Abuse Tracker

DALLAS (TX)
Orthodox Reform

Orthodox Reform interviews Tahira Khan Merritt. She represents clients who claim Fr. Nicholas Nikolas, a Greek Orthodox priest, sexually abused them over a period of years while the clients were altar boys at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church.

Orthodox Reform: In a nutshell, tell us about this lawsuit.

Tahira Khan Merritt: The lawsuit involves the sexual abuse by Fr. Katinas of two former altar boys at Holy Trinity between 1983 and 1986.

Orthodox Reform: Why is this lawsuit necessary?

Tahira Khan Merritt: The officials who were in charge of Fr. Katinas as well as Fr. Katinas himself must be held accountable for their actions in civil court. Because the victims are now more than 28 years old, criminal charges are not possible.

BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Voice from the Desert

On Saturday, April 28, 2007, the Voice of the Faithful affiliate in Bridgeport, Connecticut, held a financial accountability conference at Fairfield University. Among the interesting reports: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport has assets estimated at over $1 billion.

ST. ALBANS (VT)
WCAX

St. Albans, Vermont - April 30, 2007

Stephen Nichols, a priest from St. Elizabeth's Church in Lyndonville, plead guilty Monday to a misdemeanor charge of a prohibited act for lewd behavior.

As part of his plea deal, Nichols admitted that on 2 separate occasions in 2005, he brought an 18 year old parishioner to Canada. On one of those occasions, the teenager got drunk. When they returned to the priest's Richford home, Nichols tried to fondle him.

The victim in the case has never been made public, but an advocate read a letter to the court in his behalf.

FRESNO (CA)
California Catholic Daily

In the wake of the clergy molestation scandal, the Fresno diocese, like others, has put in place a religious education program to train students (Kindergarten-12th grade) to respond to abuse. But does this “safe environment program, called “Keeping the Promise,” keep the promise it makes?

According to Bishop John Steinbock’s foreword, the program’s “Parent Resource and Catechist Guide” was drawn up “to make a practical connection of Christian values to personal and interpersonal safety skill development that may reduce a child’s vulnerability without compromising their innocence.” Further, “it respects the parents’ discretion regarding how and when the more sensitive topics related to child abuse are introduced to their children in regards to individual readiness.”

Parents may opt their children out of safe environment sessions. Parents who participate receive a copy of the guide, which promises them, “Classroom presentations to young children will not teach the proper names of body parts, especially those areas that are often referred to as ‘private parts.’ Giving specific examples of what is ‘good touch vs. bad touch’ will not be included...”

DURHAM (NC)
The News & Observer

Yonat Shimron, Staff Writer
DURHAM - The removal of the Rev. Stephen M. Garrity as pastor of Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church couldn't have come at a worse time.

Just Saturday, a concrete floor had been poured at the site of the new $2.8 million sanctuary two miles from the church's current location on the campus of N.C. Central University. The 67-year-old Garrity was the force behind the construction and fundraising.

When he didn't show up for Mass on Sunday morning, members were shocked to hear he had been "recalled" by his religious order, the Jesuits. According to the order, Garrity confessed to sexual relations with five adults 25 years ago. One of those people contacted the Maryland province of the order, which whisked Garrity away before he had a chance to say goodbye.

Apr 30 2007

UNITED KINGDOM
ic Coventry

by Steve Chilton

ANOTHER former altar boy at one of Coventry's Roman Catholic churches is claiming he was sexually abused by disgraced priest Christopher Clonan.

Now aged 33 and living in Warwickshire, he is suing the archdiocese for up to £150,000 damages.

He maintains he was abused over a period of about five years from 1986.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

April 30, 2007
Collateral damage.

It's a phrase you expect to hear about Iraq or other wars past and present.

But some San Diego Roman Catholics are starting to use it about themselves.

“It's becoming real for parishes,” Carl Sarrazolla said.

Chris Heitman nods. “It's hitting home.”

On a chilly morning outside a bagel shop, these two men, along with fellow Catholic Dan Hughes, sat talking about how the diocese's bankruptcy case is beginning to worry them.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

By Mark Sauer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Though they have never met, Jose Castro and Dan Hughes have certain things in common. Both were raised as Roman Catholics and both are keenly interested in the outcome of the Diocese of San Diego's ongoing scandal over allegations of child sexual abuse by priests and other clergy.

Castro, 55, is among approximately 150 men and women who have filed suit against the diocese. He said he was fondled and otherwise sexually abused repeatedly by the Rev. Rudolph Galindo when Castro was an altar boy in the early 1960s at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Otay.

When he reported the abuse to his mother, Castro said, she beat him; then she marched him down to Galindo. The priest, who now lives in a Texas retirement home and in recent years has admitted abusing children, also beat him, Castro said, and the sexual abuse continued.

PORTLAND (OR)
The Register-Guard

By Kelly Clark
For The Register-Guard
Published: Sunday, April 29, 2007

Cases against the Catholic Church may end, but the struggles of the abuse victims go on.

Kelly Clark is a Portland trial attorney who has represented nearly 150 people abused as children. As a state legislator in 1989, he co-authored the law banning possession of child pornography in Oregon, as well as the law lifting the statute of limitations in cases of child abuse.Amidst the congratulations going around concerning the long-awaited resolution of the bankruptcy of the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, I have noticed a particular tendency among nearly all involved to want to "move on" and "put the past behind us."

At one level, I wholeheartedly agree: It is time for this archdiocese to heal. As a lawyer who has represented more than 100 people with claims against the Catholic Church, including 41 in this bankruptcy case, I have pledged my assistance to the archbishop and to his lawyers in doing whatever I can do to facilitate that healing. The archdiocese needs it, the larger faith community needs it and our state needs it.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
City of Angels

Document diving last week I was stunned at the amount of pleadings, motions, and notices filed by church attorneys. Going down four screens, with about 30 documents per screen, there were motions to strike, motions to question jurisdiction, and in one stream 17 notices of Association of New Counsel. I was document diving in search of orders signed by the judge, and did find a couple, but they were from hearings at least two weeks back. In January a clerk showed me where paper copies of documents were placed and at that date five file cabinets overflowed into piles on a table in the room. By this week the entire room must be consumed by paper, as are likely the judge and plaintiffs’ attorneys. Where is the order from the judge re the April 12th conference that I’ve been looking for now for weeks?

Tony DeMarco says 16 attorneys showed up when they tried to depose Francis Weber and “Defense counsel completely frustrated plaintiffs’ discovery efforts by repeatedly instructing the witness not to answer.” As I document dive, a few motions on screen two are attempts by plaintiffs to get interrogatories from Weber and others.

And 17, count them, 17 notices of association of new counsel in one afternoon. The eyes blur as you try to read them. With hundreds of church attorneys already knocking out motions by the dozen stopping only to word process in different plaintiffs’ names, six church attorneys here a half dozen there flying around the country to depose plaintiffs, why do they need more attorneys?

IRELAND
One in Four

The Irish Times

Ron McCartan broke down and cried in Court Number 4 at the Four Courts in Dublin last Tuesday as his family gathered around to comfort him. It had been a seven-year battle, but was a moment he had yearned for almost his entire life. It was also a moment which should have the most profound implications for the largest compensation scheme ever established in this country, writes Mary Raftery.

Ron is 61 years old. At the age of 10, he was sent to Artane Industrial School, where he was raped repeatedly by one Christian Brother and severely beaten by others. In this regard, as he says himself, he was not unusual.

"Many, many other boys suffered the same," he told me yesterday. "We've had to live our whole lives feeling humiliated and worthless because of what they did to us as children."

IRELAND
One in Four

Irish Examiner

ONE of Ireland’s most notorious paedophiles, Oliver O’Grady, jailed in the US in the 1990s, has claimed he is voluntarily registered with gardaí as a sex offender.

Disgraced former priest Oliver O’Grady, whose confessions about molesting up to 25 children in the US forms the basis of the Oscar-nominated documentary Deliver Us From Evil, has made contact with a Dublin residents’ group through his legal representation.

The priest is living in the Phibsboro area of Dublin and residents had expressed grave concerns that he poses risks to children in a primary school which is just yards from his residence.

DURHAM (NC)
WRAL

Posted: Apr. 28 9:49 p.m.
Updated: Today at 7:24 a.m.

Durham — A religious order recalled one of its priests from a Durham parish after it received information involving sexual misconduct 25 years ago.

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of the Diocese of Raleigh announced Saturday that the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus asked the Rev. Stephen M. Garrity, pastor of Holy Cross Church, to return to the Provincial House in Baltimore.

The Jesuits acted in light of information alleging Garrity engaged in sexual misconduct with adults. The alleged acts did not take place in North Carolina, Burbridge said.

DURHAM (NC)
News & Observer

John Murawski, Staff Writer
A priest at the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Durham was removed from duty last week after admitting to sexual encounters with five people a quarter-century ago, church officials announced Saturday.

The Rev. Stephen M. Garrity, 67, the pastor at Holy Cross, left North Carolina on Saturday for a weeklong evaluation at an undisclosed treatment center, said Kate Pipkin, a spokeswoman for Garrity's religious order, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. The Maryland Province recalled Garrity.

Garrity admitted to church officials last week to having inappropriate sexual contact with five adults about 25 to 30 years ago, Pipkin said. At the the time, the adults were ages 18 to 23, about half Garrity's age. He was assigned in Baltimore and Philadelphia, she said.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Will Kilburn, Globe Correspondent | April 29, 2007

After nearly three years of operating as an all-volunteer organization, the Presentation School Foundation in Brighton took on its first full-time employee this month : executive director Steven Krueger , who will lead the group's efforts to turn the former Catholic elementary school into a community center.

Krueger is well known to followers of the ongoing fallout from the Boston Archdiocese's clergy sex abuse scandal. In 2002, he was the founding executive director of the Catholic lay group Voice of the Faithful . He later helped an effort to reform statutes of limitations on sex crimes against minors, and worked with a Newton parish whose pastor was fired after he criticized the archdiocese. But Krueger, whose position is funded largely by the latest in a series of grants from the Boston Foundation, stresses the point that the foundation has moved beyond its beginnings as an organization of parents who had once hoped to keep the school open.

LA VERNE (CA)
San Gabriel Valley Tribune

By Frank C. Girardot Staff Writer

LA VERNE - Less than a decade has passed since the Bonita Unified School District agreed to set aside $100,000 for a program to prevent and identify sexual abuse in the district.

The fund, a condition of the district's excess liability insurance, grew out of a $2.1 million settlement the district paid in 1999 to a female student molested by David Dangleis, a teacher at San Dimas High School, according to school officials and court documents. ...

The anti-sexual abuse program was developed by the district and the Agos Group, a Boston-based human resources firm that has also consulted the Catholic Church on similar issues, according to Bob Brinegar, the district's assistant superintendent of human resources.

Brinegar said the company provides training materials including films that are designed to highlight the profiles of offenders and victims alike.

FORT WORTH (TX)
For Worth Star-Telegram

By MELODY McDONALD
Star-Telegram staff writer

FORT WORTH -- She says the paddlings began when she was in the sixth grade.

Her family's pastor, the Rev. Sherman Clifton Allen, would order her to grab her ankles, she said, and he paddled her until her bottom turned purple. The woman, now 41, says she was punished if Allen was told that her room was messy, that she had made a bad grade or that she had committed some other infraction.

In the beginning, the woman said, the pastor made her pull her dress tight. Later, he ordered her to drop her panties. Finally, she said he made her lie nude on the bed during the paddlings.

UNITED STATES
Dickson Herald

By ANITA WADHWANI
Staff Writer

A half-decade after the Catholic Church's clergy sex abuse scandal broke open, Southern Baptist Convention leaders are now facing questions about offenders within their own ranks.

Abuse victim advocates who criticized the Catholic hierarchy for years are now confronting the nation's largest non-Catholic denomination, highlighting cases of preachers accused or convicted of child sex abuse, including four in Tennessee in the past five months.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is accusing Baptists of not taking strong enough steps to protect children and has called on the Nashville-based denomination to create an independent review board to act on reports of child sex abuse.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
California Catholic Daily

By Christopher Zehnder

Notes from A Cultural Madhouse

Church records have caught Orange’s Bishop Tod Brown “in a lie -- or at least an inconsistency,” charged Gustavo Arellano in an April 24 Orange County Weekly “Breaking News” release. Brown, said Arellano, while promising complete disclosure of all sex abuse cases, kept one under wraps. His own.

In his 2004 “Covenant with the Faithful,” Brown promised, “We will be open, honest and forthright in our public statements to the media, and consistent and transparent in our communications with the Catholics of our Diocese.” A month later, according to Arellano, the bishop released a list of names of priests accused of molesting youth “in the form of a one-page press release,” with the names “bunched together in one paragraph,” and no other information. In Dec. 2004, the diocese reached a $100 million settlement with over 90 victims and promised to release the personnel files of priests and diocesan employees accused of molestation. ...

I admit the priestly molestation crisis has uncovered some rather ugly details of bishops hiding evidence of abuse and shuffling priests from parish to parish, where they could prey on more victims. I confess I myself do not have the highest confidence in the veracity of a good number of men who hold episcopal office. I will even say that many churchmen are getting what’s coming to them, in the lawsuits, the public shame, the growing distrust. Too many bishops have not been shepherds, but hirelings; they have not acted as fathers but as CEOs.

Our anger at the failings of men in the Church, however, must not blind us to justice. I am no fan of Bishop Tod Brown, but, given the evidence against him as detailed in Arellano’s article, I am not convinced Brown is guilty. One man’s claim that he was molested is not good evidence. It is no warrant to ruin another man’s reputation.

CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Southtown

The Daily Southtown received four Peter Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism on Friday night from the Chicago Headline Club -- for deadline news reporting, editorial writing, in-depth education reporting and column writing. ...

And columnist Tim Placher won the column-writing competition for his evocative first-person piece about sexual abuse at the hands of a Joliet Diocese priest and his attempts to involve Bishop Joseph Imesch in confronting the problem. "This is strong, honest and brave writing that will stay with readers for a long time," the judges wrote.

CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer

BY JOHN JOHNSTON | JJOHNSTON@ENQUIRER.COM

David Hoehne still fights an emotional and spiritual battle 27 years after he was sexually abused by the priest of his Catholic parish.

Hoehne was 12 when it happened. He remembers that the headboard of the bed where the abuse occurred was against the western wall. The comforter on the bed was white. He remembers where he sat, where his molester stood, where the abuser's hand went.

"These memories never leave or fade away," the 39-year-old Akron man told about 150 people on Saturday at a sexual abuse conference at Xavier University's Cintas Center.

PEORIA (IL)
Peoria Journal Star

April 19, 2002: Jenky announces changes in policies to handle clergy sex-abuse allegations and establishes a commission to review such allegations and make recommendations to the bishop.

May 30, 2002: The bishop asks seven priests to step down from public ministry after "credible allegations" of sexual misconduct are brought against them. Another priest is accused a week later.

Sept. 4, 2002: Edward Bush, one of the priests to be accused of sexual misconduct earlier in the year, sues the diocese, Jenky and Monsignor Steven Rohlfs, then vicar general, for defamation of character. "Either Edward Bush is not telling the truth or I am not telling the truth," Jenky said a week later.

SALEM (OR)
Statesman Journal

ALAN GUSTAFSON
Statesman Journal

April 29, 2007

For almost four years, a dark cloud of suspicion has hovered over the Rev. Michael Sprauer.

The Salem priest, long respected by Catholic parishioners, has been branded a pedophile by his accusers. Since mid-2003, more than 15 men have sued Sprauer, alleging that he sexually abused them while he was chaplain at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in the 1970s.

Starting Tuesday, Sprauer goes to court for trial of a civil lawsuit pitting him against three of his accusers: Robert Paul Jr., Randy Sloan and Norman Klettke Jr.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Margaret Ramirez
Tribune religion reporter
Published April 29, 2007

When Cardinal Francis George stepped into his role as leader of the Chicago archdiocese in May 1997, his flock was still mourning the beloved Joseph Bernardin. The new archbishop realized he was facing a difficult transition and introduced himself humbly: "I am Francis, your neighbor." ...

In 10 years as archbishop, George has shepherded the archdiocese through painful school closings and shameful sexual abuse scandals. He denounced racism as a sin and marched for immigrant rights. More recently, he waged a battle with bladder cancer.

In guiding the church and tending to his own struggles, the cardinal was transformed in the eyes of many observers from obstinate outsider to faithful pastor of Chicago's church. Priests and others who initially viewed George as cold and excessively critical now say they see him as personable and compassionate.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
City of Angels

(Calendar for next week listed below)

It takes a court order to get Roger Mahony to comply with discovery law. On May 16th Katherine Freberg asks Judge Haley Fromholz to compel the archbishop to answer interrogatory questions and produce documents needed for the July 9 Hagenbach cases jury trial. In addition plaintiffs request a Discovery Referee in a hearing May 16th as every time plaintiffs try to depose a witness, the church blocks them.

When Mahony did respond he gave this answer to almost every question: “Responding party responds that discovery is just commencing. Based on this, current lack of information responding party must respond that it denies this request.” (Responding party must respond that he does not respond?)

“Plaintiffs have filed numerous motions to compel due to Defense Counsel’s egregious conduct,” writes Tony DeMarco. “Repeatedly defendants have used the tactic of instructing witnesses not to answer appropriate questions designed to illicit information bearing on key elements of plaintiffs’ cases.

NEW JERSEY
Daily Record

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Bob Sheridan used to be known as Mr. Green Wave, a member of the Delbarton School Hall of Honor, a former lacrosse star who gave back to his alma mater, the school he loved.

He planned class reunions, organized fundraisers, volunteered as an assistant lacrosse coach and gave up his Saturday nights a few months a year to coach indoor winter lacrosse. He felt so close to the Rev. Luke Travers, the headmaster, that he invited him to be his guest in 2001 when he was inducted into the New Jersey Lacrosse Foundation Hall of Fame.

Delbarton was in some ways Bob Sheridan's life -- until he publicly disclosed allegations five years ago that a former teacher who had been a monk and a deacon once tried to molest him. Since then, he has said over the years, he has not exactly felt welcome on campus.

UNITED KINGDOM
NW Evening Mail

Published on 28/04/2007

A 60-YEAR-OLD priest from Dalton faces jail for sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

Father Edmund Cotter, who is currently under suspension from Our Lady of the Rosary Parish Church, which is part of the Diocese of Lancaster, pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent assault when he appeared at Preston Crown Court on Friday.

The offences involved a girl under 14 and took place between February 1981 and December 1984 when Cotter was based at St Gregory’s RC Church in Preston.

UNITED STATES
The Tidings

By Nancy Frazier O'Brien

Now that nearly every U.S. diocese has a safe environment program to protect children against sexual abuse, attention needs to be focused on the programs' quality and effectiveness, which vary widely, a panel of experts told participants at the National Catholic Educational Association convention.

Two officials of the Boston Archdiocese, where the clergy sex abuse crisis first came to light, and a representative of a nonprofit group working to improve children's well-being addressed an April 12 workshop session at the NCEA convention in Baltimore.

Teresa Kettlekamp, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, also was scheduled to be at the workshop but was snowbound in Chicago. Her section of the workshop was presented by the other panelists.

BURLINGAME (CA)
Daily Journal

By Michelle Durand, Daily Journal Staff
The Burlingame church volunteer accused of stealing $6,000 for a stay at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Half Moon Bay and drug store shopping spree was sentenced to 16 months in prison and ordered to repay a number of victims, including those for whom she was not convicted.

Jessica Corbyn Lack, 38, must serve at least half the sentence before being eligible for parole. She receives eight days credit toward her term and returns to court May 18 for a further restitution hearing. Amounts are still pending for a number of sources, including the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Planet Pooch, Office Depot and Wells Fargo Bank. Some of them reimbursed the church after Lack’s activities came to light.

Other reported victims, such as the owner of the Cycle Shack in South San Francisco, disputed the amount they were owed, leading to a delay in Lack’s sentence while the probation department prepared more restitution statements.

APPLE VALLEY (CA)
Daily Press

RYAN ORR
2007-04-28 00:02:00
APPLE VALLEY — A former Apple Valley resident has filed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse against the Apple Valley Cheyenne Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is named in the complaint as ROE, and her biological father, a church minister.

Melanie D. Popper, 29, now an attorney in Berkeley, said she is doing this for her healing and for others who might be victims of incest.

The suit alleges that her father, identified in the suit only as “John Doe,” began sexually abusing her when Popper was 8 years old. The alledged abuse continued from 1985 and 1995. The acts may have included rape and oral sex by force or fear, according to the complaint filed in Victorville Superior Court.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

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

WORCESTER— A retired priest found mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of sexually assaulting a child will undergo another psychiatric examination.

The Rev. John Szantyr, 76, of Waterbury Conn., is awaiting trial in Central District Court on charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14. The allegations date back to the mid-1980s, when Rev. Szantyr was assigned to Our Lady of Czestochowa parish on Ward Street.

The assaults are alleged to have occurred from June 1, 1985, to Dec. 12, 1987. The alleged victim is now in his 20s.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

April 28, 2007 11:00 AM

It was once said that the Church of England could be likened to the proverbial fish that understood how desperately it needed water only when it landed in the bottom of a boat on the end of a hook. Many faithful and sincere Anglicans (and Roman Catholics before them) have only recently grasped just how much the Anglican community relies on trust - now that they have so little of it.

What the latest church-related sexual abuse scandal has done is to highlight an ongoing erosion of trust. Trust is a social practice. Humans are social beings who swim in an ocean of trust. What happens when this ocean begins to drain away - as is the case with many Christian churches - is that we become sceptical, often cynical and perhaps even a little paranoid. The case of the ex-choirmaster, Peter Halliday (jailed on Thursday for 30 months after admitting sex offences from the 1980s), yet again highlights the failure of church leaders to act. Some of the more disturbing aspects of the Halliday case were the attempts by the Anglican Church to control information, prevent public disclosure and silence dissent, even in this case, the anguished cries of abused children and their families. In fairness, cultures of this sort are not unknown. Tendencies toward centralisation of power and control of information exist in all institutions. The fact is that well-governed institutions ensure full disclosure of information, institutionalise checks and balances on the exercise of power and establish independent boards to advise and participate actively in choosing the chief executive officer. The church is no ordinary institution. For believers the church is guided by the Holy Spirit - a community in which God's saving work is accomplished and God's kingdom proclaimed. But the church is also a human institution, managed by humans with all their failings, including susceptibility to the corruptions of power and mistaken judgment.

SCOTLAND
Scotsman

JOHN ROBERTSON
LAW CORRESPONDENT
THE priest at the centre of the Angelika Kluk murder trial was accused yesterday by a parishioner of lying to a jury and to "his own God".

Father Gerry Nugent, 63, had said in evidence that he did not know of a hatch in the floor of St Patrick's Church, Glasgow, down which the body of the murdered Polish student had been hidden.

However, Sarah Howie insisted that he had known about it, "without a shadow of a doubt". She also dismissed Fr Nugent's claim that there had been a sexual relationship between them.

WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: April 27, 2007
Wautoma - In a case that could have broad impact, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments this week over whether four men who say they were sexually abused as minors should be able to sue the Archdiocese of Milwaukee decades later on allegations of fraudulent coverups and negligent supervision of two priests.

If the seven justices overturn the lower court dismissals of their lawsuits, the men would be able to seek some internal church documents and request trials in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

The Legislature changed state law in 2004 to make it easier for childhood victims to sue clergy and the religious institutions that supervise them for future acts of sexual abuse, but three decisions by the state Supreme Court in 1995 and 1997 have continued to make it virtually impossible for victims to sue for molestation that occurred many years ago.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Rachel Williams
Saturday April 28, 2007
The Guardian

A Roman Catholic priest who admitted having a sexual relationship with a Polish student whose body was later found under a chapel floor chased and harassed a church guitarist, a court heard yesterday.

Sarah Howie, 45, also alleged that Father Gerard Nugent knew years ago of a trapdoor above the hole where Angelika Kluk's remains were found in September, despite his insistence he was unaware of its existence.

The married mother of two denied the priest's claim that she also had a sexual relationship with him.

UNITED STATES
The Tidings

This summer the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops will begin its 2007 Safe Environment Parish Audit throughout the country.

Each parish/school site will have to demonstrate that they have implemented the list of requirements necessary in order to be in compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

The Charter, which was approved by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops in June 2002, and revised in June 2005, is the guiding vision to help the faithful create a safe environment for children and young people, and to protect young people from child sexual abuse.

PENNSYLVANIA
Intelligencer Journal

By Lori Van Ingen, Staff
Intelligencer Journal

Published: Apr 27, 2007 1:46 AM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - The "death of a soul" is how Pat and Lou Serrano describe what happened to their son, Mark, and to other children sexually abused by priests.

The Serranos, of Mendham, N.J., told their son's story to about 20 people Thursday night at Highland Presbyterian Church at a meeting of Parents Reaching Out to Parents of Sexually Exploited Children.

"He was a lovely, sweet, innocent boy," Pat said. "We lost him when he was 9. We never saw him again. We have a wonderful son now, but we never saw that happy-go-lucky boy again."

Many years later, the Serranos found out their son was violated repeatedly by their priest from the time he was 9 years old until he was 16.

DALLAS (TX)
Orthodox Reform

Two alleged victims of Fr. Katinas have today filed a lawsuit seeking reparations including punitive damages to deter future such abuses in the Greek Orthodox Church. A third alleged victim, not part of the suit but referred to as ‘DZ’, gives testimony to their nightmare of abuse.

The abuses described by one of the plaintiffs occurred numerous times on church property:

The abominations described herein involved hundreds of acts of sexual perversion over approximately three years, usually every Sunday before or after mass.

MISSISSIPPI
WDAM

A former youth minister and pastor has pleaded guilty to one count of gratification of lust in Smith County Circuit Court, says District Attorney Eddie Bowen.

Ralph Hall was accused of sexually abusing his then 7-year-old grandson, Bowen said. Bowen said Hall entered the plea Thursday.

"It saves the family from having to go through the embarrassment and it prevents the kid from having to testify. That's always good because sometimes children don't know how to react to things like this," Bowen said Friday.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A vicar accused of abusing young boys told a teenager he was the "centre of his life" in a series of emotional letters, Bristol Crown Court heard.

The Rev David Smith, 52, vicar for St John's, Clevedon, wrote to the boy when he ignored his calls, the jury heard.

"Obviously the centre of your world has moved from a middle-aged vicar to a 19-year-old nubile girl," one read.

PORTLAND (OR)
Catholic Sentinel

04/27/2007
An ordeal is over for victims of child sexual abuse and Catholics in the Archdiocese of Portland, says a Catholic military chaplain and leader in Oregon’s ecumenical movement.

“No one of us in the archdiocese is so presumptuous as to think that this settlement will bring an end to the suffering of those injured,” says Father Rick Sirianni, discussing last week’s court approval of a plan to end the Archdiocese of Portland’s 33-month bankruptcy. “It is more likely the case that the settlement is merely the first step in bringing some closure and healing to the pain they have experienced over many years.”

The pastor of St. Henry Parish in Gresham, Father Sirianni says he is grateful for the Catholic community itself.

PORTLAND (OR)
Catholic Sentinel

04/27/2007 Ed Langlois
Lawyers defending the Archdiocese of Portland against allegations of child sexual abuse had to get through a thicket created by Oregon law and culture.

Few if any other states have such a combination of statutes and anti-establishment opinion making it so hard for employers with a worker accused of sexual misconduct.

Here are some of the factors:

• Employers can be held liable for acts of abuse by their employees more easily in Oregon than in any other state. A 1999 case in the Oregon Supreme Court, Fearing vs. Bucher, established automatic vicarious liability for Oregon employers. In most states, supervisors are liable only if they received prior notice that the worker had misbehaved in the past. It was no coincidence that sex abuse suits against the archdiocese began coming in shortly after that ruling. Between 2000 and 2004, the archdiocese settled 140 claims.

SPRINGFIELD (OR)
The Register-Guard

By Rebecca Nolan
The Register-Guard
Published: Friday, April 27, 2007

A Springfield man is suing the Archdiocese of Omaha, alleging that he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a priest nearly 30 years ago.

Cary Claar, 41, asserts in a complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Nebraska that the archdiocese knew of the priest's alleged abuse and that church officials, including some in Portland, worked to cover it up.

Reached at home Thursday, he declined to comment on the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages for physical and emotional pain and suffering, loss of income, health care costs and attorney fees.

BULGARIA
Sofia News Agency

27 April 2007, Friday

A Bulgarian clergyman was arrested Friday for the sexual abuse with an underage girl in the town of Parvomai, Darik News reported.

The 55-year-old man was the parish priest of three villages around the town. A complaint against him was lodged in the local court, which states he abused sexually a 13-year-odl girl.

SCOTLAND
Glasgow Evening Times

THE priest who had sex with Angelika Kluk knew about a trapdoor in the church floor where her body was found, a murder trial heard today.

Father Gerry Nugent, 63, has told the High Court in Edinburgh he didn't know about the hole in the floor of his church where the 23-year-old Polish student's body was found.

But today parishioner Sarah Howie, 45, of Shawlands, Glasgow, told jurors the priest was wrong.

Mrs Howie claimed Father Gerry knew seven or eight years ago about the trapdoor in the then bare floor which, last September, became the entrance to Angelika's temporary tomb.

SCOTLAND
The Herald

The priest who claimed he had an affair with murder victim Angelika Kluk was a liar and a sex pest, a parishioner has claimed in court.

Father Gerry Nugent, 63, has told the High Court in Edinburgh he did not know about the hole in the floor of his church where the Polish student's body was found.

The former parish priest also claimed a sexual relationship with parishioner Sarah Howie - before back-tracking and telling the trial he meant only intimacy but not sexual intercourse.

On Friday mother-of-two Mrs Howie, 45, of Shawlands, Glasgow, told jurors that the priest was wrong on both counts.

CANADA
Standard Freeholder

Terri Saunders
Local News - Friday, April 27, 2007 @ 08:00

A judge berated a lawyer representing victims at the Cornwall Public Inquiry Thursday for not ensuring affidavits filed with the commission were accurate.

Comm. Normand Glaude told Dallas Lee he wasn't interested in hearing excuses for why a number of victim-sworn affidavits contain errors. "We are dealing with a law firm that purports to act in the best interests of these people, and we have people that are swearing affidavits," said Glaude. "I want . . . to bring home to your clients and to your firm that this type of thing cannot happen again."

Last month, errors were identified in at least two affidavits filed with the inquiry on behalf of members of The Victims Group who are represented at the inquiry by lawyers from the London, Ont.-based law firm Ledroit Beckett. In one case, the affidavit incorrectly named a priest as a perpetrator of abuse when no allegation had been made against the priest by that particular individual, a witness identified at the inquiry as C-10.

ST. ALBANS (VT)
Burlington Free Press

Published: Friday, April 27, 2007
ST. ALBANS — A priest whose sex case was to go to trial next month has requested a change-of-plea hearing.

The Rev. Stephen J. Nichols, 47, pleaded not guilty last September to allegations that he fondled a naked 18-year-old. He is charged with lewd and lascivious conduct, the only current Vermont priest facing a felony charge.

His trial was set for May 9. But a change-of-plea hearing has been scheduled for Monday in Vermont District Court in St. Albans.

CANADA
Medicine Hat News

By ANGUS HENDERSON
Apr 27, 2007, 01:07

A storm of controversy erupted over the Jesus Seminar on the Road Thursday when two U.S. organizations objected to a retired American priest being one of two presenters, because of unproven allegations of sexual abuse.
Former priest Edward Beutner is scheduled to speak at the two-day seminar starting Friday at All Saints Anglican Church in Medicine Hat.
The seminar explores what has been learned about the historical Jesus over the years through the Bible and other historical documents.
An organization called Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) held two press conferences in Wisconsin in places where the former priest worked and decried the fact that his bishop hadn’t informed Medicine Hat and area residents of the allegations.

DES MOINES (IA)
Des Moines Register

April 27, 2007

After working hard to make sure we provided accurate and clear information to the Register, I was dismayed to find a headline that not only was misleading, but could encourage people to refrain from coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by priests.

"Diocese Withheld Details of Abuse, Critics Say," April 18, suggests that in some way the diocese was trying to protect itself. That suggestion would be completely inaccurate.

Yes, the diocese withheld information that would identify a victim at the victim's request. In fact, even the school president was quoted as saying he did not know details of the allegation. This is a testament to the extent to which the diocese honored the victim's request.

CANADA
Ottawa Sun

By CP

CORNWALL — A judge berated a lawyer representing victims at an inquiry probing the institutional response to allegations of systemic sexual abuse in the Cornwall area for not ensuring affidavits filed with the commission were accurate.

Commissioner Normand Glaude told Dallas Lee he wasn’t interested in hearing excuses for why a number of victim-sworn affidavits contain errors.

“We are dealing with a law firm that purports to act in the best interests of these people, and we have people that are swearing affidavits,” Glaude said Thursday. “I want ... to bring home to your clients and to your firm that this type of thing cannot happen again.”

JOLIET (IL)
ABC 13

(4/27/07 - JOLIET, IL) - A Catholic priest previously convicted of child molestation has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two teenage brothers in the 1990s.

Louis Rogge, 76, of Joliet pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Under a deal with prosecutors, he will likely serve 30 days in jail and four years of probation. He had faced a sentence of three to seven years in prison.

The Will County State's Attorney's office accused Rogge of abusing the first boy in 1996, when he was 15, and the second in 1999, when he also was 15.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Mary Ann Sieghart: Thunderer
Turn on the Today programme, and most days you will hear some stonewalling corporate affairs sap, who has undergone “media training” and been told to stick to his script no matter what. It always makes me splutter into my coffee. Asked to defend the leaking of an oil pipeline, he will say: “The important thing is that best-practice policies are in place to ensure that clean-up procedures are strictly adhered to, and we at Polluting Petroleum want to assure you that we have the best interests of local people at heart.” Translation: they’re covered in oil and their crops are ruined, but I don’t suppose many of them have shares in PP or will make a fuss at the AGM. As long as we get through today, we’ll be OK.

You might expect such flannelling from business people and politicians. But from the Church of England? Surely not. Yet yesterday produced the worst splutterfest ever.

The hapless spokeswoman was the Rev Pearl Luxon. She had been put up by the Church to talk about its role in failing to prevent a paedophile choirmaster, Peter Halliday, from abusing children. As one of the victims said: “When your first sexual experience is of a 40-year-old man forcing himself on you, it’s pretty horrific.” But the Church told neither the police nor social services and simply asked Halliday to leave.

UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

By Richard Smith Richard.Smith@Mirror.Co.Uk 27/04/2007

A PERVERT choirmaster who abused three boys cheated justice for 17 years because cynical, self-serving Church bosses decided not to turn him in.

And Church of England spokesman Rev Mark Rudall cravenly tried to justify their actions yesterday, saying: "What was done was the way things happened in those days."

Paedophile Peter Halliday - described as a "revolting, fierce bully" - cruelly abused three boys aged nine to 14 between 1985 and 1990. Some were assaulted up to 30 times. And there may be scores more victims.

UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Express

Friday April 27,2007
By David Pilditch
THE Church of England was accused yesterday of cover­ing up child sex abuse.

The claim came after a paedophile choirmaster escaped justice for 17 years because officials refused to report him.

Peter Halliday, 61, admitted he had sexually abused young boys after one of his ­victims raised the alarm.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

By JAMIE PYATT
April 27, 2007

THE Church of England was blasted yesterday over a cover-up that protected a paedophile choirmaster from justice for 17 years.

The row came as depraved Peter Halliday, 61, was jailed for 2½ years for sexually assaulting at least three choirboys on dozens of occasions.

Attacks went on for five years. But the court heard that when a 13-year-old eventually told a vicar about his ordeal, the Church decided NOT to inform police.

SPOKANE (WA)
KXLY

Erik Loney / KXLY4 Reporter
Last updated: Thursday, April 26th, 2007 08:19:54 PM

SPOKANE -- In an effort to pay off numerous expenses, the Catholic churches in the Spokane area will be relying on fundraising and church members to help out.

Starting in May, local catholic churches will take steps to raise more than $10 million to pay bankruptcy, attorney fees and victims of priest sexual abuse.

This fundraising campaign is being called, "From Justice to Healing and Renewal," and the church hopes that people will step forward to help out their institutions.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
North County Times

By: DAVE VAN HOOMISSEN - Commetary:

We gratefully congratulate the Hon. Robert H. Brom, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of San Diego, for his courageous public admission to our congregation Sunday of widespread sexual abuse among his clergy that has caused bewilderment in the consciences of those who trust our church to be a leader in truth. It is a shocker of a revelation. But the real shocker should be that it has all been so unnecessary. It never should have happened -- never would have happened -- except that it was born in a culture of secrecy and censorship that we now have hope will hereafter be exiled to the history of the Middle Ages, where it was born.

Let's look briefly at the roots of this cancer on the integrity of the Catholic Church as we proceed to excise it and move on to the great work that the Body of Christ is among us to unfold. It is the teaching of the church itself that the clergy are mere men -- just like ourselves -- and that they will be tempted to yield to the flesh just as we are all tempted -- and they will sometimes yield. This is where our complicity comes in.

VERMONT
Rutland Herald

April 27, 2007

By KEVIN O'CONNOR Herald Staff

A Vermont priest placed on leave after saying he was not guilty of a felony charge of lewd and lascivious conduct is scheduled to appear in court Monday to change his plea.

The Rev. Stephen J. Nichols, 47, is set to appear in Franklin District Court in St. Albans in regard to allegations by the state attorney general's office that he fondled a naked 18-year-old man after taking him to Canada and buying him beer.

In a court hearing last September, Nichols pleaded innocent, saying in paperwork that his accuser — a St. Johnsbury man identified only by his initials — "was the sexual aggressor and afterwards asked for money to keep quiet."

ILLINOIS
Daily Southtown

April 26, 2007
By Stewart Warren
An elderly Catholic priest pleaded guilty today to sexually abusing two boys in the 1990s.

Will County Judge Richard Schoenstedt seems inclined to send Louis P. Rogge, 76, a member of the Carmelite order, to jail. When the portly, gray-haired priest stood in his courtroom, the judge implied the state recommended a plea deal that didn’t include jail or prison time. Schoenstedt indicated that he didn’t agree.

"I believe that there are reasons ... that I should and would impose a jail sentence," Schoenstedt said.

BALTIMORE (MD)
The Jewish Daily Forward

Nathan Guttman | Fri. Apr 27, 2007
Baltimore - A series of exposés on sexual abuse at a well-known yeshiva is roiling the Baltimore Jewish community and inflaming the already strained relations between the local Jewish newspaper and the city’s sizable Orthodox population.

The controversy revolves around allegations in the Baltimore Jewish Times that the late principal of the Talmudical Academy, Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro, may have molested Jewish students at the school and other youngsters who came to him for bar mitzvah classes.

In the wake of the allegations, local Orthodox rabbis have delivered sermons on the need to speak out against abuse and do a better job of responding to allegations that do arise. At the same time, the articles have upset members of the city’s Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox population who feel that the paper crossed the line by identifying Shapiro — almost two decades after his death.

NEW YORK
FailedMessiah

The NY Sun reports:

Several religious groups are fighting a health department proposal that for the first time would require permits for some faith-based nursery schools. ...

Why the opposition from Agudah?

"The concept of permitting is offensive to us because the permit process encompasses many things that relate to what actually takes place in the religious classroom," an executive vice president of Agudath Israel, David Zweibel, said. "Who is fit to be a teacher? How many students can there be in the classroom? Things that go to the autonomy of the educational experience, which to us in the religious community is a matter of religious freedom."

Of course, it might just be that several haredi teachers would fail those background checks.

Even after Baltimore and the various Brooklyn scandals, including the Rabbi Yehuda Kolko travesty, Agudath Israel has still not learned its lesson. As I have written many times, the only way thugs like Zwiebel will learn is if they are hit hard in the pocketbook or jailed.

NEW YORK
The Sun

By ELIZABETH SOLOMONT
Special to the Sun
April 25, 2007

Several religious groups are fighting a health department proposal that for the first time would require permits for some faith-based nursery schools.

Representatives of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Agudath Israel of America, among others, voiced their concerns at a public hearing April 19 on the health department's proposed amendments to article 47 of the city's health code, which regulates child care services.

The measures, which officials said were designed to improve child safety, would require about 500 nursery programs to obtain city permits, meet certain education standards among teachers, and conduct criminal background checks on their employees for the first time. Currently, religious preschool programs that are attached to elementary schools are exempt from permit requirements, thanks to their longstanding "No Permit Required" status.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The revelation the Church of England failed to tell police about a former choirmaster who sexually abused children in the 1980s has been met with mixed reactions.

The Church has defended its decision to let Peter Halliday leave the church "quietly" by saying this was the way things were done in the past.

But child protection experts say the situation was "seriously mishandled" and the police should have been called.

FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel

Published April 22, 2007

Howard Goodman

Jeffrey Smith was just 10 years old when the abuse started, 13 when it ended.

But the impact only grew.

His mother first saw bad signs when her son was 17 and on an overnight trip with the Civil Air Patrol. Instead of sleeping outside, he locked himself in a car.

He was afraid to be out there with the other boys, even though the abuse had taken place years before, by a man who taught an after-school class he no longer attended.

FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel

David Clohessy
National Director Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests St. Louis, MO.
Posted April 26 2007

Catholic officials have succeeded again in doing what they've done so well for so long in so many places -- blocking badly needed reforms in archaic, predator-friendly child sex abuse laws.

Thanks to columnist Howard Goodman for pointing this sad fact out ("Statutes of limitations apply too soon for some victims," Sunday).

WINFIELD (WV)
The Charleston Gazette

Alison Knezevich
Staff writer

WINFIELD — A Putnam County man will spend up to five years in jail for forcing his teen cousin to strip naked last year so he could photograph and assault her in front of her 2-year-old nephew, a judge ruled Thursday.

Putnam Circuit Judge Ed Eagloski gave Paul E. Casto, 63, of Hometown, an indeterminate sentence of one to five years for first-degree sexual abuse. Casto, a taxidermist and former pastor, pleaded no contest to the charge in February.

At Casto’s sentencing, defense attorney Greg Campbell tried to make a case for home confinement instead of jail because Casto’s wife was recently diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

WINFIELD (WV)
The State Journal

Story by Nicky Walters

WINFIELD -- A judge on Thursday sentenced a Putnam County pastor who pleaded no contest to sexually abusing his 17-year-old cousin.

Paul Casto, 63, was accused of taking sexual pictures of his cousin after forcing her to take her clothes off.

Casto said the victim isn't telling the whole truth.

NEWARK (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch

By Tom Sheehan
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

NEWARK, Ohio -- A former Hebron minister, who is spending seven years in prison on sex-abuse convictions, is being sued by the two teenage sisters he victimized.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Licking County Common Pleas Court, seeks more than

$3 million in damages from Lonnie Aleshire Jr., the Licking Baptist Church, the American Baptist Churches of Ohio and its national church and various church officials.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A boy told a jury he prayed for the "strength and courage" to expose the Somerset priest who had allegedly sexually abused him.

The 13-year-old told Bristol Crown Court the Rev David Smith had taken advantage of him after he joined the choir at St John's in Clevedon.

He said the vicar had kissed him and abused him after inviting him to the vicarage for roast dinners.

FORT LAUDERDALE (FL)
CBS 4

(CBS4) FT. LAUDERDALE Parents of students who attend a Fort Lauderdale Catholic high school are up in arms that a former priest, who retired from his job at the school as a guidance counselor amid questions about his alleged involvement in past sex-abuse incidents, has been hired back at the school.

Ernest Durante, 68, left St. Thomas Aquinas High School last December after it was discovered that his name was in a 2005 grand jury report on priest sex abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

St. Thomas Aquinas High School parents were upset when they discovered that the school had re-hired Durante as a consultant.

OMAHA (NE)
KGW

OMAHA, Neb. -- A former parishioner from Oregon filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Archdiocese of Omaha, alleging the archdiocese allowed him to be abused as a teenager by a priest and tried to conceal it.

The lawsuit, brought by 41-year-old Cary Claar of Springfield, alleges Father Duane Lucas sexually abused Claar for several years starting around 1978, when Claar was 12 or 13 years old.

The archdiocese knew or should have known Lucas was a pedophile, and "made no meaningful effort" to restrict his access to children or monitor his behavior, said attorneys Maren Lynn Chaloupka and Kelly Clark in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

MINNESOTA
City Pages

When the best your coworkers can say is that you're "capable," you may not be right for the job. That "c"-word is the adjective current Archbishop Harry Flynn bestowed on comer John Nienstedt, currently the Catholic potentate of New Ulm. To be fair, in the Pi Press's revealing story, Flynn used the intensifier "such a"--as in "such a ninny," but with the words "capable bishop" used instead.

Reverend Philip M. Schotzko of St. Peter chimes in with exceptional enthusiasm that, "he considers him 'a good organizer and planner and administrator.'" ...

In case you missed the coverage, here are some things that Twin Cities Catholics can look forward to after Neinstedt gets his promotion: ...

The sexual abuse scandal in the clergy is often a problem of false accusations: "What is of immediate concern, I believe, is a social climate that presumes every unsubstantiated charge is necessarily true. I remember well the months after the late Cardinal Bernardin was publicly accused. Day after day, the press followed him wherever he went. The pressure must have been enormous. Then came the hour when his accuser confessed that he was mistaken. All's well that ends well, but what about the suffering needlessly endured in the meantime?"

JOLIET (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Hal Dardick
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 26, 2007, 1:29 PM CDT
A 77-year-old Carmelite priest from Joliet pleaded guilty today to sexually molesting two brothers in the 1990s, when they were young teenagers under his spiritual guidance.

Under a deal worked out with the Will County state's attorney's office, Rev. Louis Rogge is expected to spend 30 days in jail and serve four years probation. The priest, who was convicted of child molestation in Georgia in the 1970s and has not been in ministry since 2002, will have to register as a sex offender.

After accepting Rogge's guilty plea to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, Will County Judge Richard Schoenstedt ordered a sex-offender evaluation of Rogge and set sentencing for July 26.

NEWPORT BEACH (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By H.G. Reza, Times Staff Writer
April 26, 2007

A conservative Episcopal priest who helped lead a 2004 revolt against the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles over homosexuality has resigned as rector of a Newport Beach church after a female parishioner complained about unwanted attention from the married clergyman.

The Rev. Praveen Bunyan, who ministered at St. James Church, resigned last week after confessing to "inappropriate conduct" with the woman, said church spokeswoman Karen Bro. Church officials declined to identify the woman, but another priest said there was no sexual contact involved.

"He was taken by her, but thank goodness it didn't go any further than that," said the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson.

NEW YORK
The Journal News

By MARK MCCABE

(Original publication: April 26, 2007)
The officers and members of Division 5 Ancient Order of Hibernians as Catholic laymen take offense at the continued defamation of the spiritual leader of our Catholic archdiocese, Cardinal Edward Egan, in The Journal News, particularly as expressed in the reporting of Gary Stern.

Three front-page articles based on an anonymous letter supposedly written by disaffected clergy was the basis for the slander this past fall. To date, several months later, no clergyman or individual has acknowledged authoring the charges. Would The Journal News have run these kinds of charges on any other religious leader in America? They never have and even serious moral lapses of religious leaders do not receive this kind of coverage.

Stern and The Journal News on April 2 ("Retirement watch begins as Egan hits 75") once again attack our archdiocesan spiritual leader. In this instance, the cover is a report on a routine administrative requirement that all bishops submit a retirement letter to the Vatican at age 75.

NEWPORT BEACH (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Thursday, April 26, 2007

(04-26) 01:54 PDT Newport Beach, Calif. (AP) --

An Episcopalian priest who broke with the national church over its views on homosexuality and faith resigned as head of a Newport Beach parish after admitting he engaged in "inappropriate conduct" with a woman parishioner.

The Rev. Praveen Bunyan stepped down as head rector of St. James Anglican Church last week, church officials said.

The married priest acknowledged "inappropriate conduct" with the woman, church spokeswoman Karen Bro said.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | April 26, 2007

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston still faces significant financial challenges five years after the sexual abuse crisis erupted, but has been making slow progress, in large part by selling real estate and cutting staff, church officials said yesterday.

The archdiocese, for the second year in a row, published on its website a raft of financial information, including annual financial reports for the archdiocesan administration, as well as for dozens of related Catholic organizations.

This year's disclosure was more extensive than last year's. Among the additions: The archdiocese released the salaries of its top employees, which range from $23,771 for Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley to $250,000 each to the archdiocese's top fund-raiser and chief financial officer.

UNITED KINGDOM
Newham Recorder

26 April 2007
A FORMER Baptist minister faces years behind bars after he admitted abusing six schoolgirls while working at a church.

Nigel Westley, 44, a minister at the Harvest Rock Community Church in Bignold Road, Forest Gate, confessed to a senior colleague who turned him in.

All the children were between nine and 13 years old when they were abused between January 2002 and May 2004.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Church of England has been accused of covering up child sex abuse carried out by a former choirmaster.

Peter Halliday, 61, from Farnborough, was jailed for two-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to sexual abuse of boys in Hampshire in the late 1980s.

BBC News has learned he admitted to the offences 17 years ago but left the Church quietly on condition he had no more contact with children.

MINEOLA (NY)
WTNH

Posted Apr. 25, 2007
9:15 PM

(Mineola, N.Y.-AP)_A former Long Island youth minister testified today that he never told parish leaders about the close friendship he developed with the family of a teenager he was sexually seducing.

Matthew Maiello of Stamford, Connecticut, also testified that he seduced and raped his victims, despite an order from the pastor of St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow, New York, to limit his physical contact with youths to a handshake.

Two former teenagers, a man and a woman, both 23, who were sexually abused by Maiello are suing him, St. Raphael's, its pastor, the Reverend Thomas Haggerty, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre for $150 million.

NEW YORK
The New York Times

By BRUCE LAMBERT
Published: April 26, 2007
GARDEN CITY, N.Y., April 25 — The witness recalled his troubles as a shy teenager with an alcoholic father and few friends, who cut classes and drank. Then a church youth director, Matthew Maiello, came into his life and steered him on a righteous path, he testified, transforming him with a sense of purpose, achievement and self-worth.

“This was the guy that was kind of replacing my dad and guiding me through things,” the witness said in State Supreme Court here on Wednesday. “It was just overwhelmingly good. It was incredible.”

But when the witness resumes his testimony in a civil trial here on Monday, he is expected to tell the dark side of their relationship: sexual abuse. The young man and a young woman have said that Mr. Maiello induced them in the late 1990s to have sex with each other and with him, often videotaping their activities, and they are suing him, the Roman Catholic parish that employed him, its pastor and the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
North County Times

By: North County Times wire services

SAN DIEGO - A judge has denied an emergency request to resume construction projects at several parishes that were suspended after the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego filed for bankruptcy, it was reported Wednesday.

Attorneys for the Organization of Parishes, formed recently to represent the interests of the diocese's 98 parishes, filed the emergency motion Monday asking bankruptcy Judge Louise DeCarl Adler to allow about $122,500 per day to be spent on seven projects between now and May 8, when a hearing is set on the matter.

The attorneys argued the projects had been "abruptly stopped ... causing damages which increase each day construction is suspended," The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Natalie Paris and agencies
Last Updated: 11:20am BST 26/04/2007

A former choirmaster for the Church of England went on to abuse children for years despite his behaviour being brought to the attention of the church.

Peter Halliday, 61, was today jailed for two-and-a-half years at Winchester Crown Court after pleading guilty to abusing children between 1985 and 1990.

The CofE received a complaint about Halliday, the organist and choirmaster at St Peter's Church, Farnborough, Hampshire, from a boy's family in 1990.

UNITED KINGDOM
ekklesia

By staff writers
26 Apr 2007
The Church of England has this morning stressed its practical commitment to the safeguarding, care and nurture of the children within the church community – following allegations in Bristol Crown Court that it failed to stop the alleged abuse of young boys after receiving complaints about a priest, and similar claims by the BBC in the case of a choirmaster.

The BBC Radio 4 Today programme says it has learned that Peter Halliday from Hampshire, who will be sentenced today after pleading guilty to abusing choirboys over a period of five years, admitted his offences 17 years ago.

A Church of England spokesperson told Ekklesia that “a fuller, statement on the Halliday case will follow later this morning from the Diocese of Guildford, after sentencing.”

The separate case against a Somerset vicar, being heard in Bristol, is still in process.

OMAHA (NE)
Beatrice Daily Sun

By OSKAR GARCIA
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 7:48 PM CDT

OMAHA, Neb. - A former parishioner filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Archdiocese of Omaha, alleging the archdiocese allowed him to be abused as a teenager by a priest and tried to conceal it.

The lawsuit, brought by 41-year-old Cary Claar of Springfield, Ore., alleges Father Duane Lucas sexually abused Claar for several years starting around 1978, when Claar was 12 or 13 years old.

The archdiocese knew or should have known Lucas was a pedophile, and "made no meaningful effort" to restrict his access to children or monitor his behavior, said attorneys Maren Lynn Chaloupka and Kelly Clark in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

FLORIDA
Miami Herald

By JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
A former priest who retired from a Fort Lauderdale Catholic high school in December amid questions about his alleged involvement in past sex-abuse incidents has been retained by the school as a consultant through the end of the academic year.

A group of St. Thomas Aquinas High School parents expressed ''tremendous concern'' about Ernest Durante, 68, of Hollywood in a letter sent Wednesday to the Archdiocese of Miami. The former guidance counselor has been training another school counselor on administering SAT, Advanced Placement and other exams on the campus.

The letter, unsigned by the parents, urged Archbishop John Favalora to remove Durante from the school.

FARMERSVILLE (TX)
CBS 11

Stephanie Lucero
Reporting

(CBS 11 News) FARMERSVILLE A Farmersville man may have used a local church to meet people he is accused of sexually abusing.

After allegations and an investigation a Collin County grand jury has indicted local businessman James Souder. The 42-year-old refused requests from CBS 11 News for an interview.

Souder has been in the Collin County Detention Center since his arrest in February and some Farmersville residents say they don't want him back in their town.

BALTIMORE (MD)
Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out

by Vicki Polin, Executive Director
The Awareness Center, Inc.

Throughout the month of April, 2007 there has been a heightened awareness of child sexual abuse in the Baltimore Jewish Community.

On April 11th the Vaad Harabbonim's (Rabbinical Council of Greater Baltimore) published a letter that was sent to homes of many community members. Next came the Baltimore Jewish Times article exposing Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro's alleged past of being a serial child molester. Almost immediately after the publishing of the article, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann reacted by posting a sign in his synagogue banning the newspaper. The Awareness Center believes that The Baltimore Jewish Times is the only Jewish newspaper in Baltimore that has the courage to allow survivors of sex crimes an avenue to have their voices heard. The paper is helping to prevent any more children from being harmed.

With everything that has been happening in Baltimore, we cannot overlook the effect this is having on individuals who live in the community. The entire Jewish community of Baltimore has been put through a whirlwind of emotions.

GRAND MOUNT (IA)
The Observer

By Mary Rueter
Managing editor

A sense of peace descended over a tent in front of SS Philip and James Catholic Church in Grand Mound Sunday afternoon as a memorial to the survivors of sexual abuse by priests was dedicated and blessed.

For the men who were violated by those their families trusted most, the monument is a symbol of strength and courage.

"I'm just happy the survivors were able to come together and dedicate this monument -not only for ourselves, but also for others who have been unable to come forward yet," said survivor Michael Uhde of Davenport.

MINEOLA (NY)
New York Post

By KIERAN CROWLEY
April 25, 2007 -- A smirking former Catholic church youth minister and admitted sex abuser yesterday took the stand at a $150 million civil trial on Long Island and repeatedly claimed he couldn't remember the answers to questions he was asked.

Matthew Maiello, who worked for the Diocese of Rockville Centre as a lay youth minister, pleaded guilty to abusing four teens, served two years and is now free.

The man and woman who brought the lawsuit against him and the diocese, refused to sit in the courtroom while he testified.

UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Reading a monsignor’s deposition in January his answer was “I don't recall, I don't recall,” to almost every question. At the same time, the US Attorney General was on the news testifying, “I don't recall, I don't recall” to almost every question in the US Senate.

Then last week a Bishop Brom deposition came up and to almost every question Brom replied, “I don't recall, I don't recall.” Again, as I was reading, there was Gonzales on the news saying “I don't recall, I don't recall.” Literally, the words “I don't recall, I don't recall” hit my head from the computer screen and the TV screen at the same time, both times.

It’s not a coincidence when you think about it, more like a clue. The "bad guys" in Washington and Texas, as well as in The Vatican and LA, have twisted the integrity that comes with power so much, they can say under oath I don't remember or I don't recall; because obviously who’s ever going to know you're lying? It’s the ultimate Teflon. No matter how obvious the crime, as long as you say, I don't remember, no one will ever know if you do or you don’t.

TEXAS
American-Statesman

By Mark Lisheron
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that stiffens penalties for a variety of sex offenses against children, including the death penalty for offenders who commit a second serious sex crime.

House Bill 8, passed by a vote of 30-1, will now head back to the House for a review of the amended bill and may be considered in a conference committee of Senate and House members before final votes are cast.

The House on March 5 passed a version of the bill by a vote of 123-18 after prosecutors, defense attorneys and advocacy groups on both sides of the death penalty debate had voiced concerns.

MINEOLA (NY)
New York Daily News

BY RICHARD WEIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, April 25th 2007, 4:00 AM

A former youth minister at an East Meadow church admitted yesterday that he seduced a teenage girl and boy under his tutelage, and even videotaped them having group sex.

Matthew Maiello, now 33 and living in Stamford, Conn., confessed to repeatedly having intercourse with the then-15-year-old girl, first on a couch in his basement office in the convent at St. Raphael's Catholic Church in May 1999 and then, over the next three years, at his home, at the victim's home, in a Long Beach motel and on a boat.

On one occasion, he said, he rushed her out of the Broadway play "Jesus Christ Superstar" after the first act so they could have sex at his Lynbrook home and still drop her off at her parents' home in time.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

By Associated Press
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - Updated: 01:28 PM EST

BOSTON - The financial condition of the Boston Archdiocese is steadily improving, thanks to a boost in donations and the sale of church property, but big challenges remain before the church can reach its goal of a balanced budget by 2008, according to the archdiocese’s annual report.

The archdiocese said in the report released Wednesday that it reduced the budget deficit for its central administration to $6.3 million for the fiscal year that ended last June 30, compared to a $8.3 million deficit the previous year.

Archdiocese officials said they were encouraged by the progress, but warned of several looming problems before the church can balance its budget. They include an underfunding of the clergy pension fund, the costs of deferred maintenance on church buildings and the financial struggles of individual parishes.

WISCONSIN
The Capital Times

Pat Schneider
The Capital Times

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee told the state Supreme Court that child sexual assault victims who believe they've also been deceived by a church coverup need to bring that claim to court within a few years of being assaulted.

Attorney John Rothstein, representing the archdiocese, said Tuesday that such victims have a "duty of inquiry. The plaintiffs can't wait around until the facts find them."

Rothstein was asking the court to uphold the dismissal in Milwaukee County Circuit Court of four lawsuits -- now consolidated in a single case -- seeking monetary damages from the archdiocese, which the plaintiffs claim fraudulently concealed priests' history of child molestation.

UNITED STATES
Catholic Online

By Joe Feuerherd
4/25/2007
National Catholic Reporter -- (www.ncronline.org )

WASHINGTON (National Catholic Reporter) – Four years ago, an adult woman informed her local diocese that a recently ordained priest had groped her. No criminal or civil charges were filed, but the initial investigation showed that the accusation was plausible – that it could have happened, recalled Father Michael Sullivan, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., a priest and canon lawyer who previously served as judicial vicar in the Crookston, Minn., Diocese.

A diocesan review board, said Father Sullivan, eventually determined that the accusation “was a trumped-up charge.” The priest, said Father Sullivan, had “spurned her affections,” informing her “that I’m a celibate and we’re not going there.”

Still, said Father Sullivan, the bishop rejected the review board’s determination and did not allow the priest to return to public ministry. The priest has appealed the bishop’s ruling, but the case, said Father Sullivan, is “swallowed up in Rome.” The priest currently receives no pay or medical benefits from the diocese, said Father Sullivan.

DAVENPORT (IA)
Quad-City Times

By Dustin Lemmon | Wednesday, April 25, 2007

A local Realtor with clients interested in buying the bishop’s former home has raised questions about the Diocese of Davenport’s decision to sell the property to St. Ambrose University.

Jill Slyter said she called the listing agent for 2761 Scott St. the second day it was on the market and was told they already had a buyer willing to pay the full price of $175,000.

Slyter said she was upset to learn the diocese accepted an offer from the university for $170,100. The U.S. Bankruptcy court has yet to approve a motion authorizing the sale of the bishop’s home and a single-family house at 803 E. 39th St.

BELLEVILLE (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK
News-Democrat

BELLEVILLE --Eight people representing victims of sexual abuse by priests rallied Tuesday outside the offices of the Belleville Diocese, protesting what they say is secrecy by Bishop Edward K. Braxton.

A spokesman for the diocese could not be reached for comment. Braxton was out of town on business.

"Bishop Braxton is the only bishop in America who has publicly said when the Vatican rules on an abusive priest, maybe he will tell you and maybe he won't," said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests based in St. Louis.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A choir boy "feared for his life" after his parish priest sexually abused him at a vicarage, Bristol Crown Court has been told.

The Rev David Smith, 52, of St John's Road, Clevedon, told the boy he loved him and took him on holiday to Malta, the jury heard.

The boy, who cannot be named, said he was terrified of being branded a liar if he exposed the abuse.

UNITED STATES
Orthodox Reform

[Editor’s note: While we have not finished the articles of our manifesto, we feel it is in the best interest of community involvement that we publish an early outline of its contents. This is only a summary; the future manifesto will be comprehensive. Please let us know your comments!]

Summary
The Orthodox Reform Manifesto consists of policies and procedures, accountability, and ecclesiastical reform to overcome sexual misconduct, establish healing, and restore trust in the Church.

Preamble
We believe the Orthodox clergy are called to be holy and beyond reproach. We believe our Bishops are called to be more interdependent and less autocratic. The believe the Faithful are called to respect and be faithful to our Church Canons and Holy Tradition. Openness and dialog build trust; secrecy and apathy destroy the glue that holds us together.

SCOTLAND
Glasgow Daily Record

By Gordon Mciiwraith
NO DNA evidence was found to link Angelika Kluk's married lover or priest Gerry Nugent to her death, a court heard yesterday.

Jurors were told that DNA samples were taken from murder accused Peter Tobin and nine others.

Those swabbed included Father Nugent, the priest at St Patrick's Church in Anderston, Glasgow, where Angelika was staying and where her body was found.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

It’s a fair question. No matter how much one might wish for a change in the ordained ministry to include married men or women or both, the fact is that at the moment the priesthood is exclusively celibate males, and many are serving under severe strain. Part of the strain, of course, is because of declining numbers and increased demands.

Not a small part of the strain for some results from the clergy abuse crisis.

NCR arguably has spent more ink and pages on the clergy sex abuse crisis than any other publication since we first broke the story in 1984. Yet nagging questions of justice continue to pester the community and perhaps none is more significant than the question of justice for priests. Joe Feuerherd explores some dimensions of the problem in a story on in today’s issue. ( See story) It is a difficult tale to tell because priests in the midst of canonical processes are reluctant to talk. Others are reluctant to criticize a system that too often appears arbitrary and even capricious and is made all the more difficult to assess because much of the deliberation occurs in secret.

ST. GEORGE (UT)
Deseret Morning News

By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
ST. GEORGE — A town hall meeting brought politicians, polygamists, activists and community members together here to vent and share their feelings about reaching out to victims of abuse in closed polygamous communities.
Hundreds packed the Dixie Center to offer their opinions Tuesday night.
"Why is there a statute of limitations on rape and molestation?" a person identified as "victim" wrote in comments read to the audience. "How can the women and children get justice when the statute exists?"
Others pushed for decriminalization of polygamy.

GLEN FALLS (NY)
Post Star

By DON LEHMAN
dlehman@poststar.com
Published: Wednesday, April 25, 2007

GLENS FALLS -- Prosecutors have agreed to drop a felony sex abuse charge against a former probation officer who was accused of having improper sexual relations with three boys.

Bradford K. Overton, 30, of Glens Falls instead pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of forcible touching, agreeing to serve 6 months in Warren County Jail and 6 years on probation.

He is to be sentenced May 22 by Glens Falls Judge Richard Tarantino.

Overton pleaded guilty in connection with allegations he fondled the buttocks of two boys, ages 15 and 16, at his home last summer. He knew the boys through a Queensbury church where he was a youth group leader.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Steve Bailey, Globe Columnist | April 25, 2007

Kevin Phelan has been a well-respected player in Boston's business and civic life for years. But he lasted only one week after being named to become chairman of Caritas Christi Health Care System, the Catholic Church's hospital chain. His sin: wanting to replace Wilson D. Rogers Jr., the hospital's controversial long time lawyer and his firm. ...

Rogers was a pivotal player in the church's darkest hour. As the archdiocese's chief lawyer, Rogers negotiated many settlements with the victims of sexual abuse by the clergy, confidential deals that helped mask the scandal and its magnitude for years. O'Malley eventually replaced Rogers as the lead attorney negotiating a broad settlement of claims after he was harshly criticized by victims and their lawyers for his hardball litigation tactics in some of the civil cases and accused of being not nearly so tough on the church's reluctant insurance carriers.

MISSOURI
News-Leader

Walter Molkenbur carries two letters around with him: one from a former pastor here in town, and the other from the bishop who now supervises this region.

The 48-year-old Springfield man says the pastor molested him when he was a child, and former Messiah Lutheran Church pastor Henry Wingard has written Molkenbur a letter of apology:

"I am writing this letter to express to you my deepest regrets for what I did in the past, in reference to sexual advances in the late sixties or early seventies," Wingard writes in longhand. "I surely did not realize then, the harm of my actions and what affect they would have on you. I want you to know that I apologize with my whole heart and I wish God's blessings upon you in the the days ahead. As I look upon the past, I ask for your forgiveness and hope that you will accept my my expressions of sorrow that I extend to you now."

NEW YORK
The New York Times

By BRUCE LAMBERT
Published: April 25, 2007
GARDEN CITY, N.Y., April 24 — A former church youth director who confessed in 2003 to the statutory rape of four teenagers took the witness stand on Tuesday in a civil trial, but the two victims who are suing him were not present. They had left the courtroom here earlier, saying they could not bear to see him again.

The witness, Matthew Maiello, 33, admitted many of the victims’ accusations but denied some of their claims. He said repeatedly during his testimony in State Supreme Court here that he could not remember important details, and a few times invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Mr. Maiello was imprisoned for two years for his crimes as director of the rock Mass and youth ministry at St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow, N.Y. The lawsuit is against him, St. Raphael’s, its pastor and the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

By Mark Sauer and Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

April 25, 2007

Construction projects at several parishes that were suspended after the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego filed for bankruptcy cannot resume now, a federal judge ruled yesterday in response to an emergency request.

The Organization of Parishes, formed recently to represent the interests of the diocese's 98 parishes, had asked bankruptcy Judge Louise DeCarl Adler to allow about $122,500 per day to be spent on seven projects between now and May 8, when a hearing is set on the matter.

Attorneys for the organization filed an emergency motion Monday to resume seven construction projects, arguing that they had been “abruptly stopped . . . causing damages which increase each day construction is suspended.”

MINEOLA (NY)
Stamford Times

MINEOLA, N.Y. [AP] — A former youth minister at a church testified that his parish pastor gave him a directive that included refraining from inappropriate touching of teenagers in his care. A handshake was to be the limit.

But Stamford resident Matthew Maiello, who raped and sodomized teenagers as the youth minister at St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow, agreed when an attorney suggested: "You never for one second intended to follow that?"

Maiello also testified Tuesday that the parish pastor never asked about his employment history or educational background before he was hired for the $20,000-a-year position.

SPOKANE (WA)
KGW

04/25/2007

By JOHN K. WILEY / Associated Press

A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday confirmed a Catholic Diocese of Spokane reorganization plan that includes $48 million for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

The order by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams will allow the Eastern Washington diocese to emerge from the Chapter 11 protection it entered in December 2004 in the face of numerous sex abuse lawsuits.

"This moment marks a beginning of healing for the Catholic church in Eastern Washington," said Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

BELLEVILLE (IL)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Tim Townsend and Angie Leventis
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/25/2007

New questions about secrecy within the Diocese of Belleville arose Tuesday over a statement issued by the bishop on Monday in the case of its first defrocked priest.

In the same news release announcing that the Rev. Robert Vonnahmen had been "dismissed from the clerical state" by the Vatican, Bishop Edward Braxton said the diocese has no obligation to make public the Vatican's decisions about local priests whose penalties fall short of being laicized.

About a dozen members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and their supporters rallied Tuesday in front of the Diocese of Belleville Chancery to call for greater transparency regarding sex abuse in the church.

PENNSYLVANIA
Intelligencer Journal

By Lori Van Ingen, Staff
Intelligencer Journal

Published: Apr 25, 2007 1:44 AM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - The number of clergy sexual-abuse allegations has declined for the second straight year, according to a survey of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops released earlier this month.

According to data collected by Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the number of "credible" allegations has decreased from 1,092 in 2004 to 783 in 2005 and 714 in 2006.

More than 99 percent of the dioceses/eparchies responded to the voluntary survey.

CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO
Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 6:00 pm
Orange County Catholicism hasn’t quite been the same ever since Bishop Tod D. Brown made like Martin Luther and hammered a document to the doors of Holy Family Cathedral in early 2004. That document, titled “The Covenant With the Faithful,” featured seven theses that Brown claimed represented a new era of transparency for a diocese long plagued by priestly pedophilia and its cover-up by Church and even county leaders. ...

But according to church records, that single nail seems to have caught Brown in a lie—or at least an inconsistency between his public pronouncements and the paper trail.

Documents obtained by the Weekly reveal that church officials have investigated an allegation of sexual abuse against Brown—yet Brown has never uttered a word on the matter.

On July 3, 1997, a man we’ll call Larry (the Weekly doesn’t disclose the name of alleged sexual-abuse victims without their permission) wrote to the Diocese of Fresno stating, “I was sexually molested by Father Todd [sic] Brown when I was 12 years old in 1965,” while the future bishop served at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Bakersfield. During psychological counseling, Larry claimed to realize that “the abuse perpetrated on me by Father Brown was not a fantasy, but a detailed memory.”

SAN JOSE (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

(04-24) 14:58 PDT SAN JOSE -- A New York attorney has been charged in federal court in San Jose with possessing child pornography on a computer while he served as a visiting professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, court records show.

Murdaugh Stuart Madden Jr., 58, a former professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, N.Y., was charged today with one count of possessing child pornography. Madden was named in a document known as an information, which typically signifies that a defendant intends to plead guilty.

Reached by phone today, Madden hung up on a Chronicle reporter.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
City of Angels

As Clergy Case hearings began this morning Judge Fromholz knocked back motions to strike by the church and at one point tempers got short. Tony DiMarco stepped up to say, “Your honor, we provided those certificates some time back and reprovided them again.” At the same time Plaintiffs “aren’t getting served when motions are filed.”

Lee Potts jumped in: “We did what's required.” Di Marco returned: “It wasn’t faxed, emailed, mailed, personally delivered.” Judge Fromholz literally threw his hands up in the air saying, “This is an argument for another day.”

He was about to grant a motion to strike and dismiss in another case when plaintiff attorney Tony Hale stepped up, “Your Honor, this is a case of clear repressed memory. Hightower is so off point in this case.” And the judge said, “Okay, we'll take it under submission.”

The hearings over, DiMarco bristled, and stayed in his seat. He was waiting for Donald Woods church attorney to show up. DiMarco had a deposition with Monsignor R the next day in Santa Barbara only now Woods is arguing he has to file a privacy claim on behalf of Monsignor R first.

SPOKANE (WA)
San Francisco Chronicle

By JOHN K. WILEY, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

(04-24) 15:37 PDT Spokane, Wash. (AP) --

A plan to allow the Catholic Diocese of Spokane to emerge from bankruptcy and pay victims of sex abuse $48 million will be confirmed, a judge said Tuesday.

The settlement requires Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to support an end to statutes of limitations for sex-abuse crimes and write letters of apology to victims and their families.

The order by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams will allow the Eastern Washington diocese to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy it entered in December 2005 in the face of numerous sex abuse lawsuits.

MINEOLA (NY)
Newsday

BY ANN GIVENS
ann.givens@newsday.com

April 24, 2007, 8:47 PM EDT

From the moment a former youth minister at an East Meadow Catholic church kissed his 15-year-old student, he knew he was breaking the rules, he testified Tuesday.

Matthew Maiello, now 33, of Stamford, Conn., said he could not recall pulling the girl onto his lap or telling her that God's plan was for them to be together, as she testified Monday. He also could not recall losing his temper when she tried to end the relationship.

But he admitted that he initiated a sexual relationship with the girl eight years ago and that he pushed her to go further and further with him, until they were having sex several times a week on church property.

MINEOLA (NY)
Newsday

By FRANK ELTMAN
Associated Press Writer

April 24, 2007, 7:36 PM EDT

MINEOLA, N.Y. -- A former youth minister who raped and sodomized teenagers at a church testified Tuesday that the parish pastor never asked about his employment history or educational background before he was hired for the $20,000-a-year position.

"It wasn't discussed," Matthew Maiello, the former youth minister at St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow, told an attorney for two people who are suing him, the parish, its pastor and the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

The plaintiffs are seeking $150 million in damages, claiming church leaders failed to uncover or prevent the youth minister's sexual attacks on teenagers in his care.

COSTA RICA
Prensa Latina

San Jose, Apr 24 (Prensa Latina) The Sexual Crime Section of the Judicial Investigation Committee investigates the alleged violation to a minor in Costa Rica by four priests.

Medical staff from Marcial Fallas clinic, in the place of Defenseless in the capital, denounced the case to the authorities after giving assistance to the young woman.

The mother of a four-month child arrived in to the hospital in an ambulance and told the doctors she has gone to the convent to ask the community priest for help but without money to eat.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A priest accused of sexually abusing young boys over 30 years encouraged a boy to "kiss and hug" him during visits to his flat, a court has been told.

The court heard how the alleged victim, now 40, realised later Rev David Smith, 52, of St John's Road, Clevedon had taken advantage of him.

The parish priest also allegedly indulged in "play fights" with the boy.

MALTA
Malta Star

maltastar.com team 24 April 2007

A vicar of the Church of England, Rev David Smith, who is in court proceedings charged with sexual abuse of young boys, had entertained one of his victims on holiday in Malta, the Bristol Crown Court was told.

One of the victims, was allegedly abused from the age of 12. When he tried to break off contact with Rev Smith after he took him on holiday to Malta, foreign press reported. The court was told that Reverend Smith pestered him with letters and phone calls begging to see him.

In Court, the Church of England was accused that the vicar continued to abuse boys because it failed to act effectively on two separate warnings.

UNITED STATES
JPII Millstone

In the latest issue of Commonweal Magazine, a Dean of a School of Law, Mark Sargeant defends the Dioceses against SNAP (note that he singled out David Clohessy, a personal vendetta?) and victims who have "abused their moral authority" because of "the type of civil claims that have bankrupted Spokane and other dioceses" and that "Most dioceses do have some insurance available to help meet the settlements. But to assume that all dioceses will just be carving off fat, and not slicing into bone and muscle, violates common sense."

SNAP's President Barbara Blaine refuted him stating that:
--- No dioceses have been "bankrupted." Five (out of nearly 200) have sought bankruptcy protection. There's a huge difference. No diocese is "going under." They are merely reorganizing with the goal of keeping dirty secrets hidden.

UNITED STATES
Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out

Vicki Polin has said it a million times: "It takes a village to raise a sexual predator"

I think the rabbonim of New York, Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles need to be aware that the problem we have with sexual predators is on them. The warnings signs were there, yet they choose to lead our communities to ignore them. It's been much easier for them to blame survivors of sex crimes.

It's vitally important that all survivors and parents of survivors to make police reports on those who offend. It's not up to our rabbis to conduct investigations. It is also important that survivors of sex crimes file civil suits against those who offend and also those who enable them to continue to rape our men, women and children.

PINEVILLE (MO)
Neosho Daily News

PINEVILLE - A pre-trial conference has been continued for George Otis Johnston.

Johnston, 64, the pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church in Granby, faces one Class A felony count of first degree child molestation in McDonald County.

Johnston will appear for the hearing at 10 a.m. June 19 before Fortieth Circuit Court Judge Timothy Perigo.

Johnston also faces 17 felony charges of child sexual abuse in Newton County. Trial on eight of those charges will begin May 22. Jurors will be selected in Cass County, Mo., then transported to Neosho, where they will be sequestered for the duration of the trial.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
10 News

SAN DIEGO -- Several parishes are seeking emergency court permission to resume construction projects at seven San Diego Catholic Diocese locations that have been halted due to the diocese's bankruptcy case, it was reported Tuesday.

The recently formed Organization of Parishes filed the emergency motion late Monday seeking the bankruptcy court's permission to continue the projects, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Louise DeCarl Adler halted funding for the projects earlier this month as the diocese proposed to settle some 150 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by priests.

DALLAS (TX)
Orthodox Reform

New details have surfaced on the Fr. Nicholas Katinas sexual misconduct allegations. Orthodox Reform has received a sound recording of the sermon where the GOA assistant chancellor Fr. Michael Kontogiorgis revealed to a stunned Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church that their long time priest was suspended due to confirmed allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor.

This 29 minute presentation was delivered after a Presanctified Liturgy on February 21st, 2007 at Holy Trinity in Dallas. News reporters from the local press as well as an estimated 400 parishioners filled the church at this meeting.

Three points jump out as troubling:

Instead of suspended him pending investigation, a priest accused of sexual misconduct with a minor is allowed to have continued access to children for many months while the archdiocese conducts a lengthy investigation.

PORTLAND (OR)
The Register-Guard

By Bill Bishop
The Register-Guard
Published: Tuesday, April 24, 2007

In the wake of his success helping to settle the most public and most complex litigation in state history - the lawsuits of hundreds of sexual abuse victims that triggered bankruptcy for the Archdiocese of Portland - Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure announced Monday that he is retiring July 1.

Velure, 67, is nationally recognized as a mediator whose work has saved legal fees, delays and frustrations for parties involved in complex lawsuits. His work also has spared public courts the enormous expense of months or years of legal wrangling in complex cases, U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan said Monday.

"I consider him Exhibit A on why state judges in Oregon should have a salary increase," Hogan added. State judges make $95,800 annually.

LODI (CA)
Lodi News-Sentinel

"Deliver Us From Evil," the film documenting the sexual abuse of former St. Anne's Catholic Church Priest Oliver O'Grady, will be available on DVD on May 8.

O'Grady was a priest in Lodi from 1971 to 1978. He later served at parishes in Stockton, Turlock, Hughson and San Andreas until he was arrested in 1993. He pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual abuse with children under 14 in San Andreas.

O'Grady was paroled from Mule Creek State Prison in Ione in late 2000 and deported to his native Ireland a short time later.

SCOTLAND
Glasgow Evening Times

A PRIEST who admitted having sex with Angelika Kluk gave a DNA sample to detectives investigating her murder, a trial heard today.

But the High Court in Edinburgh heard no DNA evidence was found to link Father Gerry Nugent, 63, with the body of a Polish student found under his church.

The Angelika Kluk murder trial has been hearing for a second day from forensic scientist Carol Weston, 33.

SCOTLAND
The Herald

A priest who admitted having sex with Angelika Kluk gave a DNA sample to detectives investigating her murder, a murder trial has heard.

But the High Court in Edinburgh heard that no DNA evidence was found to link Father Gerry Nugent, 63, with the body of a Polish student found under his church.

The Angelika Kluk murder trial has been hearing for a second day from forensic scientist Carol Weston, 33.

Mrs Weston was called in after the discovery of the Polish student's bound, gagged and blood-stained body under the floor of St Patrick's Church in Anderston, Glasgow.

UNITED STATES
Orthodox Reform

Editor’s note: Catherine Metropoulos has served on the GOA’s Clergy Sexual Misconduct Advisory Board for the last four years (click on image at right to view the Board’s announcement). Her report that “most of our Board’s work has been tabled or stifled” due to factors including “…a total lack of interest on part of our hierarchy” is very troubling — why do the Bishops not take this matter seriously?

Letter to the Editor of Orthodox Reform:

“THE GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE CANNOT IGNORE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO DEFROCK FATHER NICHOLAS KATINAS!”

April 20, 2007

Even though a thorough investigation by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has proven that there was in fact, very serious sexual misconduct committed by Father Nicholas Katinas against children, it is my understanding that the Archdiocese is now refusing to defrock him. It is a disgrace and an embarrassment to our Church, as well as an insult to his victims, if Father Katinas is allowed to remain on an indefinite suspension and is not subsequently defrocked.

Clergy sexual misconduct, especially when those victimized are children, is a very serious offense unlike no other. How our Spiritual Leaders respond to these matters is of extreme importance. It is especially detrimental to the future of our Church if appropriate actions are not taken when these issues arise.

I have no doubt that Father Katinas was a good priest, had a wondrous ministry, and is loved by many; he would not have been able to commit such heinous crimes against children otherwise! Father Katinas, however, is not above the law. His culpable, despicable actions against children are inexcusable. He abused his sacred position of trust. He inflicted tremendous pain upon his innocent victims; who for them the affects of sexual abuse will never go away. He severely tainted the reputation of our beloved Greek Orthodox Church and that of our clergy.

LUBBOCK (TX)
Christian Post

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Apr. 23 2007 05:24 PM ET

A youth pastor at Lakeridge Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, will stand trial next month for sexually assaulting a minor.

Blaine Miller was arrested for the sexual assault of a child younger than 17 that occurred in Kirbyville, Texas, in 2004. He was indicted on the charge in May 2005.

Lakeridge Senior Pastor Merle Fulmer says he believes Miller is innocent, according to KAMC28 local news.

WASHINGTON (DC)
PennLive

4/23/2007, 2:40 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Catholic nun won't be allowed to revive a lawsuit in which she challenged her dismissal as college chaplain at Gannon University.

The Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal by Lynette Petruska, the first woman chaplain at Gannon.

Petruska claimed in her lawsuit that she was demoted in 2002 and forced to resign because of her gender, and because she helped expose accusations of a cover-up involving a priest who took a leave of absence after an alleged affair with a woman.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
City of Angels

Two court orders last week set precedents for the hundreds of cases to follow re mental exams and production of files, as the first jury trial approaches June 11 in LA civil cases against the Roman Catholic Church.

Judge Haley Fromholz granted the church’s motion for a mental examination of plaintiff Pepito in the April 18 hearing, saying his decision on this exam applies to the “numerous coordinated cases” defendant is litigating in California. The previous day in the same case, Fromholz ordered seminary files of Lynn Caffoe to be produced for in camera review in the Pepito & Uranga case set for jury trial August 6.

The church has to produce seminary files, in Pepito & Uranga and future cases, but for in camera review by the judge before being released to plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Remember:

(“Judge Haley Fromholz stared at Katherine Freberg and said, “I don't want to review anything I don't absolutely have to.” See April 17 post.)

CANADA
Globe and Mail

OMAR EL AKKAD

A Franciscan friar faces multiple child-pornography charges after Toronto police raided a Roman Catholic church in Scarborough.

Brother Adley Lobo, 24, had been affiliated with both St. Francis Friary in Caledon and St. Lawrence Martyr Church in Toronto, according to police.

Brother Lobo became the subject of an undercover police investigation into individuals suspected of downloading child pornography from the Internet.

CANADA
CityNews

Monday April 23, 2007

As a Franciscan Brother, Adley Lobo was expected to adhere to a strict set of monastic vows. But police allege he strayed not only from the high standards set by the Catholic Church, but from the laws of the land as well.

On Monday, officers arrested Lobo, 24, and charged him with two counts of possession of child porn and one count each of making child porn, and making child porn available to others.

The arrest of Brother Lobo took place after police executed a search warrant at St. Lawrence Martyr Church, at 2210 Lawrence Avenue East.

CANADA
AM640 Toronto Radio

TORONTO - A 24 year old Catholic friar is accused of making and possessing child pornography.
Toronto police say the suspect was the subject of an undercover police investigation involving people who were allegedly downloading child pornography online.
Adley Lobo, a Franciscan Brother, is charged with two counts of possession of child pornography.

CANADA
Toronto Star

Apr 24, 2007 04:30 AM
A 24-year-old man studying to be a Franciscan priest was arrested on child pornography charges in Toronto yesterday.

Police, who had been investigating online child pornography, executed a search warrant at St. Lawrence Martyr Church, on Lawrence Ave. E. near Kennedy Rd., police said.

Adley Lobo, who was charged with possessing child pornography, and creating and making child porn available, has also been affiliated with St. Francis Friary in Caledon, police said.

MINEOLA (NY)
New York Post

By KIERAN CROWLEY
April 24, 2007 -- An alleged sex-abuse victim testified yesterday that she was a 15-year-old virgin when a 25-year-old Long Island Catholic youth minister seduced her, made her his "puppet" and had sex with her in church pews and a convent.

The woman, now 23, testified in the $150 million civil case against the church that for more than two years, Matthew Maiello forced her to have repeated kinky sex with a younger teen boy and that Maiello filmed the sex acts and joined in.

Maiello, she tearfully claimed, acted as film director and made the teens perform in an X-rated "game show" he called "Strip SAT Review" while he was supposed to be preparing the girl for her SATs.

UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 04/24/2007 02:30:31 AM MDT

It has been three years since Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm - who became known as "The Fawns" - made a dramatic flight from their homes in the polygamous community at the Utah/Arizona state line.
Broadbent, 20, has told the story many times now, on Dr. Phil, Larry King Live (three times), in Teen Vogue and to media from Japan, Germany and, just last week, England.
But her story of life within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the sect overseen by Warren Jeffs, remains compelling.
And so she keeps telling it, mostly because it allows her to spread another message, one about what teens experience - and need - once they leave the rigid lifestyle, where little emphasis is placed on education, where boys are funneled into work and girls into marriage.

BELLEVILLE (IL)
Washington Post

The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 24, 2007; 12:08 AM

BELLEVILLE, Ill. -- Pope Benedict XVI defrocked a priest accused of sexually molesting teenage boys decades ago while directing a Catholic youth camp, church officials said Monday.

Robert Vonnahmen, 76, was removed from the priesthood "for the good of the Church," Bishop Edward Braxton of the Diocese of Belleville said in a statement.

Vonnahmen was removed from priestly duties in 1993 by one of Braxton's predecessors after allegations surfaced that he had sexually abused minors. But Vonnahmen, who has denied the allegations, remained a priest because only the pope can defrock clergy.

MALTA
MaltaMedia News

By MaltaMedia News
Apr 24, 2007 - 1:05:18 PM

A British vicar, who allegedly sexually abused young boys over three decades, took one of the victims on holiday to Malta.

52-year-old Vicar David Smith vicar of St John the Evangelist Church at Clevedon, Somerset, is being charged with 14 counts of sexual assault and indecency against seven boys, between September 1976 and May 2005.

According to the Daily Express, the Church of England authorities failed to act despite two ­separate warnings about his alleged behaviour.

DELAWARE (OH)
Ohio News Network

Apr 23 2007 7:07PM
DELAWARE, Ohio - A former youth pastor was in court Monday, facing charges that he molested two boys.

Robert Reeves (pictured, right) was charged with nine counts of gross sexual imposition after two boys said Reeves had sexual contact with them when he was their youth pastor.

"Mr. Reeves, it's commendable that you turned yourself in, but until you walked into the courtroom I doubt very much you realized the number of years you are facing," said Judge W. Duncan Whitney.

SPRINGFIELD (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

By WILLIAM BENDER
benderw@phillynews.com 215-854-5255

David McNulty once vouched for the then-Rev. Gerald Klever when Klever was seeking a promotion at the First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Delaware County.

Ask McNulty today about his former associate pastor, and he'll quote a Bible verse warning that anyone who harms children should be cast into the sea with a millstone tied to his neck.

Klever, 75, was extradited this month from Arizona to Springfield on charges that he repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted girls in the youth group while serving at First Presbyterian from 1977 to 1983.

GRAND MOUND (IA)
WOI

GRAND MOUND, Iowa The eastern Iowa town of Grand Mound has dedicated a monument to victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests.

Seven abuse victims were among 100 people who attended yesterday's ceremony outside S-S Philip and James Catholic Church.

Parishioners and members of a group called Catholics for Spiritual Healing raised the four-thousand dollars for the monument.

MINEOLA (NY)
1010 WINS

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) -- A young woman testified Monday that she no longer has faith in God and has trouble maintaining relationships with men after being sexually seduced over the course of several years by a youth minister.

" don't believe in God anymore,'' testified the 23-year-old, one of two plaintiffs in a civil suit against Matthew Maiello, a former minister at St. Raphael's Church in East Meadow, Long Island. Also named in the lawsuit are the church, its pastor and the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

The plaintiffs are seeking $150 million in damages, claiming church leadership was negligent in failing to uncover or prevent the youth minister's sexual attacks on teenagers in his care. They also allege that church leaders failed to properly screen the minister before he was hired.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

By Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

April 24, 2007

As the San Diego Catholic bankruptcy case nears its two-month anniversary, seven parishes are seeking emergency court permission to resume halted construction projects, and the bishop has sent a letter to parishioners lamenting “adversarial postures” in the proceedings.

In a “pastoral update” released at services over the weekend, Bishop Robert Brom said the San Diego Diocese's $95 million settlement offer to victims of sexual abuse “will stretch our financial capability to the limit.”

Under the settlement proposal, filed last month as part of its reorganization plan, the diocese would pay half of the $95 million, and its insurer would pay the other half.

UNITED STATES
EDGE Boston

Featured on over 40 top 10 lists including the Wall Street Journal (Joe Morgenstern), Newsweek (Dave Ansen), and the Los Angeles Times (Kevin Crust), Lionsgate will release to DVD the 2007 Academy Award® nominee for Best Feature Documentary - Deliver Us From Evil. Winner of numerous awards including Best Documentary screenplay from the Writers Guild of America, Best Documentary from the Boston Society of Film Critics, Best Non-Fiction Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and Best Documentary Feature at the IPA Satellite Awards and Los Angeles Film Festival, this critically-acclaimed documentary reveals the stunning history of sexual abuse perpetrated by a beloved catholic priest and the institution that protected him at the expense of its followers.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Steven Morris
Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

A parish priest sexually abused boys over a period of nearly 30 years despite two separate claims by the church that it had "dealt with the matter", Bristol crown court heard yesterday.

The Rev David Smith, 52, groomed the youngsters during sleepovers at the vicarage and day trips to the seaside, the jury was told. He told them he loved them and later bombarded some of them with letters and phone calls when they attempted to break off contact, the court heard.

Concerns had been raised with the Church of England on two occasions about the vicar, in 1981 and again in 2001. Despite two complainants being reassured that the matter had been dealt with, Mr Smith was not stopped.

UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Express

April 24,2007
By Tom Price

A VICAR sexually abused young boys over three decades, a court heard yesterday.

And Church of England authorities failed to act despite two ­separate warnings about his alleged behaviour.
The Rev David Smith started abusing youngsters while an assistant housemaster at a prep school in 1976 and continued after becoming a parish priest in 1979, it was said.

The alarm was first raised in the 1980s by the mother of a 15-year-old boy. But church officials simply moved him to another parish, Bristol Crown Court was told.

BELLEVILLE (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat

Priests removed by the diocese

The Belleville Diocese has removed 15 priests and one deacon since March 1993 for allegations of sexual abuse of a child or sexual misconduct. Robert J. Vonnahmen is the only one to be defrocked. One priest was cleared and another's status could not be determined Monday. These are the men who remain on administrative leave along with the dates they were removed and their assignments when removed:

March 5, 1993 -- The Rev. Jerome Ratermann, 75, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in Belleville.

March 18, 1993 -- The Rev. James Calhoun, deceased, former pastor at St. Boniface Church in Germantown.

MALTA
di-ve

by di-ve news

UK/ Malta (di-ve news) -- April 24, 2007 -- 1045CEST -- A young boy who was allegedly abused by a Vicar of the Church of England tried to break off contact with the man after the latter brought him on holiday to Malta, a British Court has heard.

The Rev. David Smith, 52, is standing trial over 14 charges of sexual assault and indecency against seven boys between September 1976 to May 2005, but is denying the charges, the Daily Express has reported.

The Court heard how the alarm was first raised in the 1980s by the mother of a 15-year-old boy, but Church of England authorities failed to act and simply moved the vicar to another parish.

BELLEVILLE (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK
gpawlaczyk@bnd.com

BELLEVILLE - More than 14 years after he was removed from active ministry following accusations that he sexually abused boys, Robert J. Vonnahmen, who once directed a Catholic youth camp, has been removed from the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI.

Vonnahmen, 76, the former pastor at St. Joseph's Church in Elizabethtown, while never criminally charged, was prohibited in 1993 from performing priestly duties after the Diocese of Belleville conducted an investigation of him and other priests and a deacon in the diocese. Allegations of sexual abuse prompted the investigations, which resulted in 15 priests and the deacon being removed from active ministry.

Vonnahmen, who has denied allegations of sex abuse, was accused by victims of accosting them at Camp Ondessonk in Southern Illinois. He could not be reached for comment Monday.

MINEOLA (NY)
Newsday

BY ANN GIVENS
ann.givens@newsday.com

April 23, 2007, 1:12 PM EDT

A young woman who was molested for years by her church youth minister took the stand in State Supreme Court in Mineola Monday morning to tell her gruelling tale.

The woman, whom Newsday is not naming because she is a victim of sexual abuse, told how an innocent crush on Matthew Maiello, a youth minister at St. Raphael's Catholic Church in East Meadow, turned into a nightmare, after Maiello began manipulating her into having sex with him, and later with a 15-year-old boy in her youth group.

The woman and the boy are now suing Maiello, the church, its priest, Rev. Thomas Haggerty and the Diocese of Rockville Centre in civil court.

DENVER (CO)
Coloradoan

By Coloradoan staff

The Archdiocese of Denver is hosting a seminar about preventing child sexual assault from 9 to 11 a.m. April 28.

The seminar is open to the public and will be held in the parish center at Most Precious Blood Catholic Church, 2200 S. Harrison St. in Denver.

Leaders of the seminar will include a probation officer and a school principal and facilitators from National Catholic Risk Retention Group’s VIRTUS programs, which are designed to prevent and address wrongdoing in the faith community.

HUNTINGTON (IN)
The Herald-Press

By MIKE PERKINS, Editor
Monday, April 23, 2007 12:17 PM EDT

In her closing argument, Huntington County Prosecutor Amy Richison called the child molestation case against Kevin Whitacre “a classic he said/she said.”

The Huntington Circuit Court jury believed what he said.

After less than 2 1/2 hours of deliberation, an jury of seven men and five women returned verdicts of not guilty in both felony child molesting charges against Whitacre, 33, a youth pastor at Good Shepherd United Brethren Church.

“We praise God that justice has finally been served in our case,” Whitacre said in a statement e-mailed to The Herald-Press Saturday afternoon. “My wife and I want to give Good Shepherd Church our extreme gratitude for their continual support, and for their countless prayers.

“We continue to pray for (Whitacre's accuser). We thank the jury for an unbiased decision in this emotion-filled case.”

UNITED KINGDOM
Scotsman

Somerset: A PARISH priest was set to go on trial today accused of sexually abusing children over nearly three decades.

The Rev David Smith, vicar of St John the Evangelist's in Clevedon, Somerset, is accused of 15 offences allegedly committed against seven boys aged under 16.

GRAND MOUND (IA)
Quad-City Times

By Dustin Lemmon | Monday, April 23, 2007

GRAND MOUND, Iowa — The monument unveiled outside SS Philip & James Catholic Church on Sunday afternoon symbolizes many things to survivors of sexual abuse, but most of all it’s a reminder for everyone not to forget what happened.

Abuse survivor Mike Hitch was among many who thanked an audience of about 100 people for its support over the years, even when it has not been popular among Catholics to speak up for victims of sexual abuse.

He noted that many people present Sunday sat through court trials with victims and showed their support through letters to the bishop.

NEW ZEALAND
crime.co.nz

A member of the Exclusive Brethren who is under police investigation for alleged sexual abuse is being kept away from the church.

Brethren spokesman Tony McCorkell says an elderly man is at the centre of the claims and the church is co-operating fully with police. He is urging anyone with any other claims to come forward and talk with officers.

NEW ZEALAND
The Nelson Mail

As disturbing as sex crimes against children are, it is important to keep a cluster of allegations against an elderly Nelson member of the Exclusive Brethren church in perspective, the Nelson Mail said in an editorial on Monday.

The claims which recently came to light are historic, covering a period of 40 years, and for that reason alone the police investigation will be a long and drawn-out process. Clearly, it is at a very preliminary stage.

It is always important to presume innocence until guilt is proved - and it is difficult to establish a case such as this, with specific details often hazy and a likely lack of forensic evidence.

UTAH
The Daily News

By JIM SECKLER/The Daily News

Sunday, April 22, 2007 10:10 PM PDT

KINGMAN - The only issue a Mohave County Superior Court judge faced Friday was whether to order a Colorado City polygamist to register as a sex offender.

Vergel Bryce Jessop, 47, pleaded no contest Dec. 18 to child abuse. He had been charged with sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor.

Jessop and seven other codefendants belong to a polygamist sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Colorado City.

NEW YORK
The New York Times

By MICHAEL POWELL
Published: April 23, 2007
He has shuttered half-empty churches, faced down disgruntled parishioners and retired an unsightly $20 million deficit, all in the name of putting the Archdiocese of New York on sturdy fiscal legs.

So the question for Cardinal Edward M. Egan arises: Will this white-haired prince of the Roman Catholic Church follow the lead of other large dioceses and release the archdiocese’s financial reports to the public?

Cardinal Egan considers the idea for a second or two, and offers a smile more suggestive of steel than humor. Wall Street titans sit on his finance council and study his ledgers. The cardinal sees no point in public inspection.

VERTMONT
Burlington Free Press

By Sam Hemingway
Free Press Staff Writer

The state's Roman Catholic diocese has agreed to pay more than $1 million in the past 12 months to settle two cases alleging child molestation by former priests, but is the target of more child sex abuse cases today than it was a year ago.

Since April 20, 2006, when it paid Michael Gay of South Burlington $965,000 to settle his molestation claim, the diocese has settled one other case. During the period, it was the subject of 12 new lawsuits brought by people claiming that as children they were sexually assaulted by priests.

The slow court process is unlikely to pick up much speed in the foreseeable future, according to attorneys for both the diocese and the alleged victims.

GRAND MOUND (IA)
Des Moines Register

BY DREW KERR
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT

Grand Mound, Ia. - Mike Hitch was silent for nearly four decades about the sexual abuse he endured as a boy in a Fort Madison church led by the Rev. James Janssen.

But Sunday he delivered an emotional speech in front of 100 people gathered at Sts. Philip & James Catholic Church in Grand Mound for the unveiling of a monument remembering the children Janssen allegedly sexually abused over decades as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. The monument serves as a reminder, victims say, of the continuing struggle against abuse in all forms.

Finding the courage to talk publicly about the abuse "took a lot of soul searching," said Hitch, who now lives in Broken Arrow, Okla., and is no longer a practicing Catholic. "It's not just something you can come out and tell, but it's a step you have to take to heal."

SAN DIEGO (CA)
The Southern Cross

By Cyril Jones-Kellett

SAN DIEGO-When the Boston Globe broke the 2002 story that the Archdiocese of Boston had serious troubles with both sexual offender priests and inadequate supervision by bishops, it did a service for the Church, according to several Church leaders who spoke about the issue in later interviews.

But when lesser news organizations, expending far fewer resources and relying on lower levels of professionalism, became involved with the story, they often seemed to be trying to jump into the scandal frenzy.

The Dallas Morning News was among the most notable news organizations to fall into this temptation, printing poorly researched and often just ridiculous stories that shed a great deal more heat than light. ...

Sadly for San Diego, coverage in our local newspaper has tended to be close to the level of the sloppy Dallas Morning News.

In fact, the San Diego Union-Tribune's coverage raises serious questions about what happens when a city's primary news organization gets frustrated with an institution that it sees as inaccessible, and then takes out that frustration in print.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
California Catholic Daily

The Southern Cross, newspaper of the Diocese of San Diego, has published a lengthy opinion piece by its editor, Cyril Jones-Kellet, accusing the San Diego Union-Tribune of, among other things, inaccurate reporting, unfairness -- and even “making things up.”

The editorial, entitled “The Hundred-Million-Dollar Typo,” and published March 29, was accompanied by a photo of the parish hall of Oceanside’s St. Mary, Star of the Sea, with the caption, “San Diego's daily newspaper seems to think this parish hall is a bank.”

Faced with mounting civil lawsuits over allegations of sexual misconduct by priests, the San Diego diocese filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 27. On both its news and editorial pages, the Union-Tribune has reported that the diocese owns “apartment buildings, condominium complexes, commercial developments and undeveloped land.”

That, said Jones-Kellet, is not true.

UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Last Tuesday, April 17, 2007 we published a point by point response by SNAP President Barbara Blaine to "Vengeance Time" by Mark A. Sargent (Commonweal 4/20/07). Here, with the author's permission, is additional commentary by Lynette Frankovich on the Sargent SNAP hatchet job (a.k.a. an essay).

* * *
After reading "Vengeance Time" by Mark A. Sargent (Commonweal 4/20/07), one wonders whether or not his article was itself an act of vengeance. His references to SNAP and their advocates as being vigilantes, and his implication that their activism is what has created hostility toward the church, were misdirected at best.

As documents have proven time and again, the people repeatedly taking the law into their own hands, and blocking attempts for the American judicial system to determine guilt or innocence, and generating hostility by their own volitions, have been, and continue to be, church officials, not SNAP. In addition, as Dean of the Villanova University School of Law, Mark Sargent knows that statutes of limitation and bankruptcy laws were never intended to protect church officials from the evil they perpetrated, and thus are not an "appropriate" use of such "devices" as he states.

Furthermore, as a (presumed) Catholic, Mark Sargent is well aware the road to reconciliation requires complete and genuine honesty on the part of the offending parties. The hierarchy's continued unwillingness to accurately acknowledge their offenses and the impact of their behaviors remains a true reflection of who doesn't "care."

UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

This bibliography of books on clergy sexual abuse was forwarded to me by Tom Doyle. If you're interested in an MS Word copy of it, e-mail me at frankdouglas62@yahoo.com.

UNITED STATES
Christian Post

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Apr. 19 2007 01:47 PM ET

It is estimated that half of registered sex offenders are churchgoers. So when the convicted finish serving time in jail, they want to head back to the pews. A lot of churches, however, are not ready to open their doors to the former criminals.

"I believe churchgoers are fearful and confused. Most churchgoers would agree that Jesus saves all sinners including sex offenders, but fear the offenders attending their church," said Greg Sporer, co-founder of Keeping Kids Safe Ministries. "Churches are not prepared for offenders."

Sporer serves as a prison therapist working in sex offender treatment programs and studying research. His specialization: church sex offenders.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
bkush@telegram.com

WORCESTER— There were times that Frances J. Nugent had no choice but to remove an abused or neglected child from his or her home in the dead of night.

Unfortunately, because of the lateness of the hour, there was no place to take the youngster.

In those instances, Mrs. Nugent, who’s spent 50 years with state or social service agencies fighting to protect children from harm, would temporarily shelter the child in her own home.

“It’s always been my job to look out for these kids, no matter what,” Mrs. Nugent said.

Now, at 71, she’s taken on another fight.

As co-director of the Office of Healing and Prevention, Mrs. Nugent is likely to be the first person at the Diocese of Worcester’s chancery building on Elm Street that a victim of clergy abuse will meet. ...

“I would never recommend that a victim turn to the Office of Healing and Prevention, unless there was no other choice,” said David A. Lewcon, who was abused as a teenager by the Rev. Thomas Teczar, a priest assigned at the time to St. Mary’s Church in Uxbridge.

CANADA
SQLFusion

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

Friday, April 20, 2007 - 10:00

Terri Saunders

Local News - As expected, a significant portion of cross-examination of David Silmser at the Cornwall Public Inquiry by lawyers for the city police would have focused on the man's contact with former cop Perry Dunlop.

In attempting to show Comm. Normand Glaude Silmser had contact with Dunlop or members of his family on several occasions, John Callaghan pointed to documents which appear to contradict Silmser's own timeline of when he would have spoken with the former police officer.

Callaghan pointed to testimony Silmser gave earlier this year at the inquiry when he suggested he didn't believe he'd ever met Dunlop prior to an incident in August 1996 when the man showed up on his doorstep with Carson Chisholm, Dunlop's brother-in-law.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
California Progess Report

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

Over a hundred alleged victim’s of priestly sexual abuse filed suit against the Diocese of San Diego asking $200 million in damages. The Church countered with an offer of about $95 million which was rejected. Then, hours before the trial was to begin, the Diocese declared bankruptcy.

The value of the Church’s assets would play a large part in any distribution to the victims/creditors.

The Church claimed that its assets were valued at $96 million.

But in the Bankruptcy hearing Friday, the Bishop who heads the Diocese admitted he didn’t know the value of his assets.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

THE Catholic Church in Ireland is to privately honour disgraced former Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey on his 80th birthday, even though he has not yet been cleared by Rome of sexual abuse allegations.

The Irish Independent has learned that a special Mass for Bishop Casey will be held in University Church in St Stephen's Green, Dublin, at 5pm on May 8.

It is to be attended by a select number of invited guests.

DALLAS (TX)
Orthodox Reform

On April 21st, WFAA featured the following news story on the Friday Ten O’Clock news broadcast in Dallas (view the video broadcast online):

“Church leader sacked after speaking out over suspended priest”

A high-ranking Dallas church leader has been dismissed from his duties. He says it’s for leading the charge for a harsher penalty against a suspended priest accused of molestation. Channel 8’s Craig Civale reports.

They gave the background on Fr. Katinas, the Greek Orthodox priest at Holy Trinity who “… sexually abused minors while a priest before coming to Dallas. He is also currently under investigation by the archdiocese for allegedy abusing a child at Holy Trinity.”

SPOKANE (WA)
KXLY

SPOKANE -- The Catholic Diocese of Spokane is spending millions of dollars to settle abuse claims lodged against former priests. Now it appears the diocese will also be spending money to pay for the retirement of three priests named in those abuse claims as well.

Court documents reveal defrocked priests James O'Malley, Theodore Bradley and Arthur Mertens will continue to receive diocese pensions while local Catholics are asked to raise millions to pay for their sex abuse lawsuits.

Bankruptcy documents say the diocese will continue to pay all priest retirement plans including three priests that the diocese announced were credibly accused of abuse and put the diocese into this situation in the first place.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
bkush@telegram.com

Reported allegations of sexual abuse against minors by Roman Catholic clergy dropped appreciably last year from 2005 levels, but the expenses related to the charges continue to significantly affect the church, a study commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops shows.

According to a survey of 99 percent of the country’s dioceses and eparchies, allegations of sexual misconduct against children and young people fell by 9 percent.

Church officials stressed that 70 percent of the reported incidents actually occurred between 1960 and 1984, and they said that 70 percent of the alleged offenders are deceased, had already been removed from the ministry or had left the priesthood or various religious orders. ...

In the Diocese of Worcester, $124,272 was earmarked for the Office of Healing and Prevention in fiscal 2006 to aid victims.

OHIO
Dayton Daily News

By Tom Beyerlein
Staff Writer

Sunday, April 22, 2007

For years, Christy Miller wanted the priest who sexually abused her as a girl to be punished. Now that Thomas Brunner has been defrocked, she finds that his banishment is "a double-edged sword."

"On the one hand, you want these men to be defrocked as punishment for what they've done," Miller of Cincinnati said Friday. "But if they're defrocked, the church can wash its hands of them. No one's watching him. He has no lawsuit against him. He has no criminal record. He's more of a danger to children now than he was as a priest."

Five years after the priest sexual abuse scandal exploded, victims and Roman Catholic church leaders alike are still trying to tally up its successes and failures. They're also still debating what the church community can do to recover from the deep wounds the scandal has inflicted.

OHIO
Dayton Daily News

By Tom Beyerlein
Staff Writer

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Kenneth Schoettmer was convicted of a felony in 2003 and is on Ohio's sex offender registry. In 2004, Thomas Kuhn was convicted of 11 misdemeanor counts of public indecency and providing alcohol to minors. More than three dozen men sued David Kelley, alleging he sexually abused them as boys.

All three remain priests on the payroll of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

The national clergy child sexual abuse scandal of 2002 hit home five years this month, when Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk suspended Rev. Tom Hopp for molesting boys. Hopp has since been permanently removed from ministry.

But he's in the minority. Of 18 area priests credibly accused of abusing youth, 10 are still suspended with pay while they await possible defrocking by the Vatican and one, James Kiffmeyer, was reinstated because the accusers had turned 18 before the abuse occurred.

LOS ANGELES
City of Angels

Case Summary

Case Number: JCCP4286
THE CLERGY CASES I

Filing Date: 01/02/2003
Case Type: Judicial Council Coord Proceeding (General Jurisdiction)
Status: Pending

Coordinated Case(s): BC293650 on 07/24/2003
Coordinated Case(s): BC308528 on 01/03/2005
-----------------------------------------------
Future Hearings

04/24/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Hearing on Demurrer (AND MOTION TO QUASH AND DISMISS(PAPERS FILED ON 3/07)RE: BC306507)

04/24/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Hearing on Demurrer (AND MOTION TO QUASH AND DISMISS(PAPERS FILED ON 3/07)RE: BC308213)

HUNTINGTON (IN)
The Journal Gazette

By Rebecca S. Green
The Journal Gazette
HUNTINGTON – A Huntington County jury, after more than two hours of deliberation, found a youth pastor not guilty Friday of fondling a 10-year-old girl.

Kevin Whitacre, 34, went on trial this week on two counts of child molesting, both felonies punishable by up to eight years in prison. He was accused of fondling a then-10-year-old girl when she visited his family’s apartment in Good Shepherd Church, 1280 Hitzfield St., in the summer of 2005. He was arrested in March 2006. Whitacre did not know the girl through his work at the church.

The jury returned the not-guilty verdict just before 9 p.m.

On Friday, Whitacre testified in his own defense, telling the jury of four women and eight men that he never fondled the girl.

NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger

Saturday, April 21, 2007
BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff
A low point of James Hanley's six months in the Hudson County jail came last winter when a judge considered making it easier for the notorious and transient former priest to leave confinement before trial, as long as somebody -- anybody -- would agree to receive Hanley's court notices at home in the mail.

Calls went out fast. A nephew refused outright. So did the head of the Garfield rooming house where Hanley, 71, had recently lived. The judge kept Hanley in jail.

He has remained there since, awaiting trial for a 2006 assault charge that is unrelated to his admitted abuse of children decades ago as a Catholic priest.

"He had nobody," recalled Patricia Serrano, who watched the court hearing and whose son was among the dozen boys Hanley has admitted abusing. "But I can't feel for him. There are too many people suffering for what he did to them. And their lives have been destroyed. And he was manipulative."

ORLANDO (FL)
WFTV

POSTED: 4:47 pm EDT April 20, 2007

ORLANDO, Fla. -- One group is urging Catholics to stop giving money to the Orlando Diocese immediately. The Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests, or SNAP, demonstrated outside the Diocese office in Orlando on Friday.

SNAP said Catholics should donate their money to charitable organizations that help children, instead of the Diocese. SNAP said the Diocese supports sex abuse suspects, like Bishop Carlos Bedoya.

"We believe that the bishop should be doing much more to help prosecutors locate other victims and evidence and he should be aggressively reaching out to victims urging them to come forward to police," said Mary Grant, SNAP.

SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
KUTV

SALT LAKE CITY The judge who was set to try polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs on charges of rape by accomplice has abruptly canceled an upcoming hearing.

Fifth District Judge James L. Shumate had been scheduled to hold the Monday hearing on whether evidence seized from Jeff’s sport utility vehicle when he was captured can be introduced into court.

Shumate issued a two-sentence order indefinitely canceling that hearing, without explanation. The judge earlier postponed a trial that was set to start this month.

GARDEN CITY (NY)
The New York Times

By BRUCE LAMBERT
Published: April 21, 2007
GARDEN CITY, N.Y., April 20 — The cousin of a former youth minister who confessed to the statutory rape of four teenagers testified on Friday in a civil lawsuit against St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow, saying that years before those crimes, a mother in another parish had complained about the man having sex with her 16-year-old daughter.

The cousin, Frank Maiello, gave fresh ammunition to two of the minister’s victims who are now suing their abuser, Matthew Maiello, the parish, its pastor and the Diocese of Rockville Centre, in State Supreme Court here.

Frank Maiello, now a New York City police sergeant, testified that after working with Matthew, his second cousin, at another church where the woman complained, he recommended against Matthew’s hiring at St. Raphael’s, though he never told the pastor why.

NEW ZEALAND
TVNZ

Apr 21, 2007

A senior member of the Exclusive Brethren being investigated for allegedly molesting children has been given the cold shoulder by the secretive sect.

And the organisation's troubleshooter has delayed returning to Australia as he helps deal with the claims by former church members of sex abuse within the religious group.

The accused member will not be attending Sunday's gospel preachings after being accused by four former female members of sexual abuse when they were aged between five and 10.

UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 04/21/2007 01:16:16 AM MDT

Attorneys for polygamist Warren S. Jeffs have asked the Utah Supreme Court to consider whether the sect leader can get a fair trial in St. George, arguing that the odds of a fair hearing in Washington County are unlikely.
Jeffs' attorneys filed the interlocutory appeal Wednesday, seeking the high court's review of three decisions made by 5th District Judge James Shumate before the case proceeds.
The state has until May 7 to respond.
In an April 3 hearing, Shumate refused to reconsider his decision to send the case to trial, to move it out of St. George or deem a section of Utah's rape statute overly vague.

NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

By DAN EATON and IAN STEWARD - The Press | Saturday, 21 April 2007

The Exclusive Brethren church has pledged to co-operate with police in an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of children.

Police said yesterday that they started an investigation five weeks ago into allegations of historical sex abuse filed by four women against a member of the secretive sect in the Nelson region.

Tasman police district commander Grant O'Fee called for people to come forward with information.

NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

By VANESSA PHILLIPS - The Nelson Mail | Saturday, 21 April 2007

Exclusive Brethren leaders in Nelson have been spoken to by church officials who are trying to find out more details about former members' claims of sexual abuse in Nelson, an Exclusive Brethren spokesman says.

The Exclusive Brethren's Australia and New Zealand spokesman, Tony McCorkell, said the church was not trying to cover up the situation, but needed more information about the sexual abuse alleged before it could act.

Nelson police have received complaints from three former Exclusive Brethren women, which involve allegations of historical molestation of children by one man over four decades.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By John Spano, Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2007

SAN DIEGO — In an unusual confrontation between church and state, San Diego Roman Catholic Bishop Robert H. Brom was grilled for hours Friday by a bankruptcy trustee, lawyers and seven victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

In a federal courthouse, Brom and church officials were clearly on the defensive as U.S. Trustee Steven Jay Katzman repeatedly questioned items in bankruptcy papers filed by the church in the face of 150 damage claims by sexual abuse victims.

Officials, led by Brom, answered "I don't know" dozens of times as they were questioned about the adequacy of the church's disclosures in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, where it is seeking to reorganize. The hearing was a bankruptcy procedure in which the debtor is confronted by creditors about the value of property involved in the case.

TAMPA (FL)
St. Petersburg Times

By SHERRI DAY
Published April 21, 2007

TAMPA - More than 200 Catholic priests from the United States, England, Wales and Africa are expected to convene in Tampa on Sunday for a five-day meeting that will focus on challenges facing priests in the American church.

The priests will take part in the 39th annual convention of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, a group that represents about 20,000 priests nationwide. The meeting marks the first time the group has met in Tampa since it formed in the late 1960s to give a voice to priests' concerns around the country. The organization last met in the bay area at its 1975 convention in St. Petersburg. ...

The meeting consists of a series of workshops with topics that include immigration reform, Christian-Muslim dialogue, risk management strategies and the implementation of the Dallas Charter, which was created to guide church leaders in recognizing and preventing clerical sexual abuse.

UNITED STATES
Renew America

Matt C. Abbott
April 21, 2007

Commonweal Magazine has a featured article titled "Vengeance Time: When Abuse Victims Squander Their Moral Authority," by Mark A. Sargent.

Barbara Blaine, president of SNAP, has responded to Mr. Sargent's article in a point-by-point fashion. Because I have not sought permission to reprint the article in my column, readers will have to go to the magazine's Web site to read it. (Click on the link in the first paragraph.)

The following are many of Ms. Blaine's pointed responses to Mr. Sargent's article.

Note that Dudzinski's bishop "outed" him as a predator; SNAP didn't. Yet the author criticizes us, not the bishop. So apparently, according to Mr. Sargent, it's okay for a church official to publicly identify a predator, as long as no one tells that predator's neighbors that he lives nearby. (Often, in cases like this, the main reason the predator was not charged or convicted is because the church hierarchy shielded him from law enforcement.)

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

By Mark Sauer and Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

April 21, 2007

Bishop Robert Brom and other officials of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego admitted yesterday that they understated the value of church property by many millions of dollars in its bankruptcy filings.

But Brom, making a rare appearance in the four-year-old legal battle over allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy, bristled at plaintiffs' attorneys who implied he and other diocese officials were not being truthful.

“I don't know who knows what the net worth of the diocese is, but I don't know,” Brom said under questioning.

MARINE CITY (MI)
Times Herald

A former Roman Catholic priest from Marine City has been permanently barred from working as a priest, the Archdiocese of Detroit said Friday.

James Wysocki was removed from his position as pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church more than three years ago after he was accused of sexually abusing minors.

Two other priests, Dennis Laesch and Ronald Williams, also were "permanently removed from ecclesiastical ministry," Msgr. Ricardo Bass, Cardinal Adam Maida's delegate for clergy matters, said Friday in a prepared statement.

DETROIT (MI)
The Oakland Press

Web-posted Apr 21, 2007

DETROIT - Three Roman Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing minors have been permanently barred from working as priests, and a fourth was removed from the ministry, the Archdiocese of Detroit said Friday.

Dennis Laesch, Ronald Williams and James Wysocki "have been permanently removed from ecclesiastical ministry, are prohibited from wearing clerical clothes and publicly representing themselves as priests," Msgr. Ricardo Bass, Cardinal Adam Maida's delegate for clergy matters, said in a statement.

Wysocki was ordained in 1967 and became associate pastor at St. Michael Parish in Pontiac.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
KPBS

The bishop of San Diego's Roman Catholic Diocese was in federal court on Friday. He's answering questions about church finances. The diocese seeks bankruptcy protection amid allegations of sexual abuse. KPBS reporter Andrew Phelps has details.

More than 140 people have sued the diocese on claims of being sexually abused. Today was their first chance to confront the bishop himself, face to face.

Diana Williams says she was abused as a girl. She lost her faith, her virginity and her innocence. Williams asked the bishop to answer that accusation. He quietly refused. "How can you not respond?", she asked. "How in the name of God can you not?"

SAN DIEGO (CA)
The Press-Enterprise

By ALLISON HOFFMAN
The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO

The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego endured more than six hours of tense questioning Friday from people who claim they were sexually abused by priests.

Bishop Robert H. Brom sat silently as seven men and women who have sued the diocese, along with attorneys representing more than 140 plaintiffs, grilled him on subjects ranging from the accuracy of the diocese's asset disclosures to responsiveness to abuse claims.

The first plaintiff called to face Brom broke down in tears and invoked the name of God to make him answer to claims of abuse she said a priest inflicted on her as a girl. The bishop softly refused to answer.

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

April 20, 2007

BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER

After five years of controversy over the removal of priests accused of sexually abusing minors, Catholic leaders in Detroit announced Friday that the Vatican has closed all lingering cases by turning down the last four appeals by accused priests.

The Vatican gave Dennis Duggan its harshest penalty, laicization, which not only bans him from working as a priest but removes his clerical status and cuts formal ties with him.

Duggan was the first priest removed in Detroit when the scandal broke in March 2002. At the time, he was pastor of St. Suzanne and administrator of Our Lady Gate of Heaven, two Detroit parishes that later merged. The accusation against him was from years earlier in his ministry.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
CBS 47

Last Update: Apr 20, 2007 2:41 PM

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A woman who sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego invoked the name of God today to make Bishop Robert Brom answer to claims of sexual abuse she said a priest inflicted on her when she was a girl. The bishop softly refused to answer.

Diana Williams responded by asking, "How can you not respond? How in the name of God can you not?"

She was one of more 140 people who sued the diocese on claims they were abused. Williams spoke at a hearing about the church's Chapter Eleven bankruptcy filing.

GUATEMALA
MSNBC

GUATEMALA CITY - He calls himself the Antichrist, wears the number 666 tattooed on his arm and claims a following of 2 million people.

And Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is coming to Guatemala whether it wants him or not.

The Central American country has banned the leader of the Florida-based Growing in Grace church, arguing he is a security risk because he provokes conflict with Roman Catholics and evangelicals. ...

He often takes aim at the Catholic Church — the most powerful faith in Latin America — calling all priests child molesters and saying chastity vows go against the Bible's teachings. Members of his church have torn up images of saints and other religious symbols in El Salvador, and marched in Guatemala and Honduras.

Slate

By James Martin
Posted Friday, April 20, 2007, at 12:18 PM ET
Pope John Paul II
Recently, word came that the miracle required for Pope John Paul II's beatification may have happened: A French nun's Parkinson's disappeared after her religious community prayed to him to intercede. But amid the growing enthusiasm for the canonization of Pope John Paul II comes some dissent from a surprising place—within the Catholic Church. Not that the dissenters are airing their grievances publicly. Grumbling about someone's canonization is a little like complaining about a co-worker's promotion: It makes you look like a spoilsport.

The naysayers, mainly on the left, see John Paul not as one of the great religious figures of the age, but as a person with whom they often disagreed, particularly on issues of the ordination of women, the Vatican's response to the sexual-abuse crisis, and treatment of gays and lesbians. The most common arguments against his canonization can be boiled down to two: First, I disagreed with him. Second, he wasn't perfect.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
The Grand Rapids Press

Friday, April 20, 2007
ST. LOUIS, MO. -- A priest who once taught at Catholic Central High School in Grand Rapids was accused of sexual abuse in a civil lawsuit settled this week. James Thiel was one of four priests named in a 2004 suit in St. Louis Circuit Court by an unidentified Missouri man. He said Thiel abused him while serving a St. Louis area parish from 1978 to 1981.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

By Allison Hoffman
ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:18 p.m. April 20, 2007

SAN DIEGO – The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego appeared in federal court Friday to answer questions about church finances amid accusations that the diocese is shielding assets in bankruptcy proceedings.

About 50 people, including some of the more than 140 people who have sued the diocese on claims they were sexually abused by priests, gathered to watch the sometimes testy exchange between Bishop Robert H. Brom and a federal trustee supervising the hearing.

U.S. trustee Steven Katzman grew impatient when asking Brom about properties and other assets listed in diocesan filings with the bankruptcy court.

“Just answer the question,” Katzman said at one point.

DETROIT (MI)
WOOD

DETROIT -- Three Roman Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing minors have been permanently barred from working as priests, and a fourth was removed from the ministry, the Archdiocese of Detroit said Friday.

Dennis Laesch, Ronald Williams and James Wysocki "have been permanently removed from ecclesiastical ministry, are prohibited from wearing clerical clothes and publicly representing themselves as priests," Msgr. Ricardo Bass, Cardinal Adam Maida's delegate for clergy matters, said in a statement.

Dennis Duggan has been laicized, that is, removed from priestly ministry and excused from the promise of celibacy and other priestly obligations. The other three men remain priests but are restricted in their public ministry, Bass said.

CALIFORNIA
The Santa Barbara Independent

By Nick Welsh, April 19, 2007

It was almost 15 years ago that Ray Higgins discovered that his son Michael had been sexually molested by Father Robert Van Handel, a Franciscan monk and former teacher and choirmaster at St. Anthony’s Seminary. Since then, Van Handel was sentenced to eight years behind bars for sexual abuse and was removed from the priesthood. Michael Higgins, for his pain, received a $90,000 legal settlement from the Franciscans, underwent therapy, managed to get sober, got married, had two kids, and holds down a steady job as a probation officer somewhere back East.

But in all that time, Ray Higgins and his wife Anne — who used to consider themselves “cradle-to-grave Catholics” — have not been able to let go. In the early ’90s, when the St. Anthony’s scandal first surfaced, the Higginses helped lead the charge that forced the Franciscans to conduct an official inquiry into sexual abuse. They discovered that 25 percent of the priests and brothers assigned to St. Anthony’s over a 23-year period were sexual predators. Today, the Higginses are still reaching out to victims of clergy sexual abuse and offering them free therapy. Based on his family’s experience, Higgins said therapy provided his son the most valuable help he received. He added that none of the other organizations bird-dogging the Catholic Church was sufficiently focused and equipped to do the job.

NEW ZEALAND
The Nelson Mail

By DAN EATON and IAN STEWARD - The Press | Saturday, 21 April 2007

The Exclusive Brethren church has pledged to co-operate with police in an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of children.

Police said yesterday that they started an investigation five weeks ago into allegations of historical sex abuse filed by four women against a member of the secretive sect in the Nelson region.

Tasman police district commander Grant O'Fee called for people to come forward with information.

NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

By Mathew Dearnaley

Tony McCorkell has delayed his return to Australia in light of the new sex abuse claims.

Exclusive Brethren troubleshooter Tony McCorkell has delayed his return to Australia after revelations that New Zealand police are investigating claims that a member of the secretive religious sect had sexually abused children.

The Brisbane businessman, sent by the church to distance it from political activities of some New Zealand members, said last night that he would stay in this country to deal with the latest controversy.

Tasman police commander Superintendent Grant O'Fee confirmed yesterday that the police were investigating complaints by four women that they were abused as children by a man in Nelson at various times from about 20 to 40 years ago.

SELMER (TN)
CNN

SELMER, Tennessee (AP) -- During the 10 years she was married to a handsome young preacher, Mary Winkler said she never told anyone about the bruises and the sexual humiliation she endured.

But the preacher's wife accused of killing her husband took the witness stand this week and dredged up every embarrassing detail, talking about the abuse in front of TV cameras and family members.

That risky decision to testify, her lawyers said, had a powerful effect on the jury and probably explains why Winkler will not spend the rest of her life in prison. (Watch a subdued Mary Winkler describe what happened )

GRAND MOUND (IA)
Courier

DES MOINES (AP) --- A monument honoring the victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests will be dedicated Sunday in a small eastern Iowa town touched by the abuse.

Parishioners of the SS. Philip & James Catholic Church in Grand Mound will host a ceremony at 1 p.m. Sunday to unveil the granite monument. They and members of a group called Catholics for Spiritual Healing raised the $4,000 for the creation and placement of the 3.5-foot-high monument.

The torch and flame design also depicts an angel and a small boy carrying a Bible.

The verse is from Luke 12: "There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs."

TEXAS
San Antonio Express

Marvin Hurst
KENS 5 Eyewitness News

Police on Thursday arrested a former private school teacher accused of fondling and having sex with a student at El Sendero Christian Academy.

Matthew Aaron Hernandez, 26, is charged with sexual assault of child. The former private school teacher is out of jail on a $20,000 bond.

According to an arrest warrant, the mother of a 15-year-old student addressed her concerns about Hernandez giving her son expensive gifts with the school's superintendent, Robert R. Lara, on Jan. 23.

UNITED KINGDOM
Wigan Today

A former Wigan clergyman accused of sexually molesting two teenage girls has walked free from court.
The Reverend Russell Tague was found not guilty of six offences of indecent assault following a three-day trial.
Rev Tague was hugged and kissed by weeping friends and relatives as he left court.
It had been claimed that the 47-year-old repeatedly sexually molested one girl when she was aged between 11 and 16 and indecently assaulted the other girl when she was 15.

CINCINNATI (OH)
The Catholic Telegraph

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati continues to act on accusations of child sexual abuse by priests as they are received. In 2006, two new allegations of sexual abuse of a minor were made against two priests of the archdiocese.

Of the two priests, one was already suspended from active ministry pending final disposition of his case, and the second was placed on administrative leave. His case is also in process

With regard to the non-compliance determination made by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, all priests, deacons, seminarians, employees and educators have been trained. However, there are still 3,047 volunteers in parishes, schools and institutions of the archdiocese for whom it cannot be established that the required training has been received. All have undergone background checks and none are permitted to work with children until the training is complete.

UNITED STATES
America Magazine

The number of people who said that as children they were victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy has dropped 34 percent since 2004, according to a national survey of dioceses and religious orders. The survey was conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in conjunction with the 2006 audit of U.S. church compliance with child protection policies. The annual report on the survey and audit showed the same drop since 2004 in the number of credible allegations made and a 40 percent drop in the number of reported offenders.

DAVENPORT (IA)
WHBF

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport has accepted offers on two properties it's selling to settle claims of sexual abuse by priests. The diocese, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last fall, has accepted offers on a duplex previously used as the bishop's house and single-family home not used by the diocese.

In all, the dioceses is selling four properties. They are part of nearly $13 million in total assets the diocese lists in court papers. All will be liquidated to pay creditors, including dozens of people who claim they were abused by priests.

ATLANTA (GA)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By CYNTHIA DANIELS, JENNIFER BRETT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 04/20/07

There were Sundays when the Rev. David A. Galloway needed no notes to deliver his sermon at Holy Innocents' Episcopal Church. Instead, former congregants recall, his command of the Bible would flow easily into an extemporaneous message.

"He was a real scholar," said Jack Adams, a member since 1958.

What congregants may not have not known is that Galloway, the head of one of Atlanta's oldest Episcopal churches, misused more than $100,000 of parish funds, according to the church.

His preaching career may be over, but the church does not plan legal action.

HONDURAS
International Herald Tribune

The Associated Press
Published: April 19, 2007

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras: Honduran police arrested a Costa Rican priest who has been convicted of child abuse in his homeland, officials said.

Enrique Vasquez, 48, was arrested Wednesday during a routine stop in the Honduran capital, police spokesman Anibal Baca said Thursday.

Vasquez failed to present a passport and claimed to be a Venezuelan called Strauss, Baca said. However, after an "intense interrogation" he confessed to his true identity and it was found he was wanted by Interpol, he said.

JERSEY CITY (NJ)
Daily Record

Friday, April 20, 2007

JERSEY CITY -- Lou and Pat Serrano spent Thursday in a courtroom waiting for a hearing featuring the former priest who molested their son. The date was important for other reasons, for something that happened five years ago, when victims got together in Mendham for the first time to talk about the pastor who abused them when they were children.

James T. Hanley, the former Catholic priest, has admitted to molesting at least a dozen children decades ago, but he never was charged with those crimes because the statute of limitations ran out. The Serranos got to see him in a prison uniform for the first time this past year on charges that he made terroristic threats against Secaucus hotel workers.

"It has been good to see him in shackles," Pat Serrano said on Thursday.

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Christine Kellett | April 20, 2007 - 10:01AM

A Brisbane teenager was quoted religious scripture and banned from taking the sacrament as punishment for molesting a female relative after the girl's parents decided against reporting the offence to police, a court has been told.

The family instead left it to a church bishop to discipline the boy, but the strategy failed and the teenager went on to commit multiple sex offences against young girls over a 15-year period, ending with the stalking of his wife's 16 year-old sister last year.

Now aged 29, the man admitted at Brisbane's District Court yesterday to spying on his sister-in-law on eight separate occasions while she used the bathroom.

NEW ZEALAND
The Nelson Mail

By Vanessa Phillips - The Nelson Mail | Friday, 20 April 2007

Three former Exclusive Brethren women have laid complaints with police about allegedly being sexually abused by the same man as children in Nelson.

A fourth woman is understood to be in the process of laying a complaint in Auckland about the man.

Constable Sally McBride of the Nelson CIB confirmed that she had received complaints from three women who were former members of the Exclusive Brethren church.

She also confirmed that the complaints involved allegations of historical molestation of children by one man over four decades.

The women are understood to be aged between 29 and 61 and to be alleging offending in the Nelson area between the early 1950s and early 1980s.

NEW ZEALAND
Earthtimes

Wellington- Four New Zealand women have laid complaints with police alleging they were sexually abused by a senior member of the Exclusive Brethren sect when they were children more than 40 years ago, news reports said Friday. Police in the South Island city of Nelson confirmed they were investigating the complaints, and the church's Australian-based official spokesman Tony McCorkell told Radio New Zealand, "The church and its members will cooperate fully with law enforcement and any other authority to ensure the matter is dealt with transparently, openly and to the satisfaction of the law and the public."

Constable Sally McBride told the Nelson Evening Mail that the complaints were serious allegations of historical molestation of children by one man over four decades. One victim was reported to be under 10 at the time she was assaulted.

NEW ZEALAND
TVNZ

Apr 20, 2007

Police have confirmed a senior member of the Exclusive Brethren church is under investigation after claims he has been sexually abusing children for decades, despite a spokesperson for the church denying all knowledge when the claims were publicised.

Following a six-month ONE News investigation, it was revealed on Thursday that four women, all former members of the church, laid complaints against the man, claiming they were abused when they were aged between five and 10.

The alleged abuse stretches back decades. The eldest complainant is now 61 years old, and the youngest in her mid 20s.

CROSSVILLE (TN)
Crossville Chronicle

By Michael R. Moser / mmoser@crossville-chronicle.com

The senior pastor of the Bridge of Hope Church in Crossville pleaded guilty Monday to sexual battery by an authority figure and received the maximum two-year prison sentence allowed by law for the class A felony.

Benji Dale Persinger, 28, 438 S. Stone Rd., who is serving a four-month split sentence out of Fentress County on a similar charge, pleaded guilty to the single charge and now may be transferred to the Tennessee Department of Corrections to finish serving his jail time.

In both counties, victims in the case were teenage girls who were members of his church.

NORTH CAROLINA
Wilmington Star-News

The former pastor of a Warsaw church was convicted Wednesday by a Duplin County Superior Court jury of two counts of first-degree rape of a child less than 13 years old and other sex offenses, prosecutors said.

Thomas Lindell Robinson, 57, also was convicted of two counts each of first-degree sexual offense on a child less than 13 years old and indecent liberties with a child. He was sentenced to a prison term of 26 to 33 years by Judge W. Allen Cobb Jr.

Robinson, former pastor of the New Life Christian Center, was charged in January 2006 after allegations were made about the sexual abuse of a girl who went to a day care center on church grounds that has since closed. The incidents occurred between 2004 and October 2005, according to Duplin County District Attorney G. Dewey Hudson.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
The Press-Enterprise

By ALLISON HOFFMAN
The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO

More than 140 people who claim they were sexually abused by priests of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego have waited years for answers from church leaders.

Some will finally have their chance to ask questions on Friday, when Bishop Robert H. Brom testifies before a meeting of the creditors' committee in the diocese's bankruptcy proceedings.

The committee, which represents parties with financial claims against the diocese, includes a handful of the more than 140 plaintiffs who have filed civil suits against the church alleging abuse.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
The Kansas City Star

The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS | A Missouri man has settled a civil lawsuit against three priests in the St. Louis area who he claims molested him during the 1970s and 1980s.

One of the priests had Kansas City ties.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the settlement involved three priests who had not previously been accused publicly of sexual abuse. The settlement for $140,000 was made final Monday, said SNAP’s director, David Clohessy. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 and the victim declined to be identified.

The lawsuit named four priests — Thaddeus Posey, Michael Barry, Chester Gaiter and James Theil. The settlement covers Barry, Gaiter and Theil, while the case against Posey is ongoing, Clohessy said.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Belleville News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK
News-Democrat
ST. LOUIS - The Archdiocese of St. Louis on Thursday announced a financial settlement involving a lawsuit naming three priests accused of sexual abuse of a child, including the Rev. Chester E. Gaiter, a former pastor in East St. Louis.

Gaiter, a retired Jesuit priest who served at St. Joseph's Church for a year beginning in 1993, was accused of molesting a boy who was attending a religious school in St. Louis in the mid 1980s. According to a spokesman at a Jesuit retirement home in St. Louis, Gaiter, who was assigned in St. Louis at the time of the abuse, is mentally incapacitated and cannot answer questions.

Pat Noaker, a St. Paul, Minn., attorney who represented the victim, who was not named, said the settlement totaled $140,000 and includes a written apology to the victim and his family from the archdiocese.

DALLAS (TX)
Orthodox Reform

Dean Siotos, who less than a week ago mailed a letter to the Greek Hierarchs critical of their handling of a local priest accused of sexual misconduct with minors, has been expelled from the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church parish council, pending formal dismissal by Metropolitan Isaiah.

Why did the organization of this Dallas church seek to have Siotos removed from the council? Apparently his letter (reported in an earlier article) caused uproar among Fr. Katinas’s supporters both on and off of the parish council.

This letter was co-signed by 11 other parishioners. In it Siotos argued from canon law that known pedophiles such as Fr. Katinas should be deposed. The letter stated: “We request that Nicholas Katinas be defrocked immediately.”

HOLLYWOOD (CA)
Playbill

By Zachary Pincus-Roth
19 Apr 2007

Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman will star in the film version of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt.

Variety also reports that Shanley will adapt the play and will direct the film for Miramax. Scott Rudin is producing the film, which begins production in New York on Dec. 1.

Streep will play the role of a nun who suspects a popular priest, played by Hoffman, of wrongdoing at a Bronx Catholic School in 1964. Cherry Jones won a Tony Award for playing the role of the nun on Broadway and Brían F. O'Byrne received a Tony nomination for playing the priest.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Christopher Leonard
ASSOCIATED PRESS
04/19/2007

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A Missouri man has settled a civil lawsuit against four priests in the St. Louis area he claims molested him during the 1970s and 1980s, an activist group announced today.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the settlement involves three priests who have not previously been accused publicly of sexual abuse.

The settlement for $140,000 was finalized Monday, said SNAP Director David Clohessy. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 and the victim declined to be identified, Clohessy said.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Belleville News-Democrat

News-Democrat
ST. LOUIS - The Archdiocese of St. Louis today announced that a financial settlement was reached involving a lawsuit naming three priests accused of sexual abuse of a child, including the Rev. Chester E. Gaiter, a former pastor in East St. Louis.

Gaiter, a retired Jesuit priest who served at St. Joseph's Church for a year beginning in 1993, was accused of molesting a boy who was attending a religious school in St. Louis in the mid 1980s. According to a spokesman at a Jesuit retirement home in St. Louis, Gaiter, who was assigned in St. Louis at the time of the abuse, is mentally incapacitated and cannot answer questions.

Pat Noaker, a St. Paul, Minn., attorney who represented the victim, who was not named, said the settlement totaled $140,000 and includes a written apology to the victim and his family from the archdiocese.

HOLLYWOOD (CA)
Variety

By MICHAEL FLEMING, DAVE MCNARY

Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman will star in "Doubt," the screen adaptation of the John Patrick Shanley play for Miramax Films that begins production in New York on Dec. 1.

Shanley wrote the script and will direct. Scott Rudin is producing.

Deals are being negotiated with both thesps.

NORTHERN IRELAND
The Ulster Herald

AN Omagh-born priest has admitted to having sex with a Polish student before she was murdered and buried under the floorboards of his church in Glasgow.

Father Gerry Nugent, 63, was been giving evidence at the High Court in Edinburgh at the murder trial of Peter Tobin last week.

The victim, Angelika Kluk, had been living rent-free at St. Patrick's Church House, in Anderson, Glasgow. The court heard that Fr Gerry gave her a lap-top computer, paid for her to go on trips and even allowed her to use his credit card. He also said he had paid for her to fly to Poland.

PORTLAND (OR)
The Register-Guard

By Bill Bishop
The Register-Guard
Published: Thursday, April 19, 2007

PORTLAND - The Archdiocese of Portland's pending release of previously secret documentation of child sexual abuse by priests - and what church leaders did or failed to do about it - is a good start toward demonstrating a commitment to preventing child abuse.

But it's just a start, according to two clergy abuse victims who settled their lawsuits years before the public spotlight focused on the problem in Oregon.

Church officials and lawyers for abuse victims announced the document disclosure Tuesday as part of a bankruptcy reorganization plan that will pay at least $50 million to about 175 people who sued the archdiocese over clergy sexual abuse.

BALTIMORE (MD)
The Awareness Center

April 18, 2007

The Following letter was posted in Agudath Israel of Baltimore by Rabbi Moshe Heinemann as a reaction to the Baltimore Jewish Times publishing a story regarding Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro. During a meeting with Rabbi Heinemann he disclosed that his issue with the Jewish Times was with the fact that Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro had passed away and that he could not be offered the opportunity to defend himself. He also added that over the years the Baltimore Jewish Times has been repeatedly "Orthodox bashing". He went to on to say that this was not fair to the family members of Shapiro who did nothing wrong, and it would hurt family members chances of getting a good shiddach (marriage partner). Please note that Phil Jacobs, author of the series on sexual abuse in the Jewish community and is the senior editor of Baltimore Jewish Times is an orthodox Jew.

CANADA
Ottawa Sun

Thu, April 19, 2007

By CP

CORNWALL — Lawyers at an inquiry probing the institutional response to allegations of systemic sexual abuse in the Cornwall area have found themselves in unfamiliar waters in recent days.

In an attempt to wrap up cross-examination of the evidence presented by witness David Silmser earlier this year, lawyers are being forced to go over his testimony in his absence.

Doctors determined in February that Silmser was unable to return to the inquiry for medical reasons.

Lawyer John Callaghan, who is representing Cornwall police, and other lawyers who didn’t have a chance to question Silmser on his testimony are now attempting to scrutinize his evidence before Commissioner Normand Glaude and offer some form of cross-examination through documents and statements as to whether Silmser’s take on the process was accurate.

LAMBERTVILLE (NJ)
Courier News

By BRANDON LAUSCH
Staff Writer

LAMBERTVILLE -- A volunteer treasurer for a Presbyterian church in Lambertville has been charged with stealing more than $21,000 from the congregation's cemetery association, authorities said.

Russell Fleischmann, 54, of West Amwell was charged with one count of third-degree theft by unlawful taking after stealing the money from the Second English Presbyterian Church's cemetery association, Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office officials said in a statement Wednesday.

Detective Dan Hurley, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office, said authorities received a tip from the church and investigated for about six weeks.

VERMONT
Times Argus

April 19, 2007

Another year has passed and still the Diocese of Burlington has not achieved compliance with the U.S. Bishops' 2002 "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People." After last year's failed audit, Bishop Matano suggested that the diocese would achieve compliance within a few short weeks.

How many lay people would still have their jobs if they promised a project would be finished within a few short weeks, but a year later they were still waving their arms and offering excuses?

This sexual abuse crisis in the church is not over. The vast majority of priests are obviously good men with no inclination toward the sexual abuse of children; however, common sense should tell us that the church has not found all of the molesters in the priesthood. It generally takes decades for survivors of sexual abuse to come to terms with what happened to them in childhood, and priests who have sexually abused children are not going to turn themselves in voluntarily just because a bishop asks them to.

COLORADO
Denver Post

By The Denver Post Staff
Article Last Updated: 04/19/2007 02:25:13 AM MDT

A dozen lawsuits filed against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver and the late Rev. Harold Robert White can go forward.

District Judge Robert Hyatt ruled Tuesday against an archdiocese motion to dismiss the claims.

Hyatt found that the plaintiffs' claims are not for the acts of abuse, which allegedly occurred between 1959 and 1978, "but rather for breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, negligent supervision, negligent retention, fraud, fraud-intentional nondisclosure, and conspiracy" by the archdiocese.

NEW YORK
New York Post

By KIERAN CROWLEY
April 19, 2007 -- A Long Island woman testified yesterday that a Catholic youth minister coerced her into sex when she was just 16 and convinced her to have one-night stands with strangers.

The 21-year-old broke down as she testified in a civil case against the Rockville Centre Diocese and Matthew Maiello, a lay youth minister who admitted to abusing four teens in 1999, two of whom filed the suit against him and the church.

"I was very afraid of him, Matthew," the tearful witness said. "And he had taken me away from my family and he abused me.

UNITED STATES
The Gospel Herald

Audrey Barrick
Correspondent

Monday, Apr. 16, 2007 Posted: 1:30:PM PST

Clergy sex scandals have widely been exposed in the Catholic Church, but recent media attention has gone toward Protestant churches, mainly the Southern Baptist Convention, which some fear may be developing a similar pattern to the Catholic Church.

A six-month investigation was unfolded Friday night on ABC's 20/20 which found "preacher predators" all over the country and shielding themselves in churches. While the investigation uncovered pastors and ministers convicted of some account of sexual abuse from every denomination, the focus was placed on several cases within the largest Protestant denomination in the United States – the Southern Baptists.

"I predict this program will be a shocker for many around the nation," stated Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., in a Thursday blog post.

CANADA
The Calgary Sun

By JORGE BARRERA

A major native residential school survivor group has sent a letter to Queen Elizabeth II that forgives Canada and the churches for wanting to "get rid of the Indian problem" through the residential school system.

The letter was sent to the Governor General's office yesterday to be forwarded to the Queen.

"In the spirit of our people and the integrity of our collective compassion, it would be prudent to offer forgiveness from the survivors of Indian residential schools to Canada, the Church entities and their descendants," says the letter, signed by Michael Cachagee, chairman of the National Residential School Survivor's Society.

GARDEN CITY (NY)
The New York Times

By BRUCE LAMBERT
Published: April 19, 2007
GARDEN CITY, N.Y., April 18 — Justice R. Bruce Cozzens Jr. discreetly handed tissues to the witness on the stand Wednesday. She tried to stifle sobs and wiped away tears while she told of being sexually abused as a teenager by a Catholic youth ministry leader in the early 1990s.

As the witness repeatedly struggled to regain her composure, another young woman, in the back of the State Supreme Court room here, also cried. She said she had been victimized in the late 1990s by the same man, in another parish.

Later in the hallway, the two women — who had never met before this court session — cried again, this time together while hugging. “I’m sorry,” the witness, 31, said to the other woman, 23.

NEW YORK
Newsday

BY ANN GIVENS
ann.givens@newsday.com

April 19, 2007

Five years before Matthew Maiello ever set foot in the East Meadow church where he would molest four teenagers, a parent at a Syosset church told the priest there that Maiello was dangerous, and was ignored, according to court testimony Wednesday.

It was the first of several unheeded warning signs about Maiello, according to Michael Dowd, a lawyer who is suing the convicted molester, St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. Thomas Haggerty -- the priest there -- and the Diocese of Rockville Centre for $150 million on behalf of two of Maiello's victims.

On Wednesday, a woman testified tearfully that she began a sexual relationship with Maiello in 1993, when she was 16 and he was an assistant youth minister at St. Edward the Confessor in Syosset. Over the next few years, court sources said, the woman said she was destroyed by the relationship and was eventually driven to self-mutilation.

DENVER (CO)
Rocky Mountain News

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News
April 19, 2007
The Archdiocese of Denver has lost its second attempt to have a group of sex abuse cases involving the late priest Harold Robert White dismissed in Denver district court.

Twelve lawsuits moved closer to trial Tuesday when Judge Robert Hyatt rejected the church's argument that the cases should be dismissed because they exceeded the statute of limitations.

That makes a total of 15 cases involving White that are now moving forward. Last month Judge John McMullen issued a similar ruling on three cases.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

By Mark Sauer and Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

April 19, 2007

What is the monetary value of the psychological damage caused by being raped as a child by a priest? What about less egregious sexual abuse?

That issue is at the core of the bankruptcy case filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. It was a subject that dominated a court hearing yesterday before federal Judge Louise DeCarl Adler.

Attorneys representing the more than 150 men and women who sued the diocese for alleged sexual abuse by priests and nuns said Adler should look at the 400 clergy-abuse cases already settled elsewhere in California, either through negotiation or jury trials. The plaintiffs' attorneys have placed the “range of value” for those cases at between $1.1 million and $1.6 million each.

PORTLAND (OR)
Statesman Journal

ALAN GUSTAFSON
Statesman Journal

April 19, 2007

Curtis Grecco received a $100,000 settlement from the Archdiocese of Portland, but he still wants a public airing of the sexual abuse that a Catholic priest allegedly inflicted on him and other juvenile inmates three decades ago at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility.

Grecco, 49, says he was sexually abused six times in the 1970s by the Rev. Michael Sprauer, then MacLaren's chaplain. It happened, Grecco says, while he was locked up in a segregation cell. He was 14 or 15 at the time.

Now, Grecco seeks retribution.

SPOKANE (WA)
The Olympian

JOHN K. WILEY
The Associated Press

SPOKANE - Victims of clergy sexual abuse and parishes that will foot part of the bill to pay them have voted to approve a $48 million settlement, setting the stage for the Spokane Catholic Diocese to emerge from bankruptcy.

In documents filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, 161 people who filed abuse claims, individual parishes and other creditors voted to accept payments outlined in a court-mediated settlement.

Although the vote was unanimous, many of the victims believe the diocese should do more, plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Pfau said Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
City of Angels

"Nothing. They're doing nothing," a plaintiff attorney said to me last week and another one said it this morning, "Nothing." The church ignores interrogatories for months, makes empty excuses to delay discovery, is a no-show for depositions that plaintiffs need for trials this summer.

Roger Mahony, cardinal of Los Angeles, finally responds to interrogatories. . . and says nothing.

There were tears of relief in court this morning when the judge denied 12 motions to strike in cases concerning George Neville Rucker. One family of survivors was in court and heard their names read into the record twice by their attorney Alex Goldberg and by Judge Haley Fromholz.

On the left in the back is a church attorney who I keep seeing, I think he’s with Hennigan. He has a rubbery face; James Spader could play him. He looks like he might be a proud founding member of Young Republicans.

Then just to my left is church attorney Donald Woods, lips tight as he reads the judge’s tentative order and shakes his head. He’s this little leprechaun like guy who whenever I see him I think of my Irish relatives in Chicago. He looks up at me over his reading glasses as I’m typing into my laptop describing him. I smile and keep describing him. He smiles, sort of.

HUNTINGTON (IN)
The Journal Gazette

By Rebecca S. Green
The Journal Gazette
HUNTINGTON – The trial of a Huntington County youth pastor accused of child molesting began Wednesday, with a nearly daylong jury selection process.

Kevin Whitacre, 34, is on trial on two counts of child molesting, both Class C felonies punishable by up to eight years in prison. He is accused of fondling a then-10-year-old girl when she visited his family’s apartment in Good Shepherd Church, 1280 Hitzfield St., in the summer of 2005. He was arrested in March 2006.

Whitacre did not know the girl through his work at the church.

UNITED STATES
Whispers in the Loggia

The upcoming Commonweal leads with a brow-raiser of a piece from Villanova Law Dean Mark Sargent on the "moral capital" of victim-survivors, and what happens when it's diminished... dotCom says the mag's "already getting somewhat heated letters about it."

WASHINGTON
The Spokesman Review

Virginia De Leon and Sara Leaming
Staff writers
April 18, 2007

Changing times and a growing awareness of child abuse have led to greater distrust of adults who work with children, prompting stricter rules in churches, Boy Scouts and other organizations.

That means less one-on-one contact between children and adult mentors, so relationships that could steer at-risk kids away from trouble take longer to build. ...

He and others believe it's up to the faith community to bring about that healing and restore trust, the essential element that "holds us together as a community."

"The sexual abuse problems are bigger than the Catholic Church," said Robertson, who meets regularly with Catholic Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane. "It's time for us, as the entire faith community, to work on a combined solution."

In recent months, the roughly 33 pastors who belong to the Spokane Valley Ministerial Association have been discussing an initiative known as "Healing to Our Community."

UNITED STATES
Florida Baptist Witness

By FRANK PAGE
Baptist Press
Published April 19, 2007

A short while ago, I was interviewed by ABC's "20/20" news for an April 13 program titled, "Preacher Predators." At the request of several, I agreed to this invitation so as to provide some kind of balance to a program which may well be overwhelmingly negative.

There has been a great deal of attention given to this subject in recent days. As I said to the reporter, we are willing and able to discuss this issue because even one instance of sexual abuse by a minister is too much. While I do not believe the problem is systemic and large-scale, there have been several reported cases of abuse by trusted members of staff in our churches. Let me help set a few matters clear for you.

Some persons have accused Southern Baptists of ignoring the issue and hiding behind our polity. Let me clearly state that we believe in the autonomy of the local church as a biblical mandate. We are not hiding behind anything, except the Bible. In fact, the local church is where accountability must be enforced. I call upon every local church to develop written policy guidelines for the care of children and youth. I call upon every church to have a system or policy in place to deal with any accusations made. We must protect children and youth, and the integrity of staff members.

DELAWARE
The News Journal

By BETH MILLER, The News Journal

Posted Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 3:24 pm
The Rev. Edward J. Smith, the Norbertine priest against whom a federal jury awarded $41 million in damages to an alleged victim of child sexual abuse last month, has hired Wilmington attorney Kathleen Jennings to represent him.

Attorneys for Navy Cmdr. Kenneth J. Whitwell, who said Smith abused him while he was a student at Archmere Academy, reported difficulty locating Smith earlier this month. Attorney Thomas S. Neuberger said his process server had not been able to locate the priest at the Norbertine priory in Middletown where order officials had said he lived, or at his late mother’s Philadelphia rowhome.

Eventually the papers were served on the order's superior, the Rev. James Bagnato.

Jennings said Tuesday she is in contact with Smith, 60, and has accepted legal documents on his behalf. She would not say where Smith is living.

DENVER (CO)
Rocky Mountain News

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News
April 18, 2007
The Archdiocese of Denver has lost its second attempt to have a group of sex abuse cases involving the late priest, Harold Robert White, dismissed in Denver district court.

Twelve lawsuits moved closer to trial Tuesday when Judge Robert Hyatt rejected the church's argument that the cases should be dismissed because they exceeded the statute of limitations.

That makes a total of 15 cases involving White which are now moving forward. Last month Judge John McMullen issued a similar ruling on three cases.

SPOKANE (WA)
CBS News

SPOKANE, Wash., Apr. 18, 2007

(AP) Victims of clergy sexual abuse and parishes that will foot part of the bill to pay them have voted to approve a $48 million settlement, setting the stage for the Spokane Catholic Diocese to emerge from bankruptcy.

In documents filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, some 161 people who filed abuse claims, individual parishes and other creditors voted to accept payments outlined in a court-mediated settlement.

Although the vote was unanimous, many of the victims believe the diocese should do more, plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Pfau said Wednesday.

"I think the victims have accepted the reality of finite resources and understand that there's some benefit to putting an end to this, and to doing it sooner, rather than later," said Pfau, who represents about half of those who sued.

CANADA
SQL Fusion

Local News - CORNWALL (Staff) – David Silmser may never return to the stand at the Cornwall Public Inquiry, but his voice once again echoed throughout the hearings room today.

Commission officials, at the request of the Ontario Provincial Police, played a videotape of a statement Silmser gave to police in February 1994 during which he alleges he was sexually abused by both Rev. Charles MacDonald and now-deceased probation officer Ken Seguin.

Throughout the video, which was not broadcast on the inquiry’s website in order to comply with publication bans and confidentiality requests, Silmser is mostly calm and quiet, speaking in a controlled manner about the abuse he says he suffered as young boy and as a teenager.

PORTLAND (OR)
The Register-Guard

By Bill Bishop
The Register-Guard
Published: Wednesday, April 18, 2007

PORTLAND - Previously private personnel files of pedophile priests will be made public under a bankruptcy reorganization plan for the Archdiocese of Portland that was approved Tuesday.

The papers, to be released as early as next month, will include documents showing knowledge and cover-up of the priests' activities by Catholic Church leaders.

"There is plenty there to cause frustration and anger," said Portland lawyer Kelly Clark, who represented more than 100 people abused by priests over the years and who obtained confidential copies of church records in the course of preparing for trials.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Spirit Daily

There it was, on a front page, in cold print.

"There was a time when Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, leader of the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States, was a formidably influential political figure," reported The Los Angeles Times last week -- in what should be seen as a sign of our times. "A decade ago, he was a member of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's inner circle and the spiritual leader of a growing community with exponentially expanding power.

"Today, Mahony remains one of the region's most recognized leaders and a sought-after voice on certain issues. But time, scandal, and the shifting demographics of Los Angeles politics have diminished Mahony's might to the point that his recent remonstrations — in which he took to task Fabian Nuñez, the speaker of the California Assembly, for endorsing an assisted suicide bill — have served more to emphasize Mahony's weakness than to deter Nuñez."

Inside and outside the Church, a crisis has risen. It is a crisis of respect.

BALTIMORE (MD)
Jewish Survivors of Sexual Abuse Speak Out

The following handwritten letter was posted in the Agudah Israel of Baltimore

"Based on last week's vicious article (regarding rabbi Ephraim Shapiro) in the Baltimore Jewish Times and other articles of the past, it is my opinion that it is totally inappropriate for this publication to be found in any Jewish home." -- Rabbi Moshe Heinemann

I guess rabbi Moshe Heinemann better warn his congregants to also ban the Baltimore Examiner, because they also published a story on the alleged serial child molester. According to both articles Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro is believed to have raped hundreds of children during his rein of alleged terror. Why should rabbi Heinemann care if one of his buddies allegedly committed more crimes against humanity then most?

PORTLAND (OR)
Statesman Journal

ALAN GUSTAFSON
Statesman Journal

April 18, 2007

The Archdiocese of Portland agreed to pay settlements totaling $600,000 to 15 men who alleged they were molested by a Salem-area priest three decades ago at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility, Salem attorney Daniel Gatti said Tuesday.

The settlements ranged from $7,500 to $100,000, said Gatti, who represents the men.

After a gag order was lifted by two judges, Gatti also spelled out settlements for about a dozen more people he represented in claims against other Catholic priests affiliated with the embattled archdiocese.

"Many of my cases settled for anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to several (settlements) for more than a million and one for as many as two million," he said.

PORTLAND (OR)
Salem-News

Tim King Salem-News.com

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - A settlement in a Portland, Oregon court means victims of childhood sex abuse in the Catholic Church will be compensated with millions of dollars, and secret files relating to pedophile priests in the Portland Archdiocese that span half a century will be publicly disclosed.

More than 200 victims will share the amount that slightly tops $50 million.

More than 89 lawyers were involved in the case at one time or another. All had high remarks for the judges who worked tirelessly in bringing the case resoluti