abused the boys, aged eight to 16, in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

UNITED KINGDOM
Coventry Telegraph

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham the Most Rev Bernard Longley has thanked the sex abuse victims of a former Coventry priest for their courage in bringing him to justice.

Alexander Bede Walsh was yesterday convicted of 21 sexual offences against eight boys and warned that he faces a lengthy prison sentence.

The archbishop said: “These are horrendous crimes, and I first want to express my deep sense of shame at what has taken place.

“It is the most serious betrayal of trust. I also want to express my profound sorrow, and deep regret to each of the victims, then children, now adults, for the abuse perpetrated by Father Bede Walsh, whom they and their families trusted as a priest.”

ROME
Vatican Radio

From darkness to light. From pain and hurt, to healing and hope. That was the symbolic sense of the penitential liturgy led by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, as a central part of the four day symposium. Appropriately since it is the Jesuit run Gregorian University that has been a driving force behind this conference, the liturgy was held in the great baroque church of St Ignatius, dedicated to the founder of the Society of Jesus. Beneath the masterly ceiling fresco by Andrea del Pozzo, a small procession of bishops, priests, and lay people entered the dark and silent church as images were projected onto a screen beside a simple wooden crucifix. They showed the beauty of God’s creation, images of nature and new life, children of different countries and cultures. But then a dramatic change of tone as the slides showed man’s destruction of the environment, our greed and violence, racism and conflicts that remind us all of our need for forgiveness.

In his homily Cardinal Ouellet spoke of the scandal and shame of sexual abuse, a crime he said which causes a sense of death for the innocent victims. He spoke too of the sins of church leaders who often knew what their priests were doing but failed to stop the abuse. He said, “Sometimes the violence was committed by deeply disturbed persons, or by those who had themselves been abused. It was necessary to take action concerning them and to prevent them from continuing any form of ministry for which they were obviously not suitable. This was not always done properly, and once again we apologise to the victims."

UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

THE head of the Roman Catholic church in the West Midlands has spoken out about the "horrendous" sexual abuse committed by a former priest.

Bede Walsh has been found guilty of carrying out 21 sexual offences against eight boys when he served as a priest in churches across the Archdiocese of Birmingham, including in Cheadle.

After finding Walsh guilty of 18 charges of indecent assault and one serious sexual offence at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on Monday, the jury yesterday finished its deliberations to convict him of a further two counts.

Walsh, aged 58, will be sentenced on March 9 and has been warned a lengthy sentence is "inevitable".

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Catherine Hornby in Rome

Wednesday February 08 2012

Church guidelines on how to root out paedophile priests and protect children need to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them, Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins told a Vatican symposium on clerical abuse yesterday.

She said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing paedophiles to carry on molesting children.

The symposium is aimed at compelling bishops to create tough policies to protect children and root out paedophiles from the priesthood.

"I would hope that internally there could be some ecclesiastical penalty for a bishop who may not follow the guidelines," the 65-year-old campaigner said at the gathering in Rome. "You obviously have civil law as well, but I am talking more on the church side."

ROME
Zenit

By Ann Schneible

ROME, FEB. 7, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Today's session of the international symposium Toward Healing and Renewal focused largely on the psychological and pastoral aspects of the sex abuse crisis in the Church.

The opening presentation, which was delivered by Marie Collins, a victim of child sex abuse, and Sheila Hollins, a professor of psychiatry, was largely directed toward understanding the sex abuse crisis from the victim's perspective. In a press conference following the speech, both speakers answered questions regarding some of the issues discussed.

"It was difficult for me," admitted Collins, when asked about her decision to share her story, "but I felt that it was very important that the leadership of the Church -- we have so many bishops from around the world here -- that they hear a victim's experience, and I felt for that reason that I should do it, and I'm very glad I did and I think the response was very good. There was actually one African bishop who spoke after the presentation and he felt that -- beforehand he had not really given the issue a great deal of importance, but having heard us both speak, he had changed his mind and felt that this was something he really had to give a lot more attention to. So, I think it was important that what we both said was heard."

ROME
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 7, 2012 / 06:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One of the Catholic Church’s leading experts on clerical abuse says he welcomes a significant drop in the number of cases being reported in the United States – but won’t rest until that figure reaches zero.

“The instance of new allegations have dropped precipitously, it’s a marked drop, which is great news, although we’re not going to stop till we've stopped it completely,” Monsignor Steve Rossetti, associate professor at the Catholic University of America, told CNA Feb 7.

Monsignor Rossetti was in Rome to address an international symposium on the issue of clerical abuse at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University. The Feb. 6 - 9 gathering has brought together representatives from over 140 bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders worldwide.

ROME
Washington Post

By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service, Updated: Tuesday, February 7

VATICAN CITY — Bishops and religious leaders on Tuesday (Feb. 7) held an unprecedented service of repentance in Rome, seeking atonement for lapses in church management that led to the abuse of thousands of children by predatory priests.

“We implore forgiveness for those who have abused in various ways,” Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, said during the rite at the Church of St. Ignatius.

“This evil is within us and severely tarnishes our testimony,” he admitted, and said church leaders have at times “become an instrument of evil” toward those they were charged to protect.

The ceremony was organized as part of a Vatican-sponsored conference at Rome’s Gregorian University to help bishops meet a May deadline to craft voluntary “guidelines” to improve the church’s handling of abuse cases.

CANADA
CBC News

A retired Ontario priest and convicted sex offender has been charged with indecently assaulting two Saskatoon boys more than 50 years ago.

William Hodgson Marshall, 89, is currently in custody in Kingston, Ont., after being sentenced last June to two years in prison for sexual assaults against boys dating back to the 1950s.

Marshall was a priest, basketball coach and mathematics teacher at St. Paul's High School in Saskatoon between 1958 and 1961. The all-boys school, which was on the 400 block of 22nd St. E. downtown, closed in 1967.

ROME
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 7, 2012 / 05:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An Irish woman who was abused by a priest in her youth told an international symposium on clerical abuse that Pope Benedict is a model of how to listen to victims.

“Listening to victims is one of the most important things, and it was something that was maybe not done enough, and the Pope is giving an example as to how it should be done,” Marie Collins said Feb. 7.

Collins, 65, was abused while a patient in a Dublin children’s hospital. She told journalists at the “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium at the Pontifical Gregorian University that she was particularly impressed by the Pope’s numerous meetings with victims during his apostolic visits abroad.

NEW YORK
The New York Times

By ANDY NEWMAN

In 2002, at the height of the outcry over the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests, the Archbishop of New York, Edward M. Egan, issued a letter to be read at Mass. In it, he offered an apology about the church’s handling of sex-abuse cases in New York and in Bridgeport, Conn., where he was previously posted.

“It is clear that today we have a much better understanding of this problem,” he wrote. “If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

Now, 10 years later and in retirement, Cardinal Egan has taken back his apology.

In an interview in the February issue of Connecticut magazine, a surprisingly frank Cardinal Egan said of the apology, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

ROME
The Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

THE HOLY See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had to deal with more than 4,000 cases of sexual abuse of minors in the past decade, according to its prefect, US Cardinal William Levada.

He was speaking at a symposium in Rome, “Towards Healing and Renewal”, which opened yesterday and was addressed by Irish clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins.

Cardinal Levada told the symposium, being held over three days in the Pontifical Gregorian University, that the number of cases of sexual abuse of minors reported to the CDF in the past decade had revealed, on the one hand, the inadequacy of “an exclusively canonical response to this tragedy and, on the other, the necessity of a truly multifaceted response ...”

MISSOURI
KMOX

ST. LOUIS–(KMOX)–The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests is accusing Chaminade of taking too long to get the word out about two brothers recently accused of sexual misconduct in the 1970s.

The Marianist Order, which runs Chaminade, has sent out a letter to some 1600 alumni about allegations of abuse involving Brother John Woulfe and Louis Meinhardt — both of whom are now dead.

SNAP’s David Clohessy claims these allegations were well known for some time.

“We’ve talked to at least half a dozen men who told us that Father Meinhardt molested them,” Clohessy said, “And most of them told us that they reported it to Chaminade officials.”

MISSOURI
KSDK

Written by
Brandie Piper

By Mike Rush

St. Louis (KSDK) - We have new information tonight involving allegations of sex abuse dating back to the 1970s at Chaminade College Preparatory.

The head of the Marianists says the same graduate who came to him a few months ago, had reached out in years past, and he says there were other accusations of abuse by others against the two former teachers in question.

Father Martin Solma says the complaints came in about these men at least eight or nine years ago. While he says they may not have been handled correctly then, the father, who's been at the helm for less than two years, says he'll do the right thing now.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

MILWAUKEE -- A support group for victims of priest abuse is speaking out against plans to ask for the dismissal of several claims against local clergymen.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, held a news conference Tuesday.

The group said more than 550 victims came forward to file claims of sex abuse over the last nine months.

Now, there are reports that the attorneys for the archdiocese plan to ask a judge to dismiss 95 percent of those claims during a hearing Thursday.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Feb. 07, 2012 NCR Today

ROME -- In a first of its kind for Rome, the Vatican’s top official for bishops tonight led a liturgy of penance to ask forgiveness for the sexual abuse of children by priests, and for church leaders who covered up that abuse.

The service included an Irish victim of clerical abuse, who, in an apparent reference both to abusers and their protectors, asked God to “forgive them.”

Held tonight at Rome’s Church of St. Igantius, the liturgy was presided over by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who serves as Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops. His participation was seen as significant, because it implicitly acknowledged that the church’s shortcomings are not limited to priests who committed abuse, but also include bishops who failed to act.

The service was part of a four-day Vatican summit on the sexual abuse crisis titled “Towards Healing and Renewal.” The event brings together roughly 100 bishops and religious superiors from around the world, ahead of a May deadline for bishops’ conferences to submit their policies on fighting abuse for Vatican review.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

The following statement was read by Fr. Jim Connell, Vice Chancellor of the Milwaukee Archdiocese and victim advocate in front of the U.S. Federal Courthouse at SNAP’s press conference discussing the recent court filing by the archdiocese of Milwaukee which seeks to dismiss 95% of the claims filed by victim/survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has gone to great efforts to invite into the bankruptcy process the victims / survivors of sexual abuse “by any clergy member, teacher, deacon, employee, volunteer, or other person connected with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee”, as was stated on the public postings about filing a claim before the February 1, 2012 “bar date”. But neither the public postings nor the Abuse Survivor Proof of Claim form stated any eligibility restrictions, such as statute of limitations, prior settlement agreements, or factors of archdiocesan employment. Rather, both the public postings and the proof of claim form invited participation in a way that acknowledged financial awareness, while also providing a gesture that pursues truth, justice and healing. For many people, hope was found in the midst of a financial maneuver.

It could be, therefore, that survivors of sexual abuse interpreted the process as one in which the Catholic Church was wanting do what is right and good, even if not required by law. The gesture by the Archdiocese could have been seen to mean that the Church was willing to remedy abuse cases even if beyond the statue of limitations (truly, it’s difficult for some survivors to speak up promptly), or even if there was a prior settlement (maybe it wasn’t really fair), or even if the abuse was by a religious order priest (after all, they can’t serve in the Archdiocese without the permission – faculty – of the Archbishop). Indeed, the bankruptcy claims process seemed inviting, not restrictive.

MISSOURI
Patch

By Gregg Palermo

Outspoken advocates for victims of child sex abuse continued to pressure the religious order in charge of Chaminade College Preparatory School in Creve Coeur, one day after the order released a statement announing that it found allegations of sexual abuse by two now-deceased teachers there as credible.

Representatives with SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, held a Tuesday morning press conference in front of the Central West End Provincial Headquarters for the Marianist order.

"It's a belated and begrudging, and very, very partial bare-minimum outreach effort that Marianists did obviously because they were prodded into doing so," said SNAP's David Clohessy. Clohessy has suggested that a letter which went out to Chaminade students who attended the school at the time the two men who were identified by the Marianist order should have gone out to all Marianist schools and all Catholic schools in the St. Louis area. He also said victims should have been encouraged to contact law enforcement.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Canadian Business

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A group representing victims of clergy abuse is asking the Milwaukee Catholic archdiocese to withdraw motions to dismiss some of the nearly 570 restitution claims in its bankruptcy case.

The archdiocese has filed motions in three cases asking they be dismissed because they were either filed beyond the statute of limitations, involved someone who was not an archdiocese employee or involved a victim who already received a settlement. A hearing is set for Thursday.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests estimates the archdiocese's arguments could ultimately get 95 percent of the cases dismissed. They claim the archdiocese misled victims because it never mentioned eligibility restrictions.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

4:29 pm, February 7, 2012, by Chip Brewster

MILWAUKEE — More than 550 reports of child sex crimes have been filed against the Milwaukee Archdiocese since early 2011. But now, the Archdiocese wants roughly 520 of those claims thrown out.

“While we were bound under the bankruptcy rules to cast a wide net for potential claimants, it is the court that determines which individual claims are eligible for financial compensation,” said Julie Wolf, Archdiocese spokesperson.

The Archdiocese is not arguing against the validity of the reports themselves. They church contends claims beyond the statute of limitations or which have already received settlements should not be considered.

Officials also believe alleged abuse at the hands of priests or church officials not actually employed by the diocese itself should be dismissed.

ROME
Vatican Insider

The testimony of Marie Collins, from Ireland, who was abused for 50 years by a hospital chaplain. Psychiatrists say “If no one believes her, she will never heal”

Vatican Insider staff
Rome

The second day of the international Symposium on the prevention of sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy entitled “Towards Healing and Renewal” and organised by the Pontifical Gregorian University, concluded with a penitential vigil in the church of Saint Ignatius.

The one hundred plus bishops and 30 superiors representing religious orders who took part in the conference, will participate in the "penitential vigil" , during which seven representatives of different church groups will ask God and victims for forgiveness, for the sins committed and their failure to punish and prevent these offences.

During the liturgy, a “meaningful, clear and explicit” text will be read out, said Fr. Hans Zollner, President of the Symposium’s organizing committee. A victim will then ask God for the strength to forgive.

ROME
The New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: February 7, 2012

ROME — At an international conference backed by the Vatican to discuss the prevention of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, a psychologist said Tuesday that the church should listen to victims rather than focus their attention on priests accused of wrongdoing.

The psychologist, Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti, an advocate for the prevention of child abuse, said about 95 percent of allegations were well founded.

“Child molesters must know that they have no safe sanctuary in our church,” he said in prepared remarks.

Monsignor Rossetti said he believed that church leaders — usually called on to deal with their own priests — should not handle such cases by themselves, but should consult legal and criminal experts to conduct investigations and advise bishops. All too often, offending priests have manipulated and lied to their superiors, he said. ...

Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org , said the conference was intended to “change the subject and look like progress.”

“The Vatican is afraid, and it has reason to be,” he said, in light of recent charges against the church, including a complaint filed against the Vatican with the International Criminal Court.

CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

By EDMUND H. MAHONY, emahony@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

2:31 p.m. EST, February 7, 2012
WATERBURY—
A psychiatric expert called to testify Tuesday in Superior Court by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford disputed an earlier diagnosis that an adolescent victim of sexual abuse by a priest would likely suffer from mental health problems for the rest of his life.

Dr. J. Alexander Bodkin testified that the most significant mental disorder suffered by the victim — depression — was not the result of the sexual abuse he experienced in the early 1980s, but is the result of stress caused 26 years later by litigation associated with the abuse.

The victim, a former altar boy identified in legal papers as Jacob Doe, claims in a lawsuit against the church that he was sexually abused by a priest from 1981 to 1983 and that the church allowed the abuse to take place because it knew the priest had molested other boys two years earlier.

ROME
Press TV (Iran)

The Roman Catholic Church is holding its first summit in Rome aimed at discussing ways to confront a rise in the sexual abuse of children by priests.

The Vatican’s previous stance towards the issue had been one in support of the priests involved in the abuse cases.

Mounting pressure on the Roman Church has led it to focus on protecting the victims.

''Healing for victims must be of paramount concern in the Christian community, and it must go hand in hand with a profound renewal of the church at every level,'' Pope Benedict XVI said.

ROME
Voice of America

Roman Catholic leaders are being told the time has come to eliminate church sanctioned safe-havens for clergy accused of sexually abusing children.

Psychologists and a victim of a pedophile priest spoke Tuesday at a closed-door, church sponsored symposium calling on the Catholic Church to listen to victims instead of its own priests.

Monsignor Stephen Rossetti told the conference the church could prevent many of concerns related to child sexual abuse cases if it would adopt a victim-first approach. He said that one change would tell pedophile priests, “they have no safe refuge in your society.”

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on February 07, 2012

We are clergy sex abuse victims who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Our mission is to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.

We are here today about two child predators – Brother Louis Meinhardt and Brother John Woulfe. Woulfe has been publicly exposed before. Meinhardt has not. Both are Marianists.

The Marianists run three St. Louis area Catholic schools: Chaminade College Prep, St. John Vianney High School, and St. Mary’s High School. Some Marianists also worked at McBride High School years ago.

Brother Meinhardt is the seventh local Marianists who has been publicly accused of sexual abuse. The others are: Fr. William Christensen, Fr. Robert R. Osborne, Brother William Mueller, Fr. Daniel A. Triulzi, Brother Tony Pistone and Brother Woulfe.

VATICAN CITY
GMA News

DARIO THUBURN, Agence France Presse February 8, 2012

VATICAN CITY - Catholic leaders asked God for forgiveness for the crimes of paedophile priests at a church service on Tuesday after an Irish victim said the Vatican should be held accountable for destroying lives.

The heads of seven religious orders intoned penitential prayers in a church in Rome on the sidelines of a first-ever Vatican summit to look at ways of rooting out child abuse from the Church after thousands of scandals.

"We have sinned. We did not know how to listen to the pain of so many innocent ones," one of the bishops taking part in the service said.

"We are aware that our acts of reparation can never erase the unjust things we have done or soothe the searing wound of our consciousness," he said.

ROME
Local 10

(CNN) -
An Irish woman who detailed her own harrowing experience of child sexual abuse at the hands of a priest spoke out during a Vatican symposium on Tuesday, telling church officials that an apology was not enough.

"Those fingers that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning holding and offering me the sacred host," Marie Collins told an audience at Gregorian University in Rome. "The hands that held the camera to photograph my exposed body, in the light of day were holding a prayer book when he came to hear my confession."

MISSOURI
St. Joseph Post

The chairman of a Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese review board dealing with sex abuse allegations will resign.

Jim Caccamo’s resignation date was announced as February 22nd, however, he has stated he will remain on the board until a replacement is found.

He heads the Independent Review Board that has seen a priest charged with child pornography charges and Bishop Robert Finn’s indictment for allegedly failing to report suspected child abuse.

The board assesses child sexual abuse allegations and makes recommendations to the bishop on how they should be handled.

UNITED KINGDOM
Network for Church Monitoring

The first time Declan had any dealings with Companies House - the government body charged with registering all companies in the UK, including non-profits - he was told that Network of those Abused by Church was an "offensive company name" (see blog of 17 January 2011 Companies House refuses to register NAC: "Offensive company name"). We have since assumed that the high profile US organisation Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) would be told by Companies House to change their name if they want the company incorporated in the UK.

MARYLAND
Washington Examiner

The former pastor of a Montgomery County church pleaded to charges that he sexually abused a young girl, prosecutors said.

Seventy-four-year-old Joe Ivey pleaded Tuesday to second-degree sex offense with a 10-year-old girl.

Frederick County prosecutors said Ivey, who resigned as senior pastor of the Barnesville Baptist Church after he arrest in September, had sexual contact with the girl from 2009 to December 2010. She was 10 and 11 years old at the time.

CANADA
Global Saskatoon

David Giles, Global Saskatoon : Tuesday, February 07, 2012

A former Saskatoon priest and teacher has been charged after two separate incidents decades ago.

William Hodgson Marshall, 89, is facing two counts of indecent assault that are alleged to have occurred between January 1, 1959 and December 31, 1960.

The two victims, now 66, were 14-years-old at the time of the alleged assaults.

CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: The Canadian Press

Posted: 02/7/2012

SASKATOON - An 89-year-old Catholic priest and former teacher is facing sex-related charges dating back more than 50 years.

Police in Saskatoon say two separate encounters allegedly occurred in 1959 and 1960 and involved two 14-year-old teenagers.

The accused was a priest and teacher at the high school the teens attended.

William Hodgson Marshall is charged with two counts of indecent assault.

CANADA
The Star-Phoenix

William Hodgson Marshall, a former priest and teacher at an all-boys Catholic institution in downtown Saskatoon more than five decades ago, is facing multiple charges in connection with incidents involving teen boys in 1959 and 1960.

Marshall, 89, has been charged with two counts of indecent assault. He is curently in custody in Kingston, Ont., serving a sentence after being convicted last year of sexually assaulting 16 boys and one girl over a span of three decades while working in Ontario. The Ontario Crown is arranging for Marshall to make a court appearance in Ontario to face the charges.

In July 2011, Saskatoon police received two separate reports alleging assaults took place between Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1959 and Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1960. The alleged victims, now 66 years old, were 14 at the time. Marshall was a priest and teacher at St. Paul's High School, located then in the 400 block of 22nd Street East.

CANADA
Walkerton Herald-Times

February 7, 2012
Lindsey Kuglin

A former Walkerton clergyman is facing a number of sex-related charges.

A priest at St. Thomas Anglican Church from 1976-1981, Rev. George Ferris’ is facing charges of sexual assault, gross indecency, and sexual exploitation for offences that allegedly took place between 1981-1989.

The alleged offences took place in Brant County, which is south of Kitchener.

ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

February 6, 2012. (Romereports.com) The pope has written to conference participants on how to deal with cases of sexual abuse and asked them to put first the needs of abuse victims.

It's the key point of the conference “Towards Healing and Renewal”, organized by the Gregorian University in Rome, and actively supported by the Vatican.

The audience will include bishops from 110 episcopal conferences and more than 30 superiors of religious orders. The goal is to teach them how to help victims of abuse and explain what to do with priests and religious who commit these crimes.

Hans Zollner
President, Congress “Towards Healing and Renewal”
“You have all come to give a clear signal of the will and the duty of the Church to firmly change the way to behave when faced against evil, sin and the crime of sexual abuse within the Church and in society.”

DALLAS (TX)
Watch Keep

Sgt. Byron Fassett in the Dallas police department child exploitation unit is ready to take your call if you were abused by John Langworthy during his time in Dallas while on staff at Prestonwood Baptist Church in the mid to late 1980s or if you have information about these crimes. Langworthy was fired in the summer of 1989 by Prestonwood for the known sexual abuse of several boys. The staff heard directly from victims but failed to report the abuse to the police as required by mandatory reporting laws enacted in TX in 1971. Please call Byron at 214-671-4200. I have spoken with Byron. If you need to leave him a message, please do. He will call you back.

DALLAS (TX)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 07, 2012

We applaud Cameron Greer for courageously reporting the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of his pastor. We are grateful he’s taking legal action to protect others and we are impressed by the courage he’s showing by discussing his experiences publicly. Abuse and cover up happen over and over again because many church members can’t summon the strength to speak out and because many church officials can’t summon the courage to disclosed crimes. Greer should be commended for acting responsibly to expose wrongdoing and safeguard others.

We hope Methodist officials – in Dallas and in Wichita (where Pastor Gordon also worked) will use their resources to seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered this clergyman’s’ crimes. We hope anyone with information or suspicions of misdeeds will contact law enforcement immediately. When victims, witnesses and whistleblowers speak up, there’s at least a chance for healing, justice and prevention. When they stay silent, however, nothing changes and kids remain at risk.

SOUTH DAKOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on February 07, 2012

Yesterday, SD lawmakers refused to support a bill that would have made kids safer from child sexual predators. Shame on them.

South Dakota remains the only state in the union to have gone backwards in terms of child safety in the last decade.

Besides jail, two things keep kids safe from child predators - publicly exposing predators and deterring others from concealing their crimes. There's no better way to do this than by reforming archaic, arbitrary, predator-friendly laws like the statute of limitations.

Victims of these horrific crimes need time to understand, cope with and report these horrific crimes. They are often trapped in cycles of guilt, depression, substance abuse and other destructive behaviors. When they finally muster the courage to step forward, they find that the statute has run and the predator is free to prey

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 7, 2012 / 11:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI called upon bishops to respond in a “Christ-like” manner to clerical abuse as part of a “profound renewal” of the Church.

His Feb. 6 comments marked the opening of an international symposium in Rome to discuss the issue. The Pope’s wishes were expressed in a communiqué from Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's Secretary of State.

“He (the Pope) asks the Lord that, through your deliberations, many bishops and religious superiors throughout the world may be helped to respond in a truly Christ-like manner to the tragedy of child abuse,” the statement said.

NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal

LAS VEGAS — A former Las Vegas-area pastor who was nabbed in Mexico after he disappeared with child sex assault charges pending in Nevada is due to face a judge in Henderson.

Court records show that 55-year-old Otis Holland was scheduled for a felony appearance today in Henderson Justice Court.

The former United Faith Church pastor was arrested Jan. 25, in Tijuana, Mexico.

ROME
Reuters

By Catherine Hornby

ROME | Tue Feb 7, 2012

(Reuters) - An Irish victim of clerical abuse said Tuesday that Catholic Church guidelines on how to root out pedophile priests and protect children needed to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them.

Speaking at a major conference in Rome on the sex abuse crisis, Marie Collins said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing pedophiles to carry on molesting children.

"I would hope that internally there could be some ecclesiastical penalty for a bishop who may not follow the guidelines," the 65-year-old campaigner for abuse survivors told reporters during the conference.

"You obviously have civil law as well, but I am talking more on the church side."

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

One of America’s leading experts on the Catholic abuse crisis effectively told church leaders from different parts of the world today that if they think sexual abuse is not a problem in their neighborhood, they’re kidding themselves.

“Church leaders around the world began by saying, ‘This is only an American problem’,” Monsignor Stephen Rossetti told a Vatican symposium this morning. “Then, as more cases surfaced in other countries, they said, ‘This is an English speaking problem.’ Then, as the circle of abuse cases widened, they expanded it to: ‘This is a Western problem.’ The boundaries were pushed back farther and farther.”

“Each time, church leaders said, in effect, ‘It doesn’t happen here’,” Rossetti said.

Rossetti, former director of the St. Luke’s Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, which treats abuser priests, has written widely on the crisis. He said that in reality, all the available data, based on studies by secular experts, concur that child abuse occurs at the same high rates across the various continents.

ROME
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

The urgent need to change the culture within the Church to ensure zero tolerance of all sexual abuse: that was the starkly clear message that emerged from the Tuesday morning session of the conference on ‘Healing and Renewal’, going on behind closed doors at Rome’s Gregorian University. Bishops or their representatives from over a hundred countries are attending the four day meeting which also includes a penitential liturgy and the launch of a German based centre for child protection to provide resources for church leaders across the globe. Philippa Hitchen reports…

Sometimes shock tactics are needed to shake people out of denial, complacency or the refusal to confront a particularly painful problem. That’s what participants at this conference got on Tuesday as they heard a middle aged Irish victim of abuse describe in detail how her experience led to decades of despair, depression and deep loss of trust in the Church. As a 13 year old girl, Marie Collins was abused by a hospital chaplain, who was then protected by his archbishop and went on to abuse and rape other children over a period of 30 years. Though she was sickened by his actions, Marie says she herself felt guilty and was unable to tell anyone about what he was doing. The fact that he was a priest simply added to the confusion in her young mind: “those fingers that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning offering me the sacred host” she told the conference, adding that “my abusers’ assertion that he was and priest and could do no wrong rang true with me”.

Speaking alongside Marie at that morning session was psychiatry professor Sheila Hollins, who recently accompanied British cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor on his visitation to hear victims of sexual abuse in the Irish diocese of Armagh. She spoke of the devastating psychological damage suffered by victims who feel dirty, ashamed, unable to enjoy normal relationships and often go on to either abuse others or seek refuge in alcohol or drug abuse. Those mental health problems are simply made worse if their story is then not believed or played down, as many bishops in the past have done. Both women stressed the vital importance of listening to survivors stories and providing them with ongoing psychiatric and spiritual support

CONNECTICUT
The Associated Press

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan is facing criticism from representatives of clergy sexual abuse victims for a recent interview in which he said he regretted apologizing for the priest abuse scandal in 2002 when he was bishop of Bridgeport.

In the interview with Connecticut Magazine, Egan says "I don't think we did anything wrong" in handling abuse cases. He says he was not obligated to report abuse claims and maintained he inherited the cases from his predecessor and did not have any cases on his watch.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Bishop Daniel Conlon of Joliet, Illinois, is the chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People. He’s attending the four-day “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium as the official delegate of the U.S. bishops, and this morning he sat down with an exclusive interview with NCR.

The following is a transcript of the interview.

* * *
This morning you heard an Irish victim, Marie Collins, describe how her experiences of not being taken seriously led to what she called a “final death of respect” for church authorities. Can you understand that reaction?

Oh, I can certainly understand that reaction. I’ve not been a victim, so I can’t place myself in her position, but anybody who has been hurt and then not listened to is going to experience further hurt.

Are you confident that someone who comes forward today will be received differently?

I would certainly hope that their experience today would be fundamentally different. Sometimes, though, the level of pain and anger is such that it creates a wall that makes dialogue difficult. That’s nobody’s fault, it’s just a reality. Those of us who are charged with listening to and respecting victims have to find a way to get around that wall. It’s a pastoral obligation.

MISSOURI
Fox 2

Vera Culley
Web Producer

8:29 a.m. CST, February 7, 2012
CENTRAL WEST END (KTVI - FOX2now.com)—
A news conference is planned for Tuesday morning after several Chaminade graduates claim they were verbally and sexually abused at the College prep school. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is holding the news conference at 11 a.m. in the Central West End.

KENYA
allAfrica

Daily Nation

By Muthende Nduucu, 7 February 2012

Opinion

For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have departed from the way, you have caused many to tumble at the law; you have corrupted the covenant of the law.

The words above were spoken thousands of years back by prophet Malachi in the last book of the Old Testament, lamenting about priests' behaviour towards the law. Now, as then, Malachi's words ring true if recent controversies around the Church are anything to go by.

For instance, a case is headed to the International Criminal Court in the Hague seeking to "take action and prosecute the Pope for direct and superior responsibility for the crimes against humanity of rape and other sexual violence committed around the world."

A group calling itself The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which is headed by lawyer Pam Spees, says the Pope and three high-ranking Vatican officials, all Cardinals, are "responsible for rape and other sexual violence, and for the physical torture of victims around the world both through command responsibility and direct cover-up of crimes".

ITALIA
IVG

Savona. Dopo la notizia dell’accordo per chiudere con un patteggiamento (ad un anno di reclusione) la vicenda giudiziaria che vede coinvolto il sacerdote Don Nello Giraudo per l’accusa di pedofilia, la Rete L’Abuso chiede la sospensione della nomina a Cardinale per Domenico Calcagno e il Processo Canonico per i 4 Vescovi savonesi.

I fatti per i quali, se ci sarà anche il via libera del gip del tribunale di Savona, il prete savonese dovrebbe patteggiare risalgono al 2005 quando avrebbe molestato un giovane scout. Un episodio, che a differenza degli altri (risalenti a decine di anni fa) per i quali Don Nello è stato denunciato, non è andato in prescrizione.

ROME
The Associated Press

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Psychologists told bishops from around the world Tuesday that priests who rape and molest children usually lie when confronted with an accusation, and that the church should listen to victims since they usually tell the truth and need to be believed in order to heal.

The messages were delivered at a Vatican-backed symposium on clerical sex abuse that is aimed at compelling bishops to create tough policies to protect children and root out pedophiles from the priesthood.

Survivors of clerical abuse have long said that when they summoned the courage to denounce their abuser to church leaders, bishops often dismissed their accusation and instead accepted the word of their priests, whom bishops consider their brothers and sons in the priesthood.

That pattern led to decades in which bishops shuffled pedophiles from parish to parish, while victims were left to feel like they were to blame for the abuse.

MISSOURI
KSDK

[with video]

Written by
Brandie Piper

St. Louis County (KSDK) - There are allegations of sexual abuse surrounding two former teachers of Chaminade College Preparatory in St. Louis County.

A graduate of the Marianist-sponsored school came forward a few months ago.

He claims he was sexually abused by Brother Louis Mainhardt and Brother John Woulfe in the 1970s. Both brothers have passed away.

More than 16,000 letters went out last month to Chaminade alums asking any more victims to come forward.

UNITED KINGDOM
Coventry Telegraph

A ROMAN Catholic priest who used his "revered" status to wage an 18-year campaign of abuse against vulnerable boys is facing a lengthy jail term after being convicted of 21 sexual offences.

Alexander Bede Walsh, who targeted eight victims in Coventry, Staffordshire and Warwickshire between 1975 and 1993, was found guilty of two serious sexual offences and 19 counts of indecent assault by a jury at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former Roman Catholic priest from Staffordshire has been warned he faces a long prison sentence after being convicted of 21 counts of child abuse.

Alexander Bede Walsh, of Church Lane, Abbots Bromley, carried out the abuse while working at children's homes and churches between the 1970s and 1990s.

Walsh was convicted two serious sexual offences and 19 counts of indecent assault at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.

Sentencing was adjourned but Walsh, 58, was warned to expect a long sentence.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The first victim of a former Roman Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing boys over 20 years says he pities him and hopes he gets help.

Alexander Bede Walsh, 58, abused eight youngsters in Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Coventry from 1975 to 1994. He denied 27 offences.

Michael Clifford, from Birmingham, said he was abused by Walsh as a young boy on one occasion in the mid-70s at the Catholic-run Father Hudson's home in Coleshill, Warwickshire.

He has waived his anonymity to talk about his encounter with Walsh, which took place in a toilet and washroom area.

ROME
RTE News

Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins has addressed a symposium in Rome on the crisis over clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

Speaking to over 100 bishops and 40 religious superiors, Mrs Collins spoke in graphic terms of the abuse she suffered as a 13-year-old in a hospital at the hands of a paedophile priest, and the subsequent cover up.

She was the opening speaker at a four-day symposium on child sexual abuse in the church, which has been seen as the most robust response by the Vatican to date on getting to grips with the crisis which has swept the church.

Alongside leading psychologist Baroness Sheila Hollins, Mrs Collins spoke in detail about the abuse and the frustrations, depression and despair she suffered in later life both as a result of the original trauma and the refusal by the Irish hierarchy to take her complaints seriously.

VATICAN CITY
The Province (Canada)

VATICAN CITY - Shunned by the Catholic Church for decades after being violated by a priest when she was just 13 years old, Irish victim Marie Collins described her traumatic experience at a Vatican summit.

"I had just turned 13 and was at my most vulnerable, a sick child in hospital, when a priest sexually assaulted me," Collins said on Tuesday.

She had just been confirmed a Catholic when the young priest - a couple of years out of the seminary but "already a skilled child molester" - began visiting her in the evenings while she lay in a hospital bed in Dublin.

"When he began to sexually interfere with me, pretending at first, he was being playful, I was shocked and resisted, telling him to stop. He did not stop," she said in front of the conference of bishops and cardinals.

MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BY MARLON A. WALKER • mwalker@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8104

Several Chaminade College Preparatory graduates have come forward alleging that they were subjected to verbal and sexual abuse by two Marianists more than three decades ago, a leader of the Marianists said Monday.

The Rev. Martin Solma, provincial for the U.S. Marianists, said a male graduate came forward several months ago saying he had been sexually abused by the Revs. Louis Meinhardt and John Woulfe while at the school in the 1970s.

Meinhardt, who worked at the school from 1958 to 1982, died in 1990. Woulfe left the order in 1977 after nine years at the school. He died in 2005.

At the victim's request, letters were mailed to 1,600 former students who had graduated while the men worked at the school.

MISSOURI
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: February 07, 2012

ST. LOUIS — Several graduates of a St. Louis County college prep school are alleging they were abused by two teachers decades ago.

The students say they suffered verbal and sexual abuse in the 1970s at Chaminade College Preparatory School, which is sponsored by the Marianists.

The Rev. Martin Solma, provincial for the U.S. Marianists, said Monday that a male graduate made the first allegations several months ago against the Revs. Louis Meinhardt and John Woulfe. Both men died years ago.

GEORGIA
WSB

By Mike Petchenik

ROSWELL, Ga. —

Roswell police are investigating if lacerations on a 4-year-old girl's chest are linked to a religious ritual or child abuse.

Last week, the director of Children's First Learning on Elkins Road called police after finding the cuts on the child, a police report said.

The girl's parents told police that the cuts were part of a religious ritual.

Channel 2's Mike Petchenik went to the girl's apartment off Greenhouse Drive and talked to a woman who said she actually witnessed the ritual that she contends is part of the Santeria religion.

MISSOURI
Patch

By Gregg Palermo

Just over two weeks after reaching out to more than 1600 students who attended Chaminade College Preparatory School about allegations of sexual abuse at the school, the order which runs the Creve Coeur school announced Monday that it believed those allegations to be credible.

In a statement, Reverend Martin Solma, a Marianist Provincial, said he met recently with a former Chaminade student from the 1970s to discuss the allegations. That man also asked that the order contact students who attended the school at the same time as the two fomer teachers, both of whom are now deceased. Solma's statement said 15 alums reported "experiencing or witnessing abusive behavior, sexual as well as other abusive behavors."

One of those accused died in 1990, the other left the Marianist order in 1977 and has also died, according to the statement.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Two days after the publication of the communiqué that rejected the accusations made by the Nuncio to the USA, the Vatican’s daily broadsheet describes the meeting that took place in the White House

ANDREA TORNIELLI
Vatican City

Anyone flicking through the pages of last Saturday’s issue of L’Osservatore Romano will have seen the published contents of a communiqué signed by two cardinals and two bishops – the new and former administration of the Vatican Governorate – in which the accusations of corruption contained in the letters sent by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to the Pope and the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, were rejected as groundless. The letters had been discussed on the Italian television programme Gli Intoccabili (“The Untouchables”) broadcast on LA7. Two days later, at the earliest possible opportunity (L’Osservatore Romano comes out on Saturday afternoon and is dated Sunday, so the following issue comes out on Monday afternoon), the Vatican’s daily broadsheet published an article that could be read as an attempt to stress, in a non explicit way, that the communiqué has not changed anything and that the Nuncio to the United States still has the trust of his superiors.

The text in question is the brief summary customarily written at the beginning of the mission of the new papal representative to the United States. Texts such as this are usually sent to the Vatican newspaper by the Secretary of State who writes them. It can take several days, after the Letters of Credence are presented, for said texts to be published. Viganò, the former Secretary General of the Governorate, had met with bishops and America’s political leadership as the Pope’s representative, on 16 November 2011. The article mentions that the following day, the Episcopate’s plenary assembly took place in Baltimore and that Viganò “had wanted to give the letter of recommendation given o him by the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to the Archbishop of New York and President of the American Episcopal Conference, Mgr. Timothy Dolan.”

ROME
Vatican Insider

Interview with the Auxiliary bishop of Papantla (Mexico) attending the symposium against paedophilia at the Gregorian University

Andrés Beltramo Álvarez

Healthy and responsible seminarists, this has to be the objective of anyone forming future Catholic priests. This in not only for the good of the Church, but a preventive measure against the calamity that is paedophilia together with other psychological deviations that may affect some clerics. Jorge Patrón Wong, expert of priestly education is sure of this. But can such goal be reached? He explained to the Vatican Insider how it could be done.

The Auxiliary bishop of Papantla (Mexico) has been elected as one of the speakers in the Symposium “Towards healing and renovation”, which will take place at the Pontifical Gregorian University from the 6th to the 9th of February. This is a symposium for the representatives of the Episcopal Conferences and the Father-Superiors of religious orders worldwide. The meet has one main aim, to help put in place national schemes to fight paedophilia within the clergy.

TEXAS
NewsWest 9

by Anayeli Ruiz
NewsWest 9
ANDREWS- An Andrews priest is under the microscope and it all revolves around financial irregularities. The problems came to light after an audit was done in the parish.

Father Joey Faylona was the Pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Andrews but now he's under the microscope. The parish was in the process of changing pastors and they did a financial audit for the parish.

This allows the outgoing pastor to review his overall performance in the parish during his tenure and gives the incoming pastor an in-depth look at the pastoral and financial state of the parish to which he is being assigned.

The audit by the Diocese turned up some financial irregularities. That's according to a letter that was sent to NewsWest 9 by the Bishop of the Diocese of San Angelo. The diocese found unauthorized financial advances in parish funds for personal expenses.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Barry Duggan and Craig Hughes

Tuesday February 07 2012

CHARLIE Bird has said RTE has been enormously damaged by the 'Prime Time Investigates' documentary which defamed a Galway priest.

Addressing journalism students at the University of Limerick, the long-serving RTE reporter said the documentary had been a huge jolt for everybody working at the state broadcaster.

Last year, in a programme entitled 'Mission to Prey', RTE falsely stated that Fr Kevin Reynolds had raped a Kenyan woman and fathered a child by her while working as a missionary.

Subsequently, the state broadcaster agreed to settle a High Court action taken by Fr Reynolds.

AUSTRALIA
The Standard

PETER COLLINS

07 Feb, 2012

A NETWORK of Catholic priests not afraid to challenge Vatican edicts will hold their national convention in Warrnambool in July.

More than 160 members of the National Council of Priests of Australia will come from across the country for a week of brainstorming and socialising in the heartland of Irish Catholic heritage.

Discussion topics are likely to include marriage, abuse scandals and a controversial new liturgy being introduced through parishes.

The membership includes prominent Melbourne media identity Fr Bob Maguire and a former Anglican who is now a married Catholic priest.

CHILE
Terra

CURICÓ.- El cierre de la investigación judicial en contra del sacerdote Francisco Cartes solicitó la defensa del religioso acusado de cometer abusos sexuales en contra de un acólito de 16 años, en Curicó.

Los abogados de Cartes sostienen que las diligencias encargadas ya están agotadas y que ninguno de los antecedentes allegados al proceso acreditan que el cura abusó del menor. Asimismo, sostienen que existen denuncias en contra de la supuesta víctima por hostigamiento, amenazas y daños a testigos claves de la investigación.

VATICAN CITY
Sky News (Australia)

The Pope has called for a major renewal of the Catholic Church as the Vatican began a summit on preventing child abuse.

'Healing for victims must be of paramount concern in the Christian community, and it must go hand in hand with a profound renewal of the church at every level,' the Pope was quoted as saying in a Vatican statement.

In a message to participants at the conference, the Pope also called for 'a vigorous culture of effective safeguarding and victim support' and said every effort should be made to help children's human and spiritual growth.

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

By Jeanette DeForge, The Republican

SPRINGFIELD – A Hampden Superior Court judge declined to order protesters of Mater Dolorosa Church to leave the Holyoke building, saying the separation of church and state denies him that authority.

While protesters celebrated the decision – even though three of their own counterclaims were denied – officials for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield said they are considering an appeal.

Judge Cornelius J. Moriarty II said there was a flaw in the argument of the diocese that said the case is a simple question of building ownership.

“The law of trespass necessarily requires an examination of whether the alleged trespasser possesses a right of entry,” Moriarty wrote in his explanation, saying that decision is a matter of canon law.

ILLINOIS
Chicago Sun-Times

A River Forest man who took in dozens of foster children and formerly headed Chicago Catholic Publications was ordered held in lieu of a $50 million cash bond Saturday for allegedly sexually assaulting two girls.

Robert L. Gaskill, 63, molested the minors over a period between 1996 to 2009, according to Cook County prosecutors.

Gaskill, who was arrested at his home Thursday, has operated a foster care service with his wife in their three-story frame home, as well as a foster care support system called Tapestry Chicago, officials said.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin

After promising “all” victims restitution in federal court Achdiocese will ask judge at Thursday hearing to throw out 95% of the 550 plus victim claims filed

Whether or not a claimant was raped or sexually assaulted by a cleric “does not matter”, according to Archdiocese

If church lawyers are successful dozens of newly identified offenders, depositions of top church officials, and tens of thousands of pages of abuse documents will likely remain secret

Sex abuse crisis will “deepen” and remain “totally unresolved” in Archdiocese, leaving children at risk, victims and advocates say

WHAT
Survivors of sexual abuse by clergy, joined by Fr. James Connell, current Vice Chancellor of the archdiocese of Milwaukee, will hold a sidewalk press conference discussing the newest strategy being employed by church lawyers to block the examination and release of yet more evidence and documentation concerning the widespread and systematic abuse of children. Much of that evidence is now contained in the over 550 plus direct reports of child sex crimes now filed with the federal bankruptcy judge in Milwaukee.

On Thursday, at the instruction of Archbishop Jerome Listecki—who was ordered by the court to urge victims to come forward as a condition of filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy 9 months ago—church lawyers will ask the court to dismiss 95% of the victim claims, all of which contain names of offenders, details of thousands of sex crimes, and the names of church officials and others to whom the abuse was likely reported.

The group will also release a letter, emailed this morning to Archbishop Listecki by Connell, on behalf of victims, urging the archbishop to explain why he is instructing his attorneys to embark on this reported plan of action.

Connell and other priests joined with victims in December in making a public appeal to victims of clergy sexual abuse and asking them to come forward before the bankruptcy bar date. The appeal, in the form of a full page advertisement in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, provided victim/survivors with resources in the community designed to assist them in filing a confidential claim with the court.

WHEN
Tuesday, February 7th, 1:30 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Federal Courthouse located at 517 East Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee.

UNITED STATES
The Hill

By Karen Finney - 02/06/12

As the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals involving children and clergy in the United States, Germany, Latin America, Ireland and the Netherlands unfolded a few years ago, the church found itself in the midst of a crisis much of its own making. It wasn’t just the horror of the crimes; it was the lengths to which the leadership of the Catholic Church conspired to keep them hidden. I, like many Catholics, struggled with a deep sense of dissolution as we watched the leadership put protecting the institution ahead of its mission to keep children safe and ministering to the needs of those who were raped and put in harm’s way.

Responding to public outcry, the church reacted as most institutions do, labeling legitimate criticism as attacks and shielding high-level authorities. Many American Catholics were left feeling their church was out of touch.

ROME
Zenit

By Ann Schneible

ROME, FEB. 3, 2012 (Zenit.org).- This Monday through Thursday, the Gregorian University will host the international symposium "Towards Healing and Renewal," on the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. One of the greatest hopes is that the symposium will act as a catalyst for developing a culture of listening and healing within the Church.

At a press conference today, some of the speakers discussed the main themes of the conference, and the primary concerns to be addressed.

Marie Collins, a victim of clerical abuse who will give her testimony to the symposium in the coming days, spoke regarding the progress that she hopes Church leaders will make in the protection of children and the pastoral care of victims.

"There is still a huge anger among survivors at the Church and at the Church leadership," she said. "And as we know, there are many, many reasons for this anger. Despite apologies for the actions of the abusers, there have been few apologies for the protection given to them by their superiors."

ROME
Zenit

By H. Sergio Mora

ROME, FEB. 6, 2012 (Zenit.org).- The symposium on clergy sex abuse, under way through Thursday at the Pontifical Gregorian University, is just a step on the path of the Church's response, says the director of the Vatican press office.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi spoke with ZENIT on Friday, following the press conference to present the symposium, which began today.

ZENIT: What has changed since the 2011 circular letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?

Father Lombardi: Many episcopal conferences have established commissions to prepare the guidelines requested by the circular letter. And the symposium [at the Gregorian] is being held in this phase in which the episcopal conferences, having received the circular, are working to put into practice all that was requested, that is to say, the formulation of their directives.

ROME
Zenit

By Ann Schneible

ROME, FEB. 6, 2012 (Zenit.org).- "There is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young." These words, delivered by Blessed John Paul II in his 2002 address to American cardinals, remind priests and religious that it is a travesty to violate the trust of those in their care, especially when such a violation destroys the life of a child.

Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, cited these words by the former Pontiff during his speech to members of the international symposium "Toward Healing and Renewal," which officially commenced today.

In his presentation, "The Sexual Abuse of Minors: A Multi-faceted Response to the Challenge," the cardinal briefly outlined the CDF's role in addressing the abuse cases, with regard to the pastoral care of victims, protection of the young, and in the proper formation of clergy.

VATICAN CITY
Zenit

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 6, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is reminding the participants at a symposium on clergy sexual abuse that healing for victims is of paramount importance, and it must go hand in hand with the Church's own renewal.

The Pope said this in a message signed by his secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and sent to the rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University, which is hosting a symposium titled "Towards Healing and Renewal." The symposium began today and runs through Thursday, and aims to aid bishops and religious superiors.

The message said the Holy Father is praying for "this important initiative," and that he "asks the Lord that, through [the participants'] deliberations, many bishops and religious superiors throughout the world may be helped to respond in a truly Christ-like manner to the tragedy of child abuse."

VATICAN CITY
Zenit

By Kathleen Naab

ROME, FEB. 6, 2012 (Zenit.org).- The presidency of the governing body for Vatican City State is rejecting charges of corruption found in letters credited to Archbishop Carlo Viganò and leaked to the press.

A declaration released by the Presidency of the Governorate of Vatican City State was published Saturday by the Vatican Information Service. The declaration bears the signatures of Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, retired president of the Governorate; Archbishop Giuseppe Bertello, current president; Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, secretary-general, and Bishop Giorgio Corbellini, former vice secretary-general.

Archbishop Viganò was named the apostolic nuncio to the United States last October, following the sudden death in July of Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who previously held that post.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer

Prosecutors in the endangerment and child sex-abuse trial of three current and former priests scored a major legal victory on Monday, when a judge ruled that they could tell jurors how the Archdiocese of Philadelphia handled years of abuse allegations against nearly two dozen other priests.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said jurors could hear the evidence because it could show that Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former high-ranking archdiocesan official, recommended parish posts for two priests in the 1990s despite knowing or suspecting they might molest boys.

Lynn made those recommendations, the judge said, after reviewing the church's secret personnel files and learning about claims or suspicions against other priests.

"It will be up to the jury to decide that there were no lessons to be gleaned from those earlier cases," she said.

ROME
Zenit

"The Journey 'Towards Healing and Renewal' Is One That the Entire Church Must Make Together"

ROME, FEB. 6, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is a statement from Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, delivered today to a symposium on clergy sex abuse. The symposium is under way this week at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

* * *

The Sexual Abuse of Minors: A Multi-faceted Response to the Challenge
by Cardinal William Levada
Pontifical Gregorian University

February 6, 2012

“Toward Healing and Renewal” is the title given to this Symposium for Catholic Bishops and Religious Superiors on the Sexual Abuse of Minors. For leaders in the Church for whom this Symposium has been planned, the question is both delicate and urgent. Just two years ago, in his reflections on the “Year for Priests” at the annual Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict XVI spoke in direct and lengthy terms about priests who “twist the sacrament [of Holy Orders] into its antithesis, and under the mantle of the sacred profoundly wound human persons in their childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime.” I chose this phrase to begin my remarks this evening because I think it important not to lose sight of the gravity of these crimes as we deal with the multiple aspects the Church’s response.

As I begin my presentation, I want to offer a word of gratitude to the Pontifical Gregorian University for this initiative. Even those of us who have been dealing with this issue for decades recognize that we are still learning, and need to help each other find the best ways to help victims, protect children, and form the priests of today and tomorrow to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood. I hope that this Symposium will make a significant contribution toward these goals. I thank in particular Fr. Francois-Xavier Dumortier, S.J., the Rector of the University, and Fr. Hans Zollner, S.J., and his team for organizing these days together.

As the Symposium program indicates, the title of my presentation is “The Sexual Abuse of Minors: A Multi-faceted Response to the Challenge.” For reasons I will indicate, I have chosen as my vehicle to give shape to this response some comments about the “Circular Letter” of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [hereafter CDF], sent last year to all the Episcopal Conferences of the world, to assist them in developing guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by clerics. To put this Letter into context, I will refer to the important motu proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, promulgated by Blessed Pope John Paul IIon 30 April 2001. This papal document clarified and updated the list of canonical crimes that had traditionally been dealt with by the CDF (classic examples would be crimes against the faith, that is, heresy, apostasy and schism; but also most serious crimes, or graviora delicta, against the sacraments, such as profaning the Eucharist or violating the seal of Confession). These included crimes connected with solicitation in Confession, and Pope John Paul explicitly included among these grave crimes the sexual abuse of minors by clerics. The motu proprio thus required all cases involving sexual abuse of minors by clergy to be reported to the Congregation, for its guidance and coordination of an equitable response on the part of Church authorities.

ROME
RTE News

Hundreds of bishops, religious superiors, child psychologists and abuse victims have gathered in Rome for a symposium on the Catholic Church's handling of clerical child abuse.

A key gathering of hundreds of bishops, religious superiors, child psychologists and abuse victims is under way in Rome.

Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins was due to open the symposium with a presentation, regarded by many as unprecedented, on her experience of clerical child abuse and the subsequent cover-up.

The meeting, called "A Symposium for Catholic Bishops and Religious Superiors on Sexual Abuse of Minors", is seen as the Catholic Church's most robust response to date to the wave of clerical paedophile scandals.

ROME
Daily Mail (United Kingdom)

By Nick Pisa

A senior Vatican cardinal has revealed how more than 4,000 cases of sex abuse by priests on children have been investigated during the last ten years.

The shock figure was announced by American cardinal Joseph William Levada as he opened a conference on the wide scale phenomenon which has rocked the Roman Catholic church with cases reported all over the world.

Cardinal Levada, who is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, described the figure as a 'dramatic increase' and came in the face of global indignation at the scale of the problem and which has forced Pope Benedict XVI to apologise for previous cases during papal visits as he meets victims.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Express-Times

By Tom Shortell | The Express-Times

A Northampton County judge sentenced Santos Rosado to five to 19 years in state prison today for sexually assaulting a girl for 13 years, saying the former Bethlehem pastor's actions showed he was no man of God.

Rosado, 46, formerly of the 500 block of Wyandotte Street, pleaded guilty in September to sexually assaulting a girl from the time she was 12 until she was in her 20s.

He pleaded guilty to charges of indecent assault, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of minors and two counts of felony statutory sexual assault. He also agreed to give up the parental rights to a child he fathered with the girl when she was 18.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EASTON, Pa. — A former eastern Pennsylvania pastor has been sentenced to 5 1/3 to 19 years in state prison for sexually abusing a girl for more than a decade.

Forty-six-year-old Santos Rosado pleaded guilty in Northampton County in September to charges of indecent assault, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of minors and two counts of felony statutory sexual assault.

Prosecutors said Rosado met the girl's family while a pastor in Bethlehem. They said the abuse began when she was 12, and he tried to force her to have an abortion after getting her pregnant.

DALLAS (TX)
WFAA

[with video]

by DEBBIE DENMON

DALLAS — A popular Dallas pastor is under fire — accused in a lawsuit of coercing young men into "engaging in sexual acts and relationships for his own personal sexual gratification."

Pastor Tyrone Gordon announced his resignation last month amid complaints, and we now know what one man is complaining about, after he filed a lawsuit last Friday.

Cameron Greer, 26, said he was working in the media department of St. Luke United Methodist Church when, he alleges, Gordon touched him inappropriately between Sunday services, as Greer was changing out microphones.

"As he was going to his office where he goes to change, he rubbed his private parts against my buttock," Greer said. "At first, I thought it was my fault — like I got in his way. But then he did it again and looked back at me to see my expression, and then I knew it was no accident."

WISCONSIN
LaCrosse Tribune

By ANNE JUNGEN ajungen@lacrossetribune.com | Posted: Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Criminal charges filed Monday accuse a former minister and truck driver of molesting a boy in 2008.

The boy said he was 13 when 64-year-old Michael Delaney of Tomah assaulted him in his semi-truck, according to the complaint filed in Monroe County Circuit Court. Eventually the assaults escalated to forced oral sex, the teen said.

Delaney threatened to tell people the teen was gay if he spoke out about the abuse. He also forced the teen to watch pornographic movies, according to the complaint.

The victim came forward in November. Police arrested Delaney on Jan. 27.

MARYLAND
Washington Post

Former pastor of Barnesville, Md., Baptist church makes plea deal on child sex abuse charge

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, February 7

FREDERICK, Md. — The former pastor of a Montgomery County Baptist church is striking a plea deal in Frederick on charges he sexually abused a pre-teenage girl.

A Frederick County prosecutor say 74-year-old Joe Ivey of Walkersville will enter into the plea agreement Tuesday morning in Frederick County Circuit Court.

Assistant State’s Attorney Tammy Leach says the deal will result in a conviction for second-degree sex offense. She says the state will recommend a sentence of 20 years in prison with all but four years suspended.

VERMONT
Claims Journal

The Roman Catholic diocese of Vermont says it could be put out of business, and constitutional protections of religious freedom could be violated by a priest-abuse lawsuit.

The Burlington Free Press cites papers filed by the diocese in U.S. District Court in Burlington. They say paying more big damage awards to victims of long-ago priest sexual abuse could bring those results.

The diocese asks Judge William Sessions III to throw out a lawsuit filed in 2010 by a man alleging that as an altar boy he was molested in Rutland by a priest in 1974.

SOUTH DAKOTA
The Daily Republic

By VERONICA ZARAGOVIA
Associated Press

A House committee on Monday rejected a bill that would have eliminated the time limit for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits against perpetrators or institutions, despite emotional testimony from victims during a two hour hearing.

Several cried loudly by the elevator after members of the House Judiciary Committee voted to kill the bill 9-4.

A number were American Indian and said they were abused by Catholic clergy at churches or boarding schools.

"I went through a lot of suffering when I was 7-10 years old," said Isadore Zephier, a member of the Sioux Tribe who asked committee members to picture what happened to him. "Imagine yourself sodomized or performing oral sex on a priest for three, four years constantly."

ROME
euronews

[with video]

Pope Benedict has called for a profound renewal of the Catholic Church, at the start of an unprecedented summit in Rome designed to combat the sexual abuse of children by priests.

Help for victims, he said, should be top priority as at least one cardinal defended his handling of abuse cases.

The summit aims to produce guidelines to help the church crack down on paedophile clergy and help the authorities tackle crime.

“I think this is a challenge that will always be with us. The more important thing is to act on prevention, especially with information that can empower leaders and communities to respond to any danger, or any mishap in an adequate way,” said the Vatican’s ‘justice promoter’, Monsignor Charles Scicluna.

MISSOURI
Examiner

Sugar Creek, MO —

A Sugar Creek priest, who had been placed on administrative leave during an investigation into a complaint against him, has been cleared to return to parish work, according to a release from the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The Rev. Matthew Bartulica was given permission to resume duties at St. Cyril Parish in Sugar Creek effective Feb. 4.

St. Cyril parishioners were told in a letter on Jan. 22 that Bartulica had been put on administrative leave – under the diocese’s new rules – because of an undisclosed complaint brought to the ombudsman now acting as an independent public liaison to field and investigate any reports of suspicious or inappropriate behavior.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

BY NATALIE POMPILIO
Philadelphia Daily News
pompiln@phillynews.com 215-854-2595

THE JURY can hear how Monsignor William Lynn and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia responded to more than 20 claims of priests sexually abusing children when it considers criminal charges against Lynn and two others next month, a Common Pleas judge ruled yesterday.

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina ruled that jurors needed to have a complete history "to evaluate properly the totality of the circumstances and to be able to make appropriate inferences from that evidence."

The judge's ruling was a win for prosecutors. Lynn's defense attorneys had argued that the other cases should not be allowed because they would unfairly influence the jury.

Lynn, 61, faces conspiracy and child-endangerment charges for allegedly concealing the actions of two priests accused of abusing boys in the 1990s. Lynn was secretary of the clergy from 1992 to 2004.

UNITED KINGDOM
Coventry Telegraph

By Martin Bagot
Feb 7 2012

A PRIEST who worked in Coventry and Warwickshire has been found guilty of 18 charges of indecent assault.

After a 10-day trial Alexander Bede Walsh, 58, was found guilty of the charges plus another serious sexual offence at Stoke Crown Court late yesterday.

It took around six hours to find him guilty of the 19 charges.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

An Irish victim of sexual abuse bluntly told a Vatican summit this morning that her experience of being ignored, and her suffering minimized, by church leaders caused “the final death of any respect” she once felt for ecclesial authority.

Marie Collins said there must be “acknowledgement and accountability for the harm and destruction that has been done to the life of victims and their families” before she and other victims can regain trust in the leadership of the Catholic church.

Collins made the remarks at a four-day summit on the sexual abuse crisis titled “Towards Healing and Renewal” being held at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University.

Collins said she was abused at the age of thirteen, just after her confirmation, by a chaplain in a hospital where she was recovering from an illness. As a deeply faithful Catholic at the time, she said, the experience was deeply traumatic.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Sentinel

CATHOLIC priest Alexander Bede Walsh has been convicted of sexually abusing seven boys.

The 58-year-old, pictured right, was found guilty of 18 charges of indecent assault and one serious sexual offence at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday.

A jury acquitted him of three counts of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child.

The jury was today continuing its deliberations on the four remaining charges.

ROME
Times LIVE (South Africa)

Irish anti-abuse campaigner Marie Collins told Catholic leaders at a Vatican summit that the Church has to be held accountable for destroying the lives of victims of paedophile priests.

"Apologising for the actions of the abusive priests is not enough," Collins told bishops and cardinals from around the world gathered at the Vatican's Gregorian University for an unprecedented conference on child abuse.

"There must be acknowledgement and accountability for the harm and destruction that has been done to the life of victims and their families by the often deliberate cover up and mishandling of cases by their superiors."

Collins recounted in horrifying detail her abuse by a Dublin priest when she was 13. "Those fingers that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning holding and offering me the sacred host," said the 64-year-old.

UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Jamie Lewis

February 7, 2012

A former Roman Catholic clergyman from Staffordshire has been convicted of 19 charges of abusing boys as young as seven.

Alexander Bede Walsh, 58, from Abbots Bromley, was found guilty at Stoke crown court of sexually abusing seven boys aged between seven and 16 while working as a priest.

The jury heard that the incidents happened between 1975 and 1993 whilst he was working as a priest in Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Coventry.

Walsh denied a total of 27 counts of sexual assault on young boys. He told the court he had never abused or inappropriately touched any of the victims.

CANADA
Nunatsiaq News

A team of five RCMP members continues to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct in Igloolik against disgraced priest Father Eric Dejaeger, Crown prosecutor said in court in Iqaluit Feb. 6.

This means the RCMP’s investigation investigation into Dejaeger won’t be finished until a May 7 court appearance by Dejaeger in the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit, where the Crown is expected to file a formal indictment.

Dejaeger currently faces up to 39 criminal charges, most alleging the sexual molestation of children.

CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer

Published 06:10 p.m., Monday, February 6, 2012
BRIDGEPORT -- Former New York Cardinal Edward Egan, who was at the center of the priest abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport when he was bishop here, has drawn criticism from a national victims' group and a local law firm that represented victims with an interview he recently gave.

In the recent edition of Connecticut Magazine, Egan said that while bishop here he did nothing wrong regarding abuse allegation against priests in the diocese and in fact never had a case of alleged abuse while he was bishop.

In the interview Egan also said he believes there is no legal requirement to report abuse cases in Connecticut and expressed regret for the apology he made regarding the priest scandal here.

"First of all, I should have never said that," Egan told the magazine regarding his 2002 statement of regret. "I did say if we did anything wrong, I'm sorry, but I don't think we did anything wrong."

ROME
The New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: February 6, 2012

ROME — Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church began a four-day symposium on Monday about the prevention of sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, an unprecedented assembly described by the Vatican as a response to a painful issue that has wracked the Church and estranged many faithful.

“We are still learning,” Cardinal William J. Levada, head of the Vatican office that deals with allegations of clerical abuse, told the 200 delegates during his keynote speech. “We need to help each other find the best ways to help victims, protect children,” he said, and to educate priests “to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood.”

More than 100 bishops and 30 religious superiors, as well as Catholic university rectors and victims were participating in the symposium, titled “Towards Healing and Renewal.”

Participants planned to discuss how the Church can better listen to victims, cultivate a consistent response to cases of pedophilia and thwart future cases of abuse.

VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service, Updated: Monday, February 6

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s doctrinal chief on Monday (Feb. 6) told Catholic bishops from all over the world that they have a duty to “cooperate” with civil law on cases of clergy sexual abuse of minors.

Cardinal William J. Levada, a former archbishop of San Francisco who now heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with jurisdiction over abuse cases, stopped short, however, of requiring bishops to report abuse cases to prosecutors or police.

Speaking to a Vatican-sponsored conference on the church’s response to the scandal at Rome’s Gregorian University, Levada admitted that the church’s relations with civil authorities “may be different from one nation to another,” but stressed that this must not affect the basic principle of cooperation.

He also urged bishops to be “more proactive” in their response to the crisis, rather than wait for the scandal to erupt in the media.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Associated Press

By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Prosecutors overseeing a child sex-abuse case involving three Roman Catholic priests can reference molestation claims against more than 20 other clergymen to try to establish a pattern of how such allegations were handled, a judge ruled Monday.

The ruling allows an "overwhelming amount of evidence" into the case, defense lawyer William Brennan said in court, even though the judge excluded accusations against several other priests that prosecutors had sought to introduce.

Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said the evidence is necessary for jurors to understand the totality of the circumstances and to draw accurate inferences in the upcoming trial against Monsignor William Lynn.

"The trial court is not required to sanitize the trial to eliminate all unpleasant facts from the jury's consideration, where those facts ... form part of the history and natural development of the events and offenses for which the defendant is charged," Sarmina said.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

By Riley Yates, Of The Morning Call

5:19 p.m. EST, February 6, 2012

The same crime, a different victim.

The same phrases of piety, the same acts of immorality.

Disgraced Bethlehem pastor Santos A. Rosado was sentenced Monday to up to 19 years in state prison for systematically sexually abusing a girl for years starting when she was 12.

It marked the second child molestation case Rosado faced judgment for, and, like the first, his family cast him in court as a victim and not a perpetrator. They called him a man of God who has won forgiveness.

A Northampton County prosecutor called him a danger to society for his sexual proclivities. "This is the way he advises. This is his pastoral calling, so to speak," said Assistant District Attorney Patricia Broscius.

WISCONSIN
News 8000

SPARTA, Wis. -- A former pastor and over-the-road trucker from Tomah appears in court on accusations he sexually abused a teenager for several years.

64-year-old Michael Delaney appeared in court Monday on felony sexual assault of a child and child enticement charges.

According to court documents, the male teen told investigators Delaney allegedly touched his genitals and engaged in sexual acts.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A Philadelphia judge today ruled that evidence of alleged “prior bad acts” can be admitted in the upcoming child sex abuse trial of three Catholic clergymen.

Two priests are charged with abusing boys, and Msgr. William Lynn — a longtime “secretary of clergy” in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia — allegedly endangered children by allowing alleged predator priests to remain in their ministry positions where they could continue to abuse children.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge Teresa Sarmina today ruled admissible what one defense attorney has called “an avalanche of evidence” against the three defendants.

The prosecution will be allowed to present evidence involving nearly two dozen priests, alleging that the archdiocese routinely protected these allegedly abusive priests by shuffling them from parish to parish for decades, and that Msgr. Lynn’s action, or inaction, was part of a pattern of conduct that led to the alleged abuse by the two co-defendants in this case.

THAILAND
UCA News

Father Michael Kelly SJ, Bangkok
Thailand
February 6, 2012

Very early in my spiritual life, I was brought up short by the offhand remark of a wise old priest: “You’re a strange sort of Christian if the sins of others disturb you.”

Like many in my generation, I was raised to think that Catholicism was about achieving perfection and I should do everything I could to be perfect. In fact, I thought it was up to me to be perfect.

Wrong. That’s a heresy condemned in the early Church – Pelagianism – and it led St Augustine to develop our understanding of grace and its action in our lives, which has remained unsurpassed in 1,600 years. ...

There’s the latest, where leaked documents reveal the misgivings of the current papal nuncio to the US who wanted to stay at his post as second in charge of Vatican governance to clean up the City State’s financial and business practices.

Archbishop Vigano wanted to see through the task of reforming the Vatican’s business systems and processes rather than accept an apparently more prestigious position. And, as if to compound the problem and confirm the skeptics in their cynicism, the Vatican’s spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi SJ, prescinded from considering the documents and did what amounts to shooting the messenger: He lambasted the media for releasing hitherto confidential documents.

ROME
The Journal (Ireland)

A SENIOR US cardinal as defended Pope Benedict’s handling of clerical abuse revelations, saying people should be thankful rather than criticising the pontiff.

Cardinal William Levada told a Vatican-backed conference on safeguarding children that Benedict had been “instrumental” in implementing standards to crack down on paedophile clergy, as well as supportive of US bishops’ efforts to fight the abuse.

Before becoming pontiff, Benedict held Levada’s job as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church office responsible for shaping the Holy See’s policies on handling abuse cases involving clergy.

As the symposium’s keynote opening speaker, Levada lamented that the pope “has had to suffer attacks by the media over these past years in various parts of the world when he should receive the gratitude of us all, in the Church and outside it.” The Vatican released copies of the speech.

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Feb. 06, 2012
By Francis X. Rocca, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY -- In an unusually public rebuke of a high-ranking colleague, Vatican officials dismissed as baseless the accusations of "corruption and abuse of power" made in letters by an archbishop who is now apostolic nuncio to the United States.

In a statement released by the Vatican Feb. 4, Cardinal-designate Giuseppe Bertello and Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the current and immediate past presidents of the Governorate of Vatican City State, described as a "cause of great sadness" the recent "unlawful publication" by Italian journalists of two letters addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state.

The letters, written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano when he was the governorate's secretary general, or second-highest official, contained assertions based on "erroneous evaluations" or "fears unsupported by proof," the statement said.

Archbishop Vigano's letter to the pope, dated March 27, 2011, lamented "so many situations of corruption and abuse of power long rooted in the various departments" of the governorate, and warned that the archbishop's departure from his position there "would provoke profound confusion and dejection" among all those supporting his efforts at reform.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

[NOTE OF GOVERNORATE ON LETTERS OF ARCHBISHOP VIGANO]

By David Kerr

Vatican City, Feb 6, 2012 / 01:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The body responsible for the governance of the Vatican City State is denying claims of corruption leveled by its former deputy governor, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

The allegations were made in private correspondence with Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, in spring 2011 but were only recently leaked to an Italian television station.

“The allegations contained in them cannot but lead to the impression that the Governorate of Vatican City State, instead of being an instrument of responsible government, is an unreliable entity, at the mercy of dark forces,” said an official statement issued Feb. 4.

“After careful examination of the contents of the two letters, the President of the Governorate sees it as its duty to publicly declare that those assertions are the result of erroneous assessments, or fears based on unsubstantiated evidence and are even openly contradicted by the main characters invoked as witnesses.”

ROME
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)

The Pope called for "profound renewal" in the Roman Catholic Church on Monday in an appeal sent to the first conference ever held by the Vatican on the subject of paedophile priests and child abuse.

By Nick Squires, Rome
8:30PM GMT 06 Feb 2012

But victims of abuse slammed the conference as an empty gesture likely to produce few results and called on the Holy See to take more concrete steps to ensure that paedophile priests were swiftly exposed and made to face justice.

Benedict XVI said he hoped the conference would "promote throughout the Church a vigorous culture of effective safeguarding and victim support".

He said: "Healing for victims must be of paramount concern in the Christian community and it must go hand in hand with a profound renewal of the Church at every level."

ROME
The Associated Press

By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — A top American cardinal on Monday defended Pope Benedict's handling of sexual abuse cases by clergy, saying he should be praised not criticized, as advocates for abuse victims demanded that the Vatican release its secret files on pedophile priests.

Cardinal William Levada told a Vatican-backed symposium on safeguarding children that Benedict had been "instrumental" in implementing standards to crack down on pedophile clergy as well as supportive of U.S. bishops' efforts to fight the abuse.

Before becoming pontiff, Benedict held Levada's job as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church office ensuring doctrinal purity and, in recent decades, also shaping the Holy See's policies on handling abuse cases involving clergy.

As the symposium's keynote opening speaker, Levada lamented that the pope "has had to suffer attacks by the media over these past years in various parts of the world when he should receive the gratitude of us all, in the Church and outside it." The Vatican released copies of the speech.

SNAP, a U.S-based support and advocacy group for those abused as minors by clergy, was dismissive of the four-day, closed-door gathering.

"True change and child protection comes through accountability from secular authorities," a SNAP official, Joelle Casteix, said in a statement. "Until we have that, we must see Rome's meeting for exactly what it is: cheap window dressing."

CANADA
CBC News

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is in Whitehorse this week.

The commission is letting anyone who has been affected by residential schools record their stories.

Joanne Henry was sent to residential school at just five years old. She now counsels other former residential school students and their families.

Henry hopes Yukoners will take the opportunity to share their stories.

UNITED KINGDOM
Rutland & Stamford Mercury

Published on Monday 6 February 2012

A Roman Catholic priest from Staffordshire has been found guilty of committing sexual offences against seven boys between 1975 and 1993.

A jury at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, which is still considering four further counts against Alexander Bede Walsh, took around six hours to find him guilty of 18 charges of indecent assault and another serious sexual offence.

The jury also acquitted the 58-year-old of three counts of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former Roman Catholic priest from Staffordshire has been found guilty of sexually abusing seven boys.

Alexander Bede Walsh, 58, of Church Lane, Abbots Bromley, has been convicted of 19 charges of abusing boys aged from seven to 16, between 1975 and 1993, while working as a priest.

The jury at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court found him not guilty of four charges.

It will resume its deliberations on Tuesday on four other charges, three of which concern an eighth alleged victim.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, has sent a message in the name of Pope Benedict to an international symposium of bishops and church personnel seeking to provide a coordinated response to the sex abuse crisis. In the message to participants at the Symposium entitled “Towards Healing and Renewal”, the Pope reiterates his conviction that “healing for abuse victims must be of paramount concern in the Christian community”, together with “a profound renewal of the Church at every level”.

The Pope therefore “supports and encourages every effort to respond with evangelical charity to the challenge of providing children and vulnerable adults with an ecclesial environment conducive to their human and spiritual growth” and he urges the participants in the Symposium “to continue drawing on a wide range of expertise in order to promote throughout the Church a vigorous culture of effective safeguarding and victim support.”

On Monday evening Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, addressed the inaugural session of the symposium which is hosted by the Pontifical Gregorian University.

VERMONT
Burlington Free Press

Businessman buys Camp Holy Cross from Roman Catholic diocese for $4M, plans to build houses

Written by
Sam Hemingway

A Colchester businessman has purchased the 26-acre Camp Holy Cross property on Mallets Bay in Colchester from the state’s Roman Catholic diocese for $4 million.

Bruce Barry, who owns land near the church camp property, said Monday he has no immediate plans for the site other than to have all of its 22 buildings demolished because they are in poor, unusable condition.

“We’re going to start by taking down the fallen-down buildings and cleaning the property up and possibly designing a sea wall to stop the erosion there,” Barry said Monday. “In the future, I would say we’ll probably put up some really nice houses along the lakefront or something like that.”

ROME
BBC News

Roman Catholic leaders have begun an unprecedented summit in Rome on how the church should tackle the sexual abuse of children by priests.

In a Vatican statement, Pope Benedict said "healing for victims" should be a major concern as much as "profound renewal of the Church at every level".

The summit aims to produce guidelines on tackling abusive priests and helping police to prosecute paedophile crime.

Victims' groups, who were not invited, have dismissed it as a PR exercise.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
York Dispatch

The Associated Press
Updated: 02/06/2012

PHILADELPHIA—The judge overseeing a child sex-abuse case involving three Roman Catholic priests in Philadelphia will allow prosecutors to reference previous molestation claims against other clergy at trial.

Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina ruled Monday that the abuse allegations are relevant to the upcoming trial of Monsignor William Lynn.

Lynn is a high-ranking church official charged with shuffling predator priests to unwitting parishes.

Prosecutors want to show a pattern of behavior in how Lynn handled the careers of priests credibly accused of molestation.

UNITED STATES
Amarillo Globe-News

Submitted by Karen Smith Welch on Mon, 02/06/2012

Twice last week, I received e-mail from Roman Catholic Priest Frank Pavone seeking donations.

That’s not unusual. The fundraising marketing company used by Pavone’s pro-life charities – Priests for Life and several affiliates – make several email pushes per week.

But this one doesn’t appear to do much to bolster Pavone’s claims that the group hasn’t made flubbed management of donations. Pavone is the New York priest whose latitude to perform religious rites has been limited to the Diocese of Amarillo by Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek.

Zurek curtailed Pavone’s activities in September, raising questions about the financial transparency of Priests for Life and two pro-life affiliates, Gospel of Life Ministries and Rachel’s Vineyard. Zurek went so far as to recommend, in a letter to U.S. Catholic bishops, that it be suggested to parishioners that they withhold donations until the questions are answered.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Conceding that church officials in various parts of the world often adopted tough policies to fight child abuse only in response to negative media coverage, the Vatican’s top doctrinal official today called for a “more proactive” approach.

In part, that's likely a reference to the fact that while the sexual abuse crisis has already exploded in North America and parts of Europe, it has not yet really arrived elsewhere, including much of the developing world -- where two-thirds of all Catholics today live.

Among other points, American Cardinal William Levada stressed that the sexual abuse of minors is not merely a crime under church law, but also under civil law, and that the church is therefore obliged to report “such crimes to the appropriate authorities.”

Levada spoke this evening to a summit conference on sexual abuse hosted by the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome, and co-sponsored by several Vatican departments. The four-day event is titled “Toward Healing and Renewal.”

ROME
CBC News

A Vatican-hosted summit organized under the banner of "healing and renewal" for victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members meets Monday, bringing together bishops from more than 100 countries.

Dismissed by some as a PR stunt to repair the church's damaged reputation over years of scandal, the four-day symposium at the Gregorian University in Rome is expected to be attended by the Vatican's chief anti-pedophilia prosecutor, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, as well as Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, who was raped by a hospital chaplain when she was 13.

The heads of 33 religious orders will also take part. Pope Benedict XVI is expected to offer a special blessing for the closed-door conference.

Scicluna has said that protecting children must be “a permanent principle and concern” for the church worldwide.

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Seán McCárthaigh

Monday, February 06, 2012

The Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said it is unlikely Pope Benedict XVI will attend this summer’s International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin because of the ongoing fallout of clerical sexual abuse scandals in Ireland.

Dr Martin indicated that a Papal visit to coincide with the Congress would be premature against a background of the strained relationship between Ireland and the Vatican following recent reports which were highly critical of the Church’s handling of child abuse controversies.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Dr Martin said the Pope had been invited to attend the Congress but that he had not yet formally responded to the invitation.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Prosecutors at the child endangerment and sex-abuse trial of three current and former priests will be allowed to tell jurors how the Archdiocese of Philadelphia handled at least 22 other sex-abuse allegations over decades, a judge ruled Monday.

The decision by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina represented a significant victory for prosecutors in their case against Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former archdiocesan official accused of recommending parish assignments for two priests he allegedly knew or sus