Abuse Tracker

QUEENSBURY (NY)
WNYT

[with video]

QUEENSBURY - A libel case against a local priest who was dismissed from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany was heard Friday in Warren County Court.

This was just a day after rape charges against the Rev. Gary Mercure came to light in Berkshire County.

The alleged crimes in Berkshire County were discussed in court Friday and the defense was not happy.

The attorneys for the Albany Diocese and Mercure refused to speak to reporters as they walked to their cars after court.

UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

The Associated Baptist Press recently posed the question of whether there should be a religious “test” for public office.

Suzii Paynter, director of the public policy & moral concerns arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, gave a “yes” sort of answer, stating that religious convictions can reveal “valuable insights into a candidate’s character….”

“When people reach a certain level -- whether in politics, business or any other powerful enterprise -- there’s always a temptation to see themselves as above the rules that apply to others,” she noted, apparently concluding that a religious “grounding” might improve their “public ethic.”

I pondered Suzii’s comments. If we could understand how people like Suzii Paynter think, perhaps we could figure out how to persuade Baptist leaders to actually take action against clergy sex abuse.

Remember Suzii “Because-there-are-no-bishops” Paynter?

BELLEVILLE (IL)
News-Democrat

By George Pawlaczyk

BELLEVILLE -- A judge today denied a motion by attorneys for the Catholic Diocese of Belleville to set aside a $5 million civil jury verdict against the church for damages suffered by a former altar boy or to order that a new trial be held.

Circuit Court Judge Lloyd Cueto issued his one-sentence order this afternoon that legally clears the way for an appeal to the Fifth Appellate Court in Mount Vernon.

As for whether an appeal will be filed, St. Louis attorney David Wells, who represents the diocese, said, "That up to the diocese."

Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton, who approved filing the motion for a new trial, will make the final decision on an appeal. He could not be reached.

PITTSFIELD (MA)
Catholic Culture

Father Gary Mecure, a priest permanently suspended by the Diocese of Albany in August amid child sex-abuse allegations, has been indicted on child rape charges by a Massachusetts grand jury. According to a lawsuit filed in May, Bishop Howard Hubbard was informed in 1994 of a homosexual relationship involving Mecure; the other man in the relationship reportedly showed Bishop Hubbard graphic photographs of a man whose image resembled Mecure.

BALTIMORE (MD)
Daily Record

CARYN TAMBER
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
October 31, 2008 12:49 PM
The Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests is asking the Catholic Church to find out whether a priest accused of molesting two of his own children abused anyone else.

Men from SNAP gathered in front of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s headquarters Friday morning for a news conference regarding Fernando Cristancho, who once served as a pastor at St. Ignatius Church in Forest Hill.

“I’m horrified that the Church continues to do nothing to put a substantial end to [clergy] sex abuse,” SNAP member Frank Dingell said.

Cristancho’s name became public this week when the Court of Special Appeals upheld a judge’s decision to give custody of 6-year-old triplets to the woman who gave birth to them, Dalia Fernandez, a platonic friend of Cristancho. The children — two boys and a girl — were conceived using his sperm and eggs from an anonymous donor.

UNITED STATES
The New York Observer

by Charles Taylor | October 31, 2008
This article was published in the November 3, 2008, edition of The New York Observer.

Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans
Talk About Change in the Church
and the Quest for Meaning
By Kerry Kennedy
Crown, 247 pages, $24.95

Kerry Kennedy’s book may be called Being Catholic Now, but her opening is pure chutzpah. Given an audience with Pope Benedict a few years back, she asked him, “In view of the tragedy unfolding in Africa, for the sake of the sanctity of life, would you consider changing the Church’s position on the use of condoms?” It’s a great, inescapable moment, one of those times the powerful are called on their own hypocrisy and given the chance to rise above it. At Ms. Kennedy’s audience, His Evasiveness merely “gazed beneficently, imparting ‘God bless you’ as he passed.” ...

That scandal is implicit in Ms. Kennedy’s scathing treatment of Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop whisked to a job in the Vatican beyond the reach of investigators just as his involvement in covering up the Boston child rape scandals were leading some to speculate that he’d be indicted. Ms. Kennedy, who is Bobby Kennedy’s daughter, recalls the archbishop as a publicity-hungry martinet barging into the spotlight after the suicide of her brother David.

LIKE MANY OF THOSE she interviewed, Ms. Kennedy seems to think it imperative for Catholics to stay in the church because she believes that the presence of such Catholics will finally compel change. But while I respect the work she’s done here—the honest attempt to grapple with the reconciliation of spiritual calling and social progressivism—I can’t help but feel that she and her interviewees are deluding themselves.

GERMANY
Anglican Journal (Canada)

Nov 1, 2008
Trier, Germany
Protestant leaders in Germany say they will investigate and expose past cases of mistreatment in church-run children’s homes after an investigation found that children had been physically and sexually abused in such institutions.

“We have established to our horror that even in church-run homes children were brought up with violence,” Bishop Margot Kässmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover said Sept. 22. -

The bishop’s comments follow the preliminary findings of an investigation she commissioned into claims of violence and abuse at children’s homes run by the social welfare agency of the Hanover church in the 1950s and 1960s.

INDIA
Tehelka

The suicide of a nun has shocked Kerala, leading the state Women’s Commission to recommend new laws to protect their rights, reports KA SHAJI

AFTER THREE decades of service, Sister Jesmi decided to leave the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel (CMC), an order of nuns under the Catholic Church in Kerala. Citing mental harassment from her superiors as the reason, she also took voluntary retirement from the principal’s post she held at St Mary’s College in Thrissur, one of the state’s best institutions of higher education. Sister Jesmi preferred to leave even though she knew she would have nowhere, apart from her sister, to turn for survival. Ineligible for benefits from the church, she is also debarred from demanding the return of her parental property, bequeathed to the church when she joined the order.

Four months ago, a 37-year-old nun from Alappuzha in southern Kerala was found filmed in a pornographic clip circulating via MMS, and was defrocked and sent home. The nun, who worked as a receptionist at a CMC mission hospital near Kochi, was having an affair with the hospital driver, but claimed she had no idea he was filming her. Today, nobody has a clue as to her whereabouts, or even whether her home has accepted her. She, too, has no claim over the property her parents gave the church.

In August this year, Sister Anupa Mary from Kollam in southern Kerala hanged herself in her convent room, leaving a suicide note blaming the Mother Superior, Sister Albeena. Anupa’s father, Pappachan, alleges that Albeena subjected his daughter to sexual abuse, and claims Anupa spoke of it a few weeks before she died to her mother and sister, though they kept quiet about it. There is now a police investigation against Albeena, but it is moving at a grinding pace.

Nuns who give up their vows, whether from choice or compulsion, have a bleak future in Kerala as there is no mechanism for their rehabilitation. The faithful and the Church view them with contempt; often, so do their families. Survival becomes extremely difficult leaving, in many cases, suicide as the only solution, one that has claimed the lives of 15 nuns over the last 14 years.

CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

By Matt Bartosik

A Chicago woman is taking her belief to another level. She intends to become a priest, regardless of what The Vatican says.

Can women be ordained to the priesthood? The Catholic Church has always answered "No," but at least one woman in Edgewater begs to differ.

Barbara Zeman is planning to fight women's exclusion from priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church this weekend. On Saturday, the activist group Roman Catholic Womenpriests will hold a ceremony at a Protestant church where they will pronounce Zeman a Catholic priest.

"I am disobeying an unjust law," Zeman, 60, told the Chicago Tribune. "I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for the generations of women to come, because I don't want those women to have the fight I've had."

PUEBLO (CO)
KKTV

[with video]

Reporter: Danielle Saar
Email Address: dsaar@kktv.com

Twenty-three victims who say they were sexually abused by a former Catholic high school teacher, will now split a four million dollar settlement.

That settlement was announced Thursday from one of the attorneys representing those 23 alleged victims.

The lawyer who was speaking on behalf of the 23 accusers says he has worked on many sexual abuse cases, but never had this many victims come forward from one alleged predator.

On the steps of the Pueblo County Courthouse, Adam Horowitz, attorney for the plaintiffs announced the 4-million dollar settlement of 23 lawsuits brought against the Diocese of Pueblo and the Marianist religious order.

PUEBLO (CO)
KRDO

[with video]

By SCOTT HARRISON
s.harrison@krdo.com

PUEBLO - 16 residents will share in a $4 million settlement for sexual abuse they say they suffered 40 years ago from a Catholic teacher. The settlement was announced Thursday on the courthouse steps by a Miami-based attorney representing 23 victims.

The settlement ends a two-year lawsuit by the victims against the Pueblo Diocese and the Marianist order, connected to Brother William Mueller. The statute of limitations makes seeking a criminal prosecution difficult.

Victims say they were abused between 1966 and 1971 at the former Roncalli High School, which closed in 1971 and is now Roncalli Middle School. Mueller was a religious and music teacher who allegedly stunned teen males with a chemical and took them into soundproof band rooms so that no one could hear him, claiming he was performing experiments in trust and confidence.

NEW YORK
abs-cbn (Philippines)

abs-cbnNEWS.com | 10/31/2008 5:12 PM

Officials in New York's Diocese of Brooklyn have barred a Filipino priest from serving in New York City after his seven-month affair with a divorcee was uncovered in court papers this week.

An Associated Press report said Rev. Fr. Elvis Elano has been accused in the $25-million lawsuit for having an affair with Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn.

The woman reported the affair in August. She, however, refused to identify the priest until his name was uncovered when the suit was filed this week before the Brooklyn State Supreme Court.

TEXARKANA (AR)
KFSM

TEXARKANA - A federal judge has moved a trial for jailed evangelist Tony Alamo to Feb. 2.

U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes issued an order Thursday moving the date of the trial, which was to begin Nov. 19. In his order, Barnes said that "the ends of justice served by the granting of the continuance outweighs the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial."

PITTSFIELD (MA)
Boston Herald

By Associated Press
Friday, October 31, 2008

PITTSFIELD - A former Roman Catholic priest has been indicted on charges that he raped two children in the Berkshires during the late 1980s.

Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless announced on Thursday that 60-year-old Gary Mercure was indicted this month by a grand jury on four felony counts, including three counts of rape of a child with force and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in Berkshire Superior Court on Nov. 18.

PUEBLO (CO)
The Pueblo Chieftain

By PATRICK MALONE
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Three years after their lawsuits were filed, and about four decades after they say they were sexually abused by a teacher at Roncalli High School, 23 plaintiffs finalized a $4 million settlement Thursday with the Catholic Diocese of Pueblo and the Society of Mary religious order.

The suits accused former Marianist Brother William Mueller, a teacher at the all-boys high school while it was open from 1966-71, of convincing students that he was conducting trust experiments, then rendering them helpless with ether and molesting or raping them.

According to court records in Missouri and Pueblo, Mueller's Marianist supervisors were aware of allegations that he had behaved inappropriately with teenage boys beginning in 1958 when he was studying toward acceptance into the order. Mueller left the Society of Mary voluntarily in 1986 after complaints against him continued, despite two trips to a New Mexico treatment center for troubled clergy. Leaders of the order were aware of complaints about Mueller at every high school where he was assigned before and after his stay at Roncalli, according to depositions.

VATICAN CITY
Religious Intelligence (United Kingdom)

By: Toby Cohen.

Sex tests will be applied to men wishing to become Catholic priests, according to new guidance issued by the Roman Catholic Church yesterday.

After a series of sex-scandals involving priests, Pope Benedict XVI has authorized a new strategy which will aim to root out applicants with devious sexual urges. The guidance states the tests should also aim to vet for those with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies”. ...

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a US-based group of victims of sexual abuse, released a statement saying the new measures would fail to deal with the problem of sex abuse in the Church: “Catholic officials continue to fixate on the offenders and ignore the larger problem: The Church's virtually unchanged culture of secrecy and unchecked power in the hierarchy.

VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By Frances D'Emilio
Associated Press / October 31, 2008

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican issued new psychological screening guidelines for seminarians yesterday - the latest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to be more selective about its priesthood candidates after a series of sexual abuse scandals.

The church said it issued the guidelines to help church leaders weed out candidates with "psychopathic disturbances." The scandals have rocked the church in recent years, triggering lawsuits that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

The guidelines "became ever more urgent because of the sexual scandals," Monsignor Jean-Louis Brugues said. He stressed, however, that psychological testing was used in some seminaries since the 1960s - or at least a decade before the sexual abuse scandals exploded in public.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Kristin E. Holmes
Inquirer Staff Writer

A former top prosecutor in the Bucks County District Attorney's Office yesterday was charged with having a sexual relationship with a minor while volunteering in a church youth group.

Anthony Cappuccio, 31, of Hilltown Township, was charged with three counts each of endangering the welfare of children, corrupting minors, and furnishing alcohol to minors.

Cappuccio and the 17-year-old boy were discovered partially dressed at about midnight Sept. 5 in a car parked at a shopping center in Quakertown, according to court documents. Cappuccio resigned from his post as a chief deputy district attorney the next day.

CANADA
Toronto Sun

By SAM PAZZANO

A parishoner, who testified that a United Church minister engaged her in a lengthy sexual relationship under the guise of counselling, wrote an apology letter to him and his wife, court heard yesterday.

Rev. William Major is alleged to have masturbated, had oral sex and fondled her for several years during counselling sessions aimed at dealing with the woman's childhood sexual abuse. Major also had intercourse once with the witness.

Major, now 65, has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the woman from Jan. 1, 1996 to Dec. 20, 2005.

But the physical intimacy between Major and the witness ended after Major's wife Doris cancelled the counselling sessions in the spring of 2002.

TEXAS
San Antonio Express

By Abe Levy and Todd Bensman
- Express-News

Almost two dozen men who implicated a former Catholic clergyman from San Antonio in sexual-abuse lawsuits will split $4 million under a settlement announced Thursday in Pueblo, Colo.

The lawsuits claimed San Antonio resident William Mueller, 70, under the guise of doing psychological experiments, used ether on students at an all-boys Catholic high school to render them unconscious before fondling or sexually molesting them.

“Horrific things were happening to boys put into a Catholic school by their families, which is disgusting,” said Jeff Herman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “To me, (the settlement) is validation of wrongdoing, and that the writing was on the wall.”

COLORADO
The Denver Post

By Kirk Mitchell
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 10/31/2008 12:51:36 AM MDT

The lawsuits of 23 men who alleged they were sexually abused by a Marianist brother who taught at Roncalli High School in Pueblo have been settled for $4 million.

The settlement with the Diocese of Pueblo and Marianist Religious Order was announced Thursday by a Florida law firm representing the men.

Between 1966 and 1971, according to the plaintiffs, they were sexually abused by Brother William Mueller at the all-boys high school, said attorneys Jeffrey M. Herman and Adam D. Horowitz of Miami.

PITTSFIELD (MA)
Albany Times Union

By JIMMY VIELKIND, Staff writer
Last updated: 11:40 p.m., Thursday, October 30, 2008

PITTSFIELD — A defrocked Catholic priest who was a pastor at two Troy parishes has been indicted in connection with sexual abuse against two boys during the 1980s, prosecutors said.

Gary Mercure, 60, was indicted on three counts, including child rape, according to Frederick Lantz, spokesman for Berkshire County District Attorney David Capeless.

Mercure allegedly raped two men. The first, involving a man who is now 33 years old, occurred in the Great Barrington area in the fall of 1986, Lantz said. The second alleged rape occurred in February, 1989 in New Ashford. The alleged victim is now 32 years old, Lantz said.

VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

PADDY AGNEW in Rome

THE VATICAN'S Congregation for Catholic Education yesterday released a document recommending that seminary candidates undergo "psychological evaluations" with regard to potential personality disturbances as well as to their ability to live a celibate life.

The document seems to follow on from one issued by the congregation in 2005 which said the Catholic Church cannot ordain men who are active homosexuals or who have "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies.

This new document argues that if seminary students demonstrate areas of grave immaturity, then "the path of formation will have to be interrupted". Such areas of "immaturity" included deep-seated homosexual tendencies, unclear sexual identity, difficulty with the celibate life, excessive rigidity of character and lack of freedom in relations.

PITTSFIELD (MA)
Berkshire Eagle

By Conor Berry, Berkshire Eagle Staff

Friday, October 31
PITTSFIELD — District Attorney David F. Capeless announced yesterday that his office will prosecute a former Roman Catholic priest accused of raping two children in the Berkshires in the 1980s.

Gary Mercure, who avoided prosecution after coming under fire in the Albany, N.Y., clergy abuse scandal, now faces sexual assault charges in the Berkshires, where two men in their early 30s claim the priest forcibly raped them in 1986 and 1989. The circumstances surrounding the alleged incidents were unclear.

Mercure, 60, was indicted this month by a Berkshire grand jury on four felony counts, including three counts of rape of a child with force — a crime punishable by possible life imprisonment — and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

VATICAN CITY
Daily Contributor (Philippines)

31 October 2008 Comments
Posted by Sherwin

The present crisis of sexual abuse by priests has shaken the self confidence of the Catholic Church.

On Thursday, the Vatican has issued guidance for future priests to have psychological exams to get rid of those unable to control their sexual urges.

The guidance says the voluntary tests should also aim to check for those with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies”. Meaning, men with homosexual tendencies should not be allowed to train for the Catholic priesthood even if they seem able to stay celibate.

VERMONT
Burlington Free Press

By Sam Hemingway • Free Press Staff Writer • October 31, 2008

MONTPELIER -- Lawyers for the state's Roman Catholic diocese told the Vermont Supreme Court that the case of an altar boy molested by a priest in 1977 should be thrown out because the victim waited too long to file his lawsuit.

The case was appealed to the high court from Chittenden Superior Court by the diocese and lawyers for the victim, James Turner of Virginia Beach, Va., following a contentious 2007 trial that ended with a $15,000 jury award for Turner.

Attorney Kaveh Shahi argued that Turner was obligated to begin pursuing his claims against the church within six years of 1981, when he was notified that the priest who molested him, the Rev. Alfred Willis, had been caught fondling altar boys in Milton. He learned of the Milton incident from his brother, the Rev. Bernard Turner, a diocesan priest.

NEW YORK
WCBS

[with video]

A Queens priest who worked as a chaplain at a hospital has been suspended after apparently using his confessional booth to take advantage of a vulnerable parishioner and engaging in a sexual relationship with her.

The alleged affair began at the Our Lady of the Snows Church in Glen Oaks, where Rev. Elvis Elano practiced. It was in a confessional there where the illicit liaison between the Catholic priest and a woman going through a divorce began.

"For lack of a better word, he was hitting on her," said the woman's attorney, Andrew Laufer.

KINGSTON (NY)
Daily Freeman

Staff and wire reports
10/30/2008

A PRIEST accused of having a sexual liaison with a parishioner in New York City has been suspended from his role as a chaplain at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston.

The Rev. Elvis Elano came to Benedictine, a Catholic hospital on Mary's Avenue, in August and was suspended on Thursday, according to Sean Casey, the hospital's spokesman.

"Father Elano has been suspended from his duties at Benedictine Hospital, where he provided pastoral care to our patients since August 2008," Casey said in a prepared statement.

VATICAN CITY
Scotman

By Emily Pykett
MEN who want to be ordained as Catholic priests will be vetted by psychological tests designed to "screen out" homosexuals and those who will find it impossible to stay celibate, it has emerged.

The new guidelines were issued by the Vatican yesterday, in the second document in three years intended to deal with the effects of a sex abuse scandal that rocked the Church six years ago. Officials stated they had a duty to ensure candidates' suitability.

Psychological tests have been used in some seminaries as far back as the 1960s. A 2005 Vatican document allowed men to become priests if they had suppressed homosexual urges for three years.

But the new guidelines stress that if a future priest shows "deep-seated homosexual tendencies", his training "would have to be interrupted". They go on to state that men should also be barred from entering the priesthood if the tests show it is "evident that the candidate has difficulty living in celibacy: that is, if celibacy for him is lived as a burden so heavy that it compromises his affective and relational equilibrium".

LOUISA (VA)
Richmond Times-Dispatch

A Louisa County jury found former Catholic priest Rodney L. Rodis guilty today of stealing from two parishes he served as pastor.

The jury reached its verdict on all 10 felony theft counts at about 6:30 p.m., after deliberating for a little less than an hour.

At 8:30 p.m., jurors returned with a sentencing recommendation of 20 years per count for a total of 200 years, the maximum allowed. Formal sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 14.

PINAL COUNTY (AZ)
East Valley Tribune

Devon Hersom, Tribune
Paul Babeu, the Republican candidate for Pinal County sheriff, brings backgrounds in both politics and law enforcement to his bid for the position that requires the skills in both.

His first elected office was as a city councilman in a small Massachusetts town at the age of 18.

As a Chandler police officer, Babeu became president of the agency's union, the Chandler Law Enforcement Agency. ...

The following year, Babeu went public with allegations that as a child he had been sexually molested by a Catholic priest. Several other victims soon came forward and began a lawsuit against the priest. Babeu also filed a lawsuit in early 2000, which was settled out of court.

"It was part of my healing and a part of me helping others," he said. "I knew what they were going through."

LOUISA (VA)
NBC 29

Rodney Rodis has been found guilty on state charges of embezzling a half million dollars from his two Louisa County churches. The former Roman Catholic priest was already convicted on federal charges.

Rodis faced 10 state charges in all for alleged embezzlement occurring from 2003 to 2006. Thursday, the second day of the trial, a 12 person jury found him guilty on all charges.

NEW YORK
USA Today

NEW YORK (AP) — A visiting Catholic priest accused in a $25 million lawsuit of luring a distraught divorcee into having a seven-month affair has been barred from serving in the city, church officials said Thursday.

The accuser, Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn, reported the affair in August but refused to out the priest, said the officials, who learned it was the Rev. Elvis Elano when the suit was filed earlier this week.

ITALY
la Repubblica

La festa di compleanno in Vaticano di George Ratzinger, fratello maggiore di Benedetto XVI, costera' 100.000 euro alla diocesi di Ratisbona, in Baviera. Georg, presbitero e direttore di un coro tedesco, compira' 85 anni il prossimo 15 gennaio e, secondo il settimanale tedesco 'Focus', vuole che la Messa in Do minore di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sia eseguita nella cappella Sistina.

[translation]

POPE’S BROTHER BIRTHDAY COSTS 100,000 EUROS TO DIOCESE

Georg Ratzinger’s birthday party, who is the elder brother of Benedict XVI, will cost 100,000 euro to the diocese of Regensburg, in Bavaria. Georg, a priest and director of a German choir, will be 85 years-old on January 15 and, according to the German weekly ‘Focus’, wants to celebrate it with a Mass in Do minore by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to be performed in the Sistine Chapel. In order to achieve that the German diocese has planned to pay the air tickets for 90 choir members and 37 musicians of the Linz symphony orchestra, in Austria. The expense, according to the weekly, is raising polemics in Regensburg, where the diocese’s funds mainly originate from the taxpayers and property’s rents.

PITTSFIELD (MA)
Glens Falls Post-Star

By DON LEHMAN
dlehman@poststar.com
Updated: Thursday, October 30, 2008 3:50 PM EDT

A former Catholic priest from the Glens Falls area has been indicted on charges he raped two boys in the Pittsfield, Mass., area more than 20 years ago.

Gary Mercure, who was removed from the ministry earlier this year by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany amid allegations of child sexual abuse, is accused of taking boys he met through his church duties to Massachusetts and having sexual contact with them there in 1986 and 1989.

He faces two charges of rape of a child by force and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, all felonies, authorities said.

VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Roman Catholic Church has issued guidance for future priests to have psychological tests to weed out those unable to control their sexual urges.

A senior churchman said a series of sex scandals had contributed to the rewriting of the guidelines.

The authors said screening would help avoid "tragic situations" caused by what they termed psychological defects.

VATICAN CITY
Zenit

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 30, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A priest should not just have a solid spiritual life, but also psychological and affective maturity, Vatican officials reiterated today.

This affirmation was among the main points at a press conference in the Vatican for the presentation of "Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood," from the Congregation for Catholic Education.

Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski and Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès, prefect and secretary of that dicastery, presented the report with consultor and psychologist, Father Carlo Bresciani.

VERMONT
WPTZ

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Attorneys for priest sex abuse victim James Turner are appealing their case to the state supreme court, arguing that his recent civil case was tainted by a catholic parishioner who sat on the jury.

Turner sued Vermont's Roman Catholic Diocese last year, claiming that the diocese knowingly hired a pedophile priest who sexually abused Turner 30 years ago when he was a member of the church.

LOUISA (VA)
Richmond Times-Dispatch

LOUISA -- Prosecution and defense lawyers presented their cases today in the embezzlement trial of Rodney Rodis, the former Catholic priest accused of stealing more than $1 million from two county churches.

The jury will hear closing arguments later today and may begin deliberations this afternoon.

Parishioners attending the trial today looked on in disbelief at a picture of a luxury beach home in The Philippines allegedly bought with stolen money.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY ERICA PEARSON and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Wednesday, October 29th 2008, 10:42 PM

A Viagra-popping vicar from a Queens Catholic church seduced a parishioner by insisting it was "ordained by God," the woman charged in a lawsuit.

Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn slapped the Rev. Elvis Elano, formerly of Our Lady of the Snows Church in Floral Park, with a $25 million lawsuit, charging he used his collar to coax her into bed.

In the suit filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Rodrigues-Lytwyn, 50, said the unholy shenanigans have left her with "severe stress" and "shame."

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY MIKE JACCARINO AND CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Thursday, October 30th 2008, 4:23 PM

Father Elvis has left the hospital.

The romancing reverend accused of seducing a Queens parishioner was booted Thursday from his new gig as chaplain to the upstate Benedictine Hospital.

The Rev. Elvis Elano transferred to Kingston, N.Y., before Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn slapped him and the church with a $25 million lawsuit on Monday.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

We first want to applaud the courage and strength of Fr. Teczar's brave victims, especially Dave Lewcon, who devoted time, energy and effort into getting this dangerous predator off the street. When victims and witnesses speak up, there's at least a chance for healing, justice and prevention. But when they stay silent, predators walk free and kids get hurt. Catholics and citizens, in both Texas and Massachusetts, owe Dave and his caring colleagues a debt of gratitude.

We also want to commend the Texas prosecutors who have agreed to re-try him.

We hope he's found guilty again. Until that happens, we worry about the safety of kids near him, whether in Texas or in Massachusetts, and worry that he'll flee to another country to avoid justice.

VATICAN CITY
NPR

VATICAN CITY October 30, 2008, 04:15 pm ET · The Vatican issued new psychological screening guidelines for seminarians Thursday — the latest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to be more selective about its priesthood candidates following a series of sex abuse scandals. ...

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said the Vatican needs to go beyond screening seminarians to end what the group calls the church's "virtually unchanged culture of secrecy and unchecked power in the hierarchy" that left dangerous priests in parishes.

"Every barrel will always have some bad apples," the Survivors Network said. "Real change requires effectively reforming the barrel and those who oversee it."

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Kristin E. Holmes
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A former Bucks County prosecutor who resigned one day after police discovered him half-dressed in a parked car with a minor was charged today with endangering the welfare of children and corrupting minors.

Anthony Cappuccio, 31, of Hilltown Township, and a 17-year-old boy - both part of a church youth group - were found at about midnight Sept. 5 parked at a shopping center in Quakertown, according to court documents. Cappuccio was a volunteer with a group at First United Methodist Church in Perkasie, and the boy was a member.

PITTSFIELD (MA)
Schenechtady Gazette

By Jill Bryce
Gazette Reporter

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A Troy priest has been indicted on charges related to the alleged rape of two minors in the late 1980s in western Massachusetts.

Rev. Gary Mercure, 60, was indicted by a Berkshire County grand jury on two counts of rape of a child with force and one count of indecent assault and battery of a child under 14. He is also charged with one count of rape with force for an incident involving a 13-year-old boy in 1989.

Mercure got to know the minors while working in New York parishes and took them to Massachusetts when the alleged rapes occurred, according to authorities.

Berkshire County District Attorney's Office spokesman Frederick A. Lantz said today the charges are the result of an investigation by Massachusetts state police. He was not sure when the investigation began, however.

DELAWARE
WDEL

[with video]

By Carl Kanefsky

Another law suit names the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington as a defendant, claiming officials covered up the sexual abuse of a child by a parish priest.

Supporters of sexual abuse survivors held a small vigil outside of the Cathedral of St. Peter in Wilmington Thursday morning, shortly after a lawsuit had been filed on behalf of Robert Kohr, a man claiming he was repeatedly abused by the late Father Carmen Vignola.

Michael Reck, an attorney representing Kohr says the abuse began in the 1980s when Kohr was 14 years old.

PITTSFIELD (MA)
CBS 6

October 30, 2008 - 3:14PM
CBS 6 News
A 60-year-old Troy man has been indicted by a Berkshire County grand jury on charges of sexually assaulting a child in connection with incidents alleged to have occurred in 1986 and in 1989.

Gary Mercure, who was a priest at the time of the incidents, has been charged with two counts of raping a child with force and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in connection with incidents alleged to have occurred in Great Barrington, Mass. or Monterey, Mass. between Sept. 1, 1986 and Dec. 31, 1986, said Berkshire County District Attorney Frederick Lantz.

The alleged victim in the case, a male, is now 33 years old.

COLORADO
The Pueblo Chieftain

By PATRICK MALONE
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

A press conference is scheduled today to announce the $4 million settlement of 23 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of students at Roncalli High School by a clergyman teacher.

The settlements average $173,913 per plaintiff, however it has not been announced whether each accuser will get an equal share of the sum or what portion will be applied to their legal fees.

The plaintiffs accused Brother William Mueller, a music and religion teacher at Roncalli while it was open from 1966-1971, of subduing them with ether under the guise of conducting psychological experiments. While they were helpless, the men contend they were molested and raped.

PITTSFIELD (MA)
WNYT

PITTSFIELD, Mass. - A priest suspended by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany has been indicted on sex charges in Berkshire County. The Rev. Gary Mercure of Troy, N.Y. is now accused of raping two boys there in the 1980s.

Mercure is charged with three counts of rape of a child with force and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

Two of the rape charges and the assault charge relate to incidents that took place in 1986 in Great Barrington. The district attorney's office says the victim in that case is now 33 years old.

COLORADO
United Press International

PUEBLO, Colo., Oct. 30 (UPI) -- A Florida law firm said Thursday 23 priest abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pueblo, Colo., and Marianist Religious Order have been settled.

Attorneys Jeffrey M. Herman and Adam D. Horowitz confirmed that a $4 million settlement has been reached in a series of lawsuits against the diocese in Pueblo over alleged abuse committed by Brother William Mueller, The Denver Post said.

The plaintiffs in the 23 lawsuits had accused Mueller of molesting them at Pueblo's Roncalli High School between 1966 and 1971.

MARYLAND
Daily Record

DANNY JACOBS
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
October 29, 2008 6:49 PM
A priest’s defamation lawsuit against a former school admissions director who accused him of inappropriate conduct toward her was incorrectly listed Tuesday in court records as settled, lawyers for both sides said.

Attorneys for the Rev. Timothy J. Fell and Charyl G. Breidenstein said talks continue between the two sides. Baltimore County Circuit Court records indicate the case is “closed/inactive” because of a settlement approved on the record Tuesday.

INDIA
Catholic Culture

October 30, 2008
Two lay leaders quoted by UCA News allege came to the defense of Bishop John Thattumkal of Cochin, a diocese located in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. Bishop Thattumkal was suspended on October 23 following his September 9 adoption of Sony Joseph, the 26-year-old daughter of a Syrian Orthodox priest. Bishop Thattumkal met Ms. Joseph during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in April, and her purported visions, according to earlier reports, helped the bishop uncover financial corruption among the priests of his diocese.

COLORADO
KRDO

Associated Press - October 30, 2008 10:24 AM ET

PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) - Attorneys say they have reached a $4 million settlement for 23 men who claim they were sexually abused when they attended a Catholic high school in Pueblo.

Details of the settlement are to be announced Thursday in Pueblo by attorneys Jeffrey M. Herman and Adam D. Horowitz of Miami.

VATICAN CITY
Fox News

Thursday, October 30, 2008

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican issued new psychological screening guidelines for seminarians Thursday — the latest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to be more selective about its priesthood candidates following a series of pedophile scandals.

The church said it issued the new guidelines to help church leaders weed out candidates with "psychopathic disturbances." Sex abuse scandals by pedophile priests have rocked the church in recent years, triggering lawsuits that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican document said seminary candidates should undergo psychological evaluations whenever there is a suspicion of personality disturbances or serious doubts about their ability to live a celibate life.

In assessing the capacity for celibacy, it said, the church needs to evaluate a seminarian's sexual orientation, and make sure that uncertain sexual identity or "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" are not present.

The document, released at the Vatican Oct. 30, was prepared by the Congregation for Catholic Education and approved by Pope Benedict XVI.

NEW YORK
CBS

NEW YORK (CBS) ― A woman is suing her parish priest, claiming he lured her into having sex that he said was "ordained by God." Instead, she says, he took advantage of her when she sought spiritual solace after her divorce.

Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn filed her $25 million lawsuit in Brooklyn state Supreme Court. She says the seven-month affair left her feeling "severe stress" and "shame."

The 50-year-old parishioner charges the priest with using his collar -- and Viagra -- to seduce her.

She had gone to confession at Our Lady of the Snows Church in Queens and told the priest about her divorce from an abusive husband, when she says he began "encouraging her to engage in a sexual liaison with him to assist her in overcoming her pain associated with her husband and because it was 'ordained by God,"' according to the lawsuit.

NEW YORK (NY)
The Jewish Week

By Hella Winston and Larry Cohler-Esses

October 30, 2008

A group of alleged survivors of sexual abuse from strictly Orthodox backgrounds and victim advocates have joined together to encourage Orthodox victims to seek justice in New York’s secular courts, rather than quietly within their communities.

The new group, Survivors for Justice, will also lobby the state legislature to pass a long-pending bill to extend the statute of limitations on such crimes so that victims can get into court. The organization, the first of its kind, will work to break an intimidating communal code of silence, said Mark Weiss, one of its founders.

“It’s about time that people start recognizing the destructive effects of people’s fear of being stigmatized for talking about this issue,” said Weiss. “People need to realize that being associated with [the issue of sexual abuse] creates a stigma only if they allow it to. Fear and intimidation under the guise of upholding the reputation of the Torah should have no place in our midst.”

COLORADO
The Denver Post

By Kirk Mitchell
The Denver Post

A Florida lawfirm has reached a $4 million settlement of 23 priest abuse lawsuits against the Diocese of Pueblo and Marianist Religious Order.

The plaintiffs alleged they were sexually abused by William Mueller at Roncalli High School in Pueblo between 1966 and 1971, attorneys Jeffrey M. Herman and Adam D. Horowitz of Miami announced today.

The victims alleged they were molested by Mueller in the band room of the school.

According to the lawsuits, Brother William Mueller told each of the students that he was performing a confidential experiment.

MARYLAND
Examiner

By Carolyn Peirce
Examiner Staff Writer 10/30/08

A Catholic priest found to have sexually abused two of his 6-year-old triplets lost custody this week to the woman who gave birth to the children using his donated sperm and another woman’s eggs.

The state’s second-highest court held Monday that Fernando Cristancho, 52, of Bel Air, is unfit to parent the triplets, two boys and a girl, and granted custody to Dalia Fernandez, 57, the woman who gave birth to them using in vitro fertilization.

The decision affirmed the ruling of Harford Circuit Judge Emory Plitt Jr., who said Fernandez deserved the children because she was a de facto parent acting as their mother even though she was unrelated.

LOUISA (VA)
The Free Lance-Star

BY ELLEN BILTZ

LOUISA

--The jury trial for former Catholic priest Rodney Rodis got off to a slow start yesterday with only the completion of jury selection.

Rodis, 52, is charged with 10 counts of embezzlement from two Louisa County Catholic churches.

His trial was set for yesterday and today, but after the court finally completed jury selection at about 6 p.m., Judge Timothy K. Sanner suggested the trial may last into Friday.

Nine women and five men were selected for the jury. Two of the jurors will be used as alternates in case of sickness or another emergency.

LOUISA (VA)
Richmond Times-Dispatch

By CALVIN R. TRICE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Lawyers chose 12 jurors and two alternates to hear evidence in the case of a former priest accused of stealing money donated to two Louisa County churches he led.

Opening statements in the embezzlement case against Rodney L. Rodis, 52, are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. today in Louisa County Circuit Court.

Rodis faces 10 felony theft counts accusing him of diverting money intended for Immaculate Conception and St. Jude Catholic churches while he was pastor of both. . Authorities believe he stole as much as $1 million from the two parishes as he solicited money for major capital campaigns.

NEW YORK
Philly.com

The Associated Press

NEW YORK - A woman is suing her parish priest, claiming he lured her into having sex that he said was "ordained by God." Instead, she says, he took advantage of her when she sought spiritual solace after her divorce.

Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn filed her $25 million lawsuit in Brooklyn state Supreme Court. She says the seven-month affair left her feeling "severe stress" and "shame."

IRELAND
Limerick Leader

Published Date: 30 October 2008
By Anne Sheridan
FIVE new lawsuits against a Limerick paedophile priest are pending from a legal firm in the United States, which is considering hiring a private detective to track him down.

Defrocked priest Oliver O'Grady, 62, returned to live in the Mid-West in 2001, after being deported from the United States, where he was convicted on four counts of lewd and lascivious acts on two males.

The law firm Manly, McGuire and Stewart in California now has enough evidence to proceed with more civil actions against him. Two further victims have come forward alleging that Mr O'Grady assaulted them when they were altar boys.

NEW YORK
ABC News

By SCOTT MICHELS
Oct. 30, 2008

A Catholic priest allegedly seduced a distraught woman after hearing her confession, telling her to have an affair with him because it was "ordained by God," the Queens, N.Y., woman claims in a lawsuit.

Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn claims the ensuing affair caused her to suffer "severe stress, anxiety, guilt, fear, humiliation and shame," the lawsuit says.

According to the lawsuit, Father Elvis Elano professed his love for her immediately after her first confession at the Church of Our Lady of the Snows in Queens, N.Y.

CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald

By The Canadian Press
Thu. Oct 30 - 4:47 AM
TORONTO — Lawyers participating in the commission into Indian residential school abuse have tabled a proposal aimed at moving the stalled process forward.

The $60-million, five-year Truth and Reconciliation Commission was derailed only months after it began when its head, Justice Harry LaForme, suddenly resigned last week.

Lawyers for the federal government and representatives from the Catholic, Anglican, United and Presbyterian churches gathered in a closed-door meeting in Toronto on Wednesday to discuss the proposal with members of the Assembly of First Nations and Inuit officials.

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Candidates for the Catholic priesthood should undergo psychological tests to screen out heterosexuals unable to control their sexual urges and those with strong homosexual tendencies, the Vatican said Thursday.

A new document was the second in three years to deal with the effects of a sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Church six years ago.

It said the early detection of "sometimes pathological" psychological defects of men before they become priests would help avoid tragic experiences.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

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

WORCESTER— A coalition of groups that offer support for victims of sexual abuse by priests yesterday called on Bishop Robert J. McManus to use the chancery’s resources to warn the public about the possible jail release of the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar, a Roman Catholic priest formerly of Worcester who was found guilty last year of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy from Ranger, Texas, in 1990.

Earlier this month, a Texas appeals court found that the judge who handled Rev. Teczar’s court proceedings had committed errors and the panel ordered a new trial.

Eastland (Texas) Criminal District Attorney Russ Thomason has said that he will retry the case, but there’s concern among the support groups that the priest will be released, pending a new trial.

Representatives of the groups — at a press conference held outside the chancery complex on Elm Street — also renewed their long-standing request that church officials identify all diocesan priests accused of sexual improprieties and provide the addresses where the clerics live.

PORTLAND (OR)
KGW

By DAVID KROUGH, kgw.com Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Detectives said there were more victims and more than a dozen new suspects worldwide in a suspected sex abuse ring operating out of a former Northeast Portland church.

Police think that the commune operated in the mid-1990s, involving at least 80 people living in four Northeast Portland homes.

The investigation started in 2007, when two young girls walked into a Central precinct station to report they had been sexually abused between 1998 and 2000 while they and their families attended “The Peach House” ministries in Northeast Portland.

BAKER CITY (OR)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAKER CITY, Ore. -- A Baker County grand jury has indicted a former Nazarene Church youth pastor on 23 sex crimes, 13 more than police had originally charged him with.

Dean B. Barnes, 35, was arraigned last week before Judge Greg Baxter and is held in the Baker County Jail with bail set at $750,000.

CANADA
Toronto Sun

By SAM PAZZANO, COURTS BUREAU

A United Church minister abused his position of trust by having a long-term sexual relationship with a parishioner, a woman told court yesterday.

The now 54-year-old woman said Rev. William Major masturbated, had oral sex and fondled her during counselling sessions designed to deal with her childhood sexual abuse.

The woman said she and Major only had intercourse once during the six-year physical relationship which was followed by a few years of "phone sex" contact.

Major, now 65, was a federal candidate for the NDP in Sudbury during the 1988 election and has worked extensively for anti-poverty groups.

CANADA
Standard-Freeholder

By TREVOR PRITCHARD, STANDARD-FREEHOLDER

An Ontario Provincial Police lawyer tried to allay fears Wednesday that new deadlines imposed on the Cornwall Public Inquiry would harm the quality of evidence given by his institution's witnesses.

Speaking before the first OPP witness began testifying, Neil Kozloff pledged that the OPP would "do our utmost" to meet strict orders handed down last week by the Ministry of the Attorney General mandating that the final inquiry witness leave the stand no later than Jan. 30, 2009.

"The volume of work that remains to be done has not changed. We are concerned about the time limits imposed and the effect it will have on this inquiry's work," said Kozloff.

BELLEVILLE (IL)]
Catholic Culture

October 29, 2008
An alleged victim of clerical sexual abuse has hand-delivered a letter to Bishop Edward Braxton’s secretary in which David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, asked the Illinois bishop not to pursue a legal appeal.

CANADA
Standard-Freeholder

By TREVOR PRITCHARD, STANDARD-FREEHOLDER

A local Children's Aid Society worker denied she ever told David Silmser the agency wasn't interested in hearing his allegations of sexual abuse.

Carole Leblanc told the Cornwall Public Inquiry that during the four months she spent as an intake worker in 1991 and 1992, she couldn't recall anyone with Silmser's name coming to the agency, nor could she remember anyone alleging abuse at the hands of a priest.

Silmser, a former altar boy, went to the Cornwall Police Service in December 1992 alleging that Rev. Charles MacDonald had sexually abused him in the 1960s and 1970s.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

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

WORCESTER— A coalition of groups that offer support for victims of sexual abuse by priests today called on Bishop Robert J. McManus to use the chancery’s resources to warn the public about the possible release from jail of the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar, a Roman Catholic priest formerly from Worcester who was found guilty last year of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy from Ranger, Texas, in 1990.

Earlier this month, a Texas appeals court found that the judge who had handled Rev. Teczar’s court proceedings had committed errors, and the panel ordered a new trial.

Eastland (Texas) Criminal District Attorney Russ Thomason has said that he will retry the case, but there’s concern among the support groups that the priest will be released pending a new trial.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which documents cases of abuse on its Web site, said Rev. Teczar is “wily” and “resourceful” and would pose a threat to children, if he were to return to Massachusetts.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Catholic Culture

October 29, 2008
Parishioners at two recently closed parishes in the Archdiocese of New Orleans-- St. Henry and Our Lady of Good Counsel-- have begun vigils in an effort to keep them open. When archdiocesan officials changed the locks at the latter church on Monday morning, they were unaware that at least one parishioner had spent the night hidden in the church. The church doors with new locks were then opened from the inside, allowing the ‘occupation’ to begin.

CHARLESTON (WV)
WSAZ

Reporter: Anna Baxter
Email Address: anna.baxter@wsaz.com

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A priest in South Charleston facing drug charges has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

Father James O'Connor was arrested on felony drug charges last month after police say they found seventy-three grams of marijuana in his car.

DALLAS (TX)
The Dallas Morning News

By SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News
samhodges@dallasnews.com

A lawsuit alleging child sex abuse by Nicholas Katinas, former pastor of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in North Dallas, is headed for an out-of-court settlement.

“An agreement in principle has been reached,” said Tahira Khan Merritt, lawyer for five plaintiffs, including former altar boys, who claimed they were abused by Mr. Katinas in the early years of his long tenure at Holy Trinity. “It’s subject to court approval.”

Ms. Merritt said she and lawyers for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America agreed to keep confidential the amount of the settlement. The settlement must be approved by State District Judge Karen Johnson.

UNITED STATES
National Herald

(subscription required to read the entire article)

By Theodore Kalmoukos BOSTON – The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the five alleged victims of former priest Nicholas Katinas reached an out-of-court settlement. Terms of the settlement were not immediately disclosed, but sources from within the Archdiocese told The National Herald that the amount will be in th ...

ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post Dispatch

Acclaimed St. Louis defense attorney Scott Rosenblum has been retained to represent defrocked priest Joseph D. Ross on 11 counts of statutory rape, statutory sodomy and child molestation. Ross was arrested in Arkansas last month and waived extradition to return here to face the charges. Ross was the first priest from the Archdiocese of St. Louis who was defrocked for abusing minors. He was laicized in August 2002. The current charges allege that Ross abused a minor between 1998 and 2000 in the 1200 block of Boyle Avenue in St. Louis. St. Cronan Parish, where Ross was a pastor at the time the alleged abuse took place, is at 1202 South Boyle Avenue. Rosenblum also defended Bryan Kuchar, who was suspended by the archdiocese in 2002 and found guilty in 2003 of abusing a St. Louis County boy.

LOUISA (VA)
Richmond Times-Dispatch

A former priest accused of stealing up to $1 million from the two Louisa County parishes he led is to stand trial today in Louisa Circuit Court on 10 embezzlement counts.

Rodney L. Rodis, 52, is already serving a five-year prison term on federal court convictions of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering that occurred during his time as pastor of Immaculate Conception and St. Jude Catholic churches.

KINGMAN (AZ)
The Associated Press

KINGMAN, Ariz. (AP) — The judge overseeing the Arizona trial of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs ruled Tuesday that his defense attorneys can interview Texas law officers about their raid on a sect-owned ranch.

Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn said he wasn't convinced when prosecutors in the Jeffs' case said they weren't planning to use evidence seized when the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado was raided in April.

BARTLETT (IL)
City of Angels

Feels good to post these. I was going through boxes of pictures and found two shots of Father Thomas Barry Horne. With drinks on the table in front of him he grins for the camera at a party c. 1953 at right, and with a drink in his hand he toasts during his retirement in 1974 below.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

By Bruce Nolan
A state court judge on Tuesday threw out a civil lawsuit by parishioners of Our Lady of Good Counsel aimed at keeping their parish open.

Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese said four parishioners who brought the suit were not members of the legal corporation that constitutes the church parish, and thus had no standing to sue. The suit was filed in response to an Archdiocese of New Orleans consolidation plan.

The corporation members include the archbishop, his vicar general, the pastor of Good Counsel and two lay members of the parish. The lay seats apparently have been vacant for years.

GHANA
Graphic

The Kumasi Circuit Court has acquitted and discharged a popular Kumasi-based pastor, Odiyifo Kwadwo Atta, who was arraigned on charges of trial by ordeal and indecent assault.

Although the pastor admitted inserting his fingers into the private parts of a 24-year-old woman to remove some cowries which he tendered in evidence, the court upheld his defence that it was done with the consent of the woman’s relatives who were physically present.

Odiyifo Atta, who is the Founder and Leader of the Holy Michael Miracle Church and also the Dwantoafohene of the Bechem Traditional Area in the Brong Ahafo Region, was, therefore, acquitted and discharged by the court, presided over by Mr Agyei Frimpong.

BAKER CITY (OR)
OregonLive

10/29/2008, 12:26 a.m. PDT
The Associated Press

BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) — A Baker County grand jury has indicted a former Nazarene Church youth pastor on 23 sex crimes, 13 more than police had originally charged him with.

Dean B. Barnes, 35, was arraigned last week before Judge Greg Baxter and is held in the Baker County Jail with bail set at $750,000.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

by Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday October 28, 2008, 7:15 AM

Parishioners occupying two Catholic churches in defiance of closure orders from the Archdiocese of New Orleans began laying plans Monday to live there in shifts -- in one case after parishioners apparently played cat and mouse with archdiocesan officials who thought they had locked them out.

At the end of the day, parishioners at St. Henry and Our Lady of Good Counsel were inside their churches and organizing to remain.

In addition, parishioners from both communities met Monday night with Peter Borre, a Boston energy consultant who has been involved in Boston parishes' resistance to a wave of parish closings Cardinal Sean O'Malley ordered in 2004.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WDSU

NEW ORLEANS -- Parishioners at two New Orleans Catholic churches are asking their lawyers whether they can appeal a judge's ruling in the battle to keep their places of worship open.

On Tuesday, a civil court judge refused to grant an injunction against the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Parishioners filed the legal action in hopes of keeping Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Henry open.

Judge Kern Reese told the church members he sympathized with their arguments but could find no legal standing to keep the buildings open.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL

The following is a statement issued by Archbishop Alfred Hughes Tuesday afternoon regarding the closing of several local churches and the sit-ins that have been staged since.

Last weekend, the celebration of the Eucharist was held for the final time at three church buildings in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. It is never a happy occasion when a parish has to close. Throughout this process our priority has been the pastoral care of the parishioners and a responsible distribution of priests. We believe that by merging parishes together, stronger communities of faith with more spiritual, pastoral and social outreach resources. My prayer now is that we can all move forward together to a transition in which parishioner vigils may come to a peaceful end and all may come together at the new parish.

NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal

by Paul Koepp/The Jersey Journal

Officials at St. Peter's College and St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City say there's no indication that a priest who recently confessed to possessing child pornography did anything wrong in connection with his work at those schools.

The Rev. James Kuntz, 59, pleaded guilty Sept. 30 in federal court to possession of child pornography. A raid of his home on Feb. 27 uncovered 63 explicit images on a computer, according to his plea agreement.

He faces up to 10 years in prison and fines of $250,000 when he is sentenced Jan. 12 by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Greenaway Jr.

INDIA
Catholic Culture

October 28, 2008
Felix J. Pullooden, president of the Latin Catholic Association, has linked purported financial corruption among the clergy of the Diocese of Cochin with the suspension of Bishop John Thattumkal for adopting a 26-year-old woman as his daughter. Mr. Pullooden said that complaints about the adoption arose after ‘the bishop unearthed multi-million-rupee financial irregularities.’ Earlier reports had stated the woman’s alleged visions had helped the bishop uncover financial irregularities.

CANADA
Vancouver Province

By Katie Mercer, Vancouver Province
Published: Tuesday, October 28, 2008

VANCOUVER -- A Delta youth pastor convicted of child sex abuse in Mexico -- and wanted in B.C. for child pornography -- is still being paid by his parish.

Brad Firth, 41, the former supervisor of youth activities at St. David's Anglican Church in Tsawwassen, has been receiving "compassionate pay" of $1,000 a month since being arrested in the Baja Peninsula, near Tijuana, in 2004.

"He is suspended with reduced pay," Rector Rev. Paul Woehrle said yesterday. "We are giving something to support him and his son."

PENNSYLVANIA
WHP

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) - A former secretary of a Wilkes-Barre Catholic school has been sentenced to five years of probation for her conviction on forgery charges.

Fifty-one-year-old Michele Hivish of Wilkes-Barre pleaded guilty in September to forging checks totaling nearly $50,000 over five years from several bank accounts of St. Aloysius Elementary School.

LOUISA (VA)
CBS 6

A former Roman Catholic Priest goes back to court in Louisa County Wednesday. Rodney Rodis has already been convicted of embezzlement in federal court, now he's facing state charges.

BELLEVILLE (IL)
News-Democrat

BY SCOTT WUERZ - News-Democrat

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests on Monday delivered a letter to Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton asking him to drop an appeal aimed at throwing out a 1984 abuse case brought by an O'Fallon man's case.

"Just six months ago, during his U.S. visit, the pope told bishops and Catholics to 'do everything possible' to help victims of pedophile priests heal," David Clohessy, national director of SNAP wrote to Braxton. "Do you think he meant forcing victims like Chris Amenn to wait years and years for healing, justice and closure?"

A reporter who visited Braxton's office Monday seeking a response was told by a secretary that he was not available.

NEW YORK
Fox 28

St.Lawrence County man - already accused of fondling two girls in church - now faces more charges.

Robert Storie, 59, was charged by state police with three additional counts of sexual abuse, third degree, and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

The latest charges involve girls aged 12, 14 and 15 and incidents over the last two years. The incidents took place both at church and at Storie’s home on Clinton Street in Gouverneur.

CANADA
Chatham Daily News

By ERICA BAJER, THE DAILY NEWS

Gerald Joseph Lozon hadn't heard from his brother Reginald in 18 years.

When Reginald, 62, finally called him it was to talk about the sexual molestation he suffered at the hands of a priest.

Reginald told Gerald, 60, about the alleged abuse -- details that hit close to home.

Gerald said Father Lawrence C. Paquette also abused him when he served as an altar boy 50 years ago at St. Philippe's Roman Catholic Church in Grande Pointe.

The two men, along with four other men, have each filed $2-million lawsuits against the Diocese of London in connection with alleged sexual misconduct by Paquette, who died in 1986. The allegations, which have not been proven in court, range from fondling to sex acts. The alleged incidents took place between the mid-1950s and early 1970s. Five of the six men claim the abuse happened while Paquette served in Grande Pointe between 1955 and 1967.

MICHIGAN
Iron County Reporter

MARQUETTE—Bishop Alexander K. Sample of the Catholic Diocese of Marquette has temporarily removed Father Aloysius J. Hasenberg, 86, from priestly ministry and his residence at the rectory of Immaculate Conception Parish in Watersmeet.

After a preliminary investigation and consultation with the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, Bishop Sample determined that there is sufficient evidence that sexual abuse of a male minor had occurred.

The allegation of sexual misconduct against Father Hasenberg dates back a number of years. The bishop will now send the case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as required by the Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons. The congregation will then give further direction on how the bishop should proceed.

CANADA
Standard-Freeholder

By THE CANADIAN PRESS

A half dozen men claiming they were molested as altar boys by a priest who served in southwestern Ontario have filed lawsuits against the Diocese of London.

The six men have each filed $2-million lawsuits against the Diocese of London in connection with alleged sexual misconduct by Father Lawrence Paquette, who died in 1986.

CANADA
Standard-Freeholder

Posted By TREVOR PRITCHARD, STANDARD-FREEHOLDER

Former Cornwall police officer Perry Dunlop acted out of a "genuine commitment to the safety of children" when he revealed his force was not charging a local priest accused of sexual abuse, the former director of the Children's Aid Society once believed.

Nevertheless, Richard Abell could not recommend Dunlop and his wife, Helen, for a high-profile award for merit in 2001 because their subsequent behaviour "badly tarnished" whatever good was accomplished by turning over David Silmser's statement to the CAS, the Cornwall Public Inquiry learned yesterday.

Abell ran the local CAS branch from 1990 until retiring last year. Monday was his third day on the stand at the inquiry, which is probing how a number of Cornwall-area institutions handled allegations of historical sexual abuse.

WATERSMEET (MI)
WLUC

Monday, October 27, 2008 at 9:43 a.m.

WATERSMEET -- Father Aloysius J. Hasenberg, 86, has been removed from priestly ministry and his residence at the rectory of Immaculate Conception Parish in Watersmeet by Bishop Alexander K. Sample of the Catholic Diocese of Marquette.

After a preliminary investigation and consultation with the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, Sample decided that there was sufficient evidence that sexual abuse had occurred. However, it should be noted that this is not a final determination of guilt; as in civil law, a priest accused of sexual abuse of a minor is presumed innocent under Church law until proven otherwise.

"This situation and others like it are very painful for everyone," said Sample. "My first concern must always be for the victims/survivors of abuse, and I pledge to do everything in my power to help them on their journey toward healing and peace. At the same time, we must follow the procedures that have been set in place to afford justice to the accused."

WATERSMEET (MI)
AHN

AHN Staff
Watersmeet, MI (AHN) - Roman Catholic Bishop Alexander K. Sample of the Diocese of Marquette has suspended 86-year-old Father Aloysius J. Hasenberg from his priestly ministry over allegations of child sex abuse.

Sample, who did not disclose details of the allegation, said there was enough evidence that the sexual abuse happened. The diocese received a complaint last September and it has already extended counseling to the victim.

The Catholic Church's Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People investigated the allegation, and the case has been sent to the Vatican and to civil authorities. Hasenberg will go through church and civil court trials.

FIJI
The Fiji Times

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A METHODIST church minister and a secondary school teacher accused of punching a school student were arrested from Bua College yesterday.

Reverend Kalivati Sotia and woodwork teacher Aminiasi Mateiwai have been charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Divisional Crime Officer Northern Luke Rawalai said a team of Criminal Investigation Department officers left Labasa early yesterday to make arrests at the school compound where the teacher and minister lived.

MICHIGAN
Chicago Tribune

Associated Press
3:41 PM CDT, October 27, 2008

MARQUETTE, Mich. - An 86-year-old Catholic priest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula has been removed from duty after being accused of sexually molesting an underage boy.

The Rev. Aloysius J. Hasenberg served the Immaculate Conception Parish in Watersmeet.

MARYLAND
Daily Record

CARYN TAMBER
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
October 27, 2008 6:54 PM
The state’s second-highest court has upheld a judge’s decision to give custody of 6-year-old triplets to the woman who gave birth to them using another woman’s eggs and the sperm of a Catholic priest.

Dalia Fernandez deserves custody because the priest, Fernando Cristancho, was found to have sexually abused two of the triplets, the Court of Special Appeals held.

Margaret Attanasio, the Harford County lawyer who argued the case for Fernandez on appeal, said she expected the court to decide the case in favor of her client.

PENNSYLVANIA
Episcopal Life

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, October 27, 2008

[Episcopal News Service] A Montgomery County, Pennsylvania jury decided October 24 that inhibited Bishop Charles Bennison Jr. did not commit fraud when he deposed a diocesan priest six years ago.

The Rev. David Moyer claimed that Bennison should not have deposed him using the "abandonment of communion" provision in the Episcopal Church's Constitution and Canons. He claimed that Bennison, "motivated by secular animosity," had "wrongfully" sought to "force [Moyer] out of his vocation, his church, his congregation and his home."

Moyer had asked for damages for loss of employment and mental suffering. The jury, sitting in Norristown, deliberated for a few hours before ruling against Moyer's claims, which are detailed here.

CANADA
Sarnia Observer

By Erica Bajer
Sun Media

A Roman Catholic priest who served in Sarnia for five years has been named in a series of $2-million lawsuits against the Diocese of London for alleged sexual abuse.

Father Lawrence C. Paquette, who died in 1986, served at St. Thomas Aquinas parish between 1975 and 1980.

Six men have each filed $2-million lawsuits against the Diocese, alleging Paquette engaged them in activities ranging from fondling to sex acts.

CANADA
Globe and Mail

BILL CURRY AND JOE FRIESEN

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

October 27, 2008 at 8:01 PM EDT

OTTAWA and TORONTO — The commission examining Indian residential schools is launching a massive new research project to find out who is buried on school grounds and what happened to the young aboriginal boys and girls who left for boarding schools and never returned home.

Kimberly Phillips, a spokesperson for Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said the expanded research has been approved by Claudette Dumont-Smith, one of the commissioners.

The “Missing Children Research Project,” as it has been named, will include “an examination of the number and cause of deaths, illnesses and disappearances of children at the residential schools as well as the location of burial sites,” Ms. Phillips said.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

Monday, October 27, 2008

By Bruce Nolan
Four years after they spontaneously occupied their church to save it from closing, hundreds of members of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini parish in suburban Boston still occupy the building around the clock, sleeping there in shifts and worshipping together on priestless Sundays.

They are among five Boston-area parishes still holding out -- literally -- against Cardinal Sean O'Malley's reorganization of parish life in 2004.

Now two New Orleans parishes have opted for the same course of action. Leaders at Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Henry parishes said Sunday they will have teams in those churches around the clock to prevent the Archdiocese of New Orleans from closing them as part of a massive reorganization plan.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

Monday, October 27, 2008

By Bruce Nolan
Three Catholic communities that for more than 100 years supported New Orleans families through the joys and wounds of childbirth, death, love and heartbreak celebrated Mass on Sunday for what may be the last time, many of their members red-eyed or silent and grim-faced, standing on the steps of the churches.

But at two of the parishes, some defied archdiocese officials and stayed.

At St. Henry, an Uptown parish of about 325 families, a handful of parishioners took the first overnight shift of what they described as an open-ended occupation intended to save their church.

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WDSU

[with video]

NEW ORLEANS -- Several members of St. Henry's Catholic Church are holding a vigil to keep the church open.

They plan to have two or three people sit in the uptown church for four-hour shifts.

The New Orleans Archdiocese ordered the church to close after Mass on Sunday as part of a reorganization plan.

CANADA
London Free Press

Mon, October 27, 2008

By JOE BELANGER, SUN MEDIA

Six men filed lawsuits today each seeking $2 million against the Roman Catholic Diocese of London alleging they were abused as boys more than 50 years ago by a priest at small parishes across the Chatham and Windsor area.

The lawsuits were unveiled at a press conference in Chatham held by the London law firm Ledroit Beckett, which specializes in abuse cases, especially involving priests.

The five men, who join a lawsuit launched earlier this year by Wayne Thibert, were boys between the ages of nine and 12 serving as alter boys at various parishes where Father Laurent (Lawrence) C. Paquette served between 1955 and his death in 1986.

AUSTRALIA
Catholica

[This is the link to the document: http://www.catholica.com.au/breakingnews/Episcopal%20Questionnaire%2008.pdf]

CATHOLICA EDITORIAL COMMENT: It is almost beyond belief that the Vatican uses a document of this slant in the selection of bishops around the world. From other versions that have been leaked in other countries and languages it is clear that the Australian document is a slightly modified version of the document used elsewhere. Do the men who compose such documents ever stop and think of the accountability they might one day face from Almighty God for the abysmal state Catholicism has descended into throughout the Western world over the last 200 years? That is a serious question. One presumes in their conservatism they continue to believe in some form of final judgment. Do they, even for a moment, ever stop to consider the accountability they might eventually be called to for this constant pandering to this dwindling rump of the insecure and what Pope Benedict calls "the little people" while the rest of the baptised Catholic population are effectively told "go to Hell. We do not care about you at all"?

The sort of leadership this document calls for is what drives most intelligent people out of the Catholic Church. It is time for these kindergarten-level games of "playing Church" and "playing priests and bishops" to stop. We urgently need in the Church men and women as spiritual leaders who can lead — not men who are forever running around trying to prove to their often long-dead mothers what "good citizens" they turned out to be, what nice little social conformists they are, or what bullies or how tough they are. Jesus Christ did not go through what he went through to teach us social conformism and how to be "nice" to one another.

CANADA
Western Standard

Aboriginal children went into residential schools, sometimes against the wishes of their parents. Some of them didn't come out again. So what happened to them? That's the question of this Globe and Mail article raises for me.

The federal government is mapping burial sites at former residential schools as researchers try to identify how many of the estimated thousands of native children who went missing from the schools are buried in unmarked or anonymous graves.

Cemeteries scattered across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario have been identified by researchers. Some of the graves have single white wooden crosses bearing no name. Others do not include even a cross.

MICHIGAN
The Mining Journal

MARQUETTE - A Watersmeet priest has been removed from his position after alleged sexual misconduct came to light in September.

The Rev. Father Aloysius J. Hasenberg , 86, was removed from priestly ministry and his residence at the rectory of Immaculate Conception Parish in Watersmeet by Bishop Alexander Sample of the Catholic Diocese of Marquette, the diocese announced today.

After a preliminary investigation and consultation with the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, Sample determined there is sufficient evidence that sexual abuse of a male minor had occurred, according to a diocese statement.

TIMOR
Union of Catholic Asian Newsr

By Hipolito Aparicio
October 27, 2008

DILI (UCAN) -- Lay Timorese, even very simple Catholics living in villages, have been talking intensively for nearly a year about a Church in crisis.

The crisis was caused by clergy sexual abuse, which led to some priests and nuns abandoning their vocations or Religious commitments during the past year.

The bishops of Dili and Baucau dioceses have not publicly responded to the issue, but the "public secret" is constantly discussed on every street corner.

CHICAGO (IL)
Media Newswire

(Media-Newswire.com) - CHICAGO - A defrocked Catholic priest was found guilty by a federal jury here Friday on two counts of sexually molesting a minor boy who lived periodically with him in Evanston, Ill., and accompanied him on interstate and international religious retreats. This guilty verdict resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Donald J. McGuire, 78, from Chicago, was convicted of one count of traveling to Switzerland and Austria in December 2000 to engage in sexual activity with a minor, and one count of traveling to Buffalo, Minn., in August 2001 for the same purpose with the same victim. McGuire, a former spiritual advisor to Mother Teresa, was ordained in 1961 and was affiliated with the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus ( the Jesuits ) until he was defrocked last February.

During the three-week trial, five men testified that the former Jesuit priest had exploited and molested them when they were teenagers as they traveled with him on religious retreats.

WEST VIRGINIA
WCHS

A Kanawha County pastor denies charges that he sexually assaulted and abused several young boys more than a decade ago.

Former Shrewsbury Church of God Pastor Sandy Cook pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Monday morning in Kanawha County Circuit Court. Cook was recently indicted on charges of sexual abuse by a guardian and third degree sexual assault.

WATERSMEET (MI)
NBC 25

Monday, October 27, 2008 at 9:43 a.m.

WATERSMEET -- Father Aloysius J. Hasenberg,86, has been removed from priestly ministry and his residence at the rectory of Immaculate Conception Parish in Watersmeet by Bishop Alexander K. Sample of the Catholic Diocese of Marquette.

After a preliminary investigation and consultation with the Diocesan Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, Sample decided that there was sufficient evidence that sexual abuse had occurred. However, it should be noted that this is not a final determination of guilt; as in civil law, a priest accused of sexual abuse of a minor is presumed innocent under Church law until proven otherwise.

"This situation and others like it are very painful for everyone," said Sample. "My first concern must always be for the victims/survivors of abuse, and I pledge to do everything in my power to help them on their journey toward healing and peace. At the same time, we must follow the procedures that have been set in place to afford justice to the accused."

DAVENPORT (IA)
The Hawk Eye

By MOLLY ROSSITER
Cedar Rapids Gazette

Bishop Martin Amos is sorry.

He's sorry for the "inappropriate action or inaction" some of his predecessors at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport displayed after early reports of sex abuse. He's sorry victims and their families were left without help or a place to turn within the diocese when the abuse happened.

Mostly, he's sorry the abuse happened at all.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Monday October 27 2008

LAWYERS in the United States are considering offering a reward for information on the whereabouts of defrocked paedophile priest Oliver O'Grady.

O'Grady was deported to Ireland in 2000 after spending seven years in prison in the US for sexually abusing two boys.

Now solicitors representing child abuse victims in the US are to take out ads in Irish newspapers in an attempt to serve him with papers relating to more civil actions.

INDIA
Indian Catholic

KOCHI (ICNS): A three-member probe panel of bishops has been formed to investigate the allegations against suspended bishop John Thattumkal of Kochi.

Bishop Thattunkal who has been involved in a controversial adoption affair was suspended Oct. 23, subject to investigations. The Vatican also appointed Verapoly Archbishop Daniel Acharuparmbil administrator of Kochi.

On Oct. 25, the archbishop appointed the three-member bishops committee comprising of Bishop Francis Kallarakkal of Kottapura, Bishop Sebastian Thekkethecheril of Vijayapuram and Bishop Vincent Samuel of Neyyatinkara.

VERMONT
WCAX

Montpelier, Vermont - October 27, 2008

A priest sex abuse case is going to the Vermont Supreme Court.

Last year, 47-year-old James Turner sued Vermont's Roman Catholic Diocese claiming that 30 years ago, they knowingly hired a pedophile priest.

A jury agreed and awarded him $15,000. But the jury also found that Turner filed his suit after the statute of limitations expired, and denied him the money.

AUSTRALIA
Catholica

[with link to the questionnaire]

Following is the text of an email that Catholics for Ministry are in the process of sending out to the signatories of the petition that went to the Australian Bishops last year. Tomorrow we will be publishing a more extended commentary from Dr Paul Collins that explains the process of how bishops are selected and the significance of this development today. Dr Collins informed me a little while ago that he has had a very friendly exchange of correspondence with the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Lazzarotto, following their communication of their concerns to him. …Editor

Covering letter to Petition signatories…

Dear Signatory,

We are writing to you as a signatory to the Petition to the Australian Bishops on the future of the Eucharistic and sacramental ministry in Australia, or as one who responded to the Catholics for Ministry homepage (www.catholicsforministry.com.au) contact address.

A document headed 'Questionnaire for Episcopal Candidates' came into our possession some four weeks ago. A copy of the Questionnaire is attached as a pdf document (See: www.catholica.com.au/breakingnews/Episcopal Questionnaire 08.pdf). This is the document that is sent out by the Papal Nuncio to carefully selected people (mainly bishops and priests) sounding out their views as to the suitability of specific priests for Episcopal office in Australia. You will notice it is headed 'sub secreto pontificio'. We have been assured that canonically this is a meaningless phrase. We have already informed the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, that we have a copy of the Questionnaire.

We pointed out to Archbishop Lazzarotto that we were dismayed and scandalized by the Questionnaire. It seems to us a totally inadequate way of choosing candidates for the episcopate.

NEW YORK
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling

"I’ve sent the bishop eight survivors of Neary and each one said the bishop told them they were the only person that had come forward about Neary," said Charles Bailey, pictured at right. He is getting justice today for brutal sex crimes committed against him at age ten by Father Thomas Neary, by putting his story out in the public. His book In The Shadow Of The Cross gives graphic shocking disgusting PTSD-inducing detail of the serial felonies, and you cannot put it down. More alarming, Bailey went on a small book tour in the Syracuse area where the book takes place, and in venue after venue, people came up after he spoke and said, "my brother was also raped by Neary," or my uncle, my husband, my dad - dozens of people with the same horrid story of the same horrid modus operandi.

With young Bailey and numerous others, Neary insinuated himself into families, convinced reverent mothers that their young boys were almost perfect for the priesthood, they just needed personal counseling. In household after household in towns like Onondaga Hill, Hannibal, Jordan, and Skaneateles, Father Neary convinced mothers to keep the rest of the children aside as he took a 9 or 10 year old boy into a room - then while reciting The Lord’s Prayer he sodomized them, prepubescent boys, or forced his face-sized penis into the their mouths, all the time telling the boys that sodomy and fellatio are part of their training to be a priest.

In the Shadow of the Cross tells so outlandish a story, even I began to wonder if it could be true, especially since Charles Bailey says probably 30 people have come to him so far, saying they or a family member were assaulted by Neary. Yet, NONE OF THEM will tell their story alongside Charlie in public, or even to a reporter or blogger like me, even if we keep details anonymous.

No one will go public yet at least.

UNITED STATES
Business Week

By Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz

Catholic bishops are having a hard time finding candidates who can manage as well as they preach, but they're also finding it hard to find ones who can preach, period. The preaching is primary, and management way down on their list of priorities. After all, Jesus didn't say, "Go out to all the world and manage well."

That's not to say the Catholic Church should ignore sound business practices. Contrary to common perception—and some of the readers who responded to Douglas MacMillan's "A Business Plan for the Catholic Church" (BusinessWeek.com, 9/30/08)—the Church has had human resource and finance "departments" for her entire 20 centuries of existence.

If you think of Peter as the first "shop floor manager" and Judas Iscariot as the CFO for Jesus and the Apostles, then Judas showed no loyalty to his CEO and betrayed the whole enterprise during the high point of the world's most famous company retreat. The Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul's letters record numerous instances of collections, the buying and selling of houses, and other monetary transactions by the first Christians. Monasteries became and remained places of production and commerce, as witnessed by the enormous success of the Cistercian monastery in Sparta, Wis., that started LaserMonks.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
News Busters

By Dave Pierre
October 26, 2008 - 23:05 ET

A man who was a special education aide for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) "already accused of videotaping himself molesting teenage girls in his private basketball program," was charged October 17 with "having sexual contact with four more, including one who says he took her to a local hotel room for a weekend of sex" (LA Daily News). "In all, seven girls, most about 15, [have] told police [the man] had talked dirty, fondled or performed sexual acts on them ... [T]he former Birmingham High assistant football coach faces 14 felony and three misdemeanor charges, and more than 30 years in prison if he's convicted, said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Alisanne Scolnik."

Yet one place you won't read about this story is in the Los Angeles Times. Do you think if this man were a Catholic priest, the Times would fail to report these new awful allegations against this guy? Of course not. The guy was arrested originally back in June, stemming from charges involving a single girl. Indeed, the Times did report the original arrest. But where's the follow-up?

WISCONSIN
Telegraph Herald

AUGUSTA, Wis. (AP) -- The founder of a small religious group that opposes embalming has died 10 days after being beaten at her Augusta home.

Sheriff's officials said they forwarded reports on the death of Kathryn Padilla, 62, to the Eau Claire County district attorney for possible additional charges against a man accused of the beating. ...

She was in the news six years ago when charged with two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct for writing threatening letters to two funeral homes in Eau Claire.

The letters were delivered just days after two funeral home workers were killed in Hudson, about 65 miles away. Padilla initially was considered a suspect in the slayings, but police found no evidence of involvement by her or her followers.

A judge has since reviewed all the evidence and concluded that the Hudson deaths were committed by a Catholic priest who later committed suicide.

GERMANY
AFP

BERLIN (AFP) — A diocese in southern Germany plans to spend 100,000 euros (130,000 dollars) on a birthday bash at the Vatican for the Pope Benedict XVI's elder brother, a magazine report said Sunday.

Georg Ratzinger, who is himself a priest, turns 85 on January 15 and wants Mozart's Mass in C-Minor performed for him in the world-famous Sistine Chapel, German weekly Focus reported. ...

The bill is causing some irritation in Regensburg where the diocese's main sources of income are church tax and rent on properties that it owns, the magazine said.

GERMANY
Deutche Welle

Plans for a costly mass in Rome to celebrate the birthday of Pope Benedict's elder brother have been criticized by a Catholic lay group in Germany, the weekly news magazine Focus reported Sunday.

Georg Ratzinger, a retired priest and the former music director of the world-famous Regensburg Cathedral Boys Choir, will celebrate his 85th birthday on Jan.15. He still lives in Regensburg.

The Catholic Diocese of Regensburg plans to spend 100,000 euros ($126,000) flying 90 boy choristers and 37 musicians to Rome to perform a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart mass in the Sixtine Chapel in the Vatican especially for him. Ratzinger reportedly chose the Mozart mass when asked what he would like for this birthday.

SANDPOINT (ID)
Bonner County Daily Bee

By KEITH KINNAIRD
News editor

SANDPOINT - A plea agreement is pending in the case of a Montana man accused of fondling a preteen girl while he was serving as a pastor at Priest Lake several years ago.

Stephen D. Bicknell pleaded guilty earlier this month to a reduced charge of aggravated battery as part of a plea agreement. His sentencing is set for Nov. 20 in 1st District Court.

The defense and the state asked District Judge Steve Verby to bind himself to the sentencing recommendations without the defendant undergoing a psychosexual evaluation.

Bicknell pleaded guilty to the amended charge on Oct. 10, but Verby declined to guarantee he would adopt the agreement without reviewing the results of a presentence investigation or a psychosexual evaluation, which assesses a defendant's sexual behaviors and risk of re-offending.

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Gavin Lower | October 27, 2008
THE Anglican Church in Adelaide has voted to sell off part of its historic archbishop's residence, freeing up money to pay compensation commitments to church sex abuse victims.

Synod members met yesterday and agreed to break up Bishop's Court, the home of Adelaide's Anglican archbishops since 1856, by subdividing a 1000sqm section of the grounds that used to be a tennis court.

Archbishop Jeffrey Driver said the decision to subdivide theproperty, near St Peter's Cathedral in North Adelaide, was subject to approval from another church body and himself. However, Archbishop Driver said he had indicated he would consent to the sale of the land, expected to fetch about $1.4 million.

ARKANSAS
Times Record

Saturday, October 25, 2008 11:24 AM CDT
By Amy Sherrill

TIMES RECORD • ASHERRILL@SWTIMES.COM

As Fort Smith police continued to search Friday for a follower of evangelist Tony Alamo accused of beating a 17-year-old boy, details of the organization’s local ties were released.

Eight residences, two warehouses, two businesses, an apartment complex and a church are listed as owned by the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, according to documents released by authorities.

The church at 4401 Windsor Drive is the most well-known property as it is listed on the Christian Ministries Web site. Two warehouses are at 800 S. Fourth St. and 2921 State Line Road. Jeanne Apartments, 5201 Spradling Ave., and businesses in the 300 block of South 10th street and the 3100 block of North 50th Street are among the organization’s Fort Smith properties.

ARKANSAS
Log Cabin Democrat

There is too much advance hoo-raw leading up to Halloween, and now we have this Tony Alamo unpleasantness with us.

Golly, we may have dozed, but we thought we got rid of this particular creep years ago when he slipped away from that Alma compound under cover of night. Now he pops back up in another corner of Arkansas, at Fouke, south of Texarkana, and news reports tell us that some operations have been going on at Fort Smith too.

Very quickly here, let us express our strong belief in freedom of religion. It's guaranteed in the United States Constitution, but Tony Alamo and religion are apples and oranges.

Somebody who promotes, encourages and enforces the practice of taking Barbie dolls away from young girls and pushing them into beds of middle-aged men isn't pursuing a religious practice.

SOUTH AFRICA
IOL

October 26 2008 at 01:42PM

A Johannesburg pastor accused of the rape and indecent assault of his secretaries is facing a possible 10 years in prison after being convicted of two counts of rape.

Pastor Errol Jacobs, a pastor at the Family Worship Centre in Hurst Hill, will know his fate next month when Magistrate Naomi Manaka will hand down his sentence.

COLONIE (NY)
Schenectady Gazette

By Tatiana Zarnowski
Gazette Reporter

COLONIE — A Rochester bishop who was raised in Saratoga County implored members of his home diocese to accept changes next year with an open heart.

Bishop Matthew H. Clark, who was initiated in St. Mary’s parish in Waterford and now heads the Rochester Diocese, addressed head-on the Albany Diocese plan to consolidate churches starting next year.

“I would guess that you all have mixed feelings about this,” Clark said during his keynote address at the annual Parish Convening of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany at Christian Brothers Academy on Saturday.

Clark, who is a friend of Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, addressed the difficulty local Catholics will face as their parishes undergo change as part of the “Called to BE Church” pastoral planning process.

WISCONSIN
The Northwestern

By Jennifer K. Woldt • of The Northwestern • October 26, 2008

A Winnebago County jury will decide next month whether a Catholic priest who sexually assaulted two boys in the 1980s meets the criteria to be classified as a sexually violent person and remain in custody indefinitely.

Father Norbert Maday, 70, the former associate pastor of Our Lady of the Ridge parish in Chicago Ridge, Ill., was convicted of sexually assaulting two altar boys while on a church outing to The Place 2B in 1986. Maday was sentenced to 20 years in prison on two second-degree sexual assault convictions in 1994.

Prosecutors filed a petition to classify Maday as a sexually violent person on Oct. 6, 2007, less than one month before Maday was scheduled to be released from Stanley Correctional Institution.

UTAH
Fox News

Saturday, October 25, 2008

By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Writer

SALT LAKE CITY — Polygamy is never far from the minds of Utah residents _ even when it occurs in another state.

A raid on a polygamist compound in Texas earlier this year that put more 400 kids in state custody has become one of the biggest issues in the race for Utah attorney general.

Republican Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Democratic challenger Jean Welch Hill both told The Associated Press that the first question they are asked by voters is always about polygamy, even as they try to focus on other issues.

"They all want to know what we're doing and continue to plan to do in regard to the polygamy issue," Shurtleff said. "They encourage us to make sure we go down that road and hold these guys responsible who use religion to hurt kids."

GOUVERNEUR (NY)
Watertown Daily Times

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2008
GOUVERNEUR — Several more girls have come forward alleging they were victimized by Robert D. Storie, a state police investigator said Friday.

The Gouverneur man is accused of repeatedly fondling two girls at Richville Baptist Church. The 59-year-old was charged Tuesday with five counts of second-degree sexual abuse, three counts of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of child endangerment, all misdemeanors.

He is accused of fondling the girls — ages 15 and 12 — after coaxing them to hug him while attending the church at 209 Main St. during the past two months, state police investigators said.

PENNSYLVANIA
Observer-Reporter

Associated Press
NORRISTOWN - An Episcopal bishop did not commit fraud in the process that led to the defrocking of a priest in his Pennsylvania diocese, a jury found.

The Rev. David Moyer had alleged in a civil lawsuit that Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. fraudulently removed him from the priesthood in 2002. He asked for unspecified damages for loss of employment and mental suffering.

UNITED STATES
Winston-Salem Journal

By Journal Staff

Published: October 25, 2008

The Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board has requested that participants in its short-term mission trips pass background checks before leaving for the field.

The new child-protection policy, which is not mandatory and would not apply to missions trips taken independently of the mission board, was approved at a September meeting of trustees. It will become effective Jan. 1, the board announced.

The process will include references, a criminal background check and an interview by local churches.

TEXAS
Deseret News

By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
Published: Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008

Two of the government lawyers handling the massive child custody case involving the Fundamentalist LDS Church have quit.

"It is with great regret that I hereby tender my resignation as staff attorney for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, effective Nov. 1, 2008, or at whatever earlier date may be most convenient and least disruptive to the operations of the agency," Charles Childress wrote in a resignation letter obtained by the Deseret News.

Childress, a highly regarded family law attorney who wrote many of the agency's courtroom policies when he worked there from 1997-2001, was brought back specifically to handle the FLDS case in July. Contacted by the Deseret News on Friday, Childress would not say why he was leaving.

"I really can't talk about it at all," Childress said.

COLORADO SPRINGS (CO)
The Gazette

October 24, 2008
DENNIS HUSPENI
THE GAZETTE
A former associate pastor at Lighthouse Baptist Church pleaded guilty late Thursday to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old parishioner and will likely serve no more than 60 days in jail.

Jon Moore, 52, of Colorado Springs pleaded guilty to sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust. That felony normally carries a range of up to 12 years in prison, but Moore will serve 60 days in jail or nine months with work release if 4th Judicial District Judge Larry Schwartz approves the agreement.

The deal was mediated by Senior District Judge Richard Toth, according to court records.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Debbie Pearson said Friday the victim and her family agreed to the plea deal.

PENNSYLVANIA
Ledger-Enquirer

By DAVID O'REILLY - The Philadelphia Inquirer --
Related Content
http://www.philly.com/

PHILADELPHIA --In a verdict based on a narrow legal question, a Montgomery County Court jury in Pennsylvania found Friday that Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. did not commit fraud in the process that led to the defrocking of a priest in the Pennsylvania Diocese.

In a potentially precedent-setting civil case, the Rev. David Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, alleged that Bennison, head of the five-county diocese, fraudulently removed him from the priesthood in 2002. Moyer's lawsuit asked for unspecified damages for loss of employment and mental suffering.

Moyer v. Bennison attracted international attention, especially in the theologically fractured Anglican Communion, to which the 2 million-member Episcopal Church USA belongs.

UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Religion & Spirituality Examiner

October 24, 11:03 AM
by Kevin Masterson, Los Angeles Religion & Spirituality Examiner
It really scares me to see how religion appears to becoming more & more a form of mind control of people. Growing up Catholic, I was taught that I had a “free will.” Yet a great deal of what I was taught did not teach me to think for myself, but instead to just “do what I was told” by those in authority—nuns, priests & the hierarchy of the Catholic Church—mind control.

Under the Constitution, we are given the right to do our own thinking, to have freedom of religion & most importantly to have separation of church & state. However more & more religious leaders are telling their “followers” how to vote. I just watched a documentary, “Friends of God”. Jerry Falwell tells the students at Liberty University “that the school can’t tell people how to vote, but I can” to thunderous applause. The pastor of Wasilla, AK Assembly of God told his congregation in 2004 that people who voted for John Kerry would “burn in hell.” Catholic bishops in “swing states” such as Pennsylvania, Ohio & Colorado have publicly denounced pro-choice candidates in this election. They say “vote your conscience” which would be free will but they are leading them to only vote for “pro-life” candidates. They are really not allowing their congregations to really make their own decisions as they are emotionally manipulating them through guilt, a form of mind control. ...

Given the Catholic Church’s horrific track record with the clergy sexual abuse crisis, they can no longer claim to hold a position of “moral authority” on anything. How can they argue that they are trying to keep a baby safe, when they don’t believe in keeping young children safe from pedophile & ephebophile priests?

CHICAGO (IL)
WBBM

Defrocked Catholic priest Donald McGuire was convicted Friday of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him.

The jury deliberated a total of less than three hours Thursday and Friday before convicting the former priest of both counts in the indictment.
The trial before U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer lasted 2 1/2 weeks.

McGuire sat stoically as Pallmeyer announced the verdict.

PEORIA (IL)
Journal Star

By TERRY BIBO
of the Journal Star
Posted Oct 24, 2008 @ 08:01 PM

PEORIA — Four religious groups have asked Catholic Diocese of Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky to stop a priest accused of sexual misconduct from saying a special Mass today.

The Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity, Voice of the Faithful and Call to Action joined with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to issue a joint statement and letter. They want to keep the Rev. Thomas Szydlik from celebrating Mass with Jenky for the 100th anniversary of Sacred Heart Mission in Dallas City.

"For the sake of his accuser, clergy sex abuse victims and Peoria Catholics, we beg you to stop the priest from participating in the mass," says a portion of the letter sent to the bishop.

CHICAGO (IL)
The New York Times

By CATRIN EINHORN
Published: October 24, 2008

A once prominent Jesuit priest was convicted in federal court in Chicago of engaging in sexual activity with a teenage boy who accompanied him on religious trips to Europe and Minnesota in 2000 and 2001.

Prosecutors described the priest, Donald J. McGuire, 78, who was defrocked in February, as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who used his position to gain the trust of families and then sexually abused boys under the guise of teaching them lessons and making them more spiritually pure.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Jeff Coen and Manya Brachear | Tribune reporters
October 25, 2008

Donald McGuire sat hunched in his wheelchair in a federal courtroom Friday with his face locked in a frown, a shell of the charismatic priest who traveled the world to hold religious retreats and advise Mother Teresa.

McGuire listened as a federal jury convicted him of traveling to engage in sex acts with a teen he had taken on trips to Minnesota, Switzerland and Austria.

It was the latest dark chapter for a 78-year-old former clergyman described by authorities as one of the most prolific sexual predators ever to hide behind a priest's robes. He is thought to have abused dozens of victims since joining the Jesuit order more than four decades ago, investigators have said.

He was convicted in 2006 in Wisconsin of molesting two students from Loyola Academy in Wilmette during trips near Lake Geneva in the 1960s and sentenced to 7 years in prison. He also faces additional criminal charges in Arizona.

CANADA
Standard-Freeholder

By TREVOR PRITCHARD, STANDARD-FREEHOLDER

The former head of the local Children's Aid Society gave the Cornwall Public Inquiry his own slant Friday on the early stages of his agency's 1993-94 investigation into abuse allegations involving a local priest.

Parts of Richard Abell's testimony contradicted remarks made by Claude Shaver, chief of the Cornwall Police Service from 1984 until 1994,when he took the stand at the inquiry in June, as well as a sworn statement by former cop Perry Dunlop.

In 1993, Dunlop showed Abell a copy of the allegations that David Silmser, who had been an altar boy at St. Columban's Church in the 1960s and 1970s, had made to the CPS that previous December.

Silmser had alleged that Rev. Charles MacDonald, a parish priest, had sexually abused him when he was a boy.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazete

By Steven H. Foskett Jr. TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
sfoskett@telegram.com

WORCESTER— A former Seven Hills Charter Public School music teacher pleaded guilty today to child rape charges in Worcester Superior Court.

Tyrone D. Forbes, 49, of 84 Chatham St., Apt. 2, was arrested in April on three charges of child rape involving a 15-year-old boy who was not a student at the school. ...

Mr. Forbes was arrested during the early morning hours of April 3 after he and the boy were found together in the teacher’s pickup in the parking lot of Bennett Field on Main Street. Prosecutors at Mr. Forbes’ arraignment said that Mr. Forbes, who was also an elder at Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ on Wellington Street, admitted to investigators that he had been involved in a five-month sexual relationship with the teenager. Prosecutors said he had acted as a “mentor” for the boy, who attended the same church.

PENNSYLVANIA
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
10/24/2008

The verdict came in less than three hours after the jury recessed to consider the case of fraud brought against Charles E. Bennison, the deposed Bishop of Pennsylvania, by Fr. David L. Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, PA

There were five charges. On the first charge of fraud - the false termination of employment of Fr. Moyer by Bennison - the gatekeeper charge - the jury simply said no. The vote was 10 no, 2 yes.

Four other charges were then considered null and void.

The defeat took everyone by surprise. Bennison turned and kissed his counsel Mary Kohart on the cheek. Fr. Moyer and his wife Rita hugged each other. She was in tears.

ARKANSAS
KTBS

An alleged enforcer for jailed evangelist Tony Alamo faces a felony battery charge after former followers told authorities he beat members of Alamo's church.

Authorities said John Erwin Kolbeck of Fort Smith has not been seen since federal and state agents searched Alamo's compound in Fouke last month.

Reports released by police in Fort Smith, where Alamo has a church, said one teen told detectives Kolbeck beat him with a board until it broke earlier this year.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide says progress is being made in settling sexual abuse claims against the church.

Jeffery Driver says the church has spent more than $5 million on settlements - not including legal costs.

CANADA
Chatham Daily News

Men claiming to be sexual abuse victims of a priest who served in Grande Pointe 50 years ago will appeal for information about the man at a news conference Monday.

The men all served as altar boys at St. Philippe’s parish.

Rob Talach, a lawyer with London firm Ledroit Beckett, said five lawsuits are being filed concerning alleged sexual misconduct by Father Lawrence Paquette.

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By JEFF STRICKLER, Star Tribune

Last update: October 24, 2008 - 2:35 PM

The Rev. Michael O'Connell has gotten plenty of public acknowledgment for launching the Basilica Block Party, a concert designed to raise awareness and money for the Basilica of St. Mary that in the process has turned into an annual musical highlight.

Now he's finally getting accolades for something he did in private. On Sunday afternoon at the basilica, he will receive a Priest of Integrity award for leading the charge in dealing with clergy sexual abuse issues, not only in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis but also nationwide.

"It was through his efforts that this archdiocese was one of the first to have a policy on education of all church leaders as well as clear steps for reporting any abuse," said the Twin Cities chapter of the Voice of the Faithful, a Roman Catholic lay group, in nominating O'Connell for the award. "Had other dioceses moved as quickly and openly, perhaps the abuse would have been mitigated much sooner than it was."

NEW YORK
Fox 28

As many as four more girls may have been victimized by a man at the Richville Baptist Chapel, state police said Friday.

Investigators told 7 News reporter John Friot the girls have come forward in the wake of the arrest earlier this week of Robert Storie, 59, of Gouverneur.

Storie was accused of fondling two girls - one age 12 and the other 15 - while attending church. The incidents took place up until last week, when the girls went to their parents, police said.

Storie was charged with sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

GREECE
PR-Inside (Austria)

2008-10-24 21:41:02 -

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) - A court has convicted a Greek Orthodox priest for arson after he firebombed the car of a man he accused of having an affair with his wife.

Officials at a court in the northern city of Veroia said the 60-year-old priest was convicted Friday and sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for the 2006 attack. He was released from prison pending appeal.

SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
S.J. Quinney College of Law
University of Utah

October 22, 2008

Video of a debate between Marci Hamilton and Kirk Torgensen, Utah's Chief Deputy Attorney General

Marci Hamilton is the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and author of God vs. Gavel and Justice Denied, which address the dangers authoritarian religions pose for children.

Kirk Torgensen is Chief Deputy Attorney General Office of the Utah Attorney General, who assisted in the two highest-profile prosecutions of Utah polygamists.

CHICAGO (IL)
The Associated Press

By MIKE ROBINSON

CHICAGO (AP) — A prominent former Roman Catholic priest was convicted Friday of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him.

Donald McGuire, 78, was convicted after jurors deliberated less than three hours Thursday and Friday in the 2 1/2-week trial. The federal charge involved taking a minor across state lines for sex.

The white-haired former priest sat stoically in his wheelchair as U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer read the verdict that could result in a 30-year sentence.

INDIA
BBC News

The Vatican has suspended a Catholic bishop in India who adopted a young woman as his "spiritual daughter", sparking outrage in the community.

Bishop John Thattungal, 58, from the southern state of Kerala met the 26-year-old unmarried woman on a pilgrimage and decided to adopt her.

He said the relationship had given him a "spiritual renewal", citing the woman's extraordinary spiritual powers.

INDIA
Zee News

Kochi, Oct 24: Pope Benedict XVI has summoned Kerala's suspended Bishop John Thatunkal, who is at the centre of a row over adoption of a 39-year-old woman, even as a three-member committee was today appointed to probe into the allegations against him.

"The Pope has summoned Thatunkal to the Vatican to gather first hand information about the adoagencieson row and other allegations against him," Kerala Catholic Bishops council (KCBC) secretary and spokesperson Father Stephen Althara told agencies.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

October 24, 2008

FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former Catholic priest Donald McGuire was convicted Friday of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him.

The jury deliberated a total of less than three hours Thursday and Friday before convicting the former priest of both counts in the indictment.

CHICAGO (IL)
CBS 2

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Defrocked Catholic priest Donald McGuire was convicted Friday of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him.

The jury deliberated a total of less than three hours Thursday and Friday before convicting the former priest of both counts in the indictment.

The trial before U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer lasted 2 1/2 weeks.

McGuire sat stoically as Pallmeyer announced the verdict.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Breaking News

October 24, 2008 at 11:39 AM

Donald McGuire, the defrocked Jesuit priest who once served as a spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa, was convicted today in federal court in Chicago of engaging in sexual acts with a minor during trips abroad between 2000 and 2002.

The victim, identified in court only as Dominick, testified the abuse started when he was 13.

To buttress the government case, four additional witnesses testified that McGuire also molested them during overseas trips when they were underage.

NEWBURYPORT (MA)
Wicked Local Newburyport

By Alyson Aiello
Fri Oct 24, 2008, 10:15 AM EDT

Newburyport -
When shopping season begins to slow in the Port and snow covers the sidewalks, you’ll still find Helen Wisocki-Tierney working at her store, Headlines Boutique, at Merrimac Landing. But rather than setting up a new display or pricing new arrivals, you might find her leaning closer to her computer screen, writing.

Wisocki-Tierney, who had always wanted to write a book but never found the right inspiration, fell into fiction writing by accident in 1999. She had traveled to her hometown of Dearborn, Mich., to attend her 30th high school reunion, where she reconnected with an old classmate, Curt Szajnecki. The two had “an instant attraction,” she said. They spent the evening catching up, and she found herself especially interested in the story Szajnecki told of his recent divorce.

The story begins when Szajnecki and his wife started attending a new church with their four daughters. The family, who Wisocki-Tierney described as devout, quickly became active members in the church. It was Szajnecki’s wife, however, who became especially attached.

According to Wisocki-Tierney, the pastor of the Methodist church, who was 20 years the woman’s senior and whose wife was dying of cancer, took a particular liking to Szajnecki’s wife and began “grooming” her for increasing involvement in the church. The events that followed are described by Wisocki-Tierney as a “methodical dissection” of the family at the hands of the pastor.

OHIO
The Catholic Telegraph

By Eileen Connelly, OSU

DAYTON DEANERY — When the priests of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati gather for their annual convocation at Incarnation Parish in Centerville on Oct. 29, they will hear about a subject particularly relevant to their ministry today. Father Kenneth Schmidt, a licensed mental health professional and co-founder of the diocesan Trauma Recovery Program in Kalamazoo, Mich., will speak to the clergy members on the topic of "Trauma and Pastoral Care: How We Handle Stressful Situations and Help Others do the Same."

Father Schmidt, who also serves as pastor of St. Thomas More Catholic Student Parish in Kalamazoo, said his talk would focus on "how we, as priests, are handling the trauma that is going on in the church, and how we are going to be good pastoral caregivers to others."

Since 2002 the Trauma Recovery Program in Kalamazoo has reached out to any adult Catholic who is a survivor of childhood abuse and neglect. In a 2005 article, "Signs of Unresolved Trauma," Father Schmidt notes that, depending on the definition used, 10 to 50 percent of children experience some form of trauma. "Untreated childhood trauma affects an adult’s ability to be a healthy and productive member of society," he wrote. "The effects of trauma include injury to the mind and spirit as well as the physical body. Survivors of trauma commonly and consistently display recognizable and predictable patterns of unhealthy behavior that can be changed and healed."

AUSTRALIA
Geelong Advertiser

Joel Cresswell

October 24th, 2008

BREAKING NEWS A FORMER Meredith priest who kept images of a boy masturbating has been held in custody ahead of sentencing next month.

Edmund John Haines has pleaded guilty to six counts of an indecent act with a child under 16, procurement of a minor for child pornography and possessing child porn.

The crimes occurred in Bannockburn, Winchelsea and Geelong between March 2006 and February 2008.

AUSTRALIA
The Age

October 24, 2008

A former priest who kept slow-motion footage of a boy masturbating among his child-porn stash has been held in custody before being sentenced next month.

Edmund John Haines, 62, has pleaded guilty to six counts of an indecent act with a child under 16, procurement of a minor for child pornography and possessing child porn.

The crimes, involving two boys, occurred in the Victorian towns of Bannockburn, Winchelsea and Geelong between March 2006 and February 2008.

INDIA
The Times of India

KOCHI: A bishop who raised a storm following his decision to adopt a young woman as his daughter has been suspended.

The order to suspend bishop John Thattunkal of Kochi was issued by Pope Benedict XVI and conveyed to Verapoly Arch Bishop Daniel Acharuparambil, who is the supreme head of the Latin Catholics in Kerala, and conveyed later this evening.

The Arch Bishop has been appointed as Apostolic administrator of the Kochi Dioceses with full authority, sources close to the Arch Bishop said.

INDIA
Reuters

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (Reuters) - The Vatican has suspended a bishop in the south Indian state of Kerala after a furore over his adoption of a young woman as his "spiritual daughter," the state's Catholic bishops' council said.

Bishop John Thattungal, 58, of the diocese in Kochi city, met the 26-year old unmarried woman on a pilgrimage, and adopted her, saying she had extraordinary spiritual powers and that the relationship had given him a "spiritual renewal."

Thattungal's move created an uproar in the regional media in Kerala, which recently celebrated India's first woman saint Alphonsa, who also hailed from the state.

INDIA
Kerala Online

Kochi, Friday, October 24, 2008: It has been decided that a three-member Bishops council, appointed by Verapoly Arch Bishop Daniel Acharuparambil, will probe the allegations against Bishop John Thattunkal in the adoption issue and submit its report to the Arch Bishop. Which would be later send to Pope.

The Bishop council consist Kottapuram Bishop Dr Francis Kallarackal, Vijayapuram Bishop Sebastian Thekethecherriland and Dr Vincent Samuel.

Meanwhile, the Pope has summoned Bishop John Thattunkal to Rome.

CANADA
Globe and Mail

JOE FRIESEN
From Friday's Globe and Mail

October 23, 2008 at 8:58 PM EDT

As Mr. Justice Harry LaForme agonized over whether to stay on as chairman of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he was faced with the question of whether he wanted to spend five years fighting for his own independence and authority.

The 61-year-old Ontario Court of Appeal judge consulted commission counsel Owen Young, whom Judge LaForme had stood by despite the opposition of some native groups to his hiring.

CANADA
Globe and Mail

JOSEPH DI LUCA

October 24, 2008

Toronto -- Justice Harry LaForme's resignation as chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission is truly a troubling event (Native Leaders Divided Over Future Of Residential Schools Panel - Oct. 22). More troubling is the unhelpful comments of some leaders of the aboriginal community.

Bill Wuttunee suggested that Judge LaForme was less than qualified for the position. He then asked if Judge LaForme had "the enthusiasm to work in that position or was he too lazy?"

UNITED STATES
Crosswalk

Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

October 24, 2008

(RNS) -- The Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board has requested that participants in its short-term mission trips pass background checks before leaving for the field.

The new child protection policy, which is not mandatory and would not apply to missions trips taken independently of the IMB, was approved at a September meeting of trustees. It becomes effective Jan. 1, 2009, the board announced.

"Children are a precious resource entrusted to us and their care and protection is a top priority," reads an executive summary of the policy.

ARKANSAS
KHBS/KHOG

John Erwin Kolbeck, of Fort Smith, is wanted on charges of beating a young man who once belonged to evangelist Tony Alamo's Ministry.

According to a police report, Seth Calagna was beaten while working at a salvage warehouse in Fort Smith earlier this year.

Calagna told police the beating happened after he made a sarcastic remark after being told that he resembled the fictional wizard character Harry Potter.

MALAWI
Nyasa Times

Nyasa Times 24 October, 2008 01:57:00

Malawi Roman Catholic priest, Father Joseph Mpinganjira who is at the centre of many accusations for his sexual romps with married women, has been named again in another case of causing break down of marriage.

The hot-blooded priest is named as causing the break down of marriage of Dora ‘Nachanza’ Salamba and Danny Makwinja.

Fr Mpinganjira sired a child with Dora who lives in Area 3 in Lilongwe. Makwinja has since written the head of Roman Catholic church, His Grace Archbishop Traciscious Ziyaye to complain about the issue.

Nyasa Times has in possession Makwinja’s letter and a reply from the Archbishop acknowledging receipt of the complaint.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Jeff Coen | Tribune reporter
October 24, 2008

A federal jury Thursday began deliberating the fate of a former Jesuit priest accused of molesting boys during religious retreats after lawyers clashed over whether the accusers made up the abuse to make money.

The two-week trial was highlighted by the testimony of the chief victim, known as Dominick, and four others who claim Donald McGuire, 78, engaged in sexual conduct with them. McGuire, once a spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa, was portrayed by prosecutors as a serial molester leading a double life who used his travels to isolate the minors from their trusting parents.

In her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Atty. April Perry called McGuire "a sexual predator disguised as a priest" and said Dominick was repeatedly abused "by a man that he called 'Father.' "

BELLEVILLE (IL)
News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK - News-Democrat

BELLEVILLE -- During a brief hearing Thursday, St. Clair County Circuit Judge Lloyd Cueto said he would rule within a week on whether the Belleville Diocese will be granted a new trial regarding a 2002 lawsuit brought by a former altar boy who said he was sexually abused by a priest.

St. Louis attorney David Wells, who represents the diocese, and Mike Weilmuenster, who appeared on behalf of plaintiff David Wisniewski, declined to make oral arguments and said they would depend on their submitted motions.

Wisniewski won $5-million in damages on Aug. 27 after an eight-day trial. Testimony indicated that the Rev. Raymond Kownacki sexually abused Wisniewski for five years beginning when he was 13 and that diocesan officials covered up the abuse went unrefuted.

AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

24th October 2008, 17:30 WST

A former teacher and Christian Brother has been handed a jail term after admitting he sexually abused two young boys during Catholic school camps in the mid 1980s.

The 57-year-old, who was working at a WA Catholic boys’ college in the mid 1980s when he molested two 10-year-old students in separate school camps, was sentenced to ten months jail in the District Court after pleading guilty to both crimes.

The term will be served on top of a two-and-a-half year sentence handed to him last year for sex crimes against three other boys at the college during the mid 1980s.

INDIA
Indian Express

Shaju Philip
Posted: Oct 24, 2008 at 2300 hrs IST

Thiruvananthapuram, October 23 : The Vatican on Thursday suspended Bishop John Thattunkal of the Latin Catholic diocese of Cochin on charges of adopting a young woman for his “spiritual refreshment”, marking the first action against a prelate in the 2000 years of the Catholic Church in the country. In another coincidence, the beleaguered Cochin diocese, established in 1557, is the first diocese in India.

“The Bishop has been suspended from the administrative responsibility of Cochin diocese; instead Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil, of Verapoly Archdiocese, has been given charge of the diocese. The suspension would come into effect from tomorrow itself,” said the Archbishop’s public relations officer Fr Yesudas Pazhambally, quoting the communiqué from Pope Benedict XVI.

A three-member Bishops’ panel would conduct a detailed inquiry into the adoption, which had snowballed into a major scandal. But Thattunkal could continue as a bishop until the final verdict.

INDIA
Hindustan Times

Ramesh Babu, Hindustan Times
Thiruvananthapuram, October 24, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday suspended Kochi Bishop Mar John Thattumkal, who is in the eye of a storm for adopting a young woman. The Pope has also constituted a three-member panel to probe the charges against the bishop.

“Verapoly Arch-Bishop Father Daniel Acharuparapbhil has received a papal decree on Thursday evening. He has been asked to give give the charge to Verapoly Bishop immediately,” Kerala Catholic Bishop Council spokesman Father Stephen Althara said in Kochi.

Bishop John Thattumkal, also a known Canon law expert, had earlier called a meeting of parish priests and vicars to discuss the issue. At the meeting many priests had demanded the bishop to step down but he said he would if the Pope so desired.

INDIA
The Telegraph

JOHN MARY
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct. 23: Pope Benedict XVI has suspended a Kerala bishop for adopting an unmarried woman in violation of canon law and ordered a three-member panel to probe all the charges against him.

The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council spokesperson, Fr Stephen Alathara, said Kochi bishop John Thattungal today received a papal decree asking him to hand over charge to his immediate senior, Archbishop Daniel Acharuparampil.

Bishop Thattungal, 58, had adopted Sonia, 26, as his spiritual daughter at the office of the sub-registrar in Mattancherry on September 15. The woman spent a few days at the guest house on the premises of Bishop’s House. A priest of the Orthodox Church who had adopted Sonia as a child was also with her at the guest house.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

Montgomery County Court Judge Joseph Smyth, who is overseeing a unusual civil lawsuit brought by an Episcopal priest against his bishop, sent jurors home this afternoon after defense lawyers representing Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. rested their case.

John Lewis, who is representing the plaintiff, the Rev. David Moyer, told Smyth he was surprised by the suddenness of the defense's action and was not prepared to make closing arguments today.

Smyth ordered the trial to reconvene at 9 a.m. tomorrow for closing arguments and his instructions to the jurors, after which they will start deliberations.

INDIA
CathNews (Australia)

Published: October 24, 2008

Pope Benedict yesterday suspended Kochi, Kerala Bishop John Thattunkal pending an investigation of charges that he adopted a young woman for "spiritual refreshment".

The Indian Express reports it is the first action against a prelate in the 2000 years of the Catholic Church in India. In another coincidence, the beleaguered Kochi diocese, established in 1557, is the first Latin diocese in India, the paper says.

"The Bishop has been suspended from the administrative responsibility of Cochin diocese; instead Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil, of Verapoly Archdiocese, has been given charge of the diocese. The suspension would come into effect from tomorrow itself," said the Archbishop's public relations officer Fr Yesudas Pazhambally, quoting the communiqué from Pope Benedict XVI.

CHICAGO (IL)
ABC 7

A jury is now deliberating the fate of former priest Donald McGuire.

During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors told the jury that McGuire is a sexual predator who was disguised as a priest.

Defense attorneys say the alleged victim went to a civil lawyer to file a claim first before seeking anyone who would criminally prosecute the case.

NEW YORK
E! Online

Today 3:28 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Well, we know someone who won't be paying Raffaello Follieri any conjugal visits.

Despite his appeal for leniency, Anne Hathaway's Italian ex-boyfriend was sentenced to four and a half years in prison Thursday for bilking investors of $2.4 million by posing as an attaché for the Vatican in order to snatch up unused Roman Catholic Church property on the cheap.

On Sept. 10, Follieri, 30, pleaded guilty to eight counts of wire fraud, five counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As part of the deal, the disgraced businessman, whom prosecutors called a "sophisticated scam artist," also agreed to forfeit all the money he "made," as well as 12 watches and nine pieces of jewelry purchased with shadily obtained sums. ...

"I have dishonored my family name and embarrassed the church I love," Follieri, speaking in Italian, said in a statement through an interpreter in the Manhattan courtroom.

BELLEVILLE (IL)
News-Democrat

BELLEVILLE -- During a brief hearing today, St. Clair County Circuit Judge Lloyd Cueto said he would rule within a week on whether the Belleville Diocese will be granted a new trial regarding a 2002 lawsuit brought by a former altar boy who said he was sexually abused by a priest.

St. Louis attorney David Wells, who represents the diocese, and Mike Weilmuenster, who appeared on behalf of plaintiff David Wisniewski, declined to make oral arguments and said they would depend on their submitted motions.

Wisniewski won $5-million in damages on Aug. 27 after an eight day trial. Testimony that the Rev. Raymond Kownacki sexually abused Wisniewski for five years beginning when he was 13 and that diocesan officials covered up the abuse went unrefuted.

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News
shodges@dallasnews.com

A Texas appeals court has overturned the child abuse convictions of a Catholic priest who worked in the Fort Worth Diocese.

The Rev. Thomas Teczar remains in prison, but will get a new trial on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child. He's alleged to have abused an 11-year-old boy in Eastland County, about 120 miles west of Dallas, in 1990.

The Court of Appeals of Texas, 11th District, ruled that a witness in Father Teczar's 2007 trial was not qualified to testify as an expert.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Breaking News

October 23, 2008 at 11:34 AM

Closing arguments in the federal trial of former Catholic priest Donald McGuire have begun with prosecutors urging the jury to recognize him as "a sexual predator disguised as a priest."

Assistant U.S. Atty. April Perry verbally attacked the former spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa, pointing directly at him while accusing him of exploiting and abusing teenage boys whom he isolated on religious retreats.

McGuire, a now-defrocked Jesuit priest, is accused of traveling with an alleged victim, known in court as Dominick, to engage in sexual acts.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

October 23, 2008

For several months, Cardinal Francis George appeared to have learned from his failures in dealing with the child sex abuse scandal afflicting the Archdiocese of Chicago.

He apologized repeatedly for the church's failures in stopping criminal priests from molesting children. In August, he released his own confidential lawsuit deposition, which detailed his failures, as part of a $12.6 million settlement with 16 sexual abuse victims suing the church.

We were encouraged that the cardinal finally seemed to appreciate the depth of the problem and was doing his utmost to resolve it.

That is until this week, when the troubling news came that a Roman Catholic priest who had pleaded guilty to molesting a teenage boy was back working for a publishing arm of the archdiocese after the cardinal had assured his parishioners the man would not be returning to Chicago.

OHIO
In the Vineyard

Submitted by Svea Fraser

The Priest Support Working Group honors selected clergy with a “Priest of Integrity” award for their noted courage and compassion in their ministry. But there are many untold stories of priests doing heroic service in their communities. We hope that highlighting the ones we have come to know will give us examples to follow and build hope in the often-unseen goodness that abounds.

In this issue, our spotlight shines on another of those priests: Fr. Mark Schmeider. Fr. Schmeider was nominated last year by the Cincinnati Westside Affiliate for the Priest of Integrity award given at the VOTF conference in Providence, R.I. In recognition of his service, and with support and appreciation, we honor him here in this edition of In the Vineyard.

UNITED STATES
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling

In St. Anthony Messenger released this morning an interview explains the Catholic Church's next step in bandaging its hemorrhage with pedophile priests, by doing a study as to why there are pedophile priests. The Roman Catholic Church wants American taxpayers to pay for its research.

"We’ve made applications to several federal agencies that would ordinarily fund studies of this kind, like the Centers for Disease Control," says Judge Michael R. Merz, the current chair of the Catholic's own National Review Board, in the November issue of the Catholic's own magazine released this morning.

Come on, bishops. Stop hiding behind the First Amendment and priest-penitent privilege every time someone asks a question as to what you knew about pedophiles proliferating in the inner sanctums of the church. Or fire the PR Firms and three fourths of the lawyers the bishops hire to fight the crime victims, and the Church will have plenty of money to fund its studies.

Shoot, just tell the truth and you do not need to do any study.

OAKLAND (CA)
CNN

From Peter Ornstein
CNN

OAKLAND, California (CNN) -- Terrie Light stands outside Oakland's stunning new modern cathedral in a first-of-its-kind garden that honors victims of clergy sexual abuse. She was abused by a priest at age 7.

"It's a really small, important physical representation of a horrific thing that happened in many places," she told CNN.

She says the garden's centerpiece, a symbolic low stone sculpture that's broken, is fitting for those whose lives were shattered by priests. "The energy that the artist put was this circular stone trying to pull itself to become unbroken. That is our journey. That is what we try to do every day -- is to try to be unbroken."

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Daily News

By Ronnie Polaneczky
Philadelphia Daily News

Daily News Columnist

THE MORE the Rev. Jim St. George read the letter, the more steamed he got.
"Dear Reverend St. George," the brief note begins. "We, the Roman Catholic priests of the East Falls, Manayunk and Roxborough areas, respectfully request that your listing in The Review be placed under an appropriate heading. Some people might be mislead [sic] into thinking that St. Miriam is a Roman Catholic institution. You and we certainly don't wish to misrepresent ourselves to the public."

It listed the names of 10 priests, including Monsignor Joseph McGeown, who wrote the note and was the only one to pen his signature.

"It was so arrogant," says Rev. Jim, whose Manayunk church, St. Miriam Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch, opened eight months ago in space rented from Mishkan Shalom synagogue at Freeland Avenue and Shurs Lane. "Their churches aren't more Catholic than mine! They don't own the word 'Catholic.' "

NORWICH (CT)
The Day

By Kenton Robinson Published on 10/23/2008

Norwich - The real name of the Witch of Baltic is Rusty.

And as to his witch credentials, well, there is some question of that.

But Rusty Lee Freeman, aka the Rev. Rapid Cabot Freeman, has been arrested for stalking a Norwich teacher.

Freeman appeared in a story in The Day Tuesday, claiming he was a victim of religious discrimination in Sprague.

The first selectman, he said, had thwarted his plans to perform a demonstration of witchcraft for kids and their parents in that town's public library on Halloween.

But no sooner had the story appeared in The Day than Norwich police, who'd been seeking him on a warrant since July, arrested and charged him with second-degree harassment of Kelly Hajduk.

ARIZONA
KTAR

October 23rd, 2008 @ 5:43am
by Associated Press

Prosecutors are asking a Maricopa County judge to overturn a justice of the peace's ruling that allows five separate trials against a Roman Catholic priest.

In the 27-page appeal of a Sept. 16 ruling by San Tan Justice of the Peace Sam Goodman, Deputy County Attorney Elizabeth Burton Ortiz asks for a reversal of Goodman's order.

UNITED STATES
St. Anthony Messenger

By Barbara Beckwith
In Dallas in 2002, the U.S. bishops initiated a comprehensive plan to stop the sexual abuse of children by priests or anyone representing the Church. Here, the chair of the National Review Board assesses their progress.

Released in March 2008, the 2007 Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People sums up five years of accomplishments in the U.S. dioceses and eparchies to ensure that no child in a Catholic setting is ever molested again. It also points out the challenges that remain.

The Charter requires that “for even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor, which is admitted or established,...the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state.” When an allegation is made, he is usually put immediately on administrative leave until the facts can be established. To extend the umbrella of safety for children and young people, the Charter prescribes background checks for all who work with children in the Church and training on how to provide a safe environment. (The Charter text is available at www.usccb.org/ocyp/charter.shtml.)

UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

Posted by Michael Paulson October 22, 2008 10:44 PM

The new edition of St. Anthony Messenger features an interview with Judge Michael R. Merz (right), a federal magistrate in Ohio who is the chairman of the National Review Board, the panel that advises the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on preventing the sexual abuse of children. Merz describes himself as a survivor of sexual abuse by a church employee. An excerpt from the interview:

"When you see people who have been so badly hurt by folks acting in the name of the Church, it’s a trial, it’s a test. It’s not ever pleasant work and it challenges your loyalty to the institution. But it doesn’t challenge my faith.

CANADA
Globe and Mail

JOE FRIESEN

October 23, 2008 at 12:35 AM EDT

Harry LaForme quit the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission over interference from the Assembly of First Nations, commission counsel Owen Young, speaking on Judge LaForme's behalf, said yesterday.

Judge LaForme's position as commission chairman became untenable once it was clear that the two other commissioners, Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Brewin Morley, shared AFN national chief Phil Fontaine's vision of a commission centred on telling the stories of survivors, rather than a commission focused more heavily on reconciliation, Mr. Young said.

“In a nutshell, this isn't government interference, it's AFN interference,” Mr. Young said.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

Midway through a civil trial in which a priest is suing the Episcopal bishop who defrocked him, the judge hearing the unusual case suggested yesterday that the dispute might belong in a church court, and he appeared close to throwing it out of Montgomery County Court.

The Rev. David Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, alleges that Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr., suspended head of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, "fraudulently" removed him from the priesthood six years ago without a hearing before diocesan officials. Moyer seeks unspecified damages for loss of employment and mental suffering.

The case could establish a legal precedent allowing clergy in hierarchical religious institutions to sue their superiors in civil court. American courts have a long tradition of not intervening in churches' internal affairs.

CANADA
The Gazette

The Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a good idea when it was set up, and it is a good idea still. If the three commissioners cannot themselves reconcile their problems well enough to accomplish the goals set out for them, then they should get out of the way and let somebody else handle this.

Harry LaForme, an Ontario appeals court justice and a member of the Mississauga First Nation, resigned this week as chairman of the commission, saying the other two - Claudette Dumont-Smith, member of a Quebec first nation and a health expert, and Jane Brewin Morley, a B.C. lawyer - "have come to show disrespect for me, personally and as chair."

If so, then Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl should move quickly to find three new commissioners who can make this work, and not only because the TRC is part of a court-approved agreement, reached 13 months ago, in the legal aftermath of the residential schools tragedy.

TEXARKANA (AR)
The Associated Press

By CHUCK BARTELS

TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) — A federal magistrate called Tony Alamo a flight risk Wednesday as he ordered the evangelist held without bail until his trial on charges that he took a minor across state lines for sex.

The ruling came after Alamo's former followers testified at a hearing that they were often beaten at his instructions and one said Alamo practiced polygamy with several females, including a 9-year-old girl.

FLORIDA
News-Journal

By LYDA LONGA
Staff Writer

They had sex anywhere they could, police said -- in the parking lots of grocery stores and under a bridge.

The arrest Wednesday of a Warner Christian Academy teacher, who police say was having sex with one of her 17-year-old students, has unleashed a series of details that reveal a steamy relationship between the teen and the 45-year-old woman.

An eight-page arrest affidavit released by Port Orange police paints a picture of a teacher engaging in a variety of sexual acts with the boy in her car and inside low-budget motels on Ridgewood Avenue and International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona Beach.

The documents also detail the sexually charged text messages Cynthia Horvath routinely sent to the high school senior, praising his sexual prowess but also warning him to "keep quiet" about their affair.

NEW YORK
Watertown Daily Times

By DAVID WINTERS
TIMES STAFF WRITER
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2008

RICHVILLE — A Gouverneur man has been accused of repeatedly fondling two girls at Richville Baptist Church.

Robert D. Storie, 59, was charged Tuesday with five counts of second-degree sexual abuse, three counts of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of child endangerment, all misdemeanors.

He is accused of fondling the girls — ages 15 and 12 — after coaxing them to hug him while attending the church at 209 Main St. during the last two months, state police investigators said in a press release. The investigation is continuing.

MALTA
The Times of Malta

Claudia Calleja

An elderly Gozitan priest who has been involved in two sex scandals in the US has now been implicated in a third case, this time involving a 15-year-old boy in Miami.

Court officials are expected to travel to Malta next spring to take his deposition.

Jeffrey Herman, the lawyer who is representing the alleged victim, filed a lawsuit in the Miami-Dade Circuit Court against the Archdiocese of Miami claiming it allowed Fr Anthony Mercieca, a retired priest of the Archdiocese, to sexually abuse the boy in 1977.

Fr Mercieca, who is in his 70s and resides in Gozo, was at the time stationed at St James church in north Miami.

EASTLAND (TX)
The Associated Press

EASTLAND, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court has thrown out the conviction of a former priest accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy in the early 1990s.

The ruling last week says a trial judge erred by allowing an advocate for victims of priest abuse to testify as an expert in the trial of the Rev. Thomas Teczar (TEK'-zahr).

EASTLAND (TX)
Abilene Reporter-News

By Jane Pratt
Reporter-News correspondent
Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Eastland County district attorney said he plans to try for a second conviction in a sexual assault case against a Catholic priest after the first conviction was reversed last week by the 11th Court of Appeals in Eastland.

The court reversed the trial court conviction of Thomas H. Teczar, who was found guilty of the sexual assault of an 11-year-old boy in the 1990s, and sent the case back to trial court for a new trial.

The three-member court of appeals overruled Teczar's assertion that he was denied due process because the prosecuting attorneys represented the victim in a suit for damages against him and the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth.

However, the court sustained the assertion that the trial judge made an error in admitting evidence from David Lewcon as an expert witness and allowing testimony about alleged abuse for which Teczar had not been charged.

TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

By DARREN BARBEE
dbarbee@star-telegram.com

The aggravated sexual assault conviction of the Rev. Thomas Teczar has been overturned by an appeals court, but the Eastland County district attorney said the priest, formerly of the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese, will be tried again.

Teczar was sentenced last year to 25 years in prison on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency, convicted of molesting and raping an 11-year-old boy in Ranger in the early 1990s. Teczar was a priest at the time in several parishes in Eastland County, about 90 miles west of Fort Worth.

The 11th Court of Appeals found that the trial court erred by allowing a witness — a man who said Teczar abused him — to testify as an expert about the sexual abuse of children.

ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

by Jim Walsh - Oct. 22, 2008 12:21 PM
The Arizona Republic
Prosecutors are asking a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to overturn a ruling that granted a suspended priest separate trials on misdemeanor sex charges.

The ruling by San Tan Justice of the Peace Sam Goodman in September damaged the ability of prosecutors to show that Monsignor Dale Fushek had a pattern of abusing the trust of teenaged boys for sexual gratification.

Fushek founded the Life Teen Program during his 20 years as pastor of St. Timothy's Catholic Community in Mesa, where his sermons packed the church. He angered the Diocese of Phoenix last year by preaching at a new ministry founded by his former parishioners.

FLORIDA
Miami New Times

By Gus Garcia-Roberts
Published on October 23, 2008

The pope probably doesn't much like Jeffrey Herman. The 48-year-old Aventura attorney has won settlements from the Catholic Church totaling more than $5 million in recent years. In one 2005 lawsuit, he garnered $1.5 million from Central Florida Archdiocese. This past July, his clients were among those rewarded $5.5 million from a settlement with the church in Denver.

Come to think of it, most religious leaders probably bear little affection for this guy. He has litigated against rabbis, Methodist and Baptist leaders, and Mormon bishops.

His workday last Thursday would have been momentous by most people's standards. He announced the filing of a case alleging that a now-middle-age man was traumatized after being repeatedly raped by a perverted priest 30 years ago. As a boy, the client would burn the clothes he was molested in. As an adult, he can't talk on the phone without scrubbing his ears, or allow a visitor into his home, or hold a job.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Reviewed by DARRELL TURNER
Publication date: October 22, 2008

HOLDING BISHOPS ACCOUNTABLE: HOW LAWSUITS HELPED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH CONFRONT CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE
By Timothy D. Lytton
Harvard University Press, 286 pages, $35

JUSTICE DENIED: WHAT AMERICA MUST DO TO PROTECT ITS CHILDREN
By Marci A. Hamilton
Cambridge University Press, 160 pages, $22

SACRILEGE: SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
By Leon J. Podles
Crossland Press, 675 pages, $22.95

One of the missions of the church is to bring light to the world, but sometimes things work out the other way. This is demonstrated by three recently published books that show how the civil justice system has helped to expose the dark secrets of clergy sexual abuse in the last quarter-century.

INDIA
Indian Express

Shaju Philip
Posted: Oct 23, 2008 at 2308 hrs IST

Kochi, October 22 : The Kerala Catholic Bishops Council has urged the Vatican to take action against Cochin Bishop John Thuttunkal, who has landed in a scandal for adopting a young woman for “spiritual enrichment”, at the earliest.

If Thuttunkal faces action from the Vatican, he would go down in the history of the Catholic Church of India as the first bishop to unceremoniously quit the post. Bishops Council secretary Fr Stephen Alathara told The Indian Express that they have sought a decision on the issue. “By offering apology, the bishop has already admitted to the offence. Hence, an action would be inevitable,” said Stephen.

EASTLAND (TX)
GMA News (Philippines)

10/23/2008 | 02:18 AM

EASTLAND, Texas - An appeals court has thrown out the conviction of a former priest accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old Texas boy in the early 1990s.

The 11th Court of Appeals ruled last week that the trial judge erred by allowing an advocate for victims of priest abuse to testify as an expert and by allowing testimony about abuse allegations for which the Rev. Thomas Teczar wasn't charged.

Teczar was convicted last year on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child. He was sentenced to 25 years on each assault charge and 15 years on the indecency count. The sentences were concurrent.

LOUISIANA
WAFB

PONCHATOULA, LA (WAFB) - A former pastor at the now defunct Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula will serve four life sentences for raping his own two sons.

Louis Lamonica was convicted last month of four counts of aggravated rape. Lamonica abused his two sons when they were 11 and younger.

Investigators say the allegations were stemmed from an investigation of occult rituals at the church.

TEXARKANA (AR)
The Associated Press

By CHUCK BARTELS

TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) — A teenager described being beaten at Tony Alamo's compound as he testified Wednesday as a witness for prosecutors seeking to block the evangelist from being released from jail while awaiting trial.

Spencer Ondirsek, 18, testified that he left the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound last year after living there for seven years.

FOUKE (AR)
Texarkana Gazette

Arkansas State Police are currently searching the gymnasium at Tony Alamo Ministries’ compound in Fouke, Ark.

"We're executing a search warrant for possible evidence involved in a case we're working," said Lt. Glenn Sligh, commander of Company C C.I.D for the Arkansas State Police Wednesday morning.

Sligh declined to specify what type of evidence they are seeking. The FBI Evidence Response Team is helping in the search.

ARKANSAS
KSLA

By Katrina Webber

FOUKE, AR (KSLA) - Controversial minister Tony Alamo is due in federal court Wednesday morning for a hearing to determine whether he'll be released from jail, pending his trial. The detention hearing is scheduled for 9 a. m.

Alamo has been in custody in Texarkana since earlier this month when federal agents tracked him down n Flagstaff, AZ and arrested him.

PENNSYLVANIA
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
10/21/2008

Charles E. Bennison, the deposed Bishop of Pennsylvania took the stand in the second day of his trial today and adopted what has became famously known as the (Alberto) Gonzales Defense.

On innumerable occasions, while being grilled by Fr. David E. Moyer's attorney John H. Lewis, Jr., Bennison replied, "I don't recall," "I don't remember," or "I don't know."

In 2002, Bennison inhibited and later deposed Fr. Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, PA using the Episcopal Church Canon Law [Title IV, Canon 10, Sec. 1], barring Fr. Moyer from serving his congregation and exercising his ordained ministry.

BAKER CITY (OR)
OregonLive

10/21/2008, 7:07 p.m. PDT
The Associated Press

BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) — A former youth pastor has been charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl.

Baker City Police arrested 34-year-old Dean B. Barnes at his home after he returned from a trip to Israel this week.

CANADA
Globe and Mail

JOE FRIESEN and JACQUIE MCNISH AND BILL CURRY
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

October 21, 2008 at 10:49 PM EDT

OTTAWA — As one of the commissioners put it Tuesday, how can it be that the commission given the historic task of helping Canada toward a national reconciliation on Indian residential schools was ultimately unable to reconcile with itself?

Justice Harry LaForme's sudden resignation as commission chair Monday, in which he cited an intractable power struggle with the other two commissioners, has at a single stroke thrown the entire process into doubt. One native group, Ontario's Anishinabek Nation, said Tuesday it has lost confidence in the commission and that the two remaining commissioners must be fired.

The commission's unravelling was swift, according to Jane Brewin Morley and Claudette Dumont-Smith, the two women who Judge LaForme said repeatedly challenged his authority and vision, dooming the group to failure.

CANADA
CNW

OTTAWA, Oct. 21 /CNW Telbec/ - "The Assembly of First Nations was disappointed to learn about Justice Harry LaForme's resignation yesterday as the Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). We fully supported his appointment and held high hopes for the success of the TRC with him as one of three commissioners.

While it is very unfortunate that Justice LaForme felt he had to resign, the TRC is a court-supervised body that is governed by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The TRC is intended to serve living and deceased survivors, their families, and all Canadians as we move towards achieving reconciliation of the legacy of Indian Residential Schools. The needs and concerns of Survivors must remain our central focus as we move forward.

The AFN has been in constant communication with other parties to the Settlement Agreement and we remain committed to working together, including with the Government of Canada, to ensure that the TRC is a success.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

Taking turns yesterday on the witness stand, the Rev. David Moyer and Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. each sought to present himself as the more pastoral, principled clergyman in their unusual civil trial.

Moyer, conservative rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, is suing Bennison, the suspended bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, on grounds that the more liberal Bennison improperly defrocked him as a priest six years ago.

He seeks unspecified damages, saying that Bennison improperly denied him a church trial and appeals process that could have vindicated him and kept him a diocesan priest.

FRANKLIN (TN)
News Channel 5

FRANKLIN, Tenn. - A Williamson County judge sentenced a Spring Hill man to 17.5 years in prison for making child pornography.

In 2005, James Sells, Jr., worked at comic book and collectibles store in Spring Hill when police found more than 4,000 images and videos of child pornography.

Police said he also met some of his victims at a Brentwood church where he worked.

CANADA
The Expositor

The quest for healing for survivors of native residential schools took a step backward Monday. Harry LaForme, a respected member of the Mississaugas of the New Credit and the first native judge to serve on the Ontario Court of Appeal, resigned as chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In a letter to Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, LaForme said the commission was doomed to fail because his two commissioners would not accept his authority.

LaForme's resignation was bad news for the 80,000 survivors of residential schools who have waited decades for their stories to be told. The commission's work will be delayed for weeks while a replacement is sought.

ARKANSAS
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

BY ANDY DAVIS

Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Over the objections of prosecutors, a federal judge on Tuesday said Tony Alamo should have immediate access to documents related to the search of Alamo’s religious compound in southwest Arkansas.

The Sept. 20 search in Fouke involved more than 100 federal and state police officers and child protective services caseworkers. It resulted in the removal of six girls, ages 10 to 17, who authorities say were sexually or physically abused and who are now in foster care. Alamo, 74, was arrested in Arizona five days later on charges that he transported a minor across state lines for illegal sexual activity.

Prosecutors filed the search warrant and supporting documents under seal, citing the need to protect an ongoing FBI investigation.

ST. GEORGE (UT)
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Mark Havnes
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 10/21/2008 01:17:38 PM MDT

ST. GEORGE - A 34-year-old Washington City man scheduled for sentencing Tuesday on two counts of third-degree felony attempted sexual abuse of a child was ordered to undergo a diagnostic evaluation instead.

Gabriel E. Carlin appeared before 5th District Judge Eric Ludlow, who ordered Carlin to turn himself in at the Washington County jail Friday by 6 p.m. to be taken into custody by the Department of Corrections, which will perform the evaluation.

Carlin, a former teacher, pastor and day-care operator, was originally charged with four counts of first-degree felony aggravated child sex abuse for kissing and fondling an 11-year-old girl in March 2006. At the time, Carlin owned the now-defunct East Harbor Christian Academy in Washington City where the victim was a student.

NEOSHO (MO)
Neosho Daily News

By Staff reports
Neosho Daily News
Tue Oct 21, 2008, 02:03 PM CDT

Neosho, Mo. -
A rural Neosho self-proclaimed pastor was bound over for trial on two felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor Monday, while six counts of possession of child pornography have been refiled.

Randall “Danny” Russell, 49, pastor of Acts II Church in rural Neosho, was bound over on two Class B felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor during a preliminary hearing held Monday morning in Newton County Associate Circuit Court Judge Greg Stremel’s courtroom.

ST. GEORGE (UT)
Deseret News

By Nancy Perkins
Deseret News
Published: Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008 3:48 p.m. MDT

ST. GEORGE — Sentencing for a St. George man who earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted sexual abuse of a child, both third-degree felonies, was delayed on Tuesday for at least 90 days.

Gabriel E. Carlin, 35, pleaded guilty in March 2006 to the lesser charges as part of a plea bargain. He originally was charged with four counts of first-degree felony aggravated sex abuse of a child. Carlin was booked into jail at the time and released on $100,000 bail.

Court records indicate Carlin was charged with sexually abusing an 11-year-old female student who attended East Harbor Christian Academy in Washington. Information about Carlin's ministry can still be found online at eastharbor.org.

CHARLESTON (WV)
Daily Mail

by Cheryl Caswell
Daily Mail staff
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A circuit judge has dismissed the criminal case against a former Chesapeake youth pastor accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl, but her mother is hopeful he can still be brought to trial.

Assistant Prosecutor Michelle Drummond said the state would present charges again to a grand jury to get a superceding indictment against Timothy C. Edmonds, 37, a former pastor at Chesapeake Apostolic Church.

Edmonds was scheduled to go on trial Monday. Police arrested him in May 2006 after the girl's family provided a letter she wrote detailing the abuse and they conducted an investigation. He was indicted in July of this year and pleaded not guilty.

OREGON
KGW

10/22/2008

Associated Press

A former youth pastor has been charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl.

Baker City Police arrested 34-year-old Dean B. Barnes at his home after he returned from a trip to Israel this week. ...

Barnes was a youth pastor at a Baker City church until July, and he knows the alleged victim through that role.

SEATTLE (WA)
Post-Intelligencer

By JOHN IWASAKI
P-I REPORTER

A Seattle man has sued Seattle University and the provincial Jesuit order, the 10th man to claim the late Rev. Michael Toulouse abused him.

The man, now in his early 50s, said the priest abused him in 1968 or 1969 when he was in the eighth grade.

He said that Seattle University, where Toulouse worked, and the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, which oversees Jesuits in Washington and four other states, knew of the abuse but failed to protect the plaintiff and other children.

NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

By JUSTIN LATIF - Western Leader | Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Ex-nun Pauline Grogan never wanted to tell anyone she’d been sexually abused by a priest.

But an extraordinary friendship in the years that followed made her realise that her story needed to be told.

Now the inspirational 63-year-old is coming to the Glen Eden Playhouse to recount her experiences on stage.

NEW YORK
The New York Times

By PAUL VITELLO
Published: October 21, 2008
Two Roman Catholic priests who until recently lived on the campus of Fordham Preparatory School in the Bronx sexually abused teenagers there in the 1960s and ’70s, two groups that advocate for sex-abuse victims said on Tuesday.

Leaders of the two groups — the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and BishopAccountability.org. — who said they were making the accusations public for the first time, criticized the school’s administrators for allowing the priests to reside there for years after the abuse complaints were made known.

One of the priests, the Rev. Eugene O’Brien, was the principal and president of Fordham Prep in the early ’70s, when one accuser said he was molested, the groups said. A lawsuit the accuser filed was settled in 1997 for $25,000 by the school, the Archdiocese of New York and the Order of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, which runs Fordham Prep.

WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

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

An appeals court in Texas has thrown out the conviction of the Rev. Thomas H. Teczar, a Roman Catholic priest formerly from Worcester who was found guilty last year of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy from Ranger, Texas, in 1990.

The three-member Court of Appeals for the 11th District in Eastland County last Thursday found that state District Judge Steven Herod had committed errors during Rev. Teczar’s court proceedings and ordered a new trial.

The priest had waived his right to a jury trial and was found guilty by Judge Herod of three counts of aggravated assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child.

CANADA
Standard-Freeholder

Posted By TREVOR PRITCHARD, STANDARD-FREEHOLDER

The sexual abuse allegations levelled against a local priest by David Silmser had all the hallmarks of someone telling the truth, said the retired Children's Aid Society caseworker who interviewed him.

In 1993 and 1994, Greg Bell co-led the agency's Project Blue investigation into allegations that Rev. Charles MacDonald had abused Silmser decades earlier, when he was an altar boy at St. Columban's Church in Cornwall.

"(Silmser's story) was certainly consistent with my experience in disclosures made by adults who had been sexually abused as children," Bell told the Cornwall Public Inquiry Tuesday.

PADERBORN (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK - News-Democrat

PADERBORN -- A priests' association has presented an award to members of the diocesan finance council for "protesting" the expenditure of funds by Bishop Edward Braxton that were intended for education and to help the poor.

The ICHTFUS Award, based on the Greek word for "fish," an early Christian symbol, was presented Sunday by the Rev. Clyde Grogan on behalf of the Southern Illinois Association of Priests during its annual Family and Friends Dinner. The association, which has about 20 members and was founded in 1968, met at St. Michael's Parish Hall.

Braxton, who has stated he does not speak to local media, could not be reached for comment.

CANADA
CNW

OTTAWA, Oct. 21 /CNW Telbec/ - Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Commissioners Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Brewin Morley, Q.C. announced today that they were disappointed and saddened to learn of Justice LaForme's decision to resign as Chair of the TRC, effective October 20, 2008.

Justice Harry LaForme, Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Brewin Morley, Q.C., were appointed as Commissioners by Orders-in-Council after a selection process involving representatives of all the parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The Commission was established on June 1, 2008.

"The TRC process, designed by the parties to the Settlement Agreement of the Indian Residential Schools class action suit, is unique and has never been tried before in Canada or the world. It is not surprising that we have had some growing pains," commented Commissioner Dumont-Smith. "It is unfortunate that we had not met as a Commission since August 26. Had we met more often I am sure that we could have worked through any issues we were facing," she said.

DARIEN (CT)
Darien Times

Written by Susan Shultz
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Breaking News | Tuesday 1:18 p.m.

After seven delays and 10 months since he was sentenced, the Rev. Michael Jude Fay reported federal prison today, Tuesday, Oct. 21, to begin a 37-month prison sentence.

Fay, who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $1 million from St. John Roman Catholic Church while he was its pastor, is serving his sentence at the Bureau of Prisons’ FMC Devens facility in Ayer, Mass. Fay’s trial prostate cancer treatment will be transferred from Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Massachusetts.

URBANA (IL)
The News-Gazette

By Mary Schenk
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 12:24 PM CDT

URBANA – It will be at least early next year before there's any resolution of the case of a Catholic priest from Champaign accused of using and dealing cocaine.

The Rev. Christopher Layden, 33, formerly a resident of the Newman Center on the University of Illinois campus, made his first court appearance Tuesday morning since being charged in Champaign County Circuit Court on Sept. 11 with delivery of cocaine and possession with intent to deliver cocaine.

CANADA
The Telegram

The case involving a Roman Catholic priest charged with sexually assaulting a young woman will be fast-tracked.

Rev. Patrick Robert Offin faces a single charge of sexual assault stemming from an incident that happened Aug. 21.

The 55-year-old — who is from Ghana, West Africa — was serving a two-month stint at Holy Cross parish in Holyrood when the incident allegedly occurred at the priest’s residence.

When Offin’s case was called in provincial court this morning, he wasn’t there, but was represented by his lawyer Gerald O’Brien.

CANADA
The Mississauga News

By: Louie Rosella

October 21, 2008 02:08 PM - A Mississauga priest found guilty of defrauding an elderly woman and parishioner out of close to $100,000 has lost his bid to have his conviction overturned.

The Ontario Court of Appeal today dismissed Mark Proctor's appeal bid.

In the spring of 2007, a jury found Proctor guilty of fraud over $5,000 after taking $90,000 from 82-year-old Marita Archibald, of Mississauga.

The two met at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Mississauga where Proctor served as a Melchizedek priest. He drove Archibald home on a regular basis, the appeal court heard.

CONNECTICUT
The Advocate

By Monica Potts
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 10/21/2008 02:43:50 PM EDT

STAMFORD - After six delays, a Roman Catholic priest convicted of stealing more than $1 million from his Darien church began his three-year prison sentence Tuesday, according to federal prison officials.

Michael Jude Fay, a former pastor of St. John Roman Catholic Church, was processed at 12:56 p.m. at a federal medical facility in Massachusetts, said a spokesman for the facility, FMC Devens.

His surrender date was delayed six times as Bureau of Prisons officials and Fay's doctors at Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in New York discussed how to continue his experimental treatment for prostate cancer.

UNITED STATES
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling

Nothing has changed really. The elements that allowed the pedophile priest who got to me are all still in place, in spite of recent "reforms" done by Catholic dioceses. All the new sex education classes and screenings are for the lay teachers, the coaches.

None of the reforms can keep the kind of men who enter the priesthood to have access to children from entering the priesthood. Plus no religious orders have agreed to go along with the Dallas Charter from 2002.

The whole reason they invented altar boys was to give "celibate" priests an outlet, with medieval values of children that carried over into the Twentieth Century. Culturally children were disposable, not too many centuries back. The current Catholic Church response with reform has literally been to do as little as they can get away with.

GOUVERNEUR (NY)
Fox 28

State Police in Gouverneur arrested Robert D. Storie, 59, of Gouverneur on five counts of sexual abuse in the second degree, three counts of sexual abuse in the third degree and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Investigation revealed Storie subjected two girls, ages 12 and 15, to sexual contact several times while attending Richville Baptist Chapel over the last two months.

TEXARKANA (AR)
WXVT

Associated Press - October 21, 2008 10:14 AM ET

TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) - Evangelist Tony Alamo is seeking documents that detail evidence the government has against him ahead of tomorrow's hearing on whether he can be released from custody pending trial.

Alamo is charged in federal court with violating the Mann Act, which prohibits children being moved from one state to another for sexual purposes. He also faces a count of aiding and abetting the violation.

WEST VIRGINIA
WSAZ

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A local pastor accused of sexual abuse will be back in court on Tuesday.

Sandy Cook is set to be arraigned on charges of sexual abuse by a parent or guardian and third degree sexual assault. He was indicted on those charges back in September.

Cook was the senior pastor at Shrewsbury Church of God in eastern Kanawha County.

NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

What:
At a Manhattan sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will blast New York Cardinal Edward Egan for
-- not disclosing the whereabouts of a high-profile, recently-suspended pedophile priest, and
-- letting parishioners erect a ‘shrine’ to the accused predator and make harsh public comments about his victims, creating an atmosphere that intimidates other victims into staying silent.

Later they will hand out fliers door-to-door in Harlem near a parish where the priest worked. (In recent weeks, he’s been accused of molesting at least ten boys). The leaflets urge Catholics to

-- ask everyone they know if they were molested by two pedophile priests who worked there,
-- urge victims and witnesses to call police and get independent help, and
-- defend their accused pastor privately, so other victims aren’t intimidated from speaking up

When:
TODAY, Tuesday, Oct.21

Where:
Noon – In Manhattan, outside archdiocesan chancery office, 1011 First Ave at 55th
2:00 p.m. - In Harlem, outside Church of St. Charles Borromeo, 211 W. 141st St. (near 7th Ave.)

PENNSYLVANIA
Virtue Online

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
10/20/2008

Charles E. Bennison came dressed in a plain suit and tie.

Fr. David Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, came dressed in his clericals, an odd juxtaposition but understandable since Bennison has been officially deposed by The Episcopal Church. He is appealing his verdict.

Bennison, 63, looked a sad and pathetic figure as he sat alone in court room No. 8 in Norristown, PA, surrounded only by his legal team. His wife was oddly absent as were all the clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Nobody apparently wants to know him or be seen with him. Bennison, the once feared, loathed and despised former Bishop of Pennsylvania, is on his own.

WISONSIN
Wisconsin State Journal

By DOUG ERICKSON Wisconsin State Journal
In a joint statement, the Madison Catholic Diocese and the fundraising firm that sued it say a "misunderstanding" led to an allegation that Bishop Robert Morlino sought confidential survey information on priests who criticized him.

The statement will be the final public comment on the matter, both sides said.

In June, Phoenix Fundraising Council of Madison alleged in a civil lawsuit that the diocese was refusing to pay it for work on a feasibility study for a new cathedral. The lawsuit accused Morlino of seeking confidential information from parishioner and priest surveys.

ITALY
Catholic News Agency

Rome, Oct 20, 2008 / 11:39 pm (CNA).- Manfred Lutz, a psychiatrist with the Congregation for the Clergy, has responded in an extensive article to those who consider celibacy not to be "natural" and explained that the discipline is not only necessary for priests and religious to fully live out their vocations, but that it is also a "provocation" to a superficial world that does not believe in life after death.

In the article published by the L'Osservatore Romano, Lutz commented that celibacy represents "a permanent protest against collective superficiality." It proclaims that "the earthly world, with its joys and sufferings, is not all there is."

One who cannot renounce the exercise of sexuality is not capable "of joining in a marital union" either, Lutz continued. Looking upon women as "the object of satisfaction of a personal impulse plays a key role in the criticism of celibacy," he stated. Lutz also noted that there are even times when spouses cannot "fully exercise their sexuality, as in the case for example of a temporary illness or a permanent handicap. In these cases, a spousal relationship that is truly profound is not destroyed but rather enriched.”

ILLINOIS
Daily Illini

By Mark Rivera

Tuesday marks the next step in a Newman priest's trial.

The Rev. Christopher Layden, priest at the St. John's Catholic Newman Center, will appear before a judge at the Champaign County courthouse for a felony pre-trial hearing.

Layden was arrested on Sept. 11 after police found three grams of powdered cocaine during a search of Newman and its rectory. He was charged with two counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance and one count of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a church, according to the State's Attorney's Office.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Dwight Ott
Inquirer Staff Writer

A former priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been charged in New York City with e-mailing pornographic videos to a Colorado detective posing as a 14-year-old.

An announcement concerning the charges against the Rev. Charles T. Plock was distributed in the four parishes in which Plock served during his time in Philadelphia, from September 1996 to December 2000.

Plock, 63, a youth minister at St. John's University, was arrested this month and arraigned in Queens Criminal Court. He was released on $150,000 bail on condition that he check into St. John Vianney Center, a psychiatric facility for the clergy in Downingtown.

PENNSYLVANIA
Off My Knees

October 14, 2008 by Michael

A recent article in the Scranton Times-Tribune identified another priest in the Diocese of Scranton who has been accused of sexually abusing children. The headline accompanying the story exclaimed “The Diocese comes clean on Abusive Priest”. The Diocese did not really come clean, they were forced to respond to a reporter’s inquiry about allegations that Father Robert Gibson had sexually assaulted a 13 year old boy in 1973-1974. As a result of the article, Father Gibson is no longer flying under the radar. His dirty little secret is out in the open and the Diocese of Scranton has had to admit that they were hiding another pedophile.

The 13 year old boy in the story was me. For more than 30 years I kept that secret to myself. I was confused, ashamed and embarrassed by what happened. Mostly I was convinced that no one would believe my story, after all this was a popular priest at my school and in the community. I was raised in an Irish Catholic family where priests and nuns were held in reverence. Priests were seen as God’s representative on earth. We were taught at an early age that we were to obey them, without question. Father Gibson knew this all too well and exploited it for his perverse pleasure.

CANADA
The Sudbury Star

Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN, THE SUDBURY STAR

Written apologies have been issued to two men who settled lawsuits with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie for childhood sexual abuse by a diocesan priest almost 40 years ago.

But a public apology won't be forthcoming from the diocese nor will money be contributed to a program to help men suffering post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of abuse by priests.

Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe, head of the diocese, said an apology has been issued "to the individuals concerned" -- Robert Berube and a man known only as Claude -- for sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Father Jean- Claude Etienne, who died in 1999.

HARTFORD (CT)
The Hartford Courant

By ELIZABETH HAMILTON | The Hartford Courant
October 21, 2008

Clergy sex abuse victims called on Hartford Archbishop Henry Mansell Monday to use the power of his office to more aggressively protect the public from accused priests, particularly in the case of the Rev. Stephen Foley.

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) staged a protest in front of the Cathedral of St. Joseph Monday afternoon because of what they called Mansell's continuation of "passive, failed policies" where Foley and other accused priests are concerned.

Foley, a priest who is accused of abusing boys he lured through his work as a state police and fire chaplain, moved out of Connecticut last year after Mansell ordered him to leave St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield. Mansell's order came after The Courant reported Foley was driving a Ford Crown Victoria similar to the car used by state troopers.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Jeff Coen | Chicago Tribune reporter
October 21, 2008
Lawyers opened their defense Monday of a former priest accused of sexually assaulting a teen with an unusual witness: an alleged victim's father-in-law.

Donald McGuire, 78, a former spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa, is on trial on charges he engaged in sex acts with a male identified in court only as Dominick in overseas trips when the alleged victim was a minor.

Peter DeMarco of New York, the father-in-law, testified Monday that he has difficulty trusting Dominick, who married his oldest daughter last year.

CANADA
Globe and Mail

JOE FRIESEN

October 21, 2008

Harry LaForme, chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, abruptly resigned yesterday, throwing the truth-gathering process into disarray and presenting a political obstacle for the Conservative government.

Mr. Justice LaForme said he was unable to continue because an "incurable problem" doomed the commission to failure. In a letter to Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, he said his two fellow commissioners didn't agree with him on the commission's purpose and wouldn't defer to his authority.

The commissioners, Jane Brewin Morley and Claudette Dumont-Smith, openly and repeatedly challenged his judgment and were determined to outvote him on every issue, Judge LaForme said.

CANADA
Star Tribune (United States)

Associated Press

Last update: October 20, 2008

TORONTO - The head of a Canadian commission examining the consequences of a decades-long government policy that required Canadian Indians to attend Christian schools resigned Monday, saying the panel did not accept his authority.

In his resignation letter, Justice Harry LaForme, of the Ontario Court of Appeal, said the panel was on the "verge of paralysis."

LaForme was appointed in April as chairman of the truth and reconciliation commission, which is documenting the experiences of former students, many of whom were abused while attending the schools where the goal was to assimilate them into Canadian society.

CANADA
Canada.com

Lori Coolican , Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, October 20, 2008
SASKATOON - Two women who were sexually abused in their adolescence by a trusted older relative say elders of the small-town Jehovah's Witness church in which they were raised did not report the situation to police after he admitted touching them inappropriately during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"We were left to endure years of guilt and shame," one of the women wrote in a victim-impact statement read aloud by Crown prosecutor Krista Zerr during the man's sentencing hearing in Saskatoon Court of Queen's Bench on Monday.

"I felt like damaged goods."

NEOSHO (MO)
The Joplin Globe

NEOSHO, Mo. — A Neosho man who has been identified as a self-proclaimed pastor of a fringe church and who already was awaiting trial on a dozen felony counts was bound over Monday for trial on two more charges.

Randall “Danny” Russell, 49, pastor of the Acts II Church in rural Neosho, was charged in August with six counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. The charges stem from photographs investigators reportedly found on Russell’s laptop computer, which Newton County authorities seized earlier this year while executing a search warrant at a compound that includes Russell’s home and business.

Russell was bound over for trial on the two charges of sexual exploitation of a minor, both Class B felonies, after a preliminary hearing Monday, said Assistant Newton County Prosecutor Bill Dobbs.

NEW YORK
The Associated Press

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors said Monday they were surprised the former boyfriend of actress Anne Hathaway sent a judge a photo of himself and the pope while seeking leniency for cheating investors of millions of dollars by claiming he could buy Catholic Church property on the cheap.

They urged the judge Thursday to impose the more than four years in prison that Raffaello Follieri agreed to when he entered a guilty plea last month rather than the three years his defense lawyers requested in a recent submission of their own.

The prosecutors said Follieri included pictures of the pope and other clergymen even though his claims of Vatican ties were the foundation of his fraud.

MALAWI
Nyasa Times

Malawi Catholic Bishops have been persuaded to reprimand Father Joseph Mpinganjira over sexual scandals.

In a letter written to the head of Catholic church in Malawi, His Grace Archbishop Traciscious Ziyaye, the Catholic Christians have asked the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) to discipline Fr Mpinganjira.

According to Sunday Times newspaper, Fr Mpinganjira is being sued in the High Court of Malawi for causing break down of marriage of Mr & Mrs Mtande. He is being accused of adultery for sleeping around with the wife of Mr Mtande.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

Lawyers in the civil trial of suspended Episcopal Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr., who is being sued by a priest he defrocked, painted sharply different pictures yesterday of villain and victim in a decade-long feud.

The unusual trial could establish a precedent for clergy in hierarchical religious institutions to turn to civil courts to challenge their superiors over personnel matters.

In his opening statement at the Montgomery County Courthouse, lawyer John Lewis portrayed his client, the Rev. David Moyer, as the target of a cynical plot by Bennison to "fraudulently" remove him from the priesthood.

Head of the five-county Diocese of Pennsylvania for 10 years, Bennison deposed Moyer in 2002 as a priest and rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont. Moyer, a conservative, had publicly clashed with the more liberal Bennison over the ordination of women and the acceptance of homosexuality and had repeatedly accused him of dishonesty.

WISCONSIN
Baraboo News Republic

By Brian D. Bridgeford / News Republic

Catholic Church authorities in Madison will not release their files about the case of suspended Baraboo priest Rev. Gerald Vosen as was requested Monday by an anti-abuse group, a diocese spokesman says.

Members of the nationwide group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests hand delivered a letter to offices of the Diocese of Madison asking Bishop Robert C. Morlino to release details of sexual abuse allegations and church deliberations involving Vosen, said Peter Isely, Midwest director of SNAP. However, he also said SNAP is defending Morlino in the face of criticisms made by Vosen in his book "Pick a Number: Stories of Faith," which he is releasing to the public this week.

"We've disagreed with Bishop Morlino on how he's handled victims in some of these cases, not releasing files and documents and so forth, so it is unusual we're kind of finding ourselves defending him," Isely said.