Abuse Tracker

INDIA
Hindustan Times

Ramesh Babu , Hindustan Times

Kerala, June 01, 2008

Is God’s Own Country turning into godmen’s own country? Scandals involving self-styled godmen are surfacing almost every day in the most literate state. Intelligence sources say the ‘spiritual business’ is worth roughly Rs 2000 crore. Almost 36 such gurus are under police scanner and many are absconding.

The CPM’s youth outfit, DYFI, has called for a 'second renaissance' to rein in the so-called ‘godmen’. Senior Congress leader Aryadan Muhamed’s son's statement that fake Thangals (Muslim spiritual leaders) would also be targeted had almost wrecked the Congress-Muslim League tie-up. Finally, the Congress president had to intervene to cool frayed tempers of the ally.

The campaign against ‘godmen’ began with the arrest of Santosh Madhavan alias Amrutha Chaitanya, a temple priest-turned small-time astrologer. A couple of days after his arrest, gun-toting Himaval Bhadrananda Swamy created a scare after firing two rounds at a police station.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Margaret Ramirez | Tribune reporter
3:43 PM CDT, May 31, 2008

In the late 1970s, with memories of Vietnam still raw and the Cold War raging, hundreds of activists rallied in peace and justice movements, pressing the government for change.

Here in Chicago, a former priest and a former nun saw a chance for similar activism within the Roman Catholic Church. In 1976, Dan and Sheila Daley launched Call To Action, a group of Catholics seeking to act out God's vision in society and hold leaders accountable.

Bold and controversial from the start, Call To Action made history as the first lay group to publicly question the church's prohibitions on birth control, women's ordination, homosexuality and celibacy for priests. Its actions paved the way for other reform groups, including Voice of the Faithful and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Along the way, many church leaders branded the group's members as dissidents and rebels, with one conservative bishop punishing Nebraska members with excommunication.

Tribune religion page Now the group's founders have announced they will retire this fall as co-executive directors of Call To Action after 32 years. Though a horrific 2006 collision that permanently injured Sheila Daley was a factor in the decision, the married couple, both 65, say the time is right to pass the movement to younger Catholics.

OLEAN (NY)
Olean Times Herald

By JOHN T. EBERTH
Olean Times Herald

OLEAN - The Diocese of Buffalo announced Transfiguration Church of Olean and St. Helen's Church of Hinsdale will merge with Olean St. John's Church on July 5.

They are among the last local churches to join as part of the diocese's Journey in Faith and Grace strategic plan launched by Bishop Edward U. Kmiec in June of 2005.

Bishop Kmiec announced in June of 2007 that the three churches would become one. Members of Transfiguration Church have been fighting that decision since it was announced.

Sue Fox, spokesperson for the Committee to Save Transfiguration Church, said the group has notified Bishop Kmiec they plan to appeal his decision to the Vatican.

Mrs. Fox said the group has hired a lawyer that specializes in Catholic church law to draft their appeal. They hope to have the appeal finished within the coming days so it can be sent to the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Here is the English text of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's general decree on the attempted ordination of a woman, signed by Cardinal William J. Levada, congregation prefect, and Archbishop Angelo Amata, secretary. It was released by the Vatican May 30.

In order to protect the nature and validity of the sacrament of order, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in virtue of the special faculty given by the supreme authority of the church (cf. Canon 30, Code of Canon Law), in the ordinary session of Dec. 19, 2007, has decreed:

Without prejudice to the prescript of Canon 1378 of the Code of Canon Law, both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incur an excommunication "latae sententiae" reserved to the Apostolic See.

Whispers in the Loggia

[with link to text of the Vatican document]

Lest any doubt remained, a decree (fulltext) released yesterday from the CDF announced formally that the parties directly involved in a woman's attempt to be ordained incur latae sententiae (read: automatic) excommunication:

"Both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incur an excommunication 'latae sententiae,'" or automatically, said a decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. ...

While only a handful of cases of the attempted ordination of women occur each year, the ceremonies themselves are given widespread publicity as are the decrees of excommunication that have been pronounced by the bishop of the place where the ceremonies are held.

Dominican Father Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary of the doctrinal congregation, told Catholic News Service May 30 that the decree explicitly applies what canon law says about the offense of attempting to enact a sacrament.

"The problem is not that all of a sudden there was a tsunami of attempted ordinations of women," Father Di Noia said, but that the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches "never anticipated that such a thing would happen."

MIDLAND (MI)
Midland Daily News

By Angela E. Lackey
Published: Saturday, May 31, 2008 7:06 AM EDT
It formed in response to the Catholic Church's priest sexual abuse scandal. It has grown as a voice for Catholics who want greater say and involvement in their church.

"The people are the church," said Harry Grether of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church and coordinator of MidMichigan Affiliate of Voice of the Faithful.

"We would just like to be recognized that we have a role to play," said Joe Schoren. Schoren is a member of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church and the affiliate's chairman.

The Voice of the Faithful formed in 2002, "To provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church."

CANADA
International Herald Tribune (France)

The Associated Press
Published: May 31, 2008

TORONTO: A truth-and-reconciliation commission examining what Indian leaders call one of the most tragic and racist chapters in Canada's history will begin its work on Sunday.

The commission will study Canada's decades-long government policy requiring Canadian Indians to attend state-funded church schools, often the scenes of physical and sexual abuse.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were required to attend Christian schools in a painful attempt to rid them of their native cultures and languages and integrate them into Canadian society.

The federal government admitted 10 years ago that physical and sexual abuse in the once-mandatory schools was rampant. Many students recall being beaten for speaking their native languages and losing touch with their parents and customs.

That legacy of abuse and isolation has been cited by Indian leaders as the root cause of epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug addiction on reservations.

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

James Campbell

June 01, 2008 12:50am
A PRIEST convicted of the indecent assault of a teenage girl has been fined only $500.

The Catholic Church acknowledged Father Adelrick D'Cruz abused five other girls from the same extended family, but then asked if they minded if he held a mass for their relative.

D'Cruz, of Clayton South, was convicted on May 22 of indecent assault.

He admitted attacking a 17-year-old girl who sought his help when he was a priest in Victoria's northeast in 1984.

MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local Braintree

By Robert Aicardi
Fri May 30, 2008, 05:38 PM EDT

Braintree -
A defrocked Roman Catholic priest at the center of the Boston clergy sex abuse scandal, who was assigned to St. Francis of Assisi Church in Braintree in the late 1960s, is seeking a new trial based on a challenge to the theory of repressed memories.

Paul Shanley, 77, is serving a 12-to-15 year sentence for repeatedly fondling and raping a boy at St. Jean’s Catholic Church in Newton in the early 1980s.

The victim, a member of the parish’s CCD class when Shanley was assigned there, said that Shanley carried out the assaults, starting when he was six, in the bathroom, the rectory, the pews, and the confessional, and his repressed memories of what happened surfaced in 2002 when the media began reporting about the abuse scandal.

ROME
LifeSite News

By Hilary White

ROME, May 30, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After years of well-publicised media stunts in which radical feminist organisations staged mock “ordinations” of women, the Vatican has ruled that these events have no religious reality and that those who participate in them, both lay and clerics, including bishops, are automatically excommunicated.

In recent years, feminists, who interpret the priesthood in political rather than religious terms, have staged a number of mock “ordination” rites as media events to attempt to force what they call the Church’s “oppressive” intractability. According to the Church’s own understanding of the meaning of the priesthood, all attempts to “ordain” women, even if they include a validly ordained Catholic bishop, are invalid, a technical term meaning lacking all objective sacramental reality.

But the new decree, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s highest doctrinal authority under the Pope, makes clear that the act also means that those who attempt it have removed themselves “by the act” from communion with the Church. The decree says, “Both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incurs excommunication latae sententiae.”

ROME
The New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: May 31, 2008
ROME — The Vatican on Friday reaffirmed a ban on ordaining women as priests, warning that the consequences of any such ordination would be the automatic excommunication of anyone involved.

The decree was a reaction to specific episodes of “so-called ordinations in various parts of the world,” according to Msgr. Angelo Amato, the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which issued the decree. In recent years, dozens of women have been ordained by individuals acting outside of the church’s authority.

The document was also drafted to give bishops uniform guidelines on an increasingly contentious matter, as a growing number of Catholics contest the church’s position that only men can be ordained as priests.

PEORIA (IL)
The Journal Star

By ANDY KRAVETZ
of the Journal Star
Posted May 31, 2008 @ 12:41 AM

PEORIA — Another lawsuit alleging a former priest molested a young parishioner has been dismissed because it was filed too late after the alleged victim "remembered" the abuse.

Peoria County Judge Kevin Galley, who has dismissed seven similar suits for similar reasons, wrote in a five-page order this week that the suit, filed by Richard Jones, violated the state's statute of limitations.

Jones filed the case in 2007 after "rediscovering the abuse" by Monsignor Norman Goodman, who was the pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Lincoln in 1979 when Jones alleges he was molested when he was seven or right.

Twice, the suit had been thrown out for similar reasons but he was allowed to re-file to restate his claim. Galley's order, handed down May 28, is a final order, meaning that barring a successful appeal, the case is over.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Saturday, May 31, 2008
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In a decree intended to close loopholes in canon law, the Vatican has said that any attempt to ordain a woman will bring automatic excommunications that can be lifted only by Rome.

It is aimed at a number of rituals worldwide, including one in Pittsburgh in 2006, that claim to have ordained women as Catholic priests. Experts say that because canon law is designed to be flexible and to favor the accused, and because no law previously dealt explicitly with penalties for attempting to ordain a woman, this decree is intended to eliminate all wiggle room.

It was signed by Cardinal William Levada of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

COLORADO
The Tribune

David Young, dyoung@greeleytribune.com
May 31, 2008

A priest's profession will not be referenced in his indecent exposure trial next month.

Rev. Robert Whipkey, 53, who is charged with indecent exposure for jogging naked in June 2007 in Frederick, according to police. Police said he was jogging naked in the early morning hours down a Frederick street. He told police that wearing clothes while he ran made him sweat profusely.

Friday in court, Whipkey's appearance was waived for his pre-trial readiness conference, in which Weld District Judge Timothy Kerns approved a motion to exclude any reference to Whipkey's profession as a priest during the trial because it has no bearing on the charge.

DELAWARE
The News Journal

By SEAN O'SULLIVAN • The News Journal • May 31, 2008

A 58-year-old man who claims he was sexually abused as a child by a priest filed an anonymous lawsuit Friday in Kent County Superior Court against the man he says molested him and against the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington.

The "John Doe" civil action, which leaves the claimant unidentified, is believed to be the first of its kind in Delaware in a priest abuse case, according to the man's attorney, Thomas S. Neuberger.

"This case is very important because we are beginning to use John Doe plaintiffs so the victims do not have to identify themselves, add to their injury and suffer public embarrassment in revealing what occurred to them," he said.

Neuberger said he hopes the use of the "John Doe" status will encourage others to come forward before the deadline for filing retroactive abuse lawsuits expires next year.

VATICAN CITY
PoliGazette (Netherlands)

Michael van der Galien on May 31, 2008 @ 1:24 pm CEST

Reuters reports that the Vatican has announced that women priests, and those who (try) to ordain them, will be automatically excommunicated. ‘The decree was written by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano,’ meaning that it immediately went into effect.

Excommunication means that the person cannot receive the sacraments, nor that he or she can participate in acts of public worship. For Catholics, then, excommunication is very, very serious.

According to Rev. Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, the decree ‘was meant to send a warning to the growing number of Catholics who favor admitting women to the priesthood.’ “I think the reason they’re doing this is that they’ve realized there is more and more support among Catholics for ordaining women, and they want to make clear that this is a no-no,” Reese said.

UNITED STATES
Cincinnati Enquirer

On Thursday, Reuters reported that the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano included a decree that women priests, and those who ordain them, will automatically be excommunicated.

The Roman Catholic Church, which already bans the ordination of women priests, now forbids those who participate in such activities from receiving the sacraments or sharing in acts of public worship.

Why does the Catholic Church ban women's ordination? Because Christ chose only men for his apostolate, the pope says.

There are two serious problems with this assertion.

First, Jesus also selected women apostles. In fact, Jesus selected Mary Magdalene for his original apostle. At the tomb scene, Jesus deliberately did not appear to his male disciples, including Peter and John; he waited until they left before appearing to Mary Magdalene (John 20). Then he commissioned her to tell his followers he had appeared, making her the primary witness to the Resurrection. This transformed her into the unique role of first apostle, the earliest person sent to tell Jesus' followers he had risen from the grave. If Jesus could entrust a woman with the status of primary apostle, why can't the Vatican?

The Spoof (satire)

(Vatican City) - The Vatican today announced that anyone attempting to ordain a woman into the priesthood would be excommunicated, as would the woman herself. The decree was signed by Cardinal William "Misogy" Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of faith, and was itself a compromise doctrine when Vatican officials realized they could no longer order people burned at the stake.

An official Church statement released Thursday by the Vatican Office of Suppression, Ignorance & Intolerance read: "Women, with their fuzzy triangles of doom, can hypnotize a man's mind, causing the blood to flow hot and the body to become tumescent. The resulting confusion causes a decrease in rational thought and an increase in wild parties, to which we never get invited. For this reason and many, many, many, many others, The Church has decreed that a woman priest is a Heretic Jezebel doomed to Hell for all Eternity, as is anyone who aids these filthy, whore-y, bitchy women. In this day and age, when all the ancient and stupid practices of the Church that we so enjoy are under increasing attack, we have decided this is where we must make our stand." ...

The story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.

MORGAN CITY (LA)
Houma Today

JOHN DeSANTIS
Acting City Editor

MORGAN CITY -- When Jared Ribardi told authorities that the former pastor of Holy Cross Church had sexually molested him for years beginning when he was 9, the former altar boy, now 26, expected them to do something besides file a police report.

Yet little more has happened in the nine months since he made the allegations.

Detectives have yet to question the Rev. Etienne LeBlanc, who officials at the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux said is undergoing counseling at an undisclosed location out of state.

The priest was placed on administrative leave in August and removed from his post at Annunziata Catholic Church in Houma.

TEXAS
Los Angeles Times

By Miguel Bustillo and Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
May 31, 2008
ELDORADO, TEXAS -- As officials haggled Friday over how to return more than 400 children to their parents, it was becoming increasingly clear that Texas' audacious attempt to rein in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had backfired -- and become a lesson in the difficulty of cracking down on the 10,000-member polygamist sect.

"If you want to make any change . . . it has to go case by case, one child at a time," said Ellen Marrus, co-director of the Center for Children, Law and Policy at the University of Houston. "It's going to be very slow."

NEW YORK
The Tablet (United Kingdom)

Rocco Palmo

CARDINAL EDWARD EGAN of New York has attempted to crack down on clergy in his archdiocese whom he accuses of making what he called "false and shameful" allegations in press reports that he is to reassign almost 10 per cent of his 470 active priests to different parishes.

His criticisms appeared in a terse one-sentence note sent to his priests that accompanied the agenda of a regular meeting of the priests' council last Thursday. The note, obtained by The Tablet, expressed the cardinal's desire "that priests serving in the archdiocese are properly informed about the false and shameful statements that have been made and reported in the media about personnel matters." Although the cardinal did not explain what the statements were, his note came a day after the New York Times and other media outlets published stories of the reshuffle. There is a history of friction between the cardinal and his priests. In this latest row, barely a month after Pope Benedict's successful visit to his archdiocese, clergy were informed of their moves in phone calls made by archdiocesan officials, rather than applying for or being asked to consider transfers. Priests spoke to the press on condition of anonymity criticising the cardinal's handling of the event. One said it had caused devastation and hurt among his fellow priests.

Of the 40 changes, several were said to involve the transfer of priests to new assignments part-way through fixed six-year terms, and in a number of instances outgoing priests reported learning of their departures in calls from their successors. Six more transfers are expected. Spring is traditionally the peak period for reassignments and retirements of clergy in American dioceses.

TEXAS
AlterNet

By Richard Wexler, The Nation. Posted May 31, 2008.

Foster care is a toxic intervention, to be used sparingly. In the case of the Yearning for Zion ranch, Texas prescribed megadoses of foster care.

A little boy, maybe 3 years old, walks past row after row of cots arrayed in a sports coliseum in Texas, carrying a little pillow. "I need someone to rock me," he says. "I just want to be rocked, I want to find a rocking chair." Two adults, whose job is child protection, are following him. But they make no move to comfort him. They just follow him and write in their notebooks.

Other children, with their mothers, are jammed into a building dating to the 1800s, with no air conditioning and no indoor plumbing. Chicken pox quickly spreads; many children come down with diarrhea, some are hospitalized. At night, hostile overseers keep the women awake with their loud conversations and sometimes shine lights in their eyes.

More than 400 children and their mothers endured those conditions in the first days after Texas Child Protective Services raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, according to the only independent eyewitnesses -- mental health professionals brought in by the State of Texas. (Their statements were published in the Salt Lake Tribune.) The state alleges that because some of the mothers are underage, all of the girls are at risk of sexual abuse and all of the boys are at risk of being "groomed" to be abusers.

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By EMILY RAMSHAW and ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – An agreement to reunite children removed from a West Texas polygamist ranch with their parents fell apart at the last minute on Friday, after a district judge and attorneys for the religious sect sparred over the details.

The courtroom drama followed four hours of negotiation on a plan that would've returned the youths to the Yearning for Zion ranch starting Monday, as long as their parents agreed to keep them in Texas and fully cooperate with child welfare investigations.

Now, it's unclear when the children, separated from their parents for seven weeks, will go home and how soon a new compact can be reached.

TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

By R.A. DYER
Star-Telegram staff writer

AUSTIN -- Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, jailed in Arizona on several counts of incest and sexual assault of a child, has surrendered DNA samples to law enforcement officials investigating allegations of sexual conduct with underage girls at the group's West Texas compound, officials confirmed Friday.

Jeffs, 52, is revered as a prophet by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the polygamist sect embroiled in a child custody tug-of-war with Texas. The group's YFZ Ranch near Eldorado was raided by law enforcement April 3, although the Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state overreached its authority by rounding up more than 400 children after allegations of child sex abuse.

A top official from the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott traveled to Kingman, Ariz., on Thursday to obtain DNA swabs from Jeffs as part of an investigation of claims of sexual conduct with four underage girls. At least three suspected violations occurred at the YFZ Ranch, according to a warrant provided by Abbott's office.

SAN ANGELO (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

By BILL HANNA
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

SAN ANGELO -- A state district judge who had been ordered by two higher courts to send children from a polygamist sect back home refused Friday to sign an order that would have started the process of reuniting them with their parents.

The judge's unexpected move came after four hours of legal wrangling where it appeared some of the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) would be going home as early as Monday.

Attorneys left the courtroom scratching their heads over Judge Barbara Walther's abrupt end of the hearing.

The sticking points centered on restrictions Walther added to an order that had been agreed upon among attorneys for Child Protective Services, the parents and the children.

UNITED STATES
Winston-Salem Journal

By Nicole Neroulias
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

Published: May 31, 2008

During his recent trip to America, Pope Benedict XVI attended a youth rally at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. -- the same school where enrollment has dwindled to the point that no new prospective priests are enrolled next fall.

As the U.S. church ordains its crop of about 400 new priests in the coming weeks, church leaders hope that Benedict's words of encouragement will inspire more men to consider the priesthood.

The Rev. Donald Cozzens of John Carroll University, however, says that it will take a major change in Vatican policy on celibacy to revitalize the priesthood.

Cozzens, 69, has tracked the decline in vocations for more than 10 years, including as rector of Cleveland's St. Mary Seminary from 1995 to 2000. In his 2006 book, Freeing Celibacy, and in lectures all over the country, he argues that celibacy should be optional for Catholic priests.

CHICAGO (IL)
American Thinker

James Lewis
If you want another proof that the Catholic Church has completely lost control of its ordained priests, consider another one of Obama's mentors, one Father Michael Pfleger -- a white race-baiting Marxist. Like Rev. Wright, you have to hear the truly demonic tones in his voice --- simply reading the text isn't enough. Your inner “reading voice” just won't say it like he does. (Not unless you hear demonic voices in your head, like some paranoids and multiple personality victims.) ...

The Catholic Church has a responsibility in this matter. It has bent over backwards to protect the privacy of ordained priests who have been engaged in regular sexual abuse of children. I have not seen evidence that child abuse occurs more often among priests than in the general population. I understand the Church has its own ways of dealing with errant priests. Nevertheless, the public seems to have the accurate impression that the Church is tainted with the worst public behavior in centuries. This has done immense damage to its reputation among Catholics and the general public all around the world. The response of the Church is widely considered to be grossly inadequate, even by faithful Catholics.

MOUNTAIN HOME (ID)
Mountain Home News

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Father Raul Covarrubias will return to Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Mountain Home Sunday, the Diocese of Boise has said.

Father Raul was placed on administrative leave in September following allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.

The church determined the allegations to be false but found evidence of other unspecified and unrelated misconduct.

DEDHAM (MA)
Boston Globe

By Michael Paulson
Globe Staff / May 31, 2008
DEDHAM - He is an unlikely hero for the Catholic left: a retired Australian bishop who served for years as an aide to the very conservative cardinal-archbishop of Sydney.

more stories like thisBut now Bishop Geoffrey Robinson is under investigation by the Australian bishops conference, and multiple American bishops are trying to ban him from their dioceses after he published a book suggesting the Catholic Church examine the roles that power and sex played in the clergy abuse crisis.

The Catholic left - whose weakened influence was captured in a Time magazine essay this month headlined "Is liberal Catholicism dead?" - has rallied to this little-known bishop, packing his speaking appearances and driving up sales of his book.

On Thursday night, Robinson drew a crowd of about 550 to St. Susanna Church in Dedham, which he said was the largest audience he has drawn on a US speaking tour that began earlier this month. On Wednesday night, 110 showed up to hear him speak at the Paulist Center in Boston.

PORTLAND (ME)
Maine Today

By The Associated Press wire report
May 30, 2008 04:38 PM

PORTLAND - Two Roman Catholic priests previously removed from ministry for sexually abusing minors have been formally stripped of their authority by the Vatican, church officials said Friday.

The Diocese of Portland announced that the Vatican imposed its most severe punishment on George Beaudet, 69, and Michael Plourde, 57, both of whom were named publicly by Bishop Richard Malone last January because the Vatican investigation was progressing slowly.

Beaudet was accused and removed from ministry in 2000 because of alleged abuse dating to 1979. Additional complaints were received in 2002. Beaudet now resides out of state.

Plourde was accused by two minors in 1994 and was removed from ministry that year. The offenses occurred after Plourde returned to the ministry after undergoing counseling in 1989 because of a complaint involving sexual misconduct toward an adult. Plourde still resides in Maine.

FALLS CHURCH (VA)
WJLA

A local woman was just kicked out of the Catholic Church because she broke what's become a strict rule.

She wanted to become a priest. But the Pope says that position is for men only.

For two years, Sister Bridget Mary Meehan has been saying mass at her Falls Church home as, she claims, a Roman Catholic priest.

On Friday, the Vatican decreed that women priests and those who ordain them incur in lah-tay senten-see-yay or automatic excommunication.

GREELEY (CO)
Longmont Times-Call

By Victoria A.F. Camron
Longmont Times-Call

GREELEY — A Frederick priest accused of indecent exposure may negotiate a plea deal since two court rulings did not go his way this week, his attorney said in court on Friday.

The Rev. Robert Whipkey, 54, was excused from attending Friday’s court hearing, so he did not hear Weld County Judge Timothy Kerns rule that three previous incidents of Whipkey’s being naked when the public could see him will be evidence at his trial.

“The defendant places himself in circumstances in which his nudity can be seen by others,” Kerns said.

Because Whipkey was not charged in the earlier cases, the judge had to decide if they were relevant to this case and if they would prejudice the jury against Whipkey.

DELAWARE
The Daily Times

By The Associated Press • May 30, 2008

DOVER — A New Castle County man filed a lawsuit Friday alleging that he was sexually abused as a child by a priest already convicted of molestation.

Attorneys for the 58-year-old former Marine filed the lawsuit under the pseudonym “John Doe” to protect his identity. Named as defendants in the Kent County Superior Court lawsuit are the Diocese of Wilmington and St. John the Beloved Church in Wilmington.

The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff repeatedly was abused in the 1960s by the Rev. Francis DeLuca, when the victim was an altar boy and DeLuca was an assistant pastor at St. John.

DeLuca, 77, was sentenced by a New York judge last year to 60 days in jail for repeatedly molesting his 18-year-old grandnephew.

DELAWARE
WDEL

By Mellany Armstrong

Another man who says he was sexually abused by a priest when he was an altar boys in Wilmington is suing the diocese and St. John the Beloved Church.

The man, who calls himself John Doe #1 in the suit, says he was another victim of the Rev. Francis DeLuca. DeLuca was a priest at several churches in the Wilmington diocese for 31 years.

John Doe #1 says DeLuca abused him more than 40 times between 1961 and 1964 when he was an altar boy at St. John's. The 58-year-old Doe, a married U.S. Marine Corps veteran, claims the diocese covered up DeLuca's sexual abuse of young children because of a shortage of priests at that time.

New York
Democrat and Chronicle

Maggie Watson • Guest essayist • May 22, 2008

New Yorkers have an opportunity to make our state safer for children. S.4614 is a bill currently before the state Senate that if passed would extend the statute of limitations for the prosecution of sexual offenses against a child until that victim reaches age 28. Currently the statute of limitations runs out at age 23. However, because victims are often traumatized by someone known to them, an estimated 80 percent to 90 percent of abused children are unwilling or unable to disclose their victimization until well after they reach adulthood.

Since childhood sexual abuse survivors are more likely to do poorly in school, more likely to suffer from mental and physical illness and more likely to experience financial failure and physical injury, they need more time to begin to recover and to distance themselves from the offender.

As the law stands, we unrealistically expect survivors of sexual abuse to face their abusers in grueling court proceedings before they turn 23. In addition, children stay silent because predators use any number of trauma-inducing tactics to keep them that way. And the current law tells abusers that their methods need only be effective until their victim's 23rd birthday. Hence, not extending the law to (at least) age 28 leaves most child predators free from punishment and free to reoffend.

DELAWARE
Delaware Online

By GREGORY F. LAVELLE • May 28, 2008

Delaware's Child Victim's Act has now been in effect for almost one year.

It has allowed a number of victims of childhood sexual assault to gain access to the courts for previous assaults and more may step forward in the coming year.

Before Senate Bill 29, victims had two years from the time of an assault to file a civil action against the individuals that assaulted them and the institutions who were charged with their safety and protection.

In addition to the two-year window of opportunity to allow past victims access to the civil courts when the statute had tolled, S.B. 29 also eliminated the civil statute of limitations for future assaults.

TEXAS
United Press International

SAN ANGELO , Texas, May 30 (UPI) -- Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs faces new accusations related to child brides in a search warrant for his DNA, officials say.

Jeffs, in jail in Arizona on sexual assault and other charges, was brought into the Texas polygamist story with the DNA request. The number of young girls he allegedly was involved with has been growing as the story grows.

In the warrant, Jeffs was said to have "sexually assaulted a 12-year-old child ... on or about July 27, 2006, in Schleicher County, Texas," reported the Deseret News, which obtained a copy.

A DNA sample was collected from Jeffs at the Mohave County Jail in Kingman, Ariz., the News said.

DELAWARE
The News Journal

By SEAN O’SULLIVAN • The News Journal • May 30, 2008

An unnamed victim of child sexual abuse by a priest filed an anonymous lawsuit in Kent County Superior Court this morning against the priest and the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington.

The “John Doe” civil action is believed to be the first of its kind in Delaware in a priest abuse case, according to the man’s attorney, Thomas S. Neuberger.

“This case is very important because we are beginning to use John Doe plaintiffs so the victims do not have to identify themselves, add to their injury and suffer public embarrassment in revealing what occurred to them,” he said. ...

According to Neuberger, Doe is now 58 and was abused by now-retired Rev. Francis DeLuca at St. John the Beloved Church from 1961 to 1964 when he was an altar boy and DeLuca was an assistant pastor.

TEXAS
Miami Herald

Carolyn Jessop fears for her life and the survival of her eight children. "Ugly realities" highlight her first-person account of a life inside a religious cult known as the Fundamentalist of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS). ...

It is a sin for a woman to talk about abuse, if she is being abused, it is because she is not in harmony with her husband.

TEXAS
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Brooke Adams and Julie Lyon
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/30/2008 01:32:13 PM MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Attorneys are reviewing a Texas Child Protective Services proposal that could return FLDS children to their parents starting Monday and continuing through June 6.
There are conditions: While all the children can return to the polygamous sect's YFZ Ranch in Eldorado they cannot leave Texas and parents must take parenting classes. CPS workers also must have access to residences on the ranch, and residents must provide an ID and have a photo taken.
The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday backed a May 22 decision from the Third Court of Appeals that found the state did not have proof that all 450-some FLDS children were imminent danger of abuse that justified keeping them out of their homes.

TEXAS
KXAN

[with video]

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) -- Texas authorities and a polygamist sect have reached a tentative agreement to begin returning children taken by the state starting Monday.

A draft agreement released in court by Texas Child Protective Services attorney Gary Banks on Friday said the parents can get their children back after showing identifications and pledging to take parenting classes and remain in Texas.

The agreement was reached with the 38 mothers of the 124 children who filed the complaint that prompted the Texas Supreme Court to rule Thursday that the state overstepped its authority in taking more than 400 children.

NewsBusters

By Ken Shepherd | May 30, 2008 - 13:08 ET

According to the Associated Press, the Vatican is "slamming the door on attempts by women to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church." But it's rather hard to slam shut a door that was never open, which is what Catholic Church teaching holds about women serving in the priesthood.

From a May 30 article entitled "Vatican: excommunication for female priests" (paragraph break removed):

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican is slamming the door on attempts by women to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church. It has strongly reiterated in a decree that anyone involved in ordination ceremonies is automatically excommunicated. A top Vatican official said in a statement Friday that the church acted following what it called "so-called ordinations" in various parts of the world.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father Joe Mathias sat and listened, scribbling notes at times, paying careful attention to Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection.

Kettelkamp was talking about the latest efforts by dioceses across the country to protect children from abuse. For the Jesuit priest from India, it was an education.

As the Indian Catholic Church's lone representative at Anglophone Conference 2008 May 27-30, Father Mathias took in all he could during the gathering of 40 church representatives from English-speaking countries who handle allegations of child sexual abuse and oversee child protection programs in their home dioceses.

TEXAS
CNN

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- Texas authorities say they have collected DNA swabs from jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs in connection with a criminal investigation involving "spiritual marriages" to girls as young as 12.

The samples were collected Thursday from Jeffs, the 52-year-old "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Jerry Strickland, spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's Office.

A search warrant for the DNA alleges that Jeffs had so-called "spiritual" marriages with four girls, ages 12 to 15, The Associated Press reported.

WORCESTER (MA)
The Catholic Free Press

By Tanya Connor

WORCESTER – Transition teams have met with members of closing and welcoming parishes. The diocesan Office for Divine Worship is preparing to help them move liturgical items to their new homes and is asking parishes across the diocese to pray for them.

These are among ways the diocese is helping parishes in transition, according to Deacon Anthony R. Surozenski, a member of the Pastoral Planning Committee, and Father Robert K. Johnson, director of the Office for Worship.

UNITED STATES
love your family

by Christopher Manion

The USCCB has announced that April is “National Child Abuse Prevention Month.” In the spirit of the season, I took a look at the web site of Virtus, a “safe environment” program required by over a hundred U.S. Catholic dioceses.Virtus is a program of The National Catholic Risk Retention Group (NCRRG). And what is NCRRG? An insurance company. Now, no responsible insurance executive will inaugurate a program that collides with the interests of his shareholders or his clients. So who are NCRRG’s shareholders? Bishops. And who are the clients? Bishops and archbishops - 66 of them, according to its web site, which helpfully explains, “National Catholic is owned and ultimately managed by its Shareholders. Company policies are therefore established by Shareholders for the benefit of Shareholders.”

Well, you’d think that language was as plain as day, but Virtus “trainers” are apparently trained not to talk about it. Three years ago, the Diocese of Arlington, Va., began requiring Virtus, along with mandatory criminal background checks, of the faithful. Fr. Terry Specht, the chancery’s “safe environment” official, assured a parish assembly, “I’ve had this job for a year and I’ve never hear that word, ‘liability,’ used once.” But at the same time, Fr. Specht was requiring over 10,000 of Arlington’s Catholics to be fingerprinted and to sign hard-nosed waivers absolving the diocese of any liability. Today, three years later, he still does.

CALIFORNIA
Neil McKenty Weblog

The Australian bishop whose “devastating critique” of sex abuse in the Church (Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus) became a controversial bestseller last year has come under fire from the American hierarchy at the start of a month-long US tour.

Retired Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson was “den[ied] permission ” to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles by Cardinal Roger Mahony after a statement from the Australian bishops cited “doctrinal difficulties” in Bishop Robinson’s “questioning of the authority of the Church.”

Cardinal Mahony wrote to Bishop Robinson warning him to “cancel the entire speaking tour.” The tour which began in Philadelphia includes stops in New York, Seattle, San Diego and Boston. Bishop Robinson is scheduled to speak in suburban Encino on June 12.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic Courier

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican's doctrinal congregation has decreed formally that a woman who attempts to be ordained a Catholic priest and the person attempting to ordain her are automatically excommunicated.

"Both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incur an excommunication 'latae sententiae,'" or automatically, said a decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The brief "General Decree Regarding the Delict of Attempted Sacred Ordination of a Woman" was published on the front page of the May 30 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. It said it "comes into force immediately."

U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the congregation, who signed the decree, said it was published "in order to protect the nature and validity" of the sacrament of holy orders.

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Derryn Hinch

May 31, 2008 12:00am
IT is more than 20 years since I went to jail, first to Pentridge then Morwell, for being in contempt of court after trying to alert parents to the predatory behaviour of evil priest Michael Glennon.

His victims included teenage boys who attended his karate school and his camps in Lancefield and a 10-year-old girl he raped.

Despite time in jail for that crime, he remained a Catholic priest for years.

I have thought about that a lot in recent days as this newspaper has gone to court - on your behalf -- to try to get suppression orders lifted that are protecting the identities of a serial rapist, who once terrorised this city and may again, and one of the worst recidivist pedophiles in this country's history.

BOSTON (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Everyone is of course entitled to his or her legal rights, but this maneuver will only cause more harm to those who've already been harmed by the crimes of Paul Shanley and the complicity of his Catholic supervisors.

We grieve for Shanley's victims and for their families who have already suffered so much, so long and so severely.

This is, of course, typical predator behavior: trying to exploit every imaginable legal technicality possible. We hope he doesn't succeed. Kids are safer when predators like Shanley are behind bars.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Our hearts ache for the caring parishioners at St. Stan's. Their real crime, in the eyes of the hierarchy, is refusing to bow to a ruthless archbishop.

It's very telling that Burke excommunicates well-intentioned lay people but hasn't ever even tried to excommunicate a single pedophile priest or even discipline a single corrupt church supervisor.

This case shows, just like Jason Berry's documentary 'Vows of Silence' shows, there's no real justice in the Vatican's so-called 'justice system.'

ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

By Daniel Patrick Sheehan | Of The Morning Call
May 30, 2008
This Sunday promises to be an emotional one for Catholics in the Diocese of Allentown, as they learn the fate of their churches during liturgies that will be tailored to ease hard feelings and encourage unity.

An unknown number of churches will vanish as the five-county diocese restructures itself to deal with shifting populations, fewer priests and other demographic pressures that have left some churches virtually empty.

The announcements are expected to hit especially hard in Carbon and Schuylkill counties, home to dozens of ethnic churches founded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to serve immigrant populations. Their prevalence, proximity and small membership relative to suburban parishes make them especially vulnerable to closure.

Catholics in the Schuylkill County borough of Mc-Adoo, for instance, already know their Polish, Italian, Slovak and Irish churches will be folded into a single parish. They'll find out Sunday which building will survive to serve the community.

ROME
CNN

From CNN Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- The Vatican announced Thursday in a general decree that it will excommunicate anyone who would attempt to ordain a woman as a priest and the woman herself.

According to the decree, the excommunications would take place with immediate effect.

The decree was signed by Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.

It was not persuasive to Regina Nicolosi, a program coordinator for Roman Catholic Womenpriests (sic), who was ordained two years ago.

"We have come not to take that too seriously," said Nicolosi, a 66-year-old married mother and grandmother who lives in Red Wing, Minnesota, and said her group is composed of 40 to 50 women priests, none of whom are recognized by the church hierarchy.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
Republican Herald

BY LESLIE RICHARDSON
STAFF WRITER
lrichardson@republicanherald.com
Published: Friday, May 30, 2008 5:57 AM EDT

The wait may soon be over.

On Thursday, the Diocese of Allentown announced that details of the long-awaited consolidation of parishes will be released this weekend.

Starting Saturday evening at Masses across the diocese, priests will read letters from the Most Rev. Edward P. Cullen, bishop of Allentown, according to Matt Kerr, director of communications for the Roman Catholic diocese.

Each restructuring plan was developed by one of 33 Deanery Region Committees across the diocese and reviewed by the Diocesan Pastoral Council and the Council of Priests. Restructuring plans were made on a region-by-region basis and not all have been approved, so it was unclear what parts of Schuylkill County will be discussed in the bishop’s letters. The bishop is not expecting recommendations from some regions for several months.

However, in those churches that have been marked for closure, parishioners will learn the date this weekend. Cullen directed every Mass this weekend to include special scripture readings and prayers to help worshippers with the process.

VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican is slamming the door on attempts by women to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church. It has strongly reiterated in a decree that anyone involved in ordination ceremonies is automatically excommunicated.

A top Vatican official said in a statement Friday that the church acted following what it called "so-called ordinations" in various parts of the world.

Monsignor Angelo Amato of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says the Vatican also wants to provide bishops with a clear response on the issue.

VATICAN CITY
United Pres International

VATICAN CITY, May 30 (UPI) -- The Vatican has announced it would excommunicate from the Catholic church anyone who would ordain a woman as a priest along with the woman herself.

The general decree said the excommunications would be effective immediately, CNN reported Friday.

The decree, announced Thursday, probably won't be taken seriously by some, said Regina Nicolosi, a program coordinator for Roman Catholic Womenpriests, who was ordained two years ago. She said her organization counts as members between 40 and 50 women priests, none recognized by the church's leadership.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
City of Angels

[with link to Cardinal Mahony's letter]

By Kay Ebeling

What a clear and direct opening paragraph: “Sexual abuse of minors by a significant number of priests, together with the attempts by many church authorities to conceal the abuse, constitute one of the ugliest stories ever to emerge from the Catholic Church. It is hard to imagine a more total contradiction of everything Jesus Christ stood for, and it would be difficult to overestimate the pervasive and lasting harm it has done to the Church.”

The book quoted above caused Roger Mahony to write: “I am hereby requesting that you cancel your visit to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Canon 763 makes it clear that the Diocesan Bishop must safeguard the preaching of God’s Word in his own Diocese. Under the provisions of Canon 763, I hereby deny you permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.” -- Signed His Eminence, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, May 9, 2008.

Showing all the respect due Roger Mahony when it comes to the issue of predator priests, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson from Australia, pictured above, will be speaking and signing his book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church, in Los Angeles June 12th at 7:00 PM , in the ballroom at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel near Fox Hills Mall, Culver City, 7:00 PM, admission free, $4 to park or you can take the 439 bus like me.

AUSTRALIA
Catholica

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson has certainly been generating plenty of media coverage from his speaking tour in North America. Our colleagues, Ted Schmidt and John Quinn at New Catholic Times Sensus Fidelium in Toronto, Canada, report that the Archbishop of Toronto has now attempted to obstruct Bishop Robinson from speaking in his Archdiocese. Bishop Robinson is persisting though in his quest to have the issues of power and sex discussed openly and sensibly in the Church. These articles by the editor of New Catholic Times, Ted Schmidt, and John Quinn is how they are reporting the developments in Canada.

CANADA
Vancouver Sun

Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, May 30, 2008
The idea of child brides is disgusting, but seeing photographs of 12- and 14-year-olds with their adult husbands is stomach-churning.

That's why Elissa Wall passed out photos of her 14-year-old self after testifying against Warren Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, last September.

If not for her, Jeffs might still be marrying young girls. Instead, he is serving two consecutive terms of five years to life and preparing to go to trial on similar charges in Arizona later this year or early next year when, once again, Wall will be the key witness.

Yet even while he sits in jail, Jeffs's sermons form the basis of the religious instruction at Bountiful elementary-secondary school, which is both accredited and funded by the B.C. government.

CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

Friday, May 30, 2008
John Caniglia
Plain Dealer Reporter

Retired Bishop Anthony Pilla testified Thursday that he was stunned when an anonymous letter accused Joseph Smith, one of his closest friends and advisers, of fleecing the Cleveland Catholic Diocese out of $784,000 through an elaborate kickback scheme.

"My reaction was disbelief and secondly shock," Pilla said. "That was not the person I knew. Why was I shocked? We had a close relationship. I trusted him, for good reason."

Pilla, looking pale and tired, testified in U.S. District Court for three hours in the second week of Smith's trial on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, money laundering and filing false tax returns.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Anglican Church could face more compensation claims as a result of the Mullighan Inquiry into abused state wards in South Australia.

End of year financial documents reveal the church paid more than $700,000 to sexual abuse victims last year.

But the documents say "it is uncertain whether any part of these paid claims or the future potential claims paid may be covered by insurance".

A meeting of Anglicans tomorrow in Adelaide will be told future claims could cost the church $2 million.

TEXAS
Wall Street Journal

By STEPHANIE SIMON and ANN ZIMMERMAN
May 30, 2008; Page A3

Texas authorities prepared to return hundreds of children seized from a polygamist ranch after the state Supreme Court ruled that child-welfare authorities were wrong to have separated the children from their parents.

The Texas Supreme Court let stand an appellate ruling that the state acted illegally in taking custody last month of 468 children from the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado.

"Removal of the children was not warranted," the justices wrote.

Texas Child Protective Services spokesman Patrick Crimmins said the agency would "prepare for the prompt and orderly reunification of these children with their families."

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By ROBERT T. GARRETT and EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Children removed from a West Texas polygamist ranch could be heading home within days, after Texas' highest court ruled against the state in a massive child custody case Thursday.

The Texas Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion that Child Protective Services' removal of children was "not warranted." It left intact an appellate court's finding that CPS hadn't proved the children were in immediate danger and failed to fully explore alternatives to removing them. The appellate court had ordered Judge Barbara Walther of San Angelo to vacate her orders putting sect children in CPS custody.

The Supreme Court said that Judge Walther still has tools at her disposal to protect kids, even if she releases all of the more than 450 children.

TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

By JOHN MORITZ
Star-Telegram staff writer

AUSTIN -- In a stinging rebuke to the agency charged with protecting youngsters, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Child Protective Services overreached its authority when it seized more than 460 youngsters from a polygamist outpost near Eldorado last month.

The much-awaited ruling chides the agency for failing to pursue less drastic remedies to ensure that the children at the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch were not being subjected to what state welfare officials described as a culture of sexual abuse that dates back several generations within the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

"On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted," the justices wrote in the ruling. "The Department [CPS] argues without explanation that [returning the children to their families] leaves the Department unable to protect the children's safety, but the Family Code gives [the state] broad authority to protect children short of separating them from their families and placing them in foster care."

MILFORD (DE)
CBS 3

MILFORD, Del. (AP) Delaware State Police have charged a Milford man for repeatedly sexually abusing a girl during a more than 3-year span in the early 1990s.

Sixty-five-year-old William Tucker faces 131 criminal counts. The victim told investigators the abuse happened when she was 9 to 12 years old, while she was living near Harrington. ...

Milford police seized letters from the Lighthouse Christian Center Church that corroborated the woman's accounts.

CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 30, 2008
It was midday on Oct. 5 at Daniel Murphy Catholic High School when a voice on the public address system directed students at the all-boys campus to report to the chapel.

Senior Bryce Vinson, 17, thought it must be something routine; maybe someone had pulled the fire alarm. Gregory George, 18, noticed the principal and several teachers crying and got a strange sensation. James Ward, 17, recalls saying to a friend, "What if they're closing the school?"

Enrollment had been declining for years as operating costs had increased, officials of the Los Angeles Archdiocese said. Keeping the school open was untenable.

The chapel went silent, the students recalled. It felt like a "slap in the face," James Ward said.

CALIFORNIA
Larchmont Chronicle

Suzan Filipek

DANIEL MURPHY High School bell ring for the last time on June 6.

After 82 years of various religious education on the Third and Detroit streets site, the L.A. Catholic Archdiocese is poised to sell Daniel Murphy High School.The last day of school is at the end of student finals Fri., June 6.

The decision to close the boys’ school at 241 S. Detroit St. was made amid declining enrollment and the high cost of clergy abuse scandals, said Archdiocese spokesman Tom Tamberg. Future plans for the property have not been determined, he added.

DAVENPORT (IA)
The Catholic Messenger

Here is the list of non-monetary measures that are a part of the Diocese of Davenport’s bankruptcy settlement. All actions are to take place within 30 days after the effective date, unless otherwise noted:
• Publicly release the names of all perpetrators responsible for abuse.
• For a period of at least nine years after the effective date, the diocese will post on its Web site a prominent link on the home page to the names of all known perpetrators, including deceased perpetrators and those previously listed.

CANADA
Zenit

TORONTO, MAY 29, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Three years after his election to the See of Peter, Benedict XVI's relationship with the press has markedly developed, and the Pope's U.S. trip reflects the newness, said the Vatican spokesman.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, this change is due in large part to the Holy Father's positive vision of the press and the service it offers.

The spokesman affirmed this today at 2008 Catholic Media Convention taking place in Toronto, Canada, through Friday, on the theme "Proclaim It From the Rooftops." ...

Father Lombardi, who also directs Vatican Radio and Vatican Television, revealed elements of this attitude. He noted that, like Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI meets with the press directors after each of his trips to evaluate the impact his message has had.

PORTLAND (ME)
Morning Sentinel

BY KELLEY BOUCHARD
Blethen Maine Newspapers

Maine's Roman Catholic bishop prayed Thursday for God's forgiveness for the "horrific sin of sexual abuse" by clergy.

During a special Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Bishop Richard Malone encouraged all members of the Diocese of Maine to strive to make sure the church is the "safest, most secure of environments" and worthy of parents' trust.

He also urged victims to report sexual abuse to church officials or legal authorities, saying that no pain is deeper than abuse by a representative of the church.

"Come to me when you feel ready to do that," Malone said during his homily.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Denise Lavoie
Associated Press / May 30, 2008
Advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse said yesterday that they were outraged that a priest at the center of the Boston clergy sex abuse scandal is seeking a new trial, based on a challenge to the theory of repressed memories.

Former priest Paul Shanley, 77, is serving a 12-to-15-year sentence for repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at a Newton parish in the 1980s. The victim testified that his repressed memories of the event surfaced in 2002.

Shanley was in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday for a hearing on his motion for a new trial, during which his new lawyer, Robert Shaw Jr., argued that the theory of repressed memories was "junk science."

Shaw said Shanley's trial lawyer failed to vigorously challenge the theory during his trial. "Paul Shanley, just like any other citizen, is entitled to a fair trial," he said.

Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston lawyer who represented more than 100 clergy abuse victims who reached civil settlements with the Boston archdiocese, said he has been flooded with calls about Shanley's motion for a new trial.

"The victims [are] outraged that Father Shanley might have any possibility of having a new trial," Garabedian said. "The victims desperately want closure."

Robert Costello, a Norwood man who said he was sexually abused by another priest during the late 1960s and early 1970s, said he attended the hearing to remind Shanley about the victims of clergy sexual abuse.

NEW YORK
Renew America

[with text of the lawsuit]

Matt C. Abbott
May 30, 2008

The following lawsuit was filed May 23, 2008 against Father Gary Mercure, Bishop Howard Hubbard and the Albany Catholic diocese.

Several years ago, Father Mercure gave pornographic photos of himself to John Watkins, the plaintiff, who alleges that the priest manipulated him into a sexual relationship.

The Albany diocese has a history of dissent and corruption, culminating in the 2004 apparent suicide of whistleblower priest Father John Minkler.

LACEY (WA)
The Olympian

By Jeremy Pawloski | The Olympian • Published May 30, 2008

Three men allege in a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday that they were sexually abused as boys by a Catholic priest at the former Saint Martin's High School in Lacey in the mid- to late 1950s.

It is the second lawsuit filed this year alleging sexual abuse by Father Leonard Feeney, who died in 1980. Both suits were filed by Seattle attorney James S. Rogers.

"All three came forward separately after the first lawsuit was filed because they, too, were victims of the same priest," Rogers said.

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
Orange County Weekly

By GUSTAVO ARELLANO
Thursday, May 29, 2008 - 3:00 pm

Loose Canon
The Catholic Diocese of Orange’s history book is pretty—and pretty pathetic

The fun never stops with Catholic Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown. Last week, attorneys filed another lawsuit alleging the Church protected Jeff Andrade, the former Mater Dei High School assistant boys’ basketball coach who admitted to having sex with a student during the 1990s. The week before that, Brown wrote a letter to former Bishop of Sydney Geoffrey Robinson—a clerical sex-abuse survivor and fierce critic of the Vatican’s pedo-priest cover-up—to cancel his scheduled June 11 speech at the Costa Mesa Community Center because the visit would be “a source of disunity and a cause for confusion among the faithful of our local church of Orange.” But that’s not the most important thing on His Eminence’s mind right now—like yours truly, he wants you to buy his book!

For the past couple of months, the Orange diocese’s website and various church bulletins have urged the faithful to purchase Diocese of Orange: Learning, Loving, Living our Faith, a history of the second-largest diocese west of the Mississippi, written by priest William Krekelberg and diocesan chancellor Shirl Giacomi. As a history, Diocese of Orange is structured to interweave the growth of Orange County with the expansion of the Church. It starts with the 1769 baptism of two Indian girls (forever ungrammatically memorialized in Orange County topography by Cristianitos Road) by the Gaspar de Portola expedition, sent forth by Father Junipero Serra as scouts for the coming Mission San Juan Capistrano. After a couple of pages focusing on the Mission days, the book breezes through nearly a century of history in about 20 pages—understandable, since the Diocese of Orange wasn’t spun off from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles until 1976.

UNITED STATES
The Dallas Morning News

2:33 PM Thu, May 29, 2008
Bruce Tomaso

The Rev. Donald Cozzens is a Catholic priest who teaches at John Carroll University, a Jesuit school outside Cleveland.

For years he has tracked the decline in the number of Catholic priests. He says that for every 100 U.S. priests who die, retire or otherwise leave ministry, fewer than 35 new ones are ordained.

The solution, he argues, is to end the church's celibacy requirement. (He wrote a 2006 book on the subejct, called "Freeing Celibacy.")

BOSTON (MA)
Daily News Tribune

By Kerri Roche/Daily News staff
Daily News Tribune
Posted May 29, 2008 @ 09:09 PM

BOSTON — The decision to grant a new trial for a defrocked priest convicted of repeatedly raping a young boy is in the hands of a judge who was asked yesterday to reconsider the "junk science" central to the trial.

Robert F. Shaw, the attorney for former Newton priest Paul Shanley, asked Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel to re-examine the validity of repressed memory syndrome. Neel presided over Shanley's original trial.

Shanley, 77, is serving 12 to 15 years in Old Colony Correctional Center, following his 2005 conviction in Middlesex Superior Court on two counts of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery upon a child.

The former priest once hailed for his ability to reach out to troubled youth entered the packed courtroom yesterday shackled at the ankles and wrists, wearing a white shirt and light-colored jeans.

PENNSYLVANIA
Republican Herald

From Staff Reports
Published: Thursday, May 29, 2008 9:53 PM EDT

This weekend, at churches throughout the Diocese of Allentown, letters from the Most Reverend Edward P. Cullen, D.D., Bishop of Allentown, will be read detailing restructuring plans, a press release from the diocese Office of Communications said Thursday.

The plans will also be posted on the Diocese Web site, www.allentowndiocese.org, after 12 p.m. on Sunday.

Each restructuring plan was developed by one of the 33 Deanery Region Committees across the Diocese and reviewed by the Diocesan Pastoral Council and the Council of Priests.

BOSTON (MA)
NECN

[with video]

(Greg Wayland, NECN: Boston, Mass.) - Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, 77, is seeking a new trial based on a challenge to the theory of repressed memories. Advocates for clergy sex abuse victims are outraged.

Shanley was in Suffolk Superior Court Thursday for a hearing on his motion to dismiss. His new lawyer argued that the theory of repressed memories was "junk science."

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Denise Lavoie
AP Legal Affairs Writer / May 29, 2008
BOSTON—Advocates for clergy sex abuse victims said Thursday that they were outraged that a priest at the center of the Boston clergy sex abuse scandal is seeking a new trial, based on a challenge to the theory of repressed memories.

Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, 77, is serving a 12- to 15-year sentence for repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at a Newton parish in the 1980s. The victim testified that his repressed memories of the event surfaced in 2002.

Shanley was in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday for a hearing on his motion for a new trial, during which his new lawyer, Robert Shaw Jr., argued that the theory of repressed memories was "junk science." ...

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented more than 100 clergy abuse victims who reached civil settlements with the Boston Archdiocese, said he has been flooded with calls about Shanley's motion for a new trial.

"The victims outraged that Father Shanley might have any possibility of having a new trial," Garabedian said. "The victims desperately want closure."

CLEVELAND (OH)
WTOL

Associated Press - May 29, 2008 6:15 PM ET

CLEVELAND (AP) - The retired Roman Catholic bishop of Cleveland has testified at the trial of a former top church accountant accused of receiving $785,000 in kickbacks.

Bishop Anthony M. Pilla (PIHL'-uh) testified Thursday that he was unaware of any such backdoor payments by outside contractors. He called the defendant, 51-year-old Joseph Smith, a highly valued and respected co-worker and said he was shocked to learn of the alleged kickbacks.

The defense says the alleged payments were part of a pattern of secret church accounts.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis

The following is the text of Archbishop Rayond L. Burke's weekly column in the St. Louis Review, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. This column will be published in the May 30 edition of the newspaper.

Introduction
On December 15th of 2005, I was obliged to declare the excommunication of the members of the Board of Directors of Saint Stanislaus Kostka Corporation because of their persistence in schism. The members of the Board had committed the most grievous delict of schism by hiring a suspended priest, that is, a priest not in good standing in the Church, for the purpose of attempting to celebrate the sacraments and sacramentals at Saint Stanislaus Kostka Church, all outside of the communion of the Catholic Church. The priest in question, the Reverend Marek B. Bozek, a priest of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, had left his priestly assignment against the expressed will of his bishop, Bishop John Leibrecht, in order to be hired by the Board of Directors of Saint Stanislaus Kostka Corporation.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
News-Leader

Linda Leicht • News-Leader • May 29, 2008

The Vatican has ruled that the six members of the board of directors of St. Stanislaus Catholic church in St. Louis and their priest committed the act of schism two and a half years ago and are excommunicated, the Archdiocese of St. Louis Web site announced Wednesday.

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had considered an appeal of a Dec. 15, 2005, declaration of excommunication by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke after the board refused to turn over ownership of its property to the archdiocese and then independently hired a priest.

That priest, Marek Bozek, was assigned to the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in 2005, when he left his position at St. Agnes Cathedral in Springfield to take the job as priest of the historically Polish parish. Bozek is a native of Poland.

TEXAS
ABA Journal

[with links to majority and separate opinions]

By Martha Neil

Updated: Texas illegally removed more than 400 children from a ranch run by a religious sect that advocates polygamy and sent them to foster homes last month, a majority of the Texas Supreme Court decided today.

The ruling is a stunning victory for about 40 mothers and their roughly 126 children, who were represented by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid attorneys, reports the Houston Chronicle. However, although the court's decision directly applies to only these families, "it is expected to apply to all of the children because of a San Angelo judge's global order last month that gave the state broad custody of minors taken from the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado," the newspaper writes.

"On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted," the supreme court writes in a brief per curiam majority opinion. It points out, however, that "while the district court must vacate the current temporary custody orders as directed by the court of appeals, it need not do so without granting other appropriate relief to protect the children, as the mothers involved in this proceeding concede in response to the Department’s motion for emergency relief. The court of appeals’ decision does not conclude the ... proceedings."

DAVENPORT (IA)
Catholic Messenger

By Barb Arland-Fye

Remember that character from the Charlie Brown comic strip, who always had a dark cloud hanging over his head?
It seems like that same cloud emerged over the Diocese of Davenport in 2002, when the national crisis in the Catholic Church swept into our diocese, too.
The dark cloud expanded into a fog when the diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2006, after a jury awarded $1.5 million to Michl Uhde, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, and more lawsuits were waiting in the wings.
The sense of misery was palpable. Survivors of abuse were struggling to come to terms with what had happened to them so many years ago. The memories had been too painful to deal with and had been locked away.

PORTLAND (ME)
Portland Press Herald

By Portland Press Herald Staff Report
May 29, 2008 09:50 AM

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland will be a place of prayer today for those who were abused by members of clergy.

Bishop Richard Malone has designated today as a day of prayer and penance for harm done to survivors and the faithful by past incidents of clergy sexual abuse.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

By Associated Press
Thursday, May 29, 2008

Advocates for clergy sex abuse victims are outraged that a priest convicted of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at a Newton parish in the 1980s is asking for a new trial.

Defrocked priest Paul Shanley was in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday for a hearing on his motion for a new trial. Shanley’s new lawyer is challenging the repressed memories of Shanley’s accuser.

Shanley’s accuser testified that Shanley repeatedly pulled him out of catechism class and raped and fondled him, beginning when he was 6 years old.

TEXAS
KLTV

The Texas Supreme Court has upheld the decision of a lower court finding that CPS had no legal grounds to remove more than 400 FLDS children from their parents.

Though CPS could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, this ruling essentially says that those children should be returned to their parents.

Parents and lawyers have been anxiously awaiting a ruling from the high court since the lower court said child welfare officials were wrong to take the children from their parents.

SAN ANGELO (TX)
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/29/2008 03:44:10 PM MDT

3:34 PM- SAN ANGELO, Texas - The Texas Supreme Court today turned down the state's request to overturn a lower court's ruling that hundreds of FLDS children were taken into custody improperly.
In doing so, the high court rejected the Texas Department of Families and Protective Services' plea to overturn the Third Court of Appeals ruling that the children should be returned to their parents.
The opinion was met with delight by attorneys representing the FLDS families. Kevin Dietz of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid said he would work with the courts and state Child Protective Services to do what's in the best interest of the children.
"Right now, that means reuniting these families," he said.

TEXAS
News 8 Austin

5/29/2008 4:06 PM
By: Associated Press

The Texas Supreme Court said the children in polygamist custody case should be returned to their parents.

The court issued a decision in the mandamus proceeding in the FLDS case Thursday.

The high court said child welfare officials overstepped their authority and affirmed a decision by the appellate court last week, saying Child Protective Services failed to show an immediate danger to the more than 400 children swept up from the Yearning For Zion Ranch nearly two months ago.

TEXAS
CNN

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- Texas officials had no right to remove more than 440 children from a polygamist sect, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The Texas Supreme Court agreed with an earlier lower court's ruling, possibly clearing the way for the children to be returned to their families. They were removed in April from the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) Ranch, near Eldorado.

The ruling means that each child's case must be weighed individually, not all together, to determine if abuse has occured, according to an attorney close to the case. The ruling does not address the abuse allegations.

"We are not inclined to disturb the court of appeals' decision," the ruling said. "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted."

GREEN BAY (WI)
Herald Times Reporter

By Andy Nelesen • Gannett Wisconsin Media • May 29, 2008

The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay has been sued by its insurance company, which claims it doesn't have to defend or pay lawsuit damages for the church because the alleged abuse by the Rev. John Patrick Feeney — and church officials' decisions not to warn other parishioners when reassigning Feeney — were intentional acts.

The lawsuit was filed May 15 in Brown County Circuit Court. No court dates have been set yet.

The diocese filed a claim with Indiana Insurance Co. to have the insurer pay for its defense in a priest abuse civil suit pending in a Clark County, Nev., court. The insurance company claims in the Brown County suit that its policies with the diocese do not provide liability coverage for any of the Nevada allegations "because the acts complained of are not accidental, but instead are intentional in nature …"

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Phil Stewart

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican issued its most explicit decree so far against the ordination of women priests on Thursday, punishing them and the bishops who try to ordain them with automatic excommunication.

The decree was written by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, giving it immediate effect.

A Vatican spokesman said the decree made the Church's existing ban on women priests more explicit by clarifying that excommunication would follow all such ordinations.

UNITED STATES
Crosswalk

Dr. James Emery White

One of the more disturbing films of late is Deliver Us from Evil, a 2006 documentary on pedophile priest Oliver O’Grady who was moved from parish to parish in Northern California during the 1970’s. Church hierarchy, with knowledge of his attraction to children and evidence of actual misconduct, harbored him for thirty years, allowing him to abuse countless numbers of children. Even more gripping than the interviews of some of the abused children, now adults, is the extended interview with O’Grady himself as he chillingly recounts his predatory past.

From this and other scandals, the Catholic Church - and Christianity in general – has a tarnished reputation for basic integrity. Not simply as a result of priests or ministers acting in very unchristian ways, but from the response given to the misconduct.

Or more to the point, the lack of response.

I watched this film with a graduate level class on cultural apologetics. Specifically, I wanted them to see what we must grapple with in terms of the church’s tarnished reputation, and the impressions many have regarding church leadership and scandal.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Catholic News Agency

Kansas City, May 28, 2008 / 12:50 pm (CNA).- Archbishop of Kansas City Joseph F. Naumann has further explained the motives for his public admonishment of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for her support for legal abortion. The archbishop’s May 9 column, citing her recent veto of an abortion law reform bill passed by the Kansas legislature, had warned Governor Sebelius not to present herself for Holy Communion until she has publicly repented.

Writing in his column for the archdiocesan newspaper The Leaven, Archbishop Naumann repeated that Governor Sebelius must seek “to repair the public scandal of her long-standing support for legalized abortion.” He said he had personally received a number of letters both in favor and opposed to his actions regarding the governor. The archbishop explained that he was using his column to collectively respond to some of the critical letters he had received. ...

Lastly, the archbishop addressed those who claim that the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church discredits it from being able to address moral social issues like abortion.

“In logic,” he explained, “this type of argument is termed ‘ad hominem.’ It is an attempt to attack personally one’s opponent in a debate, rather than make substantive arguments about the issue being debated. It is usually an indication of a weak position by the person making the ‘ad hominem’ argument. What is needed is a substantive discussion of this important social and moral issue, not personal attacks!”

This links to a cartoon regarding the FLDS issue in Texas.

BOSTON (MA)
Sexual Abuse Claims Blog (Canada)

Posted On: May 29, 2008 by John McKiggan

Paul Shanley the notorious defrocked priest and convicted sex abuser that was the center of the Boston priest sexual abuse scandal has appealed his conviction on charges of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at a Newton parish in the 1980s.

Shanley claims that his lawyer at his trial did not do a good enough job challenging the admissibility of the victim’s “repressed memories” of the childhood sexual abuse.

The District Attorney who prosecuted Shanley, Gerry Leone was quoted as saying:

"The concept of recovered memory by victims of abuse has been accepted by both the scientific and legal communities, as well as the jury who convicted Mr. Shanley after hearing the full evidence in this case," Leone said. "We remain confident in the jury's verdict."

Repressed Memory: What is it?

Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 29, 2008) — Child maltreatment is associated with reductions in quality of life even decades later, according to a new University of Georgia study that finds that—on average—victims lose at least two years of quality of life.

UGA College of Public Health associate professor Phaedra Corso and her colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed surveys of more than 6,000 people to assess the deficits in quality of life that victims suffer. Their results appear in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

“We found, with rigorous statistical methods, that there are significant differences in health-related quality of life between people who were maltreated as children and those who were not,” Corso said, “and that holds across all age groups.”

BOSTON (MA)
The New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 29, 2008
Seeking a new trial, a defrocked priest in the sex abuse scandal among clergy members in the Boston Archdiocese is challenging what are called the repressed memories of his accuser. The former priest, Paul Shanley, is serving a sentence of 12 to 15 years in prison after being convicted in 2005 of repeatedly raping a boy at a Newton parish in the 1980s. In a motion for a new trial, Mr. Shanley said his former lawyer did not properly challenge the repressed memory evidence that helped convict him.

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

By Tim Townsend
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
05/29/2008

The feisty, stubborn members of the Polish church believed their long, rich history would save them. But the Vatican saw things differently, and now the congregation, which still celebrates Mass in Polish once a week, is set to follow a renegade priest into the fringes of the church.

The Vatican has upheld the excommunication of the board members of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, and also has hinted that the church's pastor, the Rev. Marek Bozek, would soon be laicized, or stripped of his priesthood.

If Bozek is laicized, he said he will ask a different bishop to oversee St. Stanislaus, and the board's chairman says the congregation will support him.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Catholic News Agency

St. Louis, May 29, 2008 / 01:03 am (CNA).- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has confirmed Archbishop of St. Louis Raymond Burke’s decree excommunicating the board of directors of a schismatic parish. Archbishop Burke had excommunicated the leaders of the breakaway ethnically Polish parish for hiring a suspended priest to celebrate the Sacraments and sacramentals.

The priest could be defrocked for remaining in schism, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has warned.

St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish had operated under a structure in which the pastor is subject to the authority of the parish governing board, in violation of canon law. Archbishop Burke sought to bring the parish into line with canon law, but the parish resisted his efforts. In August the archbishop removed priests assigned to St. Stanislaus and moved Polish language masses to a nearby parish. In January 2005 parishioners voted 299-5 to retain full control of the parish.

NEW YORK
The Journal News

By Brian and Patricia Ledley • May 29, 2008

As religion writer Gary Stern reported last week, the sudden reassignment of dozens of Catholic priests across the Archdiocese of New York has caused much consternaton among both priests and parishioners, with some questioning why the moves were made. A letter from a Brewster couple, sent to Cardinal Edward Egan, captures some of the anxiety and disappointment.

The community of Kennedy Catholic High School was stunned by Father Stephen Norton's announcement that he has been transferred. We are saddened, angry, worried for our future and overall just befuddled by the move. As you well know he has boosted enrollment by over 30 percent in his five years, dramatically increased the availability of technology to the student body and created a connection with the alumni that has begun to blossom. Last year's President's Dinner was the largest ever, with over 270 people in attendance.

We as parents need you to visit us at Kennedy to answer the following question: Why move him now?

UNITED STATES
AveWatch

The June 2008 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review (a publication from Ignatius Press, run by AMU’s Fr. Joseph Fessio) features a piece titled “Calumny in the blogosphere” by Ave Maria School of Law Chaplain, Fr. Michael Orsi. By nature of his chaplaincy and the recent changes in priestly administration at AMU, Fr. Orsi is arguably Tom Monaghan’s current top priest. Fr. Orsi will be familiar to AveWatch readers as the person behind a series of controversial Ave Maria radio broadcasts and as the Law School staff member who invited the “BoysCherries” investigation upon the institution [background 1, 2; archived series 2006-2007].

In the H&PR article, Orsi makes a number of legitimate, if not rambling, points about inappropriate activities by “blogs”. AveWatch has always shared the same concern for accuracy in what is published on the web; as a news site, AW doesn’t employ typical “blog” activities such as “incorporating a forum for interactive discussion”, a characteristic of blogs as noted by Orsi. AveWatch has never been asked by Ave Maria to retract a specific false statement; in fact, on several occasions, AveWatch has sent advance copies of stories to Ave Maria asking for input or corrections. To date, Ave Maria has declined AveWatch’s invitation to submit an article for publication on AW that offers evidence or opinions to counter what is found here.

As such, AW had no reason to consider Fr. Orsi’s H&PR opinion piece as pertaining to this website… that is, until late in his article when he maked a vague and curious reference to what might be AW’s coverage of his own “BoysCherries” imbroglio.

AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

SEAN FEWSTER, COURT REPORTER
May 29, 2008 01:30pm
TWO men sexually assaulted by a respected community leader kept silent for 30 years because of their tormentor's high profile, an Adelaide court has heard.

The victims of Ronald Louis Tuckwell today told the District Court they suffered without support because everyone they knew loved their abuser.

One of the men, who was just five when Tuckwell assaulted him, said he lives in fear he will continue the cycle of perversion. ...

Tuckwell is renowned in the Light Council area as a former mayoral candidate, teacher, volunteer worker and a church leader.

TEXAS
Deseret News

By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
Published: Thursday, May 29, 2008 12:04 a.m. MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Lawyers for a group of mothers whose children were rounded up in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch have a 9 a.m. deadline.

The Texas Supreme Court requested a response today by two legal aid groups representing FLDS mothers seeking to have their children returned to them. The high court is deciding whether to uphold or reject a decision by an Austin appellate court that orders the return of more than 100 children to 41 mothers.

"We're dedicated to representing these women throughout this process," said Cynthia Martinez of the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Society, which is representing 38 FLDS mothers. "If the court needs a response by 9 a.m., they'll get a response by 9 a.m."

HARRISBURG (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Angela Couloumbis
Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG - For more than a year, victims of childhood sexual abuse have been trying to get a public hearing on a bill that would make it easier for them to sue their abusers.

Yesterday, it was decided they would get their hearing - just not a vote on the legislation.

The House Committee on Children and Youth said it was scheduling a June 12 meeting to examine the issue of childhood sexual abuse and the impact it has on victims' lives. But the hearing will not specifically address a long-stalled bill calling for a two-year suspension on the statute of limitations for civil actions by adults who were victims of sexual abuse during childhood.

That measure has been bottled up in the powerful House Judiciary Committee since May of last year. Earlier this month, the committee's chairman, Rep. Thomas R. Caltagirone (D., Berks), told The Inquirer he would not allow a public hearing on the measure.

TENNESSEE
The White House Watch

By SHANTELE KEMPVANEE and JOHN FERGUSON
Watch Staff

According to Katie Burns, a former member of Christian Gospel Temple unrelated to the current lawsuits, the scandalous information circulating in the public arena is only the tip of the iceberg.

“There are 45 victims that I know of – that I can attach names to – in the past 60 years,” said Katie Burns, who says she was raped at the age of six by a teenager at the church.

“For every one that comes forward, there is typically three or four that don’t,” said Burns, who was allegedly raped on three separate occasions by George Wainscott, who, according to Burns, threatened to stab her family to death if she revealed the rape.

PENNSYLVANIA
Virtue Online

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
5/27/2008

Recently, the Diocese of Pennsylvania met for prayer to pray for...well exactly who should they pray for?

They decided to pray for Charles E. Bennison, the inhibited Bishop of Pennsylvania - a bishop who faces fraud in a civil court and ecclesiastical charges that he covered up his brother's sexual abuse of a minor.

At least one layman thought this was over the top and wrote, "While Charles is named in this prayer, no specific reference is made to the 14-year-old victim, her family, or Maggie Thompson, then the wife of (the Rev.) John Bennison." Nor, he said, was there any request made for courage for those who will be testifying.

BOSTON (MA)
Daily News Tribune

By Kerri Roche/Daily News staff
GHS
Posted May 29, 2008 @ 12:50 AM

BOSTON — A defrocked Newton priest convicted of raping a young boy will appear before a Suffolk Superior Court judge today and challenge the repressed memories of his victim in hopes of a new trial.

In 2005, Paul Shanley, 77, was convicted by a Middlesex Superior Court jury on two counts of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery upon a child.

He is serving a 12- to 15-year sentence at Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater.

Shanley was one of the most notorious figures in the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse scandal.

Today, a judge will hear Shanley's request for a new a trial.

MAINE
Morning Sentinel

The Rev. John J. Curran, who died in 1976, served as priest at Augusta's St. Augustine Church from 1962 to 1972. Curran was a central and powerful figure in the city's Catholic community, largely composed of Franco-Americans. So it was fitting that when the state wanted to honor Augusta's citizens of French descent, the downtown span crossing the Kennebec River was named the "Father Curran Bridge." So, too, it was fitting that two college scholarships in the area -- one at the University of Maine at Augusta, the other awarded by the Calumet Club -- were named in honor of Curran.

Yet much has changed since those honors were bestowed on Curran. Allegations of sexual abuse have been lodged against priests across the country, and Augusta's Catholic parish was not immune. At least two people came forward -- one to the Legislature and the other to the Attorney General's office -- and claimed that Curran sexually abused them when they were children. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland investigated both claims and spokeswoman Sue Bernard says the diocese believes one of those two formal accusations to be true. If Curran were alive today, says Bernard, the diocese would ask the Vatican to prevent him from ministering.

CLEVELAND (OH)
MyFox Cleveland

CLEVELAND -- The defense team for the former chief financial officer of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese sought to discredit the government's key witness in federal court today.

Former CFO Joe Smith is on trial for allegedly taking almost $800,000 in kickbacks. Smith says he didn't steal the money, but that it was a raise paid in unusual ways. Smith's defense team asserts that unusual types of payments used to be common at the diocese.

Four years ago, Fox 8 I-Team Reporter Bill Sheil broke the story of the alleged kickback scheme within the diocese. The government indicted Smith in 2006.

UNITED STATES
Orthodox Reform

Matushka Carol Bacha has started a petition calling for help for victims of OCA clergy abuse.

UNITED STATES
Orthodox Reform

A priest defrocked for “ethical and sexual reasons” has now been reinstated, and is supported by Metropolitan Isaiah:

“The Synod decided the reinstatement of defrocked priest John Theodore to the active priesthood and ministry of the church. Fr. Theodore had been defrocked a few years ago for alleged ethical and sexual reasons. The reasoning behind the reinstatement of Fr. Theodore was that “he has repented” and also “to give him a second chance.” Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver supports him wholeheartedly. The Holy Synod had discussed Fr. Theodore’s case in its meeting on March 2007.”

AUSTRALIA
Eureka

Andrew Hamilton May 29, 2008

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church, in which he explores what he sees as the roots of abuse in the Church, continues to raise controversy.

In May this year the Australian Bishops issued a statement in which they praised Bishop Robinson's commitment to the victims of abuse, but raised issues of doctrine that concerned them in his book. In reply, Bishop Robinson expressed disappointment that they left untreated the central challenge made by his book.

Acting on the request of Roman authorities, many United States Bishops have recently said he would not be welcome to speak in their churches. ...

In his book Bishop Robinson argues that the causes of sexual abuse are to be sought in the psychological state of the abusers, in their ideas about power and sex, and in the environment that shapes them. He claims that these factors are woven together in a church culture that needs to be changed if the roots of sexual abuse are to be excised. He explores broadly how this church culture developed and how it could be changed.

NEWPORT BEACH (CA)
KNBC

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- A woman who worked as a bookkeeper and office manager for Newport Harbor Lutheran Church was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison for stealing about $320,000 from the church by forging checks.

Cheryl Leann Granger, 45, who lived in Irvine but moved to New Hampshire after theft was discovered, admitted to felony counts of grand theft and forgery, and a sentencing enhancement that losses exceeded $150,000, said Farrah Emami of the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

Granger was ordered to pay $333,133 in restitution, Emami said, but it was unclear if she had the means to do so.

HIGH POINT (NC)
Fox8 News

By CARON MYERS
FOX8 News

HIGH POINT, N.C. (WGHP) – A Methodist minister is charged with soliciting sex for money.

Otis Durham, the pastor of Sandy Ridge United Methodist Church, was nabbed in a sting operation in which Durham believed he was meeting a woman he had met online.

The 54-year-old has served as a Methodist minister for the past seven years.

RIVERHEAD (NY)
Times Beacon Record

May 28, 2008 | 04:11 PM
A former private school teacher and youth pastor arrested by Suffolk detectives May 15 for having a sexual relationship with a female teenage student was arraigned today in Suffolk County court in Riverhead.

Rodney A. Jackson Jr. of Holbrook Street in Patchogue pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of criminal sexual act in the third degree, six counts of third degree rape and one charge of endangering the welfare of a child.

The defendant allegedly began a sexual relationship in April of 2006 with a 16 year old female student at Our Savior New American School in Centereach.

TEXAS
The Salt Lake Tribune

Rebecca Walsh
Tribune Columnist
Article Last Updated: 05/28/2008 02:25:41 PM MDT

The moment demanded a Raymond Burr flourish:

Still reeling from an appeals court ruling that cracked the foundation of the largest child welfare case in the country, Texas attorneys produced a photo just this side of kiddy porn - a lanky Warren Jeffs kissing a tiny, flat-chested girl "how a husband would kiss a wife."

That kind of courtroom drama only happens on "Perry Mason" or in a John Grisham novel. And Judge Barbara Walther, Texas Child Protective Services and state attorney Ellen Griffith got the gut-churning change of subject they wanted - Ewww!

The 2006 photo became proof positive, according to Griffith et al., of Texas CPS' claims that a "pervasive" system of child abuse exists on the Yearning For Zion Ranch, that each of the 450 children bused to shelters and foster homes throughout Texas were at risk.

BOSTON (MA)
Daily News Tribune

By Kerri Roche
GateHouse News Service
Posted May 28, 2008 @ 04:48 PM

BOSTON — A defrocked Newton priest convicted of raping a young boy will appear before a Suffolk Superior Court judge Thursday and challenge the repressed memories of his victim in hopes of a new trial.

In 2005, Paul Shanley, 77, was convicted by a Middlesex Superior Court jury on two counts of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery upon a child.
He is currently serving a 12- to 15-year sentence at Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater.

Shanley was one of the most notorious figures in the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse scandal.

On Thursday, a judge will hear Shanley’s request for a new a trial.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
News-Leader

News-Leader staff • May 28, 2008

The Vatican has ruled that the six members of the board of directors of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in St. Louis and their priest committed the act of schism two and a half years ago and are excommunicated, the Archdiocese of St. Louis Web site announced today.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had considered an appeal of a Dec. 15, 2005 declaration of excommunication by St. Louis Archibishop Raymond Burke after the board refused to turn over ownership of its property to the archdiocese and then independently hired a priest.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

May 28, 2008 03:44 PM
By Globe Staff

Defrocked priest Paul R. Shanley, a notorious figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal who was convicted in 2005 on rape and assault charges, has filed a motion for a new trial, the Middlesex district attorney's office said today.

A hearing on the motion is slated for tomorrow afternoon in Suffolk Superior Court, prosecutors said.

Shanley was convicted in February 2005 in Middlesex Superior Court of raping and fondling a Sunday school student in the 1980s. He was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison.

UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

Tim Giago

The upstanding and righteous Christian community had to do something. The people living near them had a religion that was so different than their own that it had to be considered as heathen. They didn't believe in Jesus Christ so they had to be on the wrong path.

And what's more, they were living in deep sin by practicing polygamy. Why some of the men had as many as three or four wives. What kind of damage was this doing to the innocent children?

The Christian community saw only one conclusion. They had to go in and rescue the children. If that meant sending law enforcement officials into the community to forcibly take the children from their parents, so be it. It would lead to a much better life for the children so the parents be damned. After all, what did these backward people know about raising children properly?

No, I am not talking about the fiasco at San Angelo, Texas. I am talking about what happened to the children of Native Americans across America in the late 1800s. Thousands of children were ripped from the arms of their mothers and fathers and shipped off to far away schools that would endeavor to turn them into God-fearing Christians, but not before they were shorn of their identities, their culture, religion and traditions.

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

By Tim Townsend
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
05/28/2008

ST. LOUIS -- The Vatican has upheld St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke’s 2005 declaration of excommunication of the Stanislaus Six, the six lay members of the St. Stanislaus Kostka Church board who refused to turn over church property and assets to the archdiocese.

The board members were declared excommunicated after they hired a priest — the Rev. Marek Bozek — who had been suspended by his own bishop in the diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau.

Bozek, who was made a member of the St. Stan's board, was also declared excommunicated by Burke, and the rejection of the board's appeal also includes his excommunication, according to the archdiocese.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith rejected the board’s appeal of the excommunications, writing in a decree dated May 15, 2008, that "it is evident that the Board Members have committed the delict of schism by constituting St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish as an independent entity capable of appointing its own clergy apart from the hierarchy of the Church."

CALIFORNIA
Voice from the Desert

Received via email from Joey Piscitelli who lives in Northern California.

Thanks, Joey.

Response to Salesian Kingpin Fr. John Itzaina

The current mouthpiece for the World Record holder clergy molesters, the Salesians of California, is Fr. John Itzaina. Itzaina goes on record as attacking Attorney Ray Boucher, for “getting rich on the misery of the abused.” This formidable statement is followed by Itzaina’s claim that Salesians clergy’s lives are ruined by “allegations without proof.” How can attorneys get rich on the misery of the abused, if, according to Itzaina, the false accusers were not abused?

If it were true that the Salesians were merely innocent priests who have been falsely targeted, I could not go on record and state in writing that: The Salesians Dabbenne and Billante were convicted, Presenti and Miani are serial pedophiles, Whelan and Vitone were found guilty by juries, and of course, “the Salesians are record holder accused molesters.”

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Denise Lavoie
AP Legal Affairs Writer / May 28, 2008
BOSTON—A notorious priest in the clergy sex abuse crisis in the Boston Archdiocese is challenging the repressed memories of his victim in a bid for a new trial.

Defrocked priest Paul Shanley is serving a 12- to 15-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2005 of repeatedly raping a boy at a Newton parish in the 1980s.

In a motion for a new trial, Shanley claims his former lawyer did not properly challenge the repressed memory evidence that helped convict him. The victim testified he repressed memories of the sexual abuse until 2002, when they came back as the sex abuse scandal unfolded in the media.

CALIFORNIA
City of Angels

A priest wrote: “The successful settlement with plaintiffs in the Los Angeles sexual abuse cases have (sic) been on the minds of all of us, especially with Father David Purdy, our provincial. I know for certain that these 17 cases have weighed heavily on him and have damaged his physical and psychological well being. With medication, rest, and conversation he seems to be doing much better.

"Didn’t St. Paul say we make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, an enigmatic statement for sure, but so true for Fr. David and our province these last few years? At the news that we had settled in Los Angeles, Fr. Pascual Chávez emailed to say, 'Now that the nightmare is over, I hope that Fr. David Purdy will feel better, because this was a tremendous pressure on him, and also the Province will be able to move forwardmore purified.'" -- Fr. John Itzaina, SDB, Vice Provincial, in In Touch, 5.19.08

A Salesian sex crime survivor wrote: "The current mouthpiece for World Record holder Clergy molesters the Salesians of California is Fr. John Itzaina. Itzaina goes on record as attacking Attorney Ray Boucher, for “getting rich on the misery of the abuses.” (see May 22 CofA post.)

Letter from Joey Piscitelli continued:

This formidable statement is followed by Itzaina’s claim that Salesians Clergy’s lives are ruined by “allegations without proof.” How can Attorneys get rich on the misery of the abused, if , according to Itzaina, the false accusers were not abused?

NEW JERSEY
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

Bishop Joseph A. Galante was greeted with placards calling for his resignation and even some boos last night when he appeared at St. Mary's parish in Malaga, where dozens implored him to keep their little church open.

"Small, vibrant parishes have a right to exist," read a placard carried by Tom Mazzola, 72. "The bishop should resign."

Parishioners from a half-dozen other parishes around the Diocese of Camden also stood outside St. Mary's bearing signs asking Galante to keep their parishes open.

"Don't make our parish perish," read one.

AUSTRALIA
Catholica

posted by Brian Coyne

See Bishop Robinson on "Faith Matters Now":
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4922240

Skip over the next segment and see the rest of the interview and Richard Gaillardetz' response at:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4922281

How refreshing it is watching a bishop speaking as openly and candidly as this. I submit this is the sort of language our Church needs to use if it is to reach out to the world again. It's language directed "downwards and outwards" trying to address the real issues in people's lives. It's not language directed "inwards and upwards" trying to prove to God, Jesus, the Pope, or who knows, saying "look at me, aren't I being good!" This really is refreshing. Thank God for Geoffrey Robinson! May his example be followed by many other bishops and pastoral leaders.

TEXAS
KSL

Team coverage

There was a new twist today in the court battles over children belonging to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in Texas: One of the fathers tried to get a judge removed from the case.

Dan Jessop started court proceedings with a bang. Showing off pictures of his wife and two older children, he fired a shot across the bow of the judge who authorized the raid on the FLDS compound almost seven weeks ago.

"I'm trying to get somebody to listen to me that I'm an innocent man. I haven't done any of these bad things that they say I've done, but nobody will listen," Jessop said.

EUCLID (OH)
News-Herald

Nick Carrabine
NCarrabine@News-Herald.com

05/28/2008

If approved by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland in February, Euclid will have gone from six Catholic churches to three by July 2010.

The city has six parishes that are members of the Cuyahoga County Suburban East cluster: Holy Cross, St. Christine, St. Felicitas, St. Paul, St. Robert and St. William.

Because of a decline in Mass attendance, a change in demographics, fewer priests, decreasing revenue and increasing costs, each parish formed a five-member team in July to find a solution and submit a recommendation to Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon.

The cluster planning teams met for the past year, and each parish held a two-hour meeting Tuesday night to go over the results of their meetings. ...

If a church were to close, all of the assets and liabilities go to the Diocese of Cleveland, a cluster team representative said. ...

The properties at the proposed former churches will be sold, but as soon as they cease to perform as places of worship they're considered taxable by Cuyahoga County. Functioning churches are tax exempt, McNulty said.

One member of St. Robert asked if they could sell the land and put the money toward the cost of education.

St. Robert Pastor Rev. Dennis McNeil said the Bishop has to sign for any sale because the land is in his name and already has been contacted by interested buyers.

UNITED STATES
Father Lasch

Tuesday May 27, 2008
Since the previous posting ‘Potpourri Plus’ I have received comments from website ‘subscribers’ relevant to the topic at hand. The first is from a subscriber, a former seminarian for a religious community in California. He is now living in the east. He is a remarkably insightful gentleman and has had several letters published over the last few years in the National Catholic Reporter. Shall we say he cuts to the chase?

Harvey: Let it run!

Fr. Lasch: Just by way of introduction, recall that we have been discussing the ‘grooming’ aspect of sexual abuse by clergy. Understanding this ‘phenomenon’ is crucial in order to appreciate the underpinnings of sexual abuse. It’s not the only underpinning but it is significant.

Harvey: I think you spent some time on this topic in the original “Harvey Interviews.”

Fr. Lasch: Yes, we did. At any rate, here is how this subscriber states it:

Subscriber’s Observations:

I enjoyed the column; I’m particularly intrigued that you’re beginning to nibble around the edges of the clerical life.

The word ‘clericalism’ gets bandied about a great deal but I honestly wonder sometimes if it’s starting to become a bit meaningless—when it is in fact quite meaningful.

FRANKLIN (NJ)
Courier-Post

By JIM WALSH • Courier-Post Staff • May 28, 2008

FRANKLIN — Bishop Joseph Galante came here to listen Tuesday night and the leader of the Camden Diocese got an earful.

An overflow crowd of more than 200 people jammed into St. Mary's Church in Malaga, where they blasted the bishop's plan to shut more than half of the parishes in the South Jersey diocese. The small country church used by St. Mary's parishioners would close as part of the makeover.

Parishioners from across the region greeted Galante with signs that called for his resignation and described the diocese as a "destruction zone."

Many wore blue ribbons that read "Save St. Mary's," while others called for the survival of parishes like St. Gregory's in Magnolia and St. Anthony in Waterford.

"This isn't right," said Donna Bosco of Malaga, whose family has worshipped at St, Mary's for five generations. "I just pray they keep this church open."

ATLANTA (GA)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 05/28/08

Roman Catholic leaders may be reaching to Peachtree Street to make a pick for the Big Apple.

Atlanta's popular and respected Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory is one of several candidates under consideration to replace Cardinal Edward Egan, the Archbishop of New York, church watchers say.

The secretive and sometimes long process to assign Egan's successor could take years, as it has in the past, but several indicators are that a choice could be made sooner rather than later. ...

His communication skills were tried and honed in the years immediately before he came to Atlanta. He did tough work as head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the early 2000s, addressing the church sex abuse scandal in the U.S. He set a zero-tolerance policy for abusers, some of whom had been shifted from church to church in the past, and he called for parishioners to make reports to police.

VERMONT
Burlington Free Press

By Paul Rousseau

I found myself reading The Burlington Free Press editorial on Thursday evening while also watching the 6 p.m. broadcast of the WCAX .

The editorial board made two statements: "The verdict should end any sense of denial that might linger about the church's share of the responsibility" and "The size of the punitive damages -- awarded as punishment to the church -- shows how seriously the jury of everyday Vermonters felt was the church's lapse in protecting children under its care."

Very bold statements by the board, but apparently incorrect and misleading while listening to the additional reports on WCAX.

WCAX interviewed two jurors, on condition of anonymity, on the reasons for such a large punitive award. They stated that part of their thought process was that they wanted to send a wake up call to the church which did not present any evidence at trial on what the church has done since that time to protect children under its care. As far as the jury was concerned, the church had done nothing and only a large punitive award would force the church to act.

TEXAS
Deseret News

By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
Published: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 11:33 a.m. MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas — A deal was struck today involving a 14-day-old baby caught up in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's raid on the YFZ Ranch.

The deal was announced in court this morning after a 2 1/2 hour delay. The hearing would have called numerous child witnesses, attorneys said, including a 13-year-old girl who Child Protective Services authorities suggested last week was a child bride of church leader Warren Jeffs.

The deal gives Texas CPS sole conservatorship over the baby and appoints the parents, Dan Jessop and Louisa Bradshaw (Jessop), as temporary possessors. The deal also delays the hearing until the Texas Supreme Court decides what to do about hundreds of other children still in state custody.

TEXAS
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 05/27/2008 10:25:08 AM MDT

Posted: 9:41 AM- The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services continues to argue it does not have sufficient evidence to match FLDS children with alleged mothers, in a new document filed today with the state Supreme Court.
On Friday, the department asked the court to stay a lower court's ruling that children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were kept in state custody improperly and that they should be returned to their families.
The initial request from DFPS contends the ruling issued Thursday by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin was overbroad and would "irreparably" affect the outcome of cases involving hundreds of children taken from the polygamous sect's ranch in Eldorado last month.

UNITED STATES
Journey to a New Pentecost

Congratulations are in order for a retired Auxiliary Bishop from Australia, Geoffrey Robinson, the author of ”Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church”.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson is a recent receipent of two awards: “Priests of Integrity” Award sponsored by Voice of the Faithful and the “Hans Küng Rights of Catholics in the Church” Award sponsored by the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church.

Prior to Bishop Robinson’s tour of the United States, the Bishops of Australia issued a blanket condemnation of Bishop Robinson’s book (read it here) and urged him to cancel his speaking engagements. You can read Bishop Robinson’s response to his brother Bishops here.

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
Orange County Weekly

Posted by Gustavo Arellano in Ex Cathedra
May 27, 2008 8:58 AM

It is with much regret that OC's favorite idiot bloggin' Catholic priest, Christopher Heath of St. Edward the Confessor in Dana Point, announced last week that he will no longer post, and it really is a tragedy. Now, who will be so openly cavalier in his attitude toward clerical sex-abuse victims?

For one of his swan songs, Heath wrote about the controversy surrounding retired Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, whom Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown arrogantly tried to ban from giving a June 11 speech in the Costa Mesa Community Center. Of course, Heath won't see "this Aussie," as he so eloquently puts it. But the most galling part? "I doubt this bishop is going to be any different from the kind of speakers who come every year into our diocese as part of the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, which in my opinion is not worth going to," he opines.

VERMONT
The Observer (Springfield, Mass.)

The Diocese of Burlington’s decision to appeal the record-setting $7.8 million verdict against it in a clergy misconduct case is certain to prolong the course of justice.

But it is necessary, both for the financial ability of the church in Vermont to effectively minister and for its efforts to correct the public’s understanding of church history.

Predictably, attorney-allied groups like the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), cited “an ancient, rigid, secretive, all-male monarchy that essentially answers to no one.”

BURLINGTON (VT)
Brattleboro Reformer

The Associated Press

Tuesday, May 27
BURLINGTON - The next priest sex abuse trial against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington is scheduled to begin in August.

Officials with the Chittenden County Superior Court say the next three cases all involve allegations against the Rev. Edward Paquette, who is retired. There are about 20 cases pending against the diocese.

Earlier this month a jury awarded a 40-year-old man $8.7 million in damages. The man claimed the diocese failed to protect him from Paquette, a known child molester.

NEW YORK
Poughkeepsie Journal

By John Davis • Poughkeepsie Journal • May 27, 2008

The transfer of the Rev. Stephen Norton to St. Denis Catholic Church in Hopewell Junction is among more than 40 changes in assignments for priests in the New York Archdiocese.

Norton is president of John F. Kennedy High in Somers where parents plan to fight the transfer of the popular priest to St. Denis. No one could be reached at St. Denis for comment on the transfer.

While the transfer of Norton and other priests is raising some objections in the archdiocese, Joseph Zwilling, the archdiocese spokesman, said the transfer of priests in the early summer is nothing out of the ordinary. Between 40 to 46 are set to be transferred by July 1. Last year, 39 or 40 were transferred, he said.

"Priest terms usually end on June 30 and new assignments are effective July 1st," Zwilling said.

AUSTRALIA
Lateline

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 26/05/2008
Reporter: Suzanne Smith

There are calls for the Pope to apologise to the Australian victims of paedophile priests when he visits Sydney for World Youth Day.

Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Bishop Michael Malone is the only bishop in Australia calling for a papal apology to sexual abuse victims when the Pope visits the country in July for World Youth Day. The story behind why the Bishop for the Maitland Newcastle diocese in New South Wales is taking such a stand is a story of shocking abuse and congregations ripped apart.

It's also a story of betrayal, how the Catholic Church fought a family's legal battle to get a paedophile priest removed from duty and into jail. Suzanne Smith investigates.

SUZANNE SMITH, REPORTER: This Catholic Church was once filled with worshippers every Sunday. The last parish priest died in jail after sexually abusing at least four young boys over a period of more than 20 years, in various parishes. Daniel was an altar boy at St Patrick's Church when Father Fletcher arrived in the late 1980s. Daniel was 11 years old. Daniel, like his parents and three brothers, was a devout Catholic. His father worked closely with the bishop of the diocese. Concerned that Father Fletcher knew no one in the parish, Daniel's family befriended the new priest. It's a bitter memory for Daniel's mother.

CALIFORNIA
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling
Good morning, folks, it’s time for some corrections. Re the Salesian mansion, which YES will be sold to pay the LA settlements, the Provincial House in San Francisco only looks "squatty" from the front where the public sees it, a faithful reader tells me. The mansion is “huge” and from side views it stretches w-a-a-a-ay back and takes up an entire city block.

Another correction: The Itzaina letter in the May 22nd post, where the Vice Provincial takes Ray Boucher to task and claims all Salesian priests are innocent, was not written last month as reported here, but less than 48 hours before the May 14th settlement, which included an admission that Titian Miani DID rape four plaintiffs. Also, Itzaina is not just "a Vice Provincial," but THE Vice-Provincial, my source emailed me scolding.

The camp to be sold is likely Camp Salesian, in Middletown, California, north of Santa Rosa, my source, who says he has to stay anonymous as that's how things are with the Salesians, said.

The Salesians have two camps, Camp St. Francis for boys age 7 to 13 featured in a post here last week, and Camp Salesian. “No activities appear to be planned at Camp Salesian in Middletown this summer,” said my source, “whereas a full summer camp program staffed by Salesians is scheduled at Camp St. Francis for this summer.”

UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Ellen Fagg
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/26/2008 02:49:01 PM MDT

In a way, actor Martin Moran was inspired to write his intensely personal memoir-cum-play "The Tricky Part" because of what happened to him in Utah.
Back in 1988, the Colorado-born actor was cast in Pioneer Theatre Company's production of "Singing in the Rain," but a knee injury on opening night laid him up for a few months. During his career layoff, Moran went home to Denver to recuperate.
He set himself to the task of studying plays, but instead found himself writing a response to a subconscious, urgent question: "What happened to you when you were 12? Tell the truth."
What had happened to Moran, then a Catholic school boy, was a three year-long period of sexual victimization by a church camp counselor, memories he had buried for most of his adult life.

CANADA
The Edmonton Journal

Elise Stolte, The Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - The man killed in a northern helicopter crash last weekend was abused at a residential school as a child, but went on to become a leader in his community.

Alvin Yallee, 51, died outside a remote diamond exploration camp near Norman Wells, N.W.T., on Saturday when the helicopter he was riding in crashed and burst into flames.

Yallee was born in Tulita, a hamlet on the Mackenzie River, about 100 kilometres south of the crash site. Every winter, students like him were flown 500 kilometres northwest to Inuvik, to Grollier Hall, a Catholic residential school.

CALIFORNIA
California Catholic Daily

A state appeals court has ruled that a lawsuit alleging decades-old abuse by a Central California priest may go forward based on a review of deposition testimony by Cardinal Roger Mahony. A trial court had earlier dismissed the case.

Two brothers, George and Howard Santillan, claim they were molested by Msgr. Anthony Herdegen from 1959-1973 at a parish in Wasco. In 2003, the brothers sued the Fresno diocese under an act of the California legislature permitting the filing of abuse claims otherwise void under the statute of limitations. The brothers claimed the diocese had failed to protect them from abuse. The trial court, however, agreed with the diocese that there was no evidence that the diocese had any knowledge of abuse by Herdegen.

The trial court had heard testimony that Herdegen’s elderly housekeeper knew or should have known of the abuse. The woman, Barbara Zielman (also spelled Zeilman by the appeals court), sometimes let the brothers into Herdegen’s bedroom. Zielman knew the brothers “were often alone with Herdegen behind his closed bedroom door,” said the appeals court decision. The housekeeper “was hired by Herdegen and paid with parish funds, but those funds ultimately belonged to the Diocese,” said the 2-1 decision issued last week by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles.

VERMONT
Burlington Free Press

By Sam Hemingway • Free Press Staff Writer • May 27, 2008

The next three clergy abuse cases on tap for trial in Burlington involve claims of molestation by the Rev. Edward Paquette similar to allegations that led a jury to award $8.7 million in damages to a Paquette victim this month.

Diane Lavallee, clerk of Chittenden County Superior Court, said the three cases selected for a potential Aug. 5 trial start were picked because they had been on the docket the longest of the 22 priest sex-abuse cases pending at the court.

The oldest of the three cases -- involving claims by a former Montpelier altar boy identified in court papers only as "John Doe" -- will be tried first, unless it is resolved by August. If that case is resolved, one of the other two cases will take its place.

The future course of the ongoing Vermont clergy abuse litigation has been uncertain since a jury awarded an alleged Paquette victim, a former altar boy at Christ the King Church in Burlington, $8.7 million in damages after concluding the diocese engaged in negligent supervision by hiring and retaining Paquette, a known child molester.

UNITED STATES
American Papist

[with link to Cardinal Mahony's letter]

Wonders never cease, and I'm glad they don't.

Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson was recently condemned for "doctrinal difficulties" by the Australian Bishops Conference, and when Voice of the Faithful invited him to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to deliver a lecture, none other than Cardinal Mahony decided to step in:

Cardinal Roger Mahony has denied an Australian bishop permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles after the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued a statement warning of “doctrinal difficulties” present in the bishop’s writings. (CNA)

How Cardinal Mahony handled it:

Archbishop of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony in a May 9 letter asked Bishop Robinson not to speak in his archdiocese. ...

Even if the Cardinal was motivated by a fear that Bishop Robinson was being disrespectful of his authority, the bottom line is that Cardinal Mahony did the correct thing, and a brave one. He even managed to get on the bad side of Voice of the Faithful:

UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert

I received the following email from Bob Stewart, Co-Chair of VOTF Holy Trinity in Washington D.C.

It’s clear the long knives are out to Get Bishop Geoffrey Robinson.

Truth-tellers are very real threats to bishops and to people like the person who edits the blog called “dccatholic” which carried this diatribe against Bishop Robinson.

Thought you may want to bring attention to this.

Please be sure to note Dr. Bill D’Antonio’s posting on this web site: http://dccatholic.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/disgraced-australian-bishop-geoffrey-robinson-speaks-in-the-archdiocese-of-washington/.

WASHINGTON (DC)
D.C. Catholic

Last night, Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson spoke to Washington, DC area affiliates of Voice of the Faithful, a dissident group, at the National 4-H Youth Center, as this entry in the parish bulletin of St. John’s, Silver Spring states (thanks to Archdiocese of Washington Catholic)

However, we also learned yesterday (thanks to the American Papist and CNA) that Cardinal Mahony, of Los Angeles, has written to Bishop Robinson asking him not to speak in his diocese and invoked Canon 763 and denied him permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

No action was taken by Archbishop Wuerl prior to Bishop Robinson’s speech to the faithful of Washington, DC.

TEXAS
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Rebecca Walsh
Tribune Columnist
Article Last Updated: 05/25/2008 02:29:12 AM MDT

Don't wait for Gloria Allred to step into the mess in Texas.

She's watching Larry King, the news conferences. Over the years, she has been asked to represent some of the FLDS women. But she's waiting for the right case.

So far, this one doesn't seem to be it.

For a feminist attorney who has made a career out of representing some of the most maligned, powerless women in America - Rob Lowe's nanny, Scott Peterson's mistress, Orem water scofflaw Betty Perry - polygamous wives are not easy victims.

"We're so used to thinking of the individual rights of each woman. Here, it's all turned on its head. In polygamy, all women must be subordinated," Allred says. "Women are obviously treated like property. They're prizes for men who obey the rules." ...

And Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints interpretation of polygamy is particularly controlling - women are uneducated, financially dependent and impregnated at a young age to keep them that way. They look and sound like Stepford Wives on the Prairie.

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By EMILY RAMSHAW and ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Child welfare officials were up against a culture of secrecy, unlimited resources and sect members well-schooled in the art of misleading authorities as they tried to build their case for removing hundreds of children from a West Texas polygamist enclave, religious experts and former adherents say.

Thursday's appeals court decision that many if not all of the children removed from the Yearning For Zion ranch last month must be returned to their parents highlights how difficult it is to build a child welfare case against a fundamentalist religious group, sect investigators say – particularly without a vocal victim.

The 450 children remain in state custody while the Texas Supreme Court decides whether to take up the case. But the legal challenge has kindled quiet debate over whether Texas authorities should deal with polygamist groups as states such as Utah and Arizona have done: trying to win cooperation rather than raiding communities and prosecuting members en masse.

TEXAS
The Christian Science Monitor

By Faye Bowers | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 27, 2008 edition

Phoenix - Are the beliefs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the polygamous sect that the state of Texas has also accused of child abuse, sufficient grounds for removing all the children from the group's compound in Eldorado, Texas?

The answer now lies in the hands of the Texas Supreme Court, and how it rules will help resolve a major church-state clash that began when Texas officials last month took some 460 minors from the sect's Yearning for Zion ranch after receiving phone calls from an alleged underage spouse complaining of physical abuse. That complaint, it turns out, was almost certainly a hoax – the first in a series of bad news for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS).

It also now appears that evidence about the sect's belief system that the state collected during the raid – and presented to a district court to justify its temporary removal of the children – is probably flawed. In the DFPS's biggest setback so far, a Texas appeals court on May 22 overturned the district court's decision to keep the children in state custody temporarily.

TEXAS
KXAN

Three families from that Texas polygamist ranch have their children back Monday; but they're still not allowed back into the compound, where officials say they found pregnant teens and child brides.

For weeks FLDS members have complained Texas officials had no right to seize more than 450 children from the sect ranch near El Dorado. Now that an appeals court has sided with the FLDS, a dozen children have been re-united with their parents for the time being.

"It was so comforting to hold them and to take them out put them in the car and know that we were going to stay with them that night," father Joseph Jessop said.

TEXAS
azfamily.com

[with video and photos of Warren Jeffs with an alleged minor bride]

TEXAS - The Texas Supreme Court has been working through the holiday weekend determining the fate of hundreds of children removed from that polygamous compound in Texas.

The court is considering an appeal from Child Protective Services after a Texas appeals court ruled last Thursday the children should be returned to their parents but that is not the only development taking place in Texas courts.

There has been some explosive evidence being presented in court. This extraordinary story is now being played out in various courts of law and in the court of public opinion where sympathy for the FLDS community and anger at the state of Texas seems to be the prevailing sentiment, with networks agreeing not to ask tough questions of FLDS members in order to get access. The following interview was provided to 3TV by CNN:

For weeks FLDS have complained that Texas officials had not right to seize more than 450 children from the ranch near ElDorado. Now that an appeals court has sided with the FLDS a dozen children, for the time being, have been renunited with their parents.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

PM - Monday, 26 May , 2008 18:30:00
Reporter: Suzanne Smith
MARK COLVIN: There's still no confirmation from the Catholic Church of press reports that the Pope will make an apology for the Church's history of sexual abuse when he visits Sydney in July.

Bishop Michael Malone is the only Catholic Bishop in Australia calling for a papal apology.

He wants the Pontiff to see a group of victims when he arrives for World Youth Day in July.

But the story behind why the Bishop of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese in NSW is calling for an apology is one of shocking abuse and congregations ripped apart

It's also a story of betrayal. How the Catholic Church fought a family's court battle to get a paedophile priest removed from duty and into jail.

TEXAS
GetReligion

Posted by dpulliam

The Salt Lake Tribune has been the place to go for news on the FLDS court battles in Texas. While most news organizations have focused on the arguments before the Texas Supreme Court Friday regarding an appellate court’s decision finding the removal of 468 children improper, the Tribune has the goods on how the knives are coming out in this chaotic legal battle, at the heart of which are religious beliefs and values.

Reporter Brooke Adams demonstrates a tremendous ability to tell the complex story from the collapse of the state’s case due to a lack of hard evidence, to the introduction of The Photo, which is posted above, by state officials. The Photo shows imprisoned sect leader Warren Jeffs giving a not-so-friendly kiss to a 12-year-old girl he allegedly married nearly two years ago:

In San Angelo, the state went to battle with the Jeffs photos.

ITALY
la Repubblica

di MATTEO TONELLI

ROMA - Si parla di Chiesa. Quella che passò attraverso gli anni di piombo. Quella del sequestro Moro e della dissociazione. La Chiesa e Cosa Nostra, la mafia devota e la religione "capovolta". Ed ancora Chiesa e pedofilia, una delle pagine più nere della storia. E i conti in tasca al Vaticano per capire quanto ci costa la Santa Sede.

I costi della Chiesa. Da una serie di articoli a firma di Curzio Maltese su Repubblica, nasce La Questua. Quanto costa la Chiesa agli italiani (Feltrinelli, 14 euro). Qualche cifra per capire. Un miliardo di euro dai versamenti dell'otto per mille. 650 milioni per gli stipendi degli insegnanti di religione. 700 milioni per le convenzioni su scuola e sanità. 250 milioni per il finanziamento dei Grandi Eventi. Mittente lo Stato italiano, destinatario la Chiesa cattolica. Senza contare vantaggi fiscali come il mancato incasso dell'lci. il totale si aggira sui 4 miliardi di euro. Una somma che solo per un quinto viene destinata a interventi di carità e di assistenza sociale.

[translation]

From the religious mafia to the relationship with the terrorists and to the costs of the Vatican
Four books meticulously examine the most controversial aspects of the Church

Costs, silence and pedophilia
The other side of the frock

by MATTEO TONELLI

ROME - The subject is the Church. The one during the years of terrorism, when statesman Aldo Moro was kidnapped and when afterward many terrorists abandoned their fight. The Church's relationship with the mafia, the faithful one, with that kind of religious "upside down" behavior. Moreover, the relationship between Church and pedophilia, one of the blackest pages of history. And how much is the money pocketed by the Vatican to calculate the cost for the Italian taxpayers.

The costs of the Church. The book entitled La Questua (request for alms) contains a series of articles written by Curzio Maltese in the newspaper Repubblica. The publisher is Feltrinelli and the book can be bought for 14 euros. The subtitle is Quanto costa la Chiesa agli Italiani (How much the Church is costing to the Italians). Some figures can help us understand. A billion euros coming from the 8 euros per each thousand euros of almost the majority of the taxpayers' income. 650 million euros is given for the stipends of the teachers of religion. 700 million euros for the conventions about schools and health system. 250 million euros for the financing of the Grandi Eventi (very important events). The sender of the money is the Italian State, the recipient is the Catholic Church. Without counting other fiscal advantages like the exemption of the local real estate taxes. The total amount of money is about 4 billion euros, of which only a fifth is destined by the Church to charities and social assistance.

The faithful mafia. They seem to be worlds very far apart. Yet between mafia and religion, there is a tie which can be said all but tenuous. You only need to read La mafia devota (The faithful mafia) by Alessandra Dino (Publishers Laterza, 295 pages, 16 euros) to be aware of that. In order to understand how many times the mafia used and still uses catholic symbols to legitimate itself and as a self-absolution. As if there existed a "private" God with whom to bargain "the salvation of one's soul". A kind of "upside down" religion, to sum it up. Towards which, too often, the Church responds underestimating the phenomenon or considering it as a concept of intimate religiosity by which the mafia man is only seen as a "lost sheep". For there is the God of Father Puglisi, who was killed by the mafia in 1993, but also the Church which changed the route for the Saint Agata's procession in Catania in order to render homage to a mafia man just freed from jail by passing under the balcony of his home. A hybridity, as the author Dino calls it, after having spoken to many Sicilian priests. There are parish priests who "wish the Church's intervention in a synergy with the State", there are those who reduce the problem to a concept of intimate religiosity and those, the majority of the interviewed, who don't consider the presence of the mafia in the territory as a direct menace to the Church. Fortunately there are now some signs of repudiation of that stance. But a clear and direct pronouncement of the high ecclesiastical hierarchy hasn't come yet.

Church and terrorism. For those who chose the armed fight against the State like Camillo Torres, the guerrilla priest, church and terrorism weren't separated. The same happened to the many terrorists educated in a Catholic environment, the ones more sensitive to social justice. A "closeness" which was confirmed during the kidnapping of Judge Sossi and statesman Moro, the choice of the terrorist group Prima Linea to consign the arms to the Milan Curia and the fact that former terrorists had been Catholic volunteers. The book is entitled Parole, opere e confessioni. La Chiesa nell'Italia degli anni di piombo (Words, works and confessions. The Church during the years of the lead) . Written by Anna Valle (publishers Rizzoli, 262 pages, 17 euros). It's an investigation trip about the role of the Church in one of the darkest pages of contemporary history. Since the start, when some boys "grown up in the oratories" decided the only possible way to change things was the taking of the arms. " Many times I asked myself about the messages we gave - the Rev. Ciotti says in the book - if and how we helped people to connect the earth with heaven". Then there is the Moro's story. The church which tries or would do any attempt to save the life of the statesman and the one which stops any new attempt. Then the time of the defeat of terrorism arrives. Jail, dissociation, reinstatement in society. And once more the important role played by the Church. Just to close the circle which had initiated years before in some tranquil oratories in the Italian Provinces.

Church and pedophilia. The most horrendous of crimes. The darkest shadow on the Church. The silences, the pain, the reticence. The words of the victims. There are two things which can be read in the book Viaggio nel silenzio (A voyage in the silence) by Vania Lucia Gaito (publisher Chiarelettere, 273 pages, 13 euros): in Italy the known cases of clergy's pedophilia are about fifty but those who were reported are many more. There is the list of the priests convicted for pedophilia, with their first and last names. But what the church doesn't want to know is the reason, starting from the education in the seminaries. The picture is alarming: the lack of a normal psycho-sexual development can explain the tendency to pedophilia. The American dioceses, after the scandal, closed the seminaries for the minors. In Italy there continue to be 100 of them. And the witnessing of the former priest Alessandro Pasquinelli (who made a plea bargain even if now he seems to be unjustly in jail) shines the limelight on the problem: " I have the impression that in the seminaries there is a higher percentage of homosexuals. I, too, received propositions.

(May 26, 2008)

CANADA
First Perspective

May 26, 2008 — By Rosanna Deerchild

School didn’t teach me about it. I was a teenager before even hearing the word and an adult before I knew my own mother went. She didn’t talk about it. No one did. It was a story told in bits and pieces. People wouldn’t make eye contact when they said it. They whispered the word like some kind of dirty secret: residential school.

By 1948 there were 72 church run, federally funded schools operating with a single objective: assimilate the Indian. Children were stripped of their home, family, community, culture, language and their identity. Imagine that. Really imagine it. You’re five years old and suddenly you are nothing but a number. But that wasn’t the worst thing to go on behind those doors.

In 1990 those doors were opened in a very public way when Phil Fontaine told CBC’s Barbara Frum that sexual and physical abuse was prevalent in the schools. The country was stunned. Aboriginal people were not. Residential School was a dirty secret ready to be told and a flood gate opened.

My mom told me about her time in the schools. She was four when she was taken. She would spend the next 12 years at three schools, the last, Guy Hill Residential School near The Pas. She told me about a nun cutting off her braid and telling her all Indians had lice; about being forced to kneel on a row of pencils for hours because she spoke her language; and about being locked in a closet for days with no food or water when she tried to run away.

CANADA
Global Research

by Rev. Kevin Annett

Author's Note:

This article below was offered to the Canadian media as an exclusive piece last week, and was rejected or ignored by the following newspapers:

The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Sun, The Winnipeg Free Press, The Edmonton Sun, The Vancouver Sun, The Province, The Alberni Valley Times, The Epoch Times, and the Victoria Times Colonist:

Rend your hearts, and not your garments Joel 2:17

Imagine for a moment that your own child goes missing and never comes home. Years pass, and one day, the person responsible for your child's death is identified, but he evades arrest and imprisonment simply by issuing to you an "apology" for your loss. He even speaks of seeking "reconciliation" with you.

How would you feel?

Hold on to that feeling, and now multiply your loss by many thousands of children, and make the guilty person the government and churches of Canada. Do so, and you will have arrived in a human way at the Indian Residential Schools atrocity.

One of my former parishioners put it another way:

"What we did to those native children was an abomination, and abominations aren't resolved with words and money. We need to have our hearts torn in two and be changed. We've got to stand, ourselves, under the judgment of God."

CALIFORNIA
California Catholic Daily

A California-based online service offering Catholic news, money transfers for church-related organizations and other services through various Internet web sites has been sued by the Kern County district attorney for allegedly engaging in “unlawful and unfair business practices.”

Named in the complaint for civil penalties and injunctive relief filed in Kern County Superior Court by District Attorney Edward Jagels are Catholic Online, Catholic Financial Services, Your Catholic Voice Inc. and Your Catholic Voice Foundation Inc., along with owner Michael Galloway. All of the businesses are operated out of Bakersfield.

According to the June 29, 2007 civil complaint, which has yet to go to trial, Galloway “has made false representations to the public” via the following web sites: www.catholicfs.org, www.yourcatholicvoice.org, www.ycvf.org and www.catholic.org.

CANADA
Montreal Gazette

In Toronto this week, a teacher accused of sexually assaulting a student 26 years ago turned himself in to Toronto police. Robert Judge, 58, has been charged with indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl in 1982 when he taught at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute.

In Lennoxville, Bishop's College School is facing a class-action suit filed by 11 former students alleging sexual abuse by an Anglican minister, the late Harold Theodore Gibson Forster, between 1953 and 1962 when Forster was teacher, chaplain, choir director and house master at the school.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Citizens Voice

BY ERIN MOODY
STAFF WRITER
05/24/2008

WILKES-BARRE — Picketing teachers and sign-waving students and alumni are ready for the fight between the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers and the diocese to move into the state Legislature.

It’ll go there with the help of state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre, who is gathering support for a proposal that would amend the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act to allow lay teachers and employees at Catholic schools to join collective bargaining units.

“The diocese will undertake a review of this proposed legislation,” a Diocese of Scranton release indicated. “The diocese will have no comment at this time.” ...

While recognizing that religion and government are supposed to be separate, there are notable circumstances, such as the recent sexual abuse scandal, in which that changes.

“When we fail to follow our law, our church law, and fail to follow our church teachings, usually the civil government steps in to fill the gaps and slaps us hard,” Oubreco said.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
San Jose Mercury News

The Associated Press
Article Launched: 05/25/2008 06:28:21 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES—Parishes across the sprawling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles are answering an appeal from Cardinal Roger Mahony to help the church pay its multimillion-dollar legal settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse.

The gifts are coming in large and small. One parish donated almost all of its $1.5 million savings and another church offered a $100,000 interest-free loan, according to a story in Sunday's Los Angeles Times.

"It's like a family trying to take care of itself," Father Scott Santarosa of Dolores Mission Catholic Church in Boyle Heights said. The church gave $500.

COLORADO
Colorado Springs Gazette

May 25, 2008
By BILL VOGRIN
THE GAZETTE
A hiker who fell to his death at St. Mary's Falls was a prominent Colorado Springs businessman who had sued the Catholic Church, accusing a priest of sexually abusing him as a child.

The victim was Edward Anthony Murphy, 59, according to El Paso County sheriff's Lt. Lari Sevene.

Murphy died at the scene Saturday after he fell more than 25 feet while descending from the summit of Stove Mountain, on the side of Mount Rosa, on a morning hike.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

By Daniel Burke
Religion News Service

A prominent lay Catholic group is presenting an award to retired Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, whom U.S. bishops have barred from speaking on church property for questioning the church's authority.

Voice of the Faithful, a reform movement spawned by the Catholic sexual abuse crisis, is presenting its "Priest of Integrity Award" to Robinson on Thursday (May 22) in Manhasset, N.Y.

VOTF is also sponsoring several events on Robinson's U.S. speaking tour, which continues through mid-June, according to spokesman John Moynihan.

Robinson, a sexual abuse victim and auxiliary bishop of Sydney until 2004, led the Australian bishops' investigation of its own clergy sex scandal.

PENNSYLVANIA
City of Angels

By Mike Ference
(Reporting from PA for City of Angels Network)
State Rep. Lisa Bennington, D-Allegheny County, held a press conference May 12 in Harrisburg, PA, to discuss House Bill 1137, legislation known as the Child Victim’s Act of Pennsylvania, which addresses the statute of limitations and identification of sex abusers.

If the bill passes, it would raise the age at which an accuser could file a civil suit from 30 to 50, bringing the civil statute of limitations in line with the criminal statute. The bill would also suspend the civil statute of limitations for two years in child sex abuse cases in which the statute has expired, so that people over the age limit could file a suit. The bill allows actions against child sex abusers and their enablers in both public and private institutions.

A 2005 Philadelphia Grand Jury Report uncovered 63 priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese who had abused hundreds of children over several decades. In some cases, archdiocese leaders intentionally concealed the abuse to protect the church.

INDIA
Thaiindian News

By Liz Mathew
New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram, May 25 (IANS) In ‘god’s own country’ Kerala, the Left government is out godmen hunting! In an unusual drive against the numerous fake ‘godmen’ and ‘godwomen’ in the state, Kerala state police have initiated a probe into the fraudulent deals and disproportionate wealth of almost a dozen such spurious gurus and religious charlatans and arrested some.

The ‘holy war’ began with the arrest of Santhosh Madhavan, a temple priest-turned-astrologer, who was charged with rape of a teen as well as cheating in Alappuzha district earlier this month. The swami turned out to be fake and a benami real estate bigwig. A tiger skin and pornographic films were recovered from his house in Kochi.

Madhavan’s arrest seemed to have opened a can of worms. Since then the state police have raided the homes of several swamis - Divya Joshi, a self-proclaimed sanyasi in Thrissur district, Swamy Thapasyananda, a godman in Panthalam (Pathanamthitta), Swamy Almachaithanya in Kannur district, Matha Prasanna, who runs a ‘charitable’ trust, and Amma Thaya Mahamaya - both in Kottayam district.

TENNESSEE
The Tennessean

By BOB SMIETANA • Staff Writer • May 25, 2008

When the Rev. Joseph Breen first arrived at St. Edward Catholic Church in 1984, he found a thriving parish. There were 750 families, 300 children in the parochial school, and two assistant priests on the staff to keep things running smoothly.

"Now we have over 1,200 families, 480 children in the school, and one old priest, 73 years old," Breen said, referring to himself.

St. Edward illustrates the problem the Catholic Church in America faces. While the number of Catholics continues to grow, topping 64 million last year, the number of priests continues to dwindle. Since 1985, the number of diocesan priests has dropped from 35,052 to 27,971, and the number of parishes without a priest in residence has tripled. In 2007, 3,238 parishes — or one in six — were without a priest.

For Breen, one solution to this crisis seems clear. The Catholic Church, he says, needs to allow married men to become priests.

ITALY
Avvenire

Da che parte cominciare a smontare La questua. Quanto costa la Chiesa agli italiani, il libro del giornalista di Repubblica Curzio Maltese appena giunto in libreria? Ma dall’inizio, e dall’equivoco di fondo che Maltese non nasconde, anzi dichiara apertamente.

La confusione tra Vaticano e Santa Sede di qua, Chiesa italiana e Cei di là. A pagina 31 sbotta: signori, è la stessa zuppa ed è vano perderci tempo. «Una volta scartati il politicamente corretto e il cattolicamente corretto, mi sono concentrato su quello di cui finanche l’autore capiva il senso: il costo della Chiesa, una e trina». In realtà la correttezza non c’entra. Maltese ha bisogno di confondere Santa Sede e Cei perché il mirino è puntato sull’otto per mille, che va alla Cei ma che ai lettori va fatto credere vada al Vaticano, insinuando l’idea che la distinzione sia un cavillo, una pura formalità. Invece è sostanza.

[translation]

The "Church money": the unfounded thesis in the book written by Curzio Maltese
A "Questua" (meaning: "research of money") with no results

by Umberto Folena

From where can I begin to show how baseless is the book titled "Quanto costa la Chiesa agli italiani" (How much the church is costing to the Italians), the book by the Repubblica journalist, Curzio Maltese, now on sale in the bookstores? Obviously from its start, from the main misunderstanding Maltese doesn't hide but, on the contrary, he openly declares.

The confusion he makes between the Vatican and the Holy See on one hand and between the Italian Church and the Cei (Italian Episcopal Conference) on the other. At page 31 he bursts out: sirs, it's the same soup and it's useless to waist more time. "Once I discarded the politically and the catholically correct, I concentrated my thoughts on that which even I understood the meaning: the cost of the Church, in its Oneness in its Trinity". In reality it's useless to ask him to be correct. Maltese needs to confuse the Holy See with the Cei because his target is the "eight per thousand" (8 euros per each one thousand euros of the taxpayers' income) which is cashed by the Cei but readers are made to believe it's going to the Vatican, insinuating the idea that distinction is only a quibble, a mere formality. Instead it's substance.

A book based upon thesis

An other initial thesis: the percentage of the Italians who attend Mass (about a third of the population) and of the taxpayers who sign for the "eight per thousand" in favor of the Catholic Church is the same. Therefore those people are the same. Wrong, and it's proven by the numbers. First, the comparison is between non-homogenous groups of people: on one side all the Italians, on the other the taxpayers. Second, those who sign are more than 40% of the taxpayers, but not well distributed: in fact 61,3% consists of the taxpayers for which filling out the (730 or the Unico) form is mandatory. Only a very low percentage of those who are not obligated, mainly retired people, can be said to belong to the faithful. A real mess. Maltese instead writes that all those Italians "declare to attend Mass and are influenced at the polls by the opinion of the Pope and the bishops". Nobody knows the source of that information but it's very incredible that a believer or not could admit of being "influenced".

(From here on there is only a concise summary of this article, consisting of two long pages. It responds to the main accusations made in the book):

-John Paul II can't be described summarily as the Pope who brought the church back to the days prior to the Vatican Council II in a alliance with the traditionalist forces and the elimination of catholic dissent;

- Cardinal Ruini, the former head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, wasn't a nobody when Pope Paul John II called him to Rome. He was instead a very known professor of Theology in Bologna and the organizer of the Ecclesiastical Meeting in Loreto in 1985;

- Cardinal Ruini was never a kind of dictator who decided how to spend the Church's money. Bishops and priests receive a monthly stipend, starting from the net sum of 853 euros. The bishops who are going to retire get about 1309 euros. There are no secrets in that. There are no privileges. Moreover the dioceses all receive the same amount of money, with an additional sum of money proportional to the inhabitants they serve. An apposite committee decides the allocation of the money for the dioceses abroad. All this information can be found in the official book "Dalla parola alle opere" (from the words to the deeds), which can be read online in the website www.chiesacattolica.it/sictm ;

-The "eight per thousand" system set for the Italian taxpayers' donations, paid by the State to the Church, is very democratic, a case of direct democracy applied to the fiscal system: the church has no guarantee to get the money and it's up to the taxpayers to decide if the money must be given to the catholic church. Those who don't express their will generally are elderly people who are exempted to fill out their tax form and thereby can't make their choice for the donation. But that doesn't mean their total income mustn't be counted. As in the electoral law, those who don't go to the polls allow the others to decide for all the citizens. When the Italian taxpayers sign for the "eight per thousand", they don't express their personal choice, but a collective choice, which applies also to those who didn't, couldn't or wouldn't express their will;

-It's not true that only 20% of the "eight per thousand" money received by the church is spent in charities. All Italian priests and parish priests are involved in charities and are custodians of the churches and places of worship;

-Most of the money received by the church is offered by the faithful in their parishes during Sunday Mass, in addition to the money donated during many events, starting with the blessing of the families by the parish priests;

-The money, notwithstanding any kind of criticism, is used just to render all those services like education, training, health, sport, places of worships. It doesn't serve to build personal careers like it's affirmed in the book.

NEW YORK
Post-Star

By Thomas Dimopoulos
tdimopoulos@poststar.com
Published: Saturday, May 24, 2008

The Queensbury man who claims he had an adult sexual relationship with the Rev. Gary Mercure between 1992 and 1994 filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Warren County on Friday against Mercure, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and Bishop Howard Hubbard.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney John Aretakis on behalf of his client, John Watkins, seeks $2 million in damages for slander and a non-monetary settlement called an "injunctive relief" that asks Mercure be permanently removed from the priesthood.

Mercure, an ordained priest since 1975, was an associate pastor at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in Queensbury in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and pastor at St. Mary's Parish in Glens Falls, in addition to working at a number of other parishes in the Capital Region.

In January, the diocese announced Mercure was under investigation by the diocese's Sexual Misconduct Review Board and he was granted a paid leave of absence pending the results of a currently ongoing investigation, which is not related to Watkins' allegations.

WHEELING (WV)
Charleston Daily Mail

by The Associated Press
WHEELING - A teenager suing a Roman Catholic Diocese claiming he was sexually abused has added a service organization to his lawsuit, his lawyer says.

The Clarksburg teen, who was not identified in court papers, is seeking damages from the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, as well as former and current church officials and now the Key Club chapter of West Virginia.

The amended lawsuit filed Friday claims that the late Rev. Charles E. McCallister sexually abused the now 19-year-old at a hotel during district and state Key Club conventions. It also alleges that an organization overseeing the Key Club allowed McCallister to return after receiving at least one report that he had inappropriate contact with a minor.

CANADA
Anglican Journal

Marites N. Sison
staff writer

May 25, 2008
Mississauga, Ont.

The Anglican Church of Canada has written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging him “to make every effort possible” to consult the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) about the federal government’s long-awaited apology over the now-defunct Indian residential schools system.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate (national archbishop) of the Anglican Church of Canada, and Bishop Mark MacDonald, national indigenous bishop, signed the letter, which was sent to Mr. Harper on May 23.

The Harper government has announced that it will issue an apology on June 11 as part of its settlement with former students of Indian residential schools, but the AFN has said that there has been no consultation with native groups about this.

MASSACHUSETTS
Standard-Times

By CHARIS ANDERSON
Standard-Times staff writer
May 25, 2008 6:00 AM
Religious communities minister to people's spiritual needs, offering a place for healing — but what happens when the person seeking restoration is a convicted sex offender?

The First Unitarian Church in New Bedford and the Unitarian Memorial Church in Fairhaven faced this dilemma last March, when a Level 3 sex offender asked to join their congregations.

Both churches considered the request but ultimately turned the man down.

"We really felt that it was something that our congregation wasn't going to be able to handle," said Catherine Walsh, president of the Board of Governors at the Fairhaven church.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2008
Blessed with a nest egg of nearly $1.5 million, a Woodland Hills parish donated almost all of it, leaving just $1,000 in its savings account. An Encino church offered a $100,000 interest-free loan. And a Boyle Heights parish decided it could spare $500 after ruling out the idea of raising money with tamale sales.

With gifts large and small, parishes across the sprawling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles are answering an appeal from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony to help the archdiocese dig out of the financial hole resulting from its multimillion-dollar legal settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse.

"It's important that we the church take care of this," said Father Scott Santarosa of Dolores Mission Catholic Church in Boyle Heights, which gave the $500 from its limited unrestricted funds. "It's like a family trying to take care of itself. Every family has parts that break down or need help. That's part of the church too, and we can't turn our backs."

TEXAS
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/25/2008 06:20:12 AM MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Saddle up, because it ain't over yet.
The largest child-welfare case in United States history bucked participants and spectators every which way last week - and the wild ride will continue.
The first jolt may come anytime from the Texas Supreme Court, which worked through Saturday without deciding whether to stay an appeals court decision that sends some, if not all, of about 450 children from a polygamous sect back to their parents.
The children, taken from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, have spent seven weeks in state custody and are scattered in shelters throughout the state. The ranch is home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The next jolt may come Tuesday. A court hearing that has already been jarring - state attorneys introduced photographs of sect leader Warren S. Jeffs giving a husbandly kiss to a 12-year-old girl he purportedly married last summer - resumes.

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

It is quite possibly a church's worst nightmare: a minister caught in sexual impropriety involving a child.

We've seen this play out time and time again over the past few years, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church. Bishop Kevin Farrell, the new Catholic ordinary in Dallas, told this newspaper's Sam Hodges recently that the diocese is short of money. The bishop didn't elaborate, but one reason for the financial shortfall is the tens of millions of dollars paid out locally to clerical sex abuse victims. And it's impossible to put a dollar figure on the loss of trust and confidence in church authorities.

Why has it been so difficult for the institutional leaders in churches to understand what's at stake for their credibility in these ugly matters?

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Students preparing for a career in communications must learn to be skeptical, especially when the public good is at stake, but they also must be helped to avoid becoming cynical, Pope Benedict XVI told communications professors.

"Nourish and reward that passion for truth and goodness that is always strong in the young. Help them give themselves fully to the search for truth," the pope said in a May 23 address to participants in a meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

WHITE PLAINS (NY)
New York Post

By TODD VENEZIA and LORENA MONGELLI, Post Wire Services

May 24, 2008 -- A White Plains priest was a real holy roller - using the Sunday collection plate as his own personal gambling pot, authorities charge.

The Rev. Patrick Dunne was arrested yesterday and arraigned on charges of grand larceny. He allegedly took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Sunday donations, including aid meant for Hurricane Katrina victims.

The theft allegedly occurred from 2002 to 2007, while Dunne was at Our Lady of Sorrows.

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union-Tribune

By Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE RELIGION & ETHICS EDITOR

May 24, 2008

A retired Catholic bishop from Australia, under fire for a book expressing “profound disillusionment” over the church's handling of its clergy sexual abuse crisis, said he will continue his U.S. speaking tour – including a stop in San Diego next month – despite requests from other bishops not to do so.

“I'm not looking for any form of confrontation,” said Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, retired auxiliary bishop of Sydney, during a brief telephone interview from the East Coast. “I've been invited by a particular group there, and I will be talking to that group.”

Both Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and San Diego Bishop Robert Brom have asked Robinson not to speak in their jurisdictions.

AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Now

NIGEL HUNT
May 25, 2008 12:30am
A CATHOLIC priest at the centre of a police investigation into his activities with young males will not face any criminal charges.

But the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide has refused to reveal if it will now conduct an internal inquiry into Father Tony Pearson's conduct, as it promised last December.

This is despite the discovery of hundreds of pornographic photographs of young men being found on Father Pearson's office computer.

Pedophile Task Force detectives found the photographs, and another image of him carrying an AK47 assault rifle, when they examined his church-owned office computer hard drive.

NEW YORK
The Journal News

As if the housing slump, high gas prices and worries about the economy weren't enough to set residents on edge, now many in the region's Roman Catholic communities are finding that the place they turn for comfort - their parish church - is facing new turmoil. Cardinal Edward Egan recently reassigned about 47 priests, or 10 percent of the active priests in the New York Archdiocese. As religion writer Gary Stern reported earlier this week, the transfers, which are effective July 1, are unprecedented, both in number and in the method of reassignment. Many of the priests are in the middle of their terms; some learned of the reassignments in the most awkward of ways - when their replacements informed them of the change.

And there are enough rumors of payback and retribution swirling through the church pews that parishioners are starting to demand answers. Parishioners at St. Gregory Barbarigo Church in Garnerville are petitioning to keep their beloved pastor, the Rev. Robert McKeon. "Without Father's leadership, many residents will look to leave our area and further depress our community," reads an online petition.

INDIA
Gulf Times

By Ashraf Padanna
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There are some 50 self-styled ‘godmen’ in Kerala and almost all of them enjoy political patronage, according to a criminologist. “It’s a crime syndicate. Fake swamis, politicians, drug pushers and money launderers all work hand in glove. It’s an organised crime and is very difficult to crack,” said James Vadakkumcherry, a retired trainer at the Police Training College here who is doing an extensive study on the subject.

Last week, one swami was arrested and charged with rape of minor girls, swindling money and producing blue films while another swami is behind bars after opening fire in a police station.
Yet another swami is on the run following media reports that he was a film director in his ‘poorvashram’ (life before becoming a swami) and was wanted by police for issuing dud cheques for Rs1mn.

QATAR
The Peninsula

Doha • Satguru Murali Krishna Swamikal, one of the 58 alleged religious conmen who are under investigation in India’s Kerala state, yesterday denied charges of involvement in any illegal activities at home or abroad. He is currently in Qatar on a private visit at the invitation of one of his devotees.

Talking to the Peninsula, Murali Krishna said he didn’t run away to avoid arrest or interrogation back home. “My visit to Doha was preplanned and was published on our website (www.saravanabhava.com) long ago, not as some media reported. I am accused of holding large acres of land but this is not true. The police raids on our ashrams found nothing.”

“Evil will be uprooted and the truth will remain. This is nature’s way of cleansing the society. People should have the maturity to differentiate between the good and the evil. This is God's doing,” said Murali Krishna Swami. The state of Kerala is currently rocked by a series of scandals involving self-styled swamis who have duped hundreds of people.
Swami Santhosh Madhavan

INDIA
Zee News

Kochi, May 10: Kerala police are verifying antecedents of Amrita Chaitanaya, against whom the UAE Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice for allegedly cheating an Indian woman.

IGP Vinson M Paul said he got in touch with the CBI in Delhi following media reports about the fraudster swami. He also spoke to Interpol in Delhi and they informed him that UAE Interpol had issued a notice against Santosh Madhav, his name before he became a swami.

However, Kerala Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has said the state government had not received any communication from any international agency regarding Chaitanya so far.

AUSTRALIA
Catholica

Retired Australian Bishop, Geoffrey Robinson, has in the last week or so come under pressure from the Vatican, from an unsigned statement put out in the name of the Australian Bishops, and from at least one Cardinal in the United States, for his blunt book entitled "Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church — Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus". Bishop Patrick Power, who is presently on long service leave, yesterday sent Catholica this unsolicited statement of heartfelt support for Bishop Robinson which it is our great pleasure to publish. The sentiments expressed in this article very much accord with the overwhelming sense of support we detect being expressed for them in the lay Church we come into contact with in this nation. We salute both Bishop Robinson and Bishop Power for having the courage to exhibit the spiritual leadership of their people that they have shown. …Brian Coyne, Editor
In many ways he had no other option but to write such a book…

The lot of a prophet is rarely a comfortable one. Geoffrey Robinson with his great knowledge and love of the Scriptures would understand that better than most. Yet he chose such a path when he wrote Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus.

“It is imperative to look not just at the causes of individual instances of abuse, but to try to understand the systemic weaknesses and failures which underlie such a betrayal of trust and power.” …Bishop Power

In many ways, he had no other option but to write such a book. Since the late 1980s when revelations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church began to surface, Bishop Robinson was at the forefront in addressing the issue. He began by listening to victims, hearing first hand the stories and witnessing the pain and damage of those most affected. He saw too the effects on families, parish and school communities and other people involved. He began to understand something of the complexity of factors which led to abuse. He saw it as necessary as well to "get inside the skin" of those responsible for the abuse.

HIGHLAND PARK (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Associated Press
9:37 PM CDT, May 23, 2008
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. - The one-time janitor of a suburban Chicago synagogue has been sentenced to 30 months of probation for installing a hidden camera in the building's restroom.

Salome Zequeida pleaded guilty last month to 15 counts of unauthorized videotaping of a victim younger than 18. He was found not-guilty of a child pornography charge. In addition to probation, he must spend a year in a work-release program.

TEXAS
Vancouver Sun

Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008

Polygamy is illegal. Sex with children is illegal. Abuse of children is illegal.

Still, the Texas appeal court ruling this week suggests that the state is powerless to protect the more than 400 children who were seized in April from the closed compound of a polygamous, fundamentalist Mormon sect.

The problem is that the child protection laws weren't written to hold a community such as this to account. The laws require the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services prove "immediate" danger to the physical health and welfare of the children that requires "urgent" removal.

But in a group such as this, the danger is pervasive, inherent and imminent but not urgent or immediate. The future of any baby born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not bright.

TEXAS
The Wall Street Journal

By JEFFREY BALL
May 24, 2008; Page A3

Texas officials sought Friday to retain custody of more than 460 children seized from a polygamist ranch after an appeals court ruled the children should be returned to their parents, but they also agreed to reunite 12 children with their parents while the case moves on.

The state turned to the Texas Supreme Court for its own appeal a day after an appeals court in Austin rebuked child-welfare authorities for acting too hastily and too broadly in seizing the children from the religious sect's West Texas community. The state asked the court to allow the children to continue to be kept in state custody until the appeal is decided, arguing that returning the children would put them in harm's way. Lawyers for the mothers in the dispute urged the state supreme court to let the children be returned, arguing in a motion Friday that the children are experiencing "continuing, irreparable harm" by being kept away from their parents.

The agreement narrowly specifies 12 children, some of whose parents had filed a motion with a state district court in San Antonio for their release from state foster care.

MAINE
Morning Sentinel

BY MATTHEW STONE
Staff Writer

Advocates for victims of sexual abuse by priests are honing in on two Augusta organizations that offer scholarship awards named after the Rev. John J. Curran.

Paul Kendrick, who co-founded the state's chapter of the victim advocacy group Voice of the Faithful, has contacted representatives at the Calumet Educational and Literary Foundation and the University of Maine at Augusta, which both offer scholarship awards named after Curran.

Kendrick, of Freeport, said he is requesting the organizations either rename the monetary awards or stop offering them.

"It's offensive to those he abused," he said. "It's offensive to all victims of abuse that someone who abused children is being honored in this way."

CANADA
Toronto Star

May 24, 2008 04:30 AM
Stephen Scharper

"Sexual abuse of minors by a significant number of priests and religious, together with the attempts by many church authorities to conceal the abuse, constitute one of the ugliest stories ever to emerge from the Catholic Church. It is hard to imagine a more total contradiction of everything Jesus Christ stood for, and it would be difficult to overestimate the pervasive and lasting harm it has done to the Church."

These are bold, candid words, particularly from the mouth of a bishop. But they have been given episcopal voice by Roman Catholic Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Sydney, Australia. A canon lawyer, Bishop Robinson for almost a decade also chaired the Australian bishops' committee investigating clerical sexual abuse.

What he found deeply disturbed him, hastening his retirement and prompting a profound disillusionment with the church he had served for over half a century.

Robinson has attempted to both record and confront his disillusionment in his book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus. With its critique of the church's leadership on the scandal and church officials who seem to place ecclesial power ahead of the protection of vulnerable children, Robinson's book has been a religious bestseller down under.

Bishop Robinson will be at Emmanuel College in Toronto June 1 to talk about his concern for and critique of the church in light of the pedophilia scandals.

BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

By Justin Fenton | Sun Reporter
May 24, 2008
A former Roman Catholic priest who was convicted in 2006 of sexually abusing a student at Calvert Hall College High School 20 years earlier will not be required to register as a child sex offender due to a loophole in state law, which legislators unsuccessfully sought to address this year.

Jerome F. Toohey Jr., who was permanently removed from the ministry this week, completed an 18-month jail sentence last year for abuse that had occurred in the late 1980s. He is not required to register because of the time lag between his offense and his conviction.

Maryland law requires sex offenders convicted of offenses that occurred after September 1995 to register with the state. Also, offenders convicted of earlier crimes are required to register - if they were in prison or on probation in October 2001.

CANADA
Standard Freeholder

Posted By Trevor Pritchard

A city cop told the Cornwall Public Inquiry on Friday he didn't write down an allegation against Rev. Charles MacDonald because the former priest's name only came up "in conversation."

Det. Const. Rene Desrosiers' notes from early 1997 came under scrutiny at the inquiry, which is probing how institutions like the Cornwall Community Police Service handled historical sexual abuse allegations. Desrosiers testified he had just launched an investigation into city teacher Marcel Lalonde when one complainant mentioned in passing that he had also been abused by MacDonald.

The former priest at St. Columban's church had been charged in 1996 by the OPP with a number of sex crimes involving young boys. A judge stayed those charges in 2002 after deciding they'd taken too long to come to trial.

Desrosiers said yesterday he told the man - who was at police headquarters to talk about Lalonde - that his allegation against MacDonald would be looked into at another time, either by city police or an outside force, depending on where the alleged incident happened.

BALTIMORE (MD)
United Press International

Published: May 24, 2008 at 6:53 AM
BALTIMORE, May 24 (UPI) -- A Catholic priest convicted of molesting a student in Maryland has been spared registration as a sex offender because the crime occurred before 1995.

Jerome Toohey Jr. was found guilty in 2006, almost 20 years after he sexually abused a student at Calvert Hall College High School. Under Maryland law, sex offenders convicted of crimes before September 1995 do not have to register unless they were in prison or on probation in October 2001, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Lisae Jordan, legal director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said that two to three offenders a year are protected by the loophole. She said that when the state legislature made registration retroactive, legislators did not consider that some people who offended before 1995 might be convicted years later.

WORCESTER (MA)
The Catholic Free Press

By Tanya Connor

Giving up one’s parish for the greater good is a Christ-like act of charity.

Father Richard A. Jakubauskas, pastor of St. Casimir Parish in Worcester, was looking at his parish’s upcoming closing that way a couple of days after announcing it to parishioners.

In his homily at the 7:30 a.m. Mass Tuesday, he mentioned that there are protests and sorrow over closing St. Casimir’s, but told parishioners that doing so is “living in charity, not in self-interest.”

“It’ll be a glory for them,” he told The Catholic Free Press afterwards. “They’re making a big sacrifice. Look at Jesus – he gave his life. They have something meaningful to bring to God. We’re not asked to give our life, but we do it through our charity.
“We have the physical building, but, like Vatican II said, it’s the people that are the living stones,” he said.

MASSACHUSETTS
Bostonist

The Globe reports that the Archdiocese of Boston is planning to close two churches in the city, Holy Trinity Church in the South End and St. Casimir in Brockton. Just two years ago, the diocese finished shutting down over 60 local parishes, but the archdiocese says these new closures are not part of a larger consolidation movement.

Holy Trinity has long been a haven for German Catholic immigrants, and is one of few churches left still offering mass in Latin. About 50 people attend a German community service (mostly in English) there each week, while 100 attend the Latin Mass. The church also has a monthly mass in German.

St. Casimir, which has a largely Lithuanian-American congregation, offers services with some readings in Lithuanian and celebrates Lithuanian holidays. The church has worked to stay alive, with parishioners posting crosses outside the church to show their support and evoke the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania.

TEXAS
The Baptist Standard

The Ford Foundation gave a $200,000 grant to Baylor University and its School of Social Work to conduct the first national research on clergy sexual abuse of adults. Diana Garland, dean of the Baylor School of Social Work, previously had received $31,000 combined funding for this project from the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the JES Edwards Foundation of Fort Worth.

WHITE PLAINS (NY)
Staten Island Advance

5/23/2008, 4:44 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A parish priest with a gambling problem was arrested Friday and charged with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from church accounts, including a fund for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Rev. Patrick Dunne, 63, was arraigned on a grand larceny charge, Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore announced. If convicted, he could be sentenced to five to 15 years in prison.

The New York Archdiocese announced in March that Dunne, who was pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows in White Plains, took a significant amount of church money because of a "very powerful" gambling addiction. DiFiore said he used the money for recreation and personal expenses, writing checks to himself and to "cash."

WHEELING (WV)
The State Journal

[with link to Amended Complaint Part 1]
[with link to Amended Complaint Part 2]
[with link to diocese answer]
[with link to Kiwanis Club answer]

WHEELING -- Lawyers for a Clarksburg man have filed an amended complaint in a lawsuit accusing a Catholic priest of sexually abusing their client.

The original complaint was against the estate of the late Father Charles McCallister and the Wheeling-Charleston Catholic Diocese.

The new complaint adds the Kiwanis Club and Key Club as defendants in the suit.

SARATOGA SPRINGS (NY)
WNYT

[withv video]

By: Bill Lambdin

SARATOGA SPRINGS - A new lawsuit was filed Friday against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and a suspended priest. The case involves compromising pictures of the Rev. Gary Mercure apparently taken more than a decade ago.

John Aretakis is the lawyer for John Watkins, the man who claims he was taken advantage of by Mercure. Aretakis says the priest gave these and many other pictures to the object of his affection.

Now Aretakis and Watkins are using these pictures to support their lawsuit against Mercure, Bishop Howard Hubbard and the Albany Diocese. ...

Watkins was not present at Friday's news conference announcing the lawsuit. The Rev. Robert Hoatson, a man identified as a priest Aretakis works with on clergy abuse cases, read Watkins's statement.

"During my first two visits to Mercure's private office at St. Mary's rectory in Glens Falls he was very professional. On my third visit he took me out for an expensive dinner and when we returned to the rectory he made strong sexual advances," Hoatson read.

NEW YORK
The Journal News

By Gary Stern
The Journal News • May 23, 2008

The Priest Council of the Archdiocese of New York, which met yesterday with Cardinal Edward Egan, released a statement today supporting him and the reassignments of dozens of priests.

The Journal News and other media outlets have quoted priests anonymously in recent days who were critical of the transfers and of Egan.

The statement says:

"The Archbishop of New York, as Shepherd of this local Church, serves the needs of the people of the Archdiocese of New York. In that capacity, the Archbishop assigns priests based on the pastoral needs of the people of this Archdiocese, as well as the needs of the parishes and other institutions. We, the Priest Council of the Archdiocese, recognize our Archbishop's authority to assign priests and support him as he faces unfair and anonymous attacks in the media. We have full confidence in Cardinal Egan's leadership as he continues to serve with distinction the people who have been entrusted to his spiritual care."

WHITE PLAINS (NY)
The Journal News

By Jonathan Bandler
The Journal News • May 23, 2008

WHITE PLAINS - The former longtime pastor at Our Lady of Sorrows Church was arrested this morning, accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from church accounts - including money intended for Hurricane Katrina victims.

The Rev. Patrick Dunne, 63, was arraigned in White Plains City Court after surrendering to investigators at the Westchester County District Attorney's Office.

Parishioners at the church on Mamaroneck Avenue were devastated in late March when they learned Dunne - their pastor since 1991 - had been removed from the parish, had a serious gambling habit and was the subject of a criminal investigation.

UNITED STATES
Zenit

By Teresa Tomeo

DETROIT, Michigan, MAY 22, 2008 (Zenit.org).- In watching and reading various media outlets days before the Holy Father arrived for his historic U.S visit last month to Washington D.C. and New York City, one could have easily gotten the impression that it was going to be nothing but more of the same media bias and misrepresentation.

One expected the media to round up the usual suspects, the unorthodox authors, so-called scholars and commentators who are Catholic in name only and cannot accept Church teaching on abortion, contraception, and the male priesthood, and put them on the air or quote them in print so they can once again attack the Church for not following the whims of American culture. ...

That was, of course, until the Holy Father himself hit the media with a very pro-active one-two punch. Not only was it the Pope who first addressed the fallout from the priest sex abuse scandal here in the United States, but he did it before even landing on American soil. He discussed the sensitive and embarrassing issue during a question-and-answer session with reporters on Shepherd One. And then later in the week he met privately with several victims of the sexual abuse scandal.

Gentler reporting

Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, explains it was the Pontiff’s humility and directness concerning the biggest white elephant in the room that may have forced the press to take a closer look at this Pope and make at least some effort to cover him more fairly and at least a bit more gently.

CANADA
CBC News

Some Yukon First Nations leaders are upset after Phil Fontaine dismissed their concerns about a rise in the number of deaths of residential school survivors after receiving compensation from Ottawa.

As many as two dozen funerals for former students have taken place across the territory in recent months after the survivors collected thousands of dollars from the federal government.

Some leaders are linking the two, saying compensation compounded with recollection of their painful experiences in residential schools has caused some survivors to turn to drugs and alcohol.

But the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, who helped pen the settlement agreement that resulted in more than $27 million in compensation cheques to survivors in the Yukon since September, disagreed.

CANADA
Monsters & Critics

By Rich Bowden May 23, 2008, 14:29 GMT

On Feb 5, 2006, M&C News ran one of its most popular and heartbreaking stories concerning allegations of widespread abuse suffered by children at an elite Montreal school. The report was notable in that the abuse reported in the article was discussed at length in the report's comments field, as old students finally felt free to speak out about their experiences and share their harrowing ordeals with other former students.

Now tragically, another exclusive Canadian school has been accused of failing to prevent similar abusive behaviour towards a number of its students.

The Canadian newspaper The Gazettehas reported that eleven former students of Bishop's College School are suing the school for $CAN32 million in a class action over reported sexual abuse by the Rev. Harold Theodore Gibson Forster during the 50s and 60s.

TEXAS
Austin American-Statesman

By Chuck Lindell | Friday, May 23, 2008, 12:28 PM

Child-welfare officials are asking the Texas Supreme Court to overturn an order to begin returning children to the polygamist sect’s ranch near Eldorado.

On Thursday, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that Child Protective Services failed to prove that children on the YFZ Ranch were in imminent danger of physical harm when they were separated from their parents in April and sent to foster homes across Texas. Their parents belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect.

In its filing Friday, the Department of Family and Protective Services, which includes CPS, also asked the Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay halting enforcement of the Third Court’s decision.

TEXAS
CNN

By Sunny Hostin
CNN

Sunny Hostin is a legal analyst on CNN's "American Morning."

NEW YORK (CNN) -- It sounds like legal mumbo-jumbo.

The Texas Court of Appeals for the Third District found the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services failed to demonstrate there was either a danger to the physical health and safety of FLDS children, or an urgent need for protection of the children requiring immediate removal from their parents. The court also found the Department failed to make reasonable efforts to prevent the children's removal from their parents custody.

What does all that mean without the legalese?

The court found no legal basis for FLDS kids to be taken from their mothers. They effectively think the district judge got it wrong.

And they told the district court judge she had 10 days to make it right or else. Well I think the appellate court got it wrong. Why?

Isn't this a polygamist ranch we are talking about? Under Texas law, it's illegal to be married to more than one person. Weren't all of these children living on a ranch purchased in 2003 and built by Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the group, who was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape?

ITALY
Corriere della Sera

TARANTO - Violentato in parrocchia. Un diacono di cui non è stato reso noto il nome è stato arrestato dai carabinieri in provincia di Taranto per abusi sessuali che sarebbero stati compiuti su un ragazzino di 13 anni. Il minorenne - secondo quanto accertato dagli investigatori - sarebbe stato costretto a subire violenza almeno in due occasioni, tra i primi giorni di gennaio e nel marzo scorsi, in una parrocchia di un comune del tarantino. Il diacono, a quanto si è appreso, è sposato ed è padre di due figli.

[translation]

The boy went to church for catechism

Taranto: 13-years-old boy sexually abused, the deacon, a father of two boys, was arrested
The minor was allegedly abused at least twice in a parish of the city

TARANTO - Sexually abused in a parish. A deacon, whose name wasn't made public, has been arrested by the carabinieri of the province of Taranto for having sexually abused a 13-year-old boy. The minor - according to what the investigators found out - was allegedly subjected to sexual violence at least twice, between the first days of January and March last, in a parish of the city of Taranto. The deacon, according to what has been learned, is married and father of two children.

THE INVESTIGATION - It started after the boy's parents, who had noticed a strange behavior after their son returned home from catechism, denounced the facts to the carabinieri. The 13-year-old boy, pressed by his parents questions, told them of having been subjected to sexual violence. The carabinieri heard first the 13-year-old boy and then started the investigation, which brought to the arrest of the deacon after the prosecutor had issued an ordinance for precautionary custody.

FRESNO (CA)
CBS 2

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) A lawsuit accusing a central California priest of sexual abuse decades ago was revived after a state appeals court reviewed testimony from Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.

Mahony, now head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, was a high-level administrator in the Fresno diocese during some of the years the two brothers who filed suit say they were molested by Monsignor Anthony Herdegen.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Wednesday that Mahony's testimony indicates the church was or should have been aware that Herdegen might have been an abuser.

The brothers, George and Howard Santillan, filed their lawsuit in 2003 under a one-year window that voided the statute of limitations on old abuse claims in California. The provision required plaintiffs to show that the church knew or should have known about priests' alleged misconduct.

BLOOMINGTON (IN)
TheIndyChannel

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A Bloomington pastor was charged with child molestation, accused of inappropriately touching an 11-year-old girl on two occasions, but he claims he was merely comforting the girl.

Donald Leroy Robinson, 56, is the pastor at Grace Baptist Temple, which operates a private school, 6News' Renee Jameson reported.

The student said Robinson fondled her twice at the school. She told police that the second incident happened on May 2 as she waited for her mother to pick her up and take her to a doctor.

SCHENECTADY (NY)
Albany Times Union

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer

First published: Friday, May 23, 2008

SCHENECTADY -- A Polish parish that dates to 1892 would close under a proposal expected to be presented to the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese by next month.

St. Mary's Church, an imposing Gothic structure on Eastern Avenue, could remain available as an "oratory" under the plan. That means there would be no official weekend Masses, but the church would be a sacred space for events like weddings, funerals and traditional Polish prayers.

"We've tried to do it in a way that minimizes the agony," said Eileen Shirey, employed as a local facilitator in a sweeping restructuring under way across the 14-county diocese.

JACKSONVILLE (FL)
My Clay Sun

By MARY MARAGHY, My Clay Sun

Grace Anglican Church's former pastor, the Rev. Sam Pascoe, has been reinstated as an Anglican priest under an Ugandan bishop effective June 1.

"Sam has modeled true repentance for a real failure, and we, as believers, need to model and demonstrate true forgiveness," said the Rev. Neil Lehbar of Church of the Redeemer on Baymeadows Road in Jacksonville, who has been friends with Pasco for 30 years. "I'm grateful for Sam and Beth's [Pascoe's wife] determination to grow personally and stay faithful to Christ. His return to ministry will be a work in progress."

Lehbar invited Pascoe to share his story at the 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. services June 1 at his church. Pascoe, former pastor of Grace Anglican Church, will also celebrate communion for the first time since his defrocking in February 2007 for having an inappropriate relationship with a church member.

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Michael Paulson
Globe Staff / May 23, 2008
A Boston parish dedicated to serving two of the smallest and most unusual Catholic communities - those of German descent and those who prefer to worship in Latin - will close at the end of next month, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said yesterday.

The long-anticipated closing of Holy Trinity Church, located in one of the last ungentrified corners of Boston's South End, is scheduled to take place June 30, four years after the Archdiocese of Boston first decided to close the church.

The closing is one of two the archdiocese is planning this year, and the other, St. Casimir in Brockton, is also a small parish dedicated to an earlier generation of Catholic immigrants, Lithuanian-Americans.

CALIFORNIA
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling
When the Salesians finally admitted the guilt of one of their pedophile priests, Titian Miani, last week, the buzz around the courtroom was, “They're going to sell the mansion in San Francisco.” But as of yet there’s no settlement in writing, no one really knows how the Salesians will come up with $20 million dollars to pay 17 victims from LA. The Salesians, one religious order among hundreds in California, own about a hundred million dollars in real estate in the state, according to reliable sources.

The “Salesian Mansion” in San Francisco, the architectural squatty-body pictured above, is 15,000 square feet, with 38 rooms and 12 bathrooms on Franklin Street near Geary, which is a nebulous part of The City between the newly gentrified north Tenderloin and aging wealth of Pacific Heights, prime real estate, ready to be developed. They can get $30 million for that property alone, easy cash, considering they got the mansion free, a gift from the bishop of San Francisco 20 years ago.

Meanwhile last week the Pope who last month assured the world the church he leads would finally do something for the victims of its pedophile priest epidemic stood in his window looking out of St. Peter’s Square and said, “Faith is love and so creates poetry and music. Faith is joy and so creates beauty,” and so forth, in other words, he’s forgotten about us.

ISRAEL
YNet News

Kobi Nahshoni

Published: 05.23.08, 07:29 / Israel Jewish Scene

"When children are battered, whether as part of sexual abuse or just being beaten, anyone aware of this must inform the authorities," Rabbi Shlomo Aviner of Beit El and one of Religious Zionism's prominent leaders says in an article on the weekend in the "B'Ahava Ub'Emuna" synagogue bulletin.

"A child is helpless and defenseless," the rabbi argues, noting that the law and the Halacha (Jewish law) see a person who fails to report of what he knows as bearing responsibility.

Under the headline "It's a duty to report, at all costs!", Rabbi Aviner says that "the desire not to report in order to have mercy on the beater or the abuser might be a desire frequently derived from sincere motives, but first of all we must have pity on the helpless child. The battered child's fate comes first."

In this context, the rabbi refers to data pointing to the fact that among the religious public, physical and sexual abuse is more severe than among seculars.

CANADA
Standard Freeholder

Posted By Trevor Pritchard

A veteran Cornwall cop wanted medical records or the testimony of Marc Latour's parents before charging the Grade 3 teacher who allegedly abused him, the Cornwall Public Inquiry heard Thursday.

Det. Sgt. Jeff Carroll described those elements as "the cat's meow" and said they would've solidified his case against Gilf Greggain, who taught Latour in the late 1960s at St. Peter's Elementary School. ...

As with Latour, Carroll testified he could not uncover enough evidence to corroborate Lalonde's claim he was abused by Rev. Charles MacDonald, a retired Roman Catholic priest.

The OPP charged MacDonald in 1996 on a number of sex abuse counts, but the charges were stayed in 2002 when a judge ruled they'd taken too long to come to trial.

Carroll said Thursday he had doubts whether the alleged abuse - which came to Lalonde in a flashback as an adult - happened at all, never mind whether it involved MacDonald.

FRESNO (CA)
San Jose Mercury News

The Associated Press
Article Launched: 05/22/2008 04:08:22 PM PDT

FRESNO, Calif.—A lawsuit accusing a central California priest of sexual abuse decades ago was revived after a state appeals court reviewed testimony from Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.

Mahony, now head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, was a high-level administrator in the Fresno diocese during some of the years the two brothers who filed suit say they were molested by Monsignor Anthony Herdegen.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Wednesday that Mahony's testimony indicates the church was or should have been aware that Herdegen might have been an abuser.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Belleville News-Democrat

ST. LOUIS --"Vows of Silence," a documentary about priest sex abuse at the highest levels will be shown Thursday (May 29th) at 7 p.m. in Maplewood at Schlafly's Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave.

The showing of the film, by nationally known writer and filmmaker Jason Berry, is sponsored by the Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity, the St. Louis-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and Voice of the Faithful, a national group whose state headquarters is in Chicago.

The documentary concerns the work of a secret Vatican investigator who probed sexual abuse allegations against a Rome-based church leader who raised more than $650-million for Legionaries of Christ.

BROOKLYN (NY)
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Controversial Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson was scheduled, as of press time for this column, to speak at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights on Tuesday, May 20, sharing his perspectives about sex and the Catholic Church.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson has been called controversial by his contemporaries for his ideas regarding the Catholic Church’s approach to sensitive issues. These are detailed in his book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, published last fall.

Robinson speaks from his experiences in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1990s where, as Auxiliary Bishop, he was placed in charge of dealing with the sex abuse crisis. According to Ed Wilson, a member of the group Voice of the Faithful, which works for Church reform, Sydney’s sex abuse scandal was of higher magnitude than that of the US. Robinson played an active role in developing a process for prevention of sexual abuse within the Church and has made large strides towards raising the consciousness of Church leaders to their responsibilities.

The Australian prelate will also share his views on Rome and discuss his concerns that the power structure at the Vatican has become a one-man monarchical situation instead of the College of Bishops standing with the Pope as what Bp. Robinson believes is the intended, united governing body. Robinson’s talk will begin at 7:30 p.m.

TEXAS
LiveScience

By Benjamin Radford, LiveScience's Bad Science Columnist

The raid on Yearning for Zion, the polygamist compound in Texas, made international news amid accusations of underage marriage, child abuse, and religious persecution. Hundreds of children have undergone DNA testing and been relocated to foster homes as the case unfolds.

But one little detail has been largely forgotten: The raid ­— resulting in the largest child custody case in American history — was based on a lie.

Today, a Texas appeals court threw the case out, ruling that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from the sect's ranch.

TEXAS
Lone Star Times

From the DFPS website:

Child Protective Services has one duty ― to protect children. When we see evidence that children have been sexually abused and remain at risk of further abuse, we will act.

The Department of Family and Protective Services removed children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado after finding a pervasive pattern of sexual abuse that puts every child at the ranch at risk.

The very first interviews at the ranch revealed a pattern of underage girls being “spiritually united” with older men and having children with the men. Investigators also observed a pattern of organized deception in those first interviews. Women and children frequently said they could not answer questions about the ages of girls or family relationships. Children were moved from location to location in an apparent attempt to prevent investigators from talking to them. Investigators observed numerous girls who had small children, and girls told us that marriages could occur at any age.

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
Orange County Weekly

Posted by Gustavo Arellano in Ex Cathedra
May 22, 2008 2:44 PM

Congratulations are in order to the Orange County chapter of Voice of the Faithful (OCVOTF), a Catholic laity organization. Yesterday, we reported how Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown wrote a letter to former Diocese of Sydney Bishop Geoffrey Robinson (pictured at left) arrogantly advising him to that "you do not have my permission to speak in the Diocese of Orange" even though Robinson's June 11 lecture at a OCVOTF gathering was to take place at the decidedly secular Costa Mesa Community Center. We placed a call to OCVOTF head Steve Dzida, and he told us the group was preparing a statement. He left it as a comment late last night, and we publish it here in its entirety:

Voice of the Faithful Orange County looks forward to Bishop Robinson’s speaking engagement on June 11 at 7 PM at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center, 1845 Park Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA. While we disagree with Bishop Brown on this issue, we applaud his other efforts to effect change in our Church.

JACKSON (MS)
WAPT

JACKSON, Miss. -- The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled 5-3 Thursday to keep the Rev. Jeffery Stallworth’s name on the state’s sex offender registry.

Thursday’s ruling upholds the decision handed down by Judge Bobby Delaughter of Hinds County Circuit Court.

Stallworth's attorneys had argued that his misdemeanor fourth degree sex conviction and sentence were removed by a judge in Maryland and the crime he pleaded guilty to in Maryland would not require a person to register as a sex offender in Mississippi.

TEXAS
The Associated Press

By MICHELLE ROBERTS

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court said Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist sect's ranch, a ruling that could unravel one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered "legally and factually insufficient" grounds for the "extreme" measure of removing all children from the ranch, from babies to teenagers.

The state never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court approval, the appeals court said.

ITALY
Notizie Radicali

di Francesco Pullia

Chi ha letto La questua di Curzio Maltese, scritto in collaborazione con Carlo Pontesilli e Maurizio Turco e pubblicato in questi giorni da Feltrinelli, si sarà reso conto del vertiginoso, incalcolabile, giro di denaro e di interessi, tutt’altro che spirituali, gestito dal Vaticano.

Grazie ai benefici e ai privilegi concessi dai vari governi, senza alcuna distinzione tra destra e sinistra (entrambe unite appassionatamente da un atteggiamento di opportunistico assoggettamento), la Chiesa cattolica ha potuto creare e detenere un impero patrimoniale la cui entità è talmente ingente e inestimabile da sfuggire, dal punto di vista quantitativo, alle stesse gerarchie ecclesiastiche.

[translation]

VATICAN BUSINESS, SHEEP AND GOOD SHEPHERDS

By Francesco Pullia

The readers of La Questua by Curzio Maltese, written in collaboration with Carlo Pontesilli and Maurizio Turco and published by Feltrinelli, are aware of the vertiginous, incalculable, movement of money and interests, very far from spiritual, run by the Vatican.

Thanks to the benefits and privileges granted by various governments on both sides of the political spectrum (right and left passionately united by an opportunistic submissive behavior), the Catholic Church was able to create and hold a patrimonial empire of such a huge and invaluable entity the amount of which couldn't even been grasped, under the quantitative aspect, by the same ecclesiastical hierarchies.

From the banking activity to the commercial sector, from the radio stations to real estate property, from the land ownerships to the hotels run by the "religious" institutions and to the profits of the so called "tourism of the faithful".

We warmly recommend that people buy the courageous and well-documented book by Maltese and to do that soon because it's very likely that "strangely", in a very short period, it can't be found anymore in the bookshops, as it happened, for example, for Finanza bianca, la chiesa, i soldi, il potere, (White Finance, the church, the money, the power) by Giancarlo Galli, published four years ago by Mondadori and literally disappeared from circulation.

The Vatican state exercises its action unscrupulously (and with impunity), behaving like one of the most powerful multinationals of the planet, if not the most aggressive. Its longa manus, passing through manifold channels, reaches any spot where conspicuous interests can be shared.

Today we had news that five injunctions for cautionary custody were issued by the Genoa prosecutor against the spokesperson of the mayor of that city, two former city councillors and of an entrepreneur, a former Vice President of the hospital Galliera and now President of the Bambin Gesu' hospital in Rome. Those people are charged for association to commit crimes, corruption, illegal interference in an auction. The entrepreneur in particular is very close to Monsignor Angelo Bagnasco, the president of the episcopal conference, and to Monsignor Tarcisio Bertone, the State Secretary of Vatican City.

The prosecutor ordinance, consisting of six hundred pages, reports numerous conversations between those who were arrested in connection with the contract for the school cafeterias (29 million euros) and it repeatedly refers to alleged intercessions made by the two ecclesiastical authorities.

Excuse me, but wasn't it Monsignor Bertone who at the last meeting of Comunione e Liberazione (a catholic association), referring to Psalm 71, affirmed the necessity to concretely be involved "to render justice to the poor and save the life of the misers"?

Many people, Oltretevere, (it means beyond the Tiber, where the Vatican is located) have forgotten the evangelical exhortation not to possess gold, silver, travel bag, two tunics, sandals and stick (Mt, 10,8-9).

Let's say that frankly, Jesus for the Vatican is a too dangerous relativist. His teaching is inapplicable, pure theory. A fantasy useful only for the flock, the lost sheep. Much better the expurgated version adopted by the late Monsignor Paul Casimir Marcinkus, the banker of God. He was the one who really was a good shepherd...

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

2:09 PM Thu, May 22, 2008

Jacquielynn Floyd
Texas' child-welfare authorities have no choice but to bow gracefully to a unanimous ruling by a state appeals court that it overstepped its bounds in separating the cult's nearly 500 children from their parents.

The court has the authority to make that call, and I would not presume to say they weren't correct in their interpretion of the law.

But I hope this isn't a singal that Texas intends to turn its back and allow the polygamous FLDS sect to go right back to operating as a closed and secret society operating outside the rules of law and of civilized society.

TEXAS
The New York Times

[with link to text of the ruling]

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR and KIRK JOHNSON
Published: May 22, 2008
A Texas state court of appeals ruled Thursday afternoon that the state of Texas had no right to seize more than 400 children from a polygamist ranch in Eldorado, in the western part of the state.

The ruling asserted that the state’s child protection agency not only acted hastily in removing the children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in April but also failed to show that they were in immediate danger. According to the court, the state did not establish proper grounds to remove the children from their families, who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F.L.D.S. The F.L.D.S. broke off from the mainstream Mormon church after it had disavowed polygamy in 1890.

FRESNO (CA)
Metropolitan News-Enterprise

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer

A lawsuit charging that officials of the Fresno Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church were on notice that a parish priest was molesting young boys was reinstated yesterday by this district’s Court of Appeal.

In a 2-1 decision, the court held that while there is no direct evidence the officials knew of any molestations taking place at the church rectory in the Kern County community of Wasco, a triable issue exists as to whether such knowledge may be imputed to them based on the observations of a part-time parish employee.

The action was brought by George and Howard Santillan, brothers who claim they were abused by the priest in the Wasco parish between 1959 and 1973. They apparently did not tell each other or anyone else of the abuse until the 1980s, by which time the statute of limitations had expired.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Daily News

By Ronnie Polaneczky
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Columnist

HERE'S MY PLEA for the day:
Call state Rep. Thomas Caltagirone and ask why he believes that surgically maimed puppies deserve more attention from the state Legislature than sexually abused humans.

And if he explains himself in a way that makes any moral sense at all, would you please call and explain it to me?

Because I'm at a loss to understand how someone of Caltagirone's stature can weep over damaged dogs but blithely dismiss damaged humans.

Caltagirone, D-Berks, is majority chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, where House Bill 1137 - The Child Victims' Act of PA - has been rotting for a year.

TEXAS
Austin American-Statesman

By Chuck Lindell | Thursday, May 22, 2008, 12:32 PM

A Texas agency improperly removed more than 450 children from a polygamist ranch in West Texas, an Austin appeals court ruled today.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services failed to prove that children at the YFZ Ranch were in danger and needed to be removed from their homes, the 3rd Texas Court of Appeals ruled.

In addition, the appellate court ruled that District Judge Barbara Walther abused her discretion by failing to return the children after three days of hearings last month.

SAN ANGELO (TX)
The Salt Lake Tribune

The Associated Press and The Salt Lake Tribune

May 22:
11:47 AM- SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law.
Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to be grown-up predators.
The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children Court of appeals ruling from their homes without court proceedings.

SAN ANGELO (TX)
CNN

SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- The state of Texas should not have removed more than 400 children it took from a polygamist sect's ranch, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Earlier this year, authorities raided the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, after they received reports of child abuse.

About 460 children were taken from the ranch, which is run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamist sect linked to the jailed "prophet" Warren Steed Jeffs.

VERMONT
National Survivor Support Working Group

By Ed Friedl, National Representative of Voice of the Faithful

"A sad and tragic moment in our history" so claims Vermont Bishop Salvatore Matano, referring to the recent $8.7 million jury award in a priest abuse case. ...

But how much did Bishop Matano contribute to this sad history?

-- Instead of sitting down as a good pastor with the 40-year-old victim of childhood abuse by a priest, the Rev. Edward Paquette, who, it is alleged, fondled the victim from 40 to 100 times between 1976 and 1978.

In this case, like 18 others alleging similar claims about Paquette, the victim's lawyer contended the diocese was to blame because it hired Paquette in 1972 despite knowing that he had molested altar boys at parishes in Indiana and Massachusetts, and then kept him on duty after he sexually abused youths in Rutland in 1974.

-- Rather than sitting down and listening to the victims, and aiding them in their recovery, Bishop Matano chose to hunker down and take the advice of his high-priced attorneys - high priced for "a small rural diocese" to use his words -- and allow years to pass before legal action could take place. The marginalized and forgotten victims only seek to have acknowledgement of their soul-destruction at the hands of clergymen, the release of the documents of the perpetrators and the perpetrators' location, both now and in the past, and payment of the expenses of the survivors for their healing, no matter how long it lasts.

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Nearly 25 years after he kissed a 17-year-old girl who came to his Benalla presbytery for help, retired Catholic priest Adelrick D'Cruz has been convicted of indecent assault.

Leaning heavily on a walking stick and grasping the hand of a supporter, Fr D'Cruz, 78, of the Melbourne suburb of Clayton South, cut a frail figure as he shuffled slowly into Shepparton County Court to plead guilty to the charge.

Judge Frank Shelton placed him on a two-year adjournment of good behaviour - tarnishing his previously unblemished reputation - and ordered him to pay $500 to the St Vincent de Paul society.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is asking Pope Benedict to rule out appointing six prelates who have been repeatedly cited as possible successors to retiring Cardinal Edward Egan of New York.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing the papal nuncio in Washington DC criticizing Brooklyn Archbishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Hartford Archbishop Henry Mansell, Springfield MA Bishop Timothy McDonnell, Newark Archbishop John Myers and Paterson Bishop Arthur Serratelli.

All have been named in Catholic magazines, newspapers and on several widely respected Catholic blogs in recent weeks as likely candidates to replace Egan.

AMITE (LA)
WXVT

AMITE, La. (AP) - Attorneys say it could take longer than a week to try the next suspect in the Hosanna Church child sex abuse case.

Defense attorney Michael Thiel told state District Judge Zoey Waguespack Wednesday that he could see the aggravated rape trial for his client, 49-year-old Louis D. Lamonica of Holden, taking longer than a week.

Former church pastor Lamonica is 1 of 7 members of the now-defunct Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula indicted in 2005 on charges of raping the same three children. His case is set for trial on August 18th.

MASSACHUSETTS
Telegram & Gazette

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

The Diocese of Worcester, in its ongoing attempts to deal with changing demographics and a shortage of clergy, may soon close two more churches.

However, unlike the announcement by Bishop Robert J. McManus last weekend that five parishes will permanently shut their doors on July 1, news of the possible closures of St. Francis Xavier Church in Bolton and St. Theresa the Little Flower in Harvard is being welcomed by chancery officials and by the affected parishioners.

That’s because St. Francis and St. Theresa are too small to accommodate the growing numbers attending services, and church officials are looking to build a new church that would comfortably serve both congregations.

Members of both parishes voted recently to merge and to construct a new house of worship.