Abuse Tracker

NAPLES (FL)
Naples Daily News

By ELIZABETH WENDT-KELLAR

NAPLES — Victims of child abuse, especially those who suffered abuse within the Catholic Church, were remembered during a special Mass at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Naples on Thursday.

Bishop Frank Dewane of the Diocese of Venice celebrated the Mass, which was one of two Masses celebrated by the diocese this month to raise awareness as part of Child Abuse Prevention Month. The other was held at Epiphany Cathedral Parish in Venice.

Celebrating a Mass in Naples gave local parishioners a chance to pray for victims — and for their faith. Memories of the massive sexual abuse scandal that roiled the Catholic Church in 2001 were not far from the minds of many who attended the Mass, including Mary Foster, a Naples resident and Catholic who said she wants the church to acknowledge the pain those abuses caused.

INDIANA
National Survivors Advocates Coalition

April 30, 2009

The National Survivors Advocates Coalition today called upon the president of the University of Notre Dame to give the Laetare Award of 2009 to the victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy.

The coalition released the full text of its letter to Notre Dame president, Father John I. Jenkins, C.SC. and the prayer referenced in the letter.

Former United States Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon declined the Laetere Medal on Monday. Father Jenkins said Monday the University does intend to select another recipient for the 2009 Laetare Medal.

NEW YORK
Catholic Courier

By Mike Latona/Catholic Courier

The New York State Catholic Conference continues to seek public support for legislation it contends would level the playing field between Catholic and public institutions when it comes to civil lawsuits related to child sexual abuse.

In April two state Assembly bills, the Child Victims Act of New York (A2596) -- known as the Markey bill -- and alternative legislation known as the Lopez bill (A5708a) were sent to a special Assembly steering committee. As they are being weighed, the Catholic conference is asking the state's Catholics to send e-mails to their Assembly members in support of the Lopez bill -- which the conference and the state's eight bishops support -- and in opposition to the Markey bill. (To send an e-mail based on pre-written models, visit www.nyscatholicconference.org and click the "Take Action Now" link.)

The conference stands strongly against the Markey bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Queens). Her proposed legislation would temporarily waive the state's current civil statute of limitations on child sexual-abuse cases, giving alleged victims one year to lodge previously time-barred claims -- no matter how long ago the abuse is said to have occurred -- against private organizations and businesses. But the Markey bill does not address the statute of limitations on claims against public entities. In New York, regardless of the nature of their claims, those who wish to sue a public institution are required by current law to file a notice of claim, notifying the institution of their intent to sue within 90 days of an incident.

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

[read the full finance report]

Posted by Michael Paulson April 30, 2009 01:41 PM

BRAINTREE -- The Archdiocese of Boston is continuing its slow but steady progress digging out of a deep financial hole triggered by the clergy sexual abuse crisis, but is still facing an enormous challenge in the form of a pension fund for retired priests that will run out of money in two years without major change, church officials are announcing today.

The archdiocese, for the fourth year in a row offering the public a detailed look at the finances of the region's largest religious institution, today is releasing the annual financial reports for the central administration and, in aggregate, the 292 parishes, as well as for more than 60 other Catholic organizations, including schools, hospitals, cemeteries and social service agencies, overseen by Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley. For the first time, the archdiocese also is releasing individual financial reports for 102 parishes; a significant step toward fulfilling O'Malley's delayed goal of reporting every parish's finances publicly each year.

Archdiocesan officials said they were heartened that contributions to parishes rose 4 percent in fiscal 2008, and the archdiocesan annual fundraising campaign slightly surpassed its $15 million goal. And they said that indications are that contributions are holding steady this year, despite the recession.

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Business Journal

Parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston colleged $117,972,000 during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2008, according to a church report out Thursday.

The archdiocese had assets of $747,255,000 at the end of the 2008 fiscal year.

The report also states that during the year, the archdiocese spent about $10 million dealing with the continuing repercussions of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Of that, $5.5 million went to fund settlements with 55 victims. To pay for the settlements and related costs, the archdiocese used $6 million from selling administrative properties, $484,000 from a self-insurance fund and $1.6 million from insurance companies.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Medill Reports

by Liam Martin
April 29, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Call it an aberration. Or chalk it up to a “Pope bump.”

Bottom line, Catholicism in Washington, D.C. — and indeed across the U.S. — is showing signs of a recovery, with healthy gains in conversion and attendance rates over the last year.

“We saw at Easter this year that not only do we have more people becoming Catholic, we had more people in the churches,” said Susan Gibbs, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Washington.

MEMPHIS (TN)
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen
Thursday, April 30, 2009
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (ABP) -- A former Southern Baptist pastor arrested in 2007 on charges that he sexually abused two teenage boys has avoided prison -- for now.

Steven C. Haney, 48, pastor of Walnut Grove Baptist Church in the Memphis suburb of Cordova, Tenn., for 20 years before his resignation in December 2006, pleaded guilty April 29 to rape and sexual battery by an authority figure in a settlement intended to allow victims and their families to avoid the stress of testifying.

According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Judge John Colton Jr. approved the settlement, sentencing Haney to probation for eight years and adding his name to the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry. He was given suspended, concurrent sentences of eight and three years. Haney still faces federal child pornography charges in an indictment handed down in October 2007, punishable by a minimum of 10 years in prison.

NEW YORK
5 Towns Jewish Times

By David Mandel
Published on Thursday, April 30, 2009

There is legislation pending to extend the statute of limitations on reporting and prosecuting child molesters. There is general agreement this change in the law would be good. Victims of child molestation, even older adolescents, are often not ready to disclose or confront their offenders until years later.

A second piece of legislation to open a “window” of one year permitting victims, even those molested decades ago, to file civil lawsuits against molesters or the institutions that employed them has drawn both strong support and strong opposition. As is often the case, victims’ advocates will favor the proposed legislation while institutional systems may oppose it.

Victims’ advocates are favoring the Markey bill, which includes this window. The Catholic church and some groups representing yeshiva institutions favor the Lopez bill, which extends the statute but has no window.

CALIFORNIA
Examiner

Kay Ebeling
LA City Buzz Examiner

There was one point when I turned a corner, a breeze came up, and the ground where I was standing on April 25 2009 was the same exact ground where I’d been running to hide and ditch church back in 1961(2?). A scent, the sun hit the concrete a certain way - but just for a glimpse, not long enough to grasp it. The surroundings changed back - fresh paint, plastic. To say things have changed in forty years barely describes it. I think this entire church building has been cut in half and rebuilt going the other direction on the lot, this might not even be the same church lot.

On outside looking in San Marino ChurchI'm wandering around with my tiny video camera pointing it at “Rest Room” signs, so already drawing funny looks, (see Part 1) when I see my current co-producer Ken has taken up position between the parking lot and where people are entering for Mass. He’s doing a standup monologue, why doesn't the church help people like him he asks, with his purple t-shirt blaring out “Molested Catholic” and “would you let a nun/priest babysit your children?”

Ken and I didn't call in advance. We are flying by the seat of our pants. We share the experience of being molested by priests in states with out of date statute of limitations laws, Ken in New York me in Illinois. So while the Catholic Church makes statements in the media that it has put these sins behind itself by paying off large settlements to thousands of victims, the bishops never mention they only help persons who spend years in litigation. Where that isn’t possible, the Church ignores us. Gives us a phone number for a psychiatrist like the Chicago Archdiocese did me.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Tribune-Democrat

BY SANDRA K. REABUCK
The Tribune-Democrat

EBENSBURG — A former volunteer advocate for children in court cases was sentenced Wednesday to 32 to 70 years in state prison for raping and sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy.

Judge Timothy Creany imposed the stiff sentence despite pleas for leniency from the defendant’s family.

The sentence likely will keep 48-year-old Larry Knipple behind prison bars for the rest of his life, Creany said. ...

Knipple, of Greenich Street, Stonycreek Township, became tearful as he asked the judge to take into consideration his family’s testimony, including that of his 84-year-old mother, who said she depends on her son to take care of her and her house. Other family members talked about Knipple’s deep religious faith and his volunteer work with his church and other organizations.

CANADA
Metro

VICTORIA HANDYSIDES
April 30, 2009 5:43 a.m.

Statements of regret from the head of the Roman Catholic Church are too little, too late for residential school survivors struggling to rebuild shattered spiritual faith, says a local counsellor.

“Apology? What apology?” Terry Lusty asked, his voice dripping with disdain.

Eight years of alleged brutal physical and mental abuse at the hands of staff at Winnipeg’s St. Joseph’s school would not simply be dismissed by an attempt at reconciliation by Pope Benedict XVI yesterday, Lusty said.

VATICAN CITY
BBC News

Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his sorrow that generations of aboriginal children were abused at some Catholic boarding schools in Canada.

The Pope was speaking after a private meeting at the Vatican with an aboriginal leader and Canadian bishops.

From the late 19th Century until the 1970s, some 150,000 children were forcibly sent to church-run schools in an effort to assimilate them.

CANADA
Globe and Mail

BILL CURRY

With a report from Reuters in Vatican City

April 30, 2009

OTTAWA -- The Pope expressed sorrow on behalf of the Catholic Church for the "deplorable conduct" of some of its members at Canada's Indian residential schools during a private, half-hour meeting at the Vatican with Canadian bishops and native leaders.

The Canadian representatives described the expression of sorrow as an apology even though that exact word does not appear in the Vatican's public statement.

Those in the room yesterday said that they were struck by the depth of Pope Benedict XVI's knowledge of what happened in Canada and the forceful way he spoke against the abuses. While the meeting was private, the Pope acknowledged the delegation of Canadian aboriginals during a general audience address to thousands of people gathered outdoors at the Vatican.

VIRGINIA
WDBJ

News7 told you Tuesday about a former church leader who plead no contest to child abuse in Roanoke County.

Another man from the same church also entered a plea Tuesday, this one in Franklin County.

Deacon Stone was found guilty of 12-charges of sexual assault involving three different victims.

CANADA
Anglican Journal

Staff
Apr 29, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI met privately with a delegation of Canadian native people on Wednesday and expressed his sorrow for the suffering of native children in Canadian residential schools.

The delegation, which included Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine, former students of residential schools and elders, came to the Vatican at the Pope’s invitation. The Canadian group also included Archbishop V. James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and representatives from several Catholic dioceses and religious communities.

FLORIDA
Miami Herald

BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
A Catholic priest accused of molesting a teenage boy at a Kendall church has been cleared by the Archdiocese of Miami and will be reassigned to another parish.

The Rev. Rolando Castillo, who voluntarily stepped down as pastor of St. Timothy's in 2007 when he was accused of misconduct in a lawsuit, asked to be reassigned. ...

As for the lawsuit, filed in October 2007, it has been resolved. But it is unclear whether the archdiocese settled the negligence case by paying the accuser, as the institution has done in dozens of other claims in recent years.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
WUWM

By Marge Pitrof
April 29, 2009 | WUWM | Milwaukee, WI

Cardinal Stritch University is dropping its plans to purchase the Cousin’s Center in St. Francis, from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. University spokeswoman Joanne Williams says the economic turmoil rocking the country is forcing Cardinal Stritch to take a more conservative approach to expanding. The school had hoped to build a new campus at the Cousin’s Center. ...

The Milwaukee Archdiocese says it will continue marketing the Cousin’s Center property, because the church needs money to pay off debt related to priest sexual abuse cases.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Times

By Julia Duin | Thursday, April 30, 2009

Last week, I got to see "Doubt," the 2008 psychological drama starring Meryl Streep about a nun who suspects that the parish priest over

seeing her parochial school is sexually abusing male students. The genius of the movie is that the nun has no proof, but her instincts and the viewers are left to decide whether the priest (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) was really up to something.

Most of the people watching the movie with me thought the priest was innocent. I argued with them. Didn't they notice, I asked, the priest's spiritual poverty, the sneaky way he did everything, his lame excuses for being alone with little boys?

No, they did not. I realized once again that while reporters have reviewed tons of these cases and know the tell-tale signs of abuse in their sleep, the general public remains clueless.

SALINAS (CA)
The Salinas Californian

April 29, 2009

Friday’s previously scheduled preliminary hearing for a Salinas parish priest accused of child molestation has been delayed, the defense attorney’s office said.

The preliminary hearing, which would determine whether the Rev. Antonio Cortes will stand trial on charges he faces, has been moved to May 22.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Defence lawyers for a Hunter Valley Catholic priest, accused of molesting 40 boys, will spend the next three weeks negotiating to have some of the charges dropped.

John Sidney Denham, 66, is currently facing 134 child sex offences.

But in Newcastle Local Court yesterday, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said it expects a number of charges will be withdrawn or merged, once the 40 alleged victims give further evidence.

NEW YORK
Forward

By Rebecca Dube
Published April 29, 2009, issue of May 08, 2009.

One Friday night last November, after saying Kiddush and putting his children to bed, Pinny clicked the send button on his e-mail and turned to the work of killing himself.

To the outside observer, and even to friends who knew him well, Pinny seemed like an upstanding, frum guy with a great life. He had a beautiful wife, three wonderful children, a good job and a secure place as a respected member of his Orthodox Jewish community in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn. He had all those things, and he cherished them. But he also had a secret.

At age 15, Pinny was raped repeatedly and violently over the course of several months by a teacher at his yeshiva. When he told a rabbi about the abuse, his molester threatened to kill him unless he recanted. When he tried to tell him again, he was labeled a liar.

VATICAN CITY
Beliefnet

Wednesday April 29, 2009
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI met aboriginal survivors of Canada's residential school system on Wednesday (Apr. 29) and voiced his "sorrow" over "deplorable" abuses in the church-run schools.

"Given the sufferings that some indigenous children experienced in the Canadian Residential School system, the Holy Father expressed his sorrow at the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the Church and he offered his sympathy and prayerful solidarity," the Vatican said in a statement. ...

Fontaine, himself a survivor of Canada's residential schools, acknowledged that the pope's statement did not amount to a formal apology, but told CBC News that he hoped it would "close the book" on the issue of apologies for residential school survivors.

TENNESSEE
Memphis Commercial Appeal

By Lawrence Buser, Memphis Commercial Appeal

A former Cordova church pastor pleaded guilty today to charges that he sexually abused two teenage boys, including one with whom he fostered a five-year affair.

Steven C. Haney, 48, who headed Walnut Grove Baptist Church for some 20 years, was placed on probation for eight years and will be added to the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry.

State prosecutor David Zak said the plea arrangement was approved by the victims and their families, who were spared the stress of testifying in trial.

FLORIDA
Miami Herald

BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
A Catholic priest accused of molesting a teenage boy at a Kendall church has been cleared by the Archdiocese of Miami and will be reassigned to another parish.

The Rev. Rolando Castillo, who voluntarily stepped down as pastor of St. Timothy's in 2007 when he was accused of misconduct in a lawsuit, asked to be reassigned.

''It was his decision not to return as pastor,'' said archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta. She said the Catholic Church has not decided on his new parish assignment.

CANADA
CBC News

Last Updated: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 | 3:15 PM CT

Pope Benedict's expression of sorrow for the years of abuse Canadian aboriginal children faced at residential schools is not enough for some former students in Canada's North.

The pontiff's statement Wednesday had little meaning for John Banksland, a Northwest Territories-based board member with the National Residential School Survivor's Society, who said the Catholic Church has frequently denied incidents of abuse.

"There's a lot of shenanigans going on within the church, and I'd just as soon just sort of leave that alone," Banksland told CBC News.

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

In an unprecedented and potentially far-reaching new decision, based on an 1868 treaty with a Sioux tribe, a federal judge has ruled that a Native American teenager who was sexually assaulted by a military recruiter is entitled to more than $600,000 in damages. The case was handled by Miami attorney Adam Horowitz.

It is the first time a Native American will recover "pain and suffering" damages against the United States thanks to the treaty.

“We applaud any innovative legal move that helps deter recklessness by any employer when it comes to sexual assault,“ said David Clohessy of St. Louis, national director of a support group called SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). “Over the years, large and wealthy institutions have proven very adept at evading consequences for their employees’ sexual misdeeds. This ruling will help put a stop to horrific crimes, committed against even the most vulnerable by even the most powerful.”

CANADA
CNW Group

NIPISSING FN, ON, April 29 /CNW/ - Grand Council Chief John Beaucage says he "expression of sorrow" issued by Pope Benedict XVI about the Catholic Church's role in operating Indian Residential Schools should seen as a foundation on which a reconciliation process can be built.

"We want to see the Bishops, dioceses and Roman Catholic communities and churches in Canada embrace their responsibility and move towards reconciliation with First Nations," said Beaucage, who represents 42 Anishinabek Nation communities in Ontario. "I'd like to see the impacts of the Papal apology be recognized and addressed, not only at the Vatican, but within
Canada."

Beaucage said that, if elected National Chief at the Assembly of First Nations assembly in Calgary this July he intends to meet with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to determine a course of action to build on Wednesday's apology issued by the Vatican following a private audience with an AFN delegation.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

April 29, 2009
After his regular weekly public audience on April 29, Pope Benedict XVI met with leaders of Canadian native tribes, and offered an apology for the abuses that occurred at the "residential schools" serving native children in Canada during the 19th and 20th centuries. The schools separated native children from their families and strongly discouraged any manifestations of their native culture; there have also been reports of sexual and physical abuse in the institutions, most of which were operated by the Catholic Church.

VATICAN CITY
CNW Group

VATICAN CITY, April 29 /CNW Telbec/ - Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine and a delegation of First Nations Elders, residential school survivors and Aboriginal leaders met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican today, followed by the first ever Private Audience between a Pope and a delegation of First Nations from Canada. The purpose of the audience was to discuss the legacy of the Indian residential schools era and the need for
reconciliation.

"As we approach the one year anniversary of the Government of Canada's apology on June 11, this visit with the Holy Father closes the circle of reconciliation. In the past, we received apologies from the Anglican, United and Presbyterian churches and the Government of Canada for the residential schools. Today's expression of understanding, acknowledgement and emotion by His Holiness on behalf of the Catholic Church closes the circle," stated the
National Chief.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine and the delegation of First Nations Elders, survivors, Chiefs, women and youth attended an outdoor general audience in St. Peter's Square. Included in the delegation, at the invitation of the National Chief, were Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Mary Simon and Métis National Council Vice-President David Chartrand.

VATICAN CITY
AHN

AHN Staff
Vatican City (AHN) - Pope Benedict XVI apologized on Wednesday to a delegation of Canadian aborigines belonging to the Assembly of First Nations in a private audience with the group.

Globe and Mail quoted a Vatican statement which read, "Given the sufferings that some indigenous children experienced in the Canadian residential school system, the Holy Father expressed his sorrow at the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the church and he offered his sympathy and prayerful solidarity."

Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly and himself a victim of the system, confirmed receiving the Pope's apology. "What we wanted the Pope to say to us was that he was sorry and... that he deeply felt for us... We heard that very clearly today," Fontaine was quoted by Globe and Mail.

CANADA
CJME

Reported By Benson McCulloch
Posted April 29, 2009 - 12:28pm

Canadian aboriginal leaders say they got the apology they were seeking during a meeting with Pope Benedict today at the Vatican.

But at least one survivor isn't as charitable with his opinions.

Ted Quwezance, a student for 11 years at two different residential schools in Saskatchewan, says he isn't impressed with the pope's gesture.

CANADA
North Bay News

By Kate Adams
BayToday.ca
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Union of Ontario Indians
News Release

NIPISSING FIRST NATION (April 29, 2009) - Grand Council Chief John Beaucage is congratulating National Chief Phil Fontaine for "closing the book" on the issue of apologies for residential school survivors.

Beaucage said the "expression of sorrow" issued Wednesday at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI to an Assembly of First Nations delegation marked the culmination of Fontaine's persistent efforts to gain recognition of the abuses suffered by over 100,000 First Nation students forced to attend 130 church-run residential schools. Other Christian denominations implicated in abuse at the government-sanctioned schools have already apologized for their roles - the Anglican Church in 1993, the Presbyterian Church in 1994 and the United Church in 1998. Last June Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology on behalf of the government of Canada

"Phil has left an historic legacy in making Canadians aware of the horrible impact residential schools have had on First Nations communities," said Beaucage, a candidate to replace Fontaine during the leadership selection process at July's annual general assembly of the Assembly of First Nations in Calgary. "His persistent efforts will serve as an important building block for the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission."

VATICAN CITY
Straight.com

National Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations delivered this statement today (April 29) to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Today, the pope told a delegation of aboriginal Canadians he is sorry for the abuse that took place at Canadian residential schools run by the Catholic Church.

April 29, 2009

Most Holy Father:

Today is a joyous day for the human spirit. It is a momentous day for our people and for our country, Canada.

It is my highest honor as the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations to represent our people in your presence in this awe-inspiring house of worship and grace. Most Holy Father, thank you for receiving us.

The Catholic Church has always played a significant role in the history of our peoples. Priests and nuns were some of the first Europeans to arrive on our shores.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Sarah Delaney
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a step toward reconciling a long-standing historical injustice, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his sorrow for the suffering of Canadian aboriginal children over decades in church-run residential schools.

The pope met at the Vatican April 29 with a delegation of native Canadians representing those who had suffered forced acculturation and in some cases physical and sexual abuse at the government schools, many run by Catholics, and listened to their grievances.

He expressed his "sorrow at the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the church and offered his sympathy and prayerful solidarity," a Vatican statement said after the meeting, which followed the regular weekly papal audience.

INDIANA
The Journal Gazette

Anne Gregory
The Journal Gazette

Nearing retirement, Bishop John M. D'Arcy has begun taking steps to merge, close or expand a number of parishes across the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.

In an announcement released Wednesday morning, the bishop said it is his responsibility to make sure that the Eucharist is provided and that there are enough priests to serve the parishes.

He said he is taking these steps now in preparation for "the coming of a new bishop."

INDIANA
Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend

[report in PDF format]

A report by Bishop John M. D'Arcy

One of the central responsibilities of a bishop is to see that the Eucharist is provided for his people. In support of this responsibility and of other matters central to the life of the church, he must seek to provide sufficient priests for the people of that diocese, which the Lord through the church has placed in his hands. As part of this responsibility the bishop, along with others — especially his priests, must seek to find and implement ways to draw young men to consider the priesthood and not be afraid to offer themselves to this beautiful, but demanding vocation. Working with others, he must try to forge a spirit of courage among young people so they will be willing to take this path of love and service in response to the love of Christ.

Recent circumstances have made it necessary and opportune to seek priests from other countries who may be able to assist on either a temporary or permanent basis, so each parish may have the dynamic presence of priests to care for the flock in the name of Christ.

FORT WAYNE (IN)
Indiana's News Center

By Scott Sarvay

(Story Updated: Apr 29, 2009 at 12:14 PM EDT )
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - Bishop john D’Arcy of the Fort Wayne- South Bend diocese is taking steps to merge, close or expand several parishes.

D’Arcy says in looking at how priests are presently distributed. He's not certain they are placed in ways that people are being served properly.

VINTON (VA)
The Roanoke Times

By Amanda Codispoti
981-3334
Two men who held leadership positions in the same Vinton church entered pleas Tuesday in unrelated sex crime cases involving children.

Dean Harold Stone, a former deacon at Heritage Baptist Church, pleaded guilty in Franklin County Circuit Court to 12 sex crimes. He faces up to three life sentences in jail.

In a separate case, Daniel Silverman, the church's former assistant pastor, pleaded no contest in Roanoke County Circuit Court to one count of aggravated sexual battery of a child. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

CANADA
John McKiggan's Sexual Abuse Claims Blog

Residential School Survivors Meet Pope

A group of Survivors from Canada’s Indian Residential Schools had a private audience with Pope Benedict. The delegation was led by assembly of First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine. The group also includes one of the survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, Membertou Chief Terry Paul.

Pope Apologizes to Abuse Survivors

The Survivors received a personal apology from the Pope on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church for its "deplorable" role in Canada’s Indian Residential School system.

VATICAN
CTV

CTV.ca News Staff

Pope Benedict has said he is sorry for the physical and sexual abuse and "deplorable" conduct at Catholic church-run Canadian residential schools.

The Vatican says the pontiff expressed his sorrow and emphasized that "acts of abuse cannot be tolerated" at a meeting Wednesday with representatives of native Canadians.

"Given the sufferings that some indigenous children experienced in the Canadian residential school system, the Holy Father expressed his sorrow at the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the church and he offered his sympathy and prayerful solidarity," a statement from the Vatican said.

CALIFORNIA
Examiner

Kay Ebeling
LA City Buzz Examiner

Had a bizarre experience last Saturday, but face it, it’s a bizarre experience to be in this population of adult victims of pedophile priests. Recently my new co-producer Ken Kosiorek founded Molested Catholic, an amorphous project that involves street performance type confrontation and videos on Molested Catholic his YouTube channel. He drove up from San Diego Saturday and we went to a San Marino church, Ken to do his act, me to shoot it and also try to answer questions from the past. Ken tells a whack story of being singled out by nuns in an upstate New York boarding school, primarily because he was left-handed, and then the nuns handled him in another way. . . .

Ken Kosiorek, creator of Molested CatholicBesides determination to tell the story of “sex starved clergy” as Ken calls them every way we can, Ken and I both see this is all new territory. We're using new media, talking about a topic no one has really seen before, so anything goes, whatever is in front of you, step up and do it. Neither of us came right out and said it, but we both have a sense God is in charge, and He really wants these pedophile priests and their enablers outta there.

Ken produced these t-shirts that say, “I was molested by Dirty Filthy Catholics.” Blatant, upfront truth in a person’s face when you see him on the street wearing it. Ken blares the t-shirt on his chest where lots of Catholics can see him and then starts a spiel, almost a comedy routine:

RANTOUL (IL)
The News-Gazette

By Steve Bauer
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 8:02 AM CDT

RANTOUL – A former development director at St. Malachy School is suing the local priest and diocese for defamation of character.

Carolyn L. Taylor worked as an administrator for the Catholic grade school in Rantoul. ...

However, on May 30, 2008, Engelbrecht called her into his office and immediately offered her a choice of resignation or termination, according to the lawsuit.

The suit said Taylor was startled and confused and asked why. The choice was stated again by Engelbrecht, who added, "because of the report from the recent audit," the suit said.

When Taylor was not willing to resign, she was fired, the suit claimed. ...

But, according to the suit, no such audit report exists. Taylor said a St. Malachy trustee and an attorney for the diocese allegedly admitted there was no audit. The lawyer for the diocese also allegedly said that Engelbrecht's actions against Taylor were covered by diocesan procedures and "duly authorized by Bishop Jenky."

VATICAN
CBC News

Last Updated: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 | 8:29 AM

Pope Benedict XVI told a delegation from Canada's Assembly of First Nations on Wednesday he is sorry for the abuse and "deplorable" treatment that aboriginal students suffered at residential schools run by the Roman Catholic Church.

The Pope expressed his personal sorrow at the Vatican during a private audience with the delegation, which included Assembly of First Nations Leader Phil Fontaine, aboriginal elders and residential school survivors.

During the meeting in the Vatican's Paul VI auditorium, Benedict emphasized that "acts of abuse cannot be tolerated," the church said.

VATICAN
Calgary Herald

By Peter O’Neil - Europe Correspondent, Canwest News Service
April 29, 2009 7:01 AM

PARIS — Pope Benedict XVI expressed his “sorrow” Wednesday over the suffering of thousands of aboriginal Canadians in residential schools run by the Roman Catholic Church.

The statement came in a communique issued by the Vatican after the pope met with Phil Fontaine, Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the Most Reverend James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, and several B.C. aboriginal leaders.

“His Holiness recalled that since the earliest days of her presence in Canada, the Church, particularly through her missionary personnel, has closely accompanied the indigenous peoples,” the statement began.

SALINAS (CA)
The Monterey County Herald

Updated: 04/29/2009 01:32:22 AM PDT

No one should expect a newspaper to be enthusiastic when competing lawyers in a high-profile court case vow not to talk to reporters about the substance of the proceedings. But the virtual gag order that governs the flow of information in one important local case is better than what might have been, and we're hopeful that it reflects new thinking by the Monterey County courts.

Among other things, the court broke with recent tradition and held a legally required hearing while pondering a request for a gag order. We have been critical of the local bench for its failure to hold such hearings in the past, so we feel obligated to applaud when the appropriate process is followed, no matter how we view the outcome.

The case is the child molestation prosecution of the Rev. Antonio Cortes, the now-suspended pastor of St. Mary of the Nativity Catholic Church in East Salinas. The young priest is accused of seducing a 16-year-old boy, furnishing him with alcohol and possessing child pornography, charges that left his parishioners stunned and disheartened.

SALINAS (CA)
The Salinas Californian

BY SUNITA VIJAYAN • svijayan@thecalifornian.com • April 29, 2009

Attorneys have agreed to refrain from publicly discussing the case of a Salinas parish priest accused of molesting a teenager, the Monterey County District Attorney's Office said.

The agreement follows a hearing Friday in which a defense attorney requested a gag order preventing law enforcement officers and lawyers from speaking with the media regarding the case involving the Rev. Antonio Cortes.

During the hearing before Superior Court Judge Russell Scott, an attorney hired by The Salinas Californian argued against the proposed gag order.

BENTON (AR)
Today's THV

Posted By: Katherina- Marie Yancy

Earlier this week the Saline County Sheriff's Department received information that a leader in the community allegedly had inappropriate conduct with a minor.

David Pierce, 56, has been the choir minister at First Baptist Church in Benton for 28 years.

Authorities say last week a teenager's family contacted the church about the alleged misconduct. The complaint then went down the chain of command from DHS to the State Police Crimes against Children and then to the Saline County Sheriff's Department.

UNITED STATES
PR Web

Reno, NV (PRWEB) April 29, 2009 -- The recent alleged abduction, rape and murder of eight-year old Sandra Cantu from Tracy, CA by Sunday School teacher, Melissa Huckaby (Complaint # SF111539A), is a wake-up call for parents. Recent statistics from the Crimes Against Children Research Center cite that there are between 60,000 - 70,000 arrests for sex crimes against children each year. Although crimes against children are down, it is crucial that parents learn what to do to keep their children safe from child predators.

According to Laura Ramirez, author of the award-winning parenting book, Keepers of the Children: Native American Wisdom and Parenting, parents need to realize that it's not enough to teach children to stay away from strangers anymore because statistics show that the majority of crimes committed against children (rape, abduction and murder) are committed by persons known to the family.

STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By Scott Smith
Record Staff Writer
April 29, 2009 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - A judge who last week sealed the reports from 8-year-old Sandra Cantu's autopsy has now sealed a moot prosecution motion opposing the girl's disinterment, saying the Cantu family's privacy rights outweigh the public's need for the information.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus said in Tuesday's order that she wants to ensure a fair trial for prosecutors and the defense attorneys of the woman accused of killing Sandra, Melissa Huckaby of Tracy.

PARAGUAY
Reuters

By Kevin Gray
ASUNCION (Reuters) - Paraguayans are transfixed over a real-life soap opera set in the presidential palace: paternity claims by three women against bishop-turned-president Fernando Lugo.

The president, once known as the "bishop of the poor" but now seen as something of a playboy, stunned Paraguayans two weeks ago by admitting he had fathered a child while he was a Roman Catholic bishop. The acknowledgment came after the mother filed a paternity suit. ...

The scandal has proved fodder for a torrent of e-mail jokes circulating in Asuncion, and even a popular song whose title is "Lugaucho" _ a wordplay on Lugo's name and gaucho, Paraguayan slang for playboy.

One newspaper cartoon poked fun at the issue, showing presidential security guards pushing a baby stroller for triplets. Some jokes take aim at Lugo breaking his celibacy vows, but apparently respecting church rules against condoms.

BENTON (AR)
The Courier

David Pierce, First Baptist Church of Benton’s former music minister who has been arrested on one count of sexual indecency, was released from custody Monday after agreeing to an order that bars him from having any contact with current or former members of the Pure Energy youth choir or staff members of the church.

Pierce, who had been jailed at the Saline County Detention Center since Friday evening, was released around 6 p.m. after posting a $2,500 bond, said Lt. Mike Frost of the Saline County Sheriff’s Office.

Through videotaped transmission, Pierce appeared before District Judge Mike Robinson in a bond hearing Monday morning in Saline County District Court. He is scheduled for another appearance on June 9.

JACKSTONVILLE (FL)
News4Jax

POSTED: Tuesday, April 28, 2009
UPDATED: 9:39 pm EDT April 28, 2009

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Three members of the nationwide group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests gathered outside Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church to send a message on Tuesday.

They were calling for other victims to come forward against the church's former pastor Darrell Gilyard.

"We're here today because we worried about the upcoming criminal trial against Rev. Darrell Gilyard," said SNAP Director David Clohessy.

VINTON (VA)
WSLS

WSLS News Staff
news@wsls.com
Published: April 28, 2009

3:35 p.m.

Silverman entered a “no contest” plea. That means he does not admit to the crime, but believes there is enough evidence to convict him if the case went to trial.

Sentencing is scheduled for July.
—————
12:26 p.m.

A former Assistant Pastor at Heritage Baptist Church in Vinton is set to make his plea in a child sexual abuse case.

Court records show Dan Silverman is scheduled to enter a guilty plea in Roanoke County Circuit Court Tuesday afternoon.

AUSTRALIA
Virtue Online

By Amanda Gearing
On Line Opinion

April 29, 2009

The sentencing of a self-confessed child sex offender and senior Brisbane Anglican priest Canon Barry Greaves in Brisbane District Court last Friday (April 24, 2009) is a significant event for many reasons and for many people.

It is a significant event because Greaves was a priest at Boonah in the early 1980s when he committed the offences and because knowledge of his own sex offending against children failed to deter him from seeking and gaining high office in the Anglican Church.

He accepted the position of being an Archbishop's chaplain to Brisbane Archbishop Dr Peter Hollingworth in 1999. He stayed on as an Archbishop's chaplain to the incoming Archbishop Dr Phillip Aspinall in 2002 and not even the disgrace of the sex scandal in the Brisbane Diocese resulted in a glimmer of guilt that maybe he was not an appropriate person to be providing pastoral care to other victims of sexual assault.

TEXAS
DFW

A former Grand Prairie priest pled guilty Tuesday to one count of possession of child pornography. Police executed a search warrant at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church after receiving information that an associate priest saw Matthew Bagert viewing an image of a young, nude boy on the rectory computer, according to court documents. The 40-year-old man told police he used the Internet to find the images. Bagert faces a maximum statutory sentence of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime of supervised release. Bagert, who is now living in Richardson, will also be required to register as a sex offender.

TEXAS
Beliefnet

Rod Dreher

A defrocked priest in the Dallas area pleaded guilty today to having downloaded child pornography on his church computer in 2005. Here's the final line of the story:

He is now married and has a young child.

How on earth does that happen? I remember when then-Father Bagert was arrested four years ago. It's not like his wife only discovered that her husband had this kink after she married him.

PENNSYLVANIA
Episcopal Life

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, April 28, 2009

[Episcopal News Service] Claiming to have "over 200 letters" that prove Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison "was deceived and duped," the convicted bishop's attorneys have asked that the charges against him be dismissed, or that he get a new trial.

In February, the Court for the Trial of a Bishop issued its final judgment and sentence that Bennison should be deposed from the ordained ministry of the Episcopal Church for having engaged in conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.

Bennison, who has been inhibited or barred from exercising his ordained ministry since October 2007 when he was first ordered to stand trial, appealed his sentence of deposition in mid-March.

UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

by Caryl Rivers

Ever wonder why the Vatican and conservative Catholics are out of touch with what real people -including their religious brethren--are thinking?

Well, there's this: conservatives are throwing a hissy fit because the President of the United States is getting an honorary degree from Notre Dame, while they ignore the fact that a man who should be a felon is honored with a cushy job in Rome. ...

Is the Vatican not a Catholic Institution? And did not the Vatican honor Cardinal Bernard Law, former archbishop of Boston, with a prestigious position after he made it out of the Bay State a few jumps ahead of the (lower case) law.

Examiner

Kay Ebeling
LA City Buzz Examiner

Ron Howard is proving he may really be Opie, ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room with the release of Angels & Demons May 15th. In the story an assassin kidnaps four cardinals and plans to kill them and to blow up The Vatican. And the reason for all this pent-up anger has something to do with something that happened about seven hundred years ago?????? If there is any reason people in 2009 would get angry at the Catholic Church, it would likely be the serial felonies from recent decades, crimes against thousands of children, some who made it to adulthood. Pedophilia in the Catholic Church destroyed lives, and are crimes where the Church continues to use manipulation of civil law and criminal justice, and outright abuse of power, to keep the truth about its crimes from coming out.

Isn’t the pedophile crisis a little bit more topical than something the Illuminati may or may not have done in 1300? Funniest thing is the Catholic Church is criticizing Howard for the film Angels & Demons, when from what I see, the film is an apology Howard is making to the church for making DaVinci Code. Howard and others from the production are making an embarrassing number of public appearances to get out the word, “Hey, no this is just fiction. We really love the Catholic Church.” (see below). I wish everyone from Dan Brown to the screenwriters to the producers paid more attention to what is going on in the real world to write their fiction.

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

By MELISSA CROWE / The Dallas Morning News
A former Grand Prairie priest this morning pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography on a church computer and will be required to register as a sex offender, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

Matthew Bagert, 40, of Richardson is scheduled for sentencing on July 20 before U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay for one count of possession of child pornography, said acting U.S. Attorney James Jacks' office. Bagert faces up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime of supervised release.

According to court documents, Grand Prairie police received information that an associate priest saw Bagert viewing an image of a nude boy on a rectory computer. The police executed a search warrant at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church on Feb. 1, 2005. Bagert admitted responsibility for the child pornography on the rectory computer and that he had used the Internet to find the images.

TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY NATHANIEL JONES
njonesb@star-telegram.com

A 40-year-old former Grand Prairie Catholic priest pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of possession of child pornography in a Dallas federal courtroom, according to a release James T. Jacks, acting U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks for the Northern District of Texas.

Matthew Bagert, 40, who currently lives in Richardson, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the release. He will also be required to register as a sex offender.

Bagert is scheduled to be sentenced on July 20, before U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay, according to the release.

EL PASO (TX)
El Paso Times

By Ramon Bracamontes / El Paso Times
Posted: 04/28/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

EL PASO -- County Court Judge Javier Alvarez has withdrawn from presiding over a civil lawsuit filed against the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, even though he disagrees with the allegation that he has a conflict.

Three law firms representing an El Paso man who claims he was sexually molested in 1964 by a priest at Our Lady of the Light Parish filed a motion asking Alvarez to recuse himself. The motion stated that in the past eight years Alvarez had given more than $8,000 from his campaign account to the church -- leaving the appearance that he may be biased.

In his decision to step aside, Alvarez stated that the motion asking him to withdraw was "without merit."

REUNION ISLAND
Breitbart

A cult leader jailed for sex attacks on children escaped in a helicopter from a prison on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion on Monday, the regional administration said.

Juliano Verbard, who was serving a 15-year term for rapes and sex assaults on children, and two of his jailed followers were hauled on board a chopper hijacked by three accomplices, said senior official Jean-Francois Moniotte. ...

Verbard, 27, was the guru of the self-styled "Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary", a cult with no connection to mainstream Catholic institutions, on the island of Reunion, a French territory in the Indian Ocean.

MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

BY CECIL ANGEL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 28, 2009

A Catholic priest whose forced resignation over allegations of sexual misconduct with a 16-year-old girl was announced last week by the Archdiocese of Detroit will not face criminal charges, Clawson Police Chief Harry Anderson said Monday.

Anderson said that a Clawson detective spoke with the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office and was told there would be no charges filed against the Rev. Kenneth Kaucheck, 62, because the teen was of legal consent in 1976 when the alleged sexual relationship took place.

SALINAS (CA)
Monterey Herald

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau
Updated: 04/28/2009 01:27:50 AM PDT

Attorneys in the case of a Salinas priest accused of sodomy involving a minor have effectively imposed their own gag order, agreeing not to talk further about the facts of the case.

The informal decision between prosecutor Rolando Mazariegos and defense attorneys Miguel and J. Hernandez obviated the need for a decision by Judge Russell Scott, who had taken under submission the defense's request for a gag order Friday.

Miguel Hernandez said the attorneys discussed the matter minutes after Friday's hearing, but Scott said he wanted to think about it over the weekend before he agreed to drop the matter from the court calendar.

SALINAS (CA)
The Salinas Californian

April 28, 2009

A Monterey County judge's decision on whether to issue a gag order in the case of a popular Salinas priest charged with sodomy with a 16-year-old boy is expected sometime this week - even today.

We vehemently object to a gag order in this case, both on principle and common sense.

As our attorney told the court in a written statement on Friday, "A gag order at this time in the proceeding would be an unconstitutional prior restraint" on the freedom of speech.

NEW YORK
New York Post

By SELIM ALGAR

A teacher who worked at two Queens yeshivas and a Long Island elementary school was arrested after cops found child pornography on his home computer, cops said yesterday.

Two online tipsters told state police that Timothy Holt, 44, of Baldwin, sent child pornography over the Internet last month.

Cops seized the divorced father's computer and allegedly found nine videos and pictures depicting sexually explicit images of children.

PARAGUAY
Cleveland Indy Media

by Luis Agüero Wagner Tuesday, Apr. 28, 2009 at 7:18 AM
ataquedigital@aventura.com.py

Un sospechoso silencio del Vaticano enmarca al caso del obispo Fernando Lugo, en tanto aparecen en Paraguay acusaciones cada vez más graves en su contra.

Un sospechoso silencio del Vaticano enmarca al caso del obispo Fernando Lugo, en tanto aparecen en Paraguay acusaciones cada vez más graves en su contra.

El silencio de la nunciatura apostólica y la iglesia católica estaría enmarcado en el crimens sollicitationis, que obliga a los sacerdotes a encubrir los crímenes que acontecen en el seno de la institución para "salvaguardar la imagen".

BENTON (AR)
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

BY GINNY LAROE

Posted on Tuesday, April 28, 2009

BENTON - At least three men have come forward saying they were sexually abused as teenagers by a longtime Baptist minister who was arrested last week after a teenager reported a 2006 instance, records released Monday say.

David Kent Pierce, the former music minister at Benton's First Baptist Church, was arrested on a felony count of sexual indecency with a child, according to an arrest report.

When church leaders became aware of possible abuse, they contacted authorities and provided investigators with the names of the three adult church members who also said they were abused by Pierce when they were younger, court records say.

UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

By Duke Helfand
8:46 PM PDT, April 27, 2009

Americans are fickle consumers of religion, with about half changing religious affiliations at least once in their lives as they drift away from childhood traditions or stop believing in the teachings of their faiths, according to a national survey released Monday. ...

Among other findings, the report found that 10% of American adults who were raised Catholic have left the faith, although their losses have been largely countered by significant immigration of Catholics from Latin America.

In most cases, former Catholics who are now unaffiliated said they were dissatisfied with the church's teachings on abortion, homosexuality, birth control or treatment of women.

UNITED STATES
The Denver Post

By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
Posted: 04/28/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT

Americans change religion early and often, with about half of adults saying they have changed affiliation at least once, according a report released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. ...

Former Catholics said they objected to church teachings on birth control, abortion and homosexuality.

Protestants are more likely to change denominations because of life circumstances, such as the 40 percent who said they switched because they moved to a different community, and those who switched because they married someone from a different religious background.

UNITED STATES
Sacramento Bee

By Jennifer Garza
jgarza@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Apr. 28, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1A

To say that Brenda Boles is a spiritual seeker is an understatement.

As a teenager, she was baptized in a Chinese Baptist church. Then she married an Episcopalian and became a mainstay at Sunday services. Now she is a member of Sacramento's Spiritual Life Center, an Interfaith Unity church. ...

Catholicism suffered the biggest loss. The number of people leaving the church outnumbers the number of people joining by a 4-1 margin, according to Smith.

Two-thirds of former Catholics said they left the church because they stopped believing in the faith. Fewer than three in 10 cited the clergy sexual abuse scandal as a factor in leaving the church.

UNITED STATES
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Manya A. Brachear
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO - When it comes to religion, Americans change their affiliation early and often, according to a national study released yesterday. ...

Among Protestants who were formerly Catholics, one in five cited the sex-abuse scandal as one of several reasons why they had left the Catholic faith. But only a small number - 2 percent to 3 percent - cited it as the sole reason.

But the survey also found that the Catholic Church has netted the greatest loss because it has not matched its high retention with recruitment compared with other churches. The number of Catholics leaving the church outnumbers joiners by 4-1.

CALIFORNIA
The Times-Standard

Sean Garmire/The Times-Standard
Posted: 04/28/2009 01:17:38 AM PDT

Judges at the Humboldt County Superior Court on Monday denied a series of motions, filed by Andrew Belant, which included a motion to dismiss his attorney and another to disqualify a judge.

On Monday morning, Judge Timothy Cissna denied a motion from Belant's attorney, Andrew Truitt, to delay the trial scheduled for jury selection this week. The same motion was denied in a separate courtroom Friday, and Cissna upheld the previous judge's ruling. ...

According to authorities who investigated Belant, the 25-year-old met the boys while working as an after-school aide, part-time church youth leader and summer camp counselor. At the time of his arrest, Belant was enrolled in the Humboldt State University teacher credential program.

UNITED STATES
Kingsport Times News

[the full report]

Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once. These are among the key findings of a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey documents the fluidity of religious affiliation in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change.

The reasons people give for changing their religion -- or leaving religion altogether -- differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert. The group that has grown the most in recent years due to religious change is the unaffiliated population. But this group's growth seems to have less to do with the belief that science disproves religion than with disenchantment with religious people and institutions. Many people who left a religion to become unaffiliated say they did so, in part, because they think of religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules or because religious leaders are too focused on power and money.1 Far fewer say they became unaffiliated because they believe that modern science proves that religion is just superstition.

BENTON (AR)
Baptist Press

Posted on Apr 27, 2009 | by Staff
BENTON, Ark. (BP)--Allegations of sexual indecency with a child prompted Arkansas authorities to arrest David Kent Pierce, minister of music at First Baptist Church in Benton, Ark., on April 24. Pierce, 56, was immediately terminated by the church, where he had served on staff 29 years.

Earlier in the week, a teenage boy's family contacted the church about the alleged misconduct, Dennis Byrd, chairman of the church's personnel committee, told Baptist Press. The church immediately contacted a state police hotline to report the allegation. Saline County Sheriff Bruce Pennington, who is a member of First Baptist Church, arrested Pierce at home.

Pennington told reporters he felt obligated to arrest Pierce himself. "I felt it would be more comfortable for me doing it [arresting him] rather than one of my deputies, and I want people to be aware [that] regardless of your stature in this community we're not going to condone these actions," Pennington said.

DELAWARE
The News Journal

Two brothers and an anonymous plaintiff filed suit Monday in Delaware Superior Court, New Castle County, alleging sexual abuse by a former Salesianum School faculty member, now deceased.

Michael Jordan, 64, of Kent County, Robert Jordan, 60, of Manatee County, Fla., and "John Doe No. 7," a 61-year-old Delaware resident, say the Rev. Francis L. Norris sexually assaulted them between 1962 and 1964, when they were students at Salesianum.

Norris, who taught Latin there, was named in a similar suit filed in 2007.

UNITED STATES
Tulsa World

By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer
Published: 4/28/2009 2:23 AM
Last Modified: 4/28/2009 3:26 AM

The reasons people leave the religion of their childhood are as diverse as the American religious landscape.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life announced the results Monday of an extensive survey of 2,867 adults, seeking reasons behind an earlier study that found about half of all American adults have changed their religious affiliation, sometimes several times. ...

Many of them said they think religious people are hypocritical or judgmental, religious organizations focus too much on rules, or religious leaders focus too much on power and money.

NEW YORK
WETM

New York State Supreme Court has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester. That's according to the attorney for 21-year old Jason Hartley. The request to dismiss the suit was filed by the diocese.

Hartley claims he was was sexually abused at the rectory of Saint Mary's of the Lake Church in Watkins Glen years ago when he was a minor. The lawsuit claims the diocese knew about the alleged sexual abuse but did nothing to prevent it.

UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Michael Paulson
Globe Staff / April 28, 2009

Catholics who leave their faith say they drifted away from the church because it did not meet their spiritual needs or they stopped believing in its teachings, according to a new study, while Protestants often tend to cite circumstantial factors, a move, a marriage, or a problem with a particular minister or congregation.

Altogether, Americans are switching in and out of churches at unprecedented rates, with about half of Americans today saying that they have changed their religious affiliation at some point during their lives, according to a study released yesterday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. ...

But the new study suggests that the sexual abuse crisis played at most a minor role in the decision of Catholics to leave. Only 2 percent of former Catholics who are now unaffiliated volunteered the abuse scandal as the main reason they are no longer Catholic.

MASSACHUSETTS
The Salem News

By Julie Manganis
Staff writer

BEVERLY — The state's highest court has upheld the conviction of former North Shore resident Joseph Druce in the 2003 murder of a former priest convicted of sexual abuse.

Druce, 43, who used to be known as Darrin Smiledge, was already serving a life sentence for the 1988 murder of George Rollo of Gloucester when he killed defrocked priest John Geoghan inside the maximum-security state prison in Shirley.

Yesterday, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the conviction in the Geoghan murder, finding that despite a history of mental illness, Druce was capable of understanding and participating in his trial.

PARAGUAY
Catholic News Agency

Asunción, Paraguay, Apr 27, 2009 / 04:51 pm (CNA).- In the wake the paternity suit recently filed against President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, the Secular Institute of Schoenstatt Priests in Asuncion has issued a strong statement saying that by his actions the president has demonstrated he is unfaithful to his word, lacks an understanding of the family and of parenthood and is motivated by political opportunism.

In their statement about the conduct of Lugo, who was Bishop of San Pedro, the priests recalled that “being faithful to our word defines our essence as free and firm persons. In the Catholic Church nobody is forced to make a vow of chastity or a promise of celibacy. Both point to the same thing: the consecrated renounce biological parenthood so that our parenthood at the service of the Kingdom of God will be more fruitful.”

The priests went on to say Lugo also failed to understand that we are responsible “not only for our actions but also for their consequences.”

UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 27, 2009 12:11 PM

More Americans have given up their faith or changed religions because of a gradual spiritual drift than switched because of a disillusionment over their churches' policies, according to a new study released today which illustrates how personal spiritual attitudes are taking precedence over denominational traditions.

The survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is the first large-scale study of the reasons behind Americans switching their religious faith and found that more than half of people have done so at least once during their lifetime. ...

Pew Forum senior fellow John Green said that result surprised researchers, who had expected policy disputes or disillusionment over internal scandals -- such as the clergy sex abuse controversy in the Catholic Church -- to play more of a role in people's decision to leave a faith. Among former Catholics who became Protestants, one in five cited the sex abuse scandal as one of several reasons why they had left the faith. But only a small percentage -- 2 percent to 3 percent -- cited it as the lone reason.

UNITED STATES
Examiner

Kay Ebeling
LA City Buzz Examiner

Reading The McGurk I’m struck by a couple paragraphs so am typing them in here, with author Tom Barnes’ permission. He quotes a journal written by a fictional priest in 1874 Philadelphia, anguishing over the evil he is seeing in fellow priests and the bishops. Barnes wrote the story after years of research in Pennsylvania, much of the book is fiction based on fact, including quotes from the Philadelphia Grand Jury Report. Here from the McGurk, writings in the journal of an anguished 19th Century priest:

“Some priests that I have known have taken liberties with children. Because of the nature of what we do, it is easy enough to carry through on this heinous evil. And due to the fear of scandal, it is always hidden away. The bishops will never openly reveal this evil, they do not discuss it even among themselves. I have never actually seen this but I have been involved in its aftermath and the terrible pain that it brings many times.”

“The children are simply not believed and are often beaten by the parents for ‘lying’ about the priest. The truth is, they are not always lying. Sometimes the priest is a demon. Some of these demons have I lived with, in rectories. May God have mercy on their souls. And may God have mercy on mine for overlooking this evil. My only defense is that canon law forbids a priest to openly speak ill of another priest.”

MASSACHUSETS
Telegram & Gazette

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

WORCESTER — The state Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed Joseph L. Druce’s first-degree murder conviction in the 2003 prison slaying of defrocked pedophile priest John J. Geoghan.

Rejecting Mr. Druce’s insanity defense in the Aug. 23, 2003, strangulation death of the 68-year-old Mr. Geoghan in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a Worcester Superior Court jury found the confessed killer guilty of first-degree murder Jan. 25, 2006.

Mr. Druce, who was already serving a life sentence for murder when he beat and strangled the ex-priest in a protective custody unit at the maximum-security prison on the Lancaster-Shirley line, was sentenced by Judge Francis R. Fecteau, now a state Appeals Court judge, to a consecutive life term with no possibility of parole.

UNITED STATES
Pew Research Center

April 27, 2009

Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once. These are among the key findings of a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey documents the fluidity of religious affiliation in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change. ...

Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change. Many people who leave the Catholic Church do so for religious reasons; two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated say they left the Catholic faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, as do half of former Catholics who are now Protestant. Fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics, however, say the clergy sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to leave Catholicism.

ITALY
Austrian Times

A priest has shocked parishioners by welcoming them to church wearing a swastika armband.

Fascist Father Angelo Idi, 51 - who once saw off a charity box thief with a truncheon at his church in Vigevano, Italy - confessed: "I am proud of my right wing beliefs. But people shouldn't care about my politics, they should care about how good a priest I am."

In northern Italy where former dictator Benito Mussolini comes from the far right Italian LEGA NORD (Northern League) have their political stronghold - and there have been several instances of priests with far right views that have embarrassed the Catholic Church.

ROYAL OAK (MI)
C & G

By Jeremy Carroll
C & G Staff Writer

ROYAL OAK — The pastor at St. Mary Parish in Royal Oak and St. James Parish in Ferndale has been placed on administrative leave after sexual abuse allegations surfaced.

Fr. Kenneth Kaucheck, 62, has resigned as pastor for St. Mary Parish and St. James Parish, the Archdiocese of Detroit said in a press release. He was put on administrative leave and is restricted from any public ministry. The move was announced on April 24.

The allegations involve sexual misconduct between Kaucheck and a person under the age of 18 dating back to the early years of his ministry in the Detroit archdiocese.

BELGIUM
Radio Netherlands

A Belgian appeals court has sentenced a priest to nine years in jail for child sex abuse and the possession of child pornography. Earlier, a lower court had sentenced him to seven years. The priest thought his sentence was too severe and filed an appeal.

NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

[video presentation]

Mary Ann Schoettly of Fredon, Sussex County, says that she was ordained a Catholic priest at a special ceremony held Sunday, April 26, in Philadelphia. The Catholic Church disagrees wholeheartedly. Church officials say women can't be priests, and that Schoettly actually has actually been automatically excommunicated for her efforts.

Beliefnet

David Gibson

America magazine, the Jesuit weekly that has taken serious heat from Rome (and in particular Joseph Ratzinger) in recent years, this weeks shows again that in the year of its centennial, it remains a rare venue for serious discussion of sensitive topics.

This week's editorial, "A Modest Proposal," uses the impending opening of the Year of the Priest (June 19) as an occasion to call for an "open discussion" on addressing the vocations crisis, including the possibility of ordaining married men:

Married priests already minister in the Catholic Church, both East and West. Addressing the married clergy of the Eastern Catholic churches, the Second Vatican Council exhorted "all those who have received the priesthood in the married state to persevere in their holy vocation and continue to devote their lives fully and generously to the flock entrusted to their care" (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests," No. 16).

PARAGUAY
Catholic Culture

April 27, 2009
Facing allegations that he fathered children by three different women before Pope Benedict accepted his resignation from the episcopate, Paraguayan President Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez asked forgiveness during an April 24 press conference and said he would not resign. “You will see this president as a father who is prepared to share his love and care,” he said.

JAKCSONVILLE (FL)
Times-Union

By Jeff Brumley

Tiffany Thigpen Croft said she's satisfied with the explanation about why her blog was included in a 2008 investigation into the identity of an anonymous blogger critical of First Baptist Church.

Still, the 36-year-old Southside resident said she wishes the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office hadn't used a subpoena to scour her blog, which tracks allegations of sexual misconduct against former Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church pastor Darrell Gilyard.

From e-mails and phone calls with police this week, Croft said, she learned her blog came to detective Robert Hinson's attention because it had been listed as a link on FBCJaxWatchdog.blogspot. com, which was the true focus of the investigation.

GREECE
Pokrov

Date Published: 4/21/2009
Publication: Kathimerini

Police in Kozani yesterday were questioning a priest from a village near the northern city who is alleged to have sexually molested a 17-year-old youth in the village church. According to the youth’s testimony, the priest asked him to follow him to the church crypt on Good Friday, during the preparations of the Easter bier procession.

UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mercury

Apr 26 2009 by Edward Chadwick, Sunday Mercury

A CATHOLIC priest once hunted by Interpol after more than £100,000 went missing from his parish fears he may be the target of a hate campaign.

Father Seamus Hetherton, from Our Lady of Fatima church in Quinton, came to Birmingham after dodging jail on medical grounds more than a decade ago.

The 80 year-old, who said he suffered from heart trouble, admitted failing to declare £130,000 of parish money in his annual returns when he was based at Holy Apostles’ Church in Swanley, Kent.

UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday Mercury

Apr 26 2009 by Rebekah Oruye, Sunday Mercury

A JUDGE has told the Catholic Church it will not have to pay compensation to a man sexually abused when he was 12 by a priest in Coventry – because he didn’t attend his church.

The High Court was told that the victim, now 45, was in his teens when he was abused by Fr Christopher Clonan in the mid-70s.

Fr Clonan, then in his 30s, groomed the boy by paying him pocket money to wash his car, clean the presbytery and iron his clothes.

CALIFORNIA
Monterey Herald

By CLARE MOUNTEER
Guest commentary
Updated: 04/26/2009 01:36:01 AM PDT

It is not surprising that the public is shocked and confused by recent high-profile charges leveled against Melissa Huckaby, accused of the rape and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, and in our own community by sexual assault charges against the Rev. Antonio Cortes and Dr. Carl Bergstrom.

We like to think that young mothers, priests and doctors are some of the most trustworthy people in society when it comes to our personal safety. Some, like the parishioners of St. Mary's, where Cortes has been their priest, find it not just unthinkable, but unbelievable that a man who has been so helpful to so many could ever sexually violate a young boy. And there is comfort in that belief. To believe differently makes us afraid to trust anyone and makes us all vulnerable.

Although these cases have yet to be adjudicated, they do illustrate the unfortunate truth that anyone can be accused of being a perpetrator of sexual violence, and that anyone can be a victim. In these cases, two of the alleged victims are children, and one is a male. In all three cases, the victims and alleged perpetrators were known to each other.

Facing Abuse

The Memory Bird:
Survivors of Sexual Abuse
Edited by Caroline Malone, Linda Farthing, & Lorraine Marce
Temple University Press, 1997

Like Dangerous Families, The Memory Bird is an amazing anthology of writing by abuse survivors, free from intervention or direction by psychological “experts.”

Its rareness (at least to me) comes not only in presenting the voices of sexual abuse survivors, but in the particular community involved: survivors of all sorts from New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

The authors range from utterly unknown to nearly famous activists, pouring their hearts out sometimes for the first time; and the anthology’s editors are no slackers themselves.

ROYAL OAK (MI)
Detroit Free Press

BY CHRISTY ARBOSCELLO • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 25, 2009

Parishioners at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Royal Oak were told today at Mass that Rev. Kenneth Kaucheck has officially resigned following a claim of sexual misconduct from early in his vocation.

In the final minutes of worship, Msgr. Ricardo Bass emerged to announce to the well-attended, spacious church that a credible complaint had been made against Kaucheck. The woman, who came forward in late January with the allegation, was a minor at the time, Bass said.

The monsignor said he was sent by Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron to notify parishioners at St. Mary’s and St. James Catholic Church in Ferndale -- where Kaucheck also served -- of the matter.

BOSNIA
The Malta Independent

There will always be a ready market for medieval-type religious hysteria. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale is as relevant today as it was in the 14th century. Look at what is happening with Medjugorje. Despite warnings from the Vatican about the quite obvious deceit and avaricious trickery, five million people a year make pilgrimages there from all over the world.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been studying, since 2006, the claims that the Madonna has been appearing to a group of six visionaries in Medjugorje, Bosnia, beginning in 1981. Writing in The Catholic Herald last June, the journalist Simon Caldwell – who is himself Catholic – quoted Bishop Andrea Gemma, the most senior exorcist in the Catholic Church until his retirement three years ago, as saying: “You’ll see that soon the Vatican will intervene with something explosive to unmask once and for all who is behind this deceit.”

Bishop Gemma described the Medjugorje stories as a scandal and a “diabolical deceit”. The irony does not escape me that I am quoting somebody who believes in demonic possession. I think he is worth quoting because it illustrates the quandary of those faced with selective belief in the supernatural. It is hard to tell people that they should believe in possession by devils but not in apparitions of talking Madonnas or in bleeding statuettes. ...

There is worse. The Vatican has banished to a monastery the former spiritual leader of the Medjugorje seers amid accusations of sexual impropriety and a taste for séances. His affairs with women have been extensively documented, and he has had a child by one of them, a nun called Sister Rufina, who exposed him when he refused to leave the priesthood and marry her and instead tried to bully her into keeping his secret. Severe restrictions have been placed on this priest, and he has been warned that if he fails to stick to them, he will be excommunicated.

UNITED STATES
Bakersfield.com

BY STEPHEN BOEHRER, Contributing writer | Friday, Apr 24 2009 02:28 PM

The inspiration to write "The Purple Culture" grew over time. The process began when I was a seminarian in Rome, living at the North American College and attending the Gregorian University.

As I attended classes and observed official positions on matters of faith and morals, I felt the rise of questions. The questioning continued after I was ordained and returned to my diocese in Wisconsin.

Questions dealt with the equality of women, the use of contraception, the need for a married clergy and more. My questioning grew after I left the active ministry and married.

The clerical sexual abuse crisis focused my attention on the behavior of bishops. What prompted bishops -- men who are politically adept, often outgoing and personable, men who wear the miters of moral leadership -- to knowingly place and/or transfer known pedophile priests to assignments where they had ready access to children?

ORLANDO (FL)
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Fernando Quintero | Sentinel Staff Writer

In a small sidewalk news conference this afternoon, activists from a national group representing survivors of sexual abuse by priests released legal documents they say prove allegations of sexual abuse by a former Orlando Catholic cleric.

Court records released by the national organization SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, show that former Orlando priest Vernon Uhran asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege nearly 90 times in a videotaped deposition dated Aug. 8, 2008. The group claims the former priest's refusal to answer such questions as whether he had sodomized and performed oral sex on over a dozen boys proves he is guilty of those crimes.

The group also presented a notarized declaration by a sexual abuse victim's mother which shows Orlando Catholic officials were warned years ago about Uhran.

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

[read excert from the first chapter]

By MARK OPPENHEIMER
Published: April 24, 2009
There are many great books about finding God. But there are far fewer books, great or otherwise, about finding and then losing God. So “Losing My Religion,” by William Lobdell, a former religion writer for The Los Angeles Times, feels powerfully fresh. It is the tale of being born again in his adulthood, then almost 20 years later deciding that Christianity is untrue. Today Lobdell prefers the God of Jefferson or Einstein, “a deity that can be seen in the miracles of nature.” While Lobdell never entirely rejects belief in the supernatural, his humane, even-tempered book does more to advance the cause of irreligion than the bilious atheist tracts by Christopher Hitchens and others that have become so common. And Lobdell’s self-deprecating memoir is far more fun to read.

SALINAS (CA)
The Salinas Californian

BY SUNITA VIJAYAN • svijayan@thecalifornian.com • April 25, 2009

A Monterey County Superior Court judge is still considering whether a gag order will be placed on the case involving a Salinas parish priest accused of child molestation and sodomy.

On Friday, Judge Russell Scott heard arguments for and against a gag order that would prohibit attorneys and law enforcement agencies from discussing the case with the public, including the media.

Defense attorney Miguel Hernandez argued that since the April 16 arrest of his client the Rev. Antonio Cortes of the St. Mary of The Nativity Catholic Church, "tidbits" of information have been released to the media by prosecutor Rolando Mazariegos.

TRACY (CA)
Tracy Press

by Justin Lafferty

Evelyn Lloyd, Huckaby’s roommate for eight months, said in a phone interview today from Southern California that police should look more closely at Huckaby’s involvement in the two fires that damaged the four-bedroom house they shared in La Palma.

Orange County Superior Court records show that Lloyd, 47, was charged with a felony count of arson on July 19, 2007. She spent 10 days in jail and was placed on suicide watch. The case against her was later dismissed. ...

After the first fire, Lloyd said, police found a baby’s bottle with gasoline, a threatening letter and newspapers stuffed in the side window of her first-story room.

“Either she (Huckaby) wanted my bedroom, or she blackmailed the landlord and it got too out of whack, because six days after I was locked up, the landlord’s house was on fire,” said Lloyd.

BENTON (AR)
KATV

Benton, AR - A shocking arrest in Benton. A church leader is behind bars, accused of sexually abusing a child. David Pierce served as the music minister at the First Baptist Church in Benton for nearly three decades. Right now, he is only facing charges for one crime, but more children have reportedly come forward and more charges could be filed.

(Bruce Pennington, Saline County Sheriff) "I just want people to be aware that regardless of your stature in this community we're not gonna condone these actions."

Pierce was arrested this afternoon at his home in Benton. The former minister of music at the First Baptist Church of Benton is accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy. Saline County Sheriff Bruce Pennington made the arrest.

IOWA
The Messenger

State lawmakers have passed legislation to require safety standards and background check requirements for a church-run juvenile facility in Fort Dodge.

Anchor Character Training Center, 1940 225th St., is a coed home for troubled teens operated by Harvest Baptist Church. Anchor, classified as a children's center, is apparently the only such facility operating in the state of Iowa.

The children's center language was introduced by Rep. Helen Miller, D-Fort Dodge, and was included in the Health and Human Services Appropriations bill. The bill has been sent to Gov. Chet Culver to be signed.

MEXICO
Latin American Herald Tribune

VERACRUZ, MEXICO – Scores of people demonstrated Friday in Xalapa, capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, to demand the release of a Catholic priest jailed for his alleged participation in a child-pornography ring operating via the Internet.

The demonstrators – who numbered some 200, according to organizers – came out in support of the Rev. Rafael Muñiz Lopez, pastor of St. Peter Apostle Church, who was arrested Wednesday by Mexico City authorities along with six other accused pederasts.

“Father Rafael is not alone,” read a giant banner carried by demonstrators at the head of the march, which drew people of all ages.

PARAGUAY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Given the new allegations that Paraguay's president Lugo has fathered two more children, we respectfully but firmly urge him to step down. The mother of the child Lugo admits fathering says she was 16 at the time he sexually exploited her. That alone should disqualify him from public office.

We are also highly skeptical of the claim by Paraguay's bishops conference that the country's Catholic hierarchy knew nothing of Lugo's sexual misdeeds. It's noteworthy that the denial issued by the bishops says they received no "written" reports of Lugo's misconduct. We strongly suspect that in this case, as in so many others involving predatory priests and bishops, Lugo's colleagues either suspected or knew he was exploiting women but ignored or concealed the misdeeds.

PARAGUAY
Latin American Herald Tribune

ASUNCION – Paraguay’s president, former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, apologized for the scandal of the paternity suits he is facing and said he will complete his term in office, which ends in August 2013.

“I, an imperfect human being, the product of historical processes, a profile of my culture, will assume all the responsibilities present and future for those situations in which I am involved, not only with an attitude of respect for justice and truth, but with love and caring,” the head of state said.

Lugo, following the two recent paternity suits filed against him and after acknowledging a 2-year-old child as his son, said that “while repeatedly asking for pardon I remain, at the same time, the president of Paraguay elected to promote change with no going back, change that will not be stopped.”

UNITED KINGDOM
The Irish Times

LONDON – A 45-year-old man who claims he was sexually abused by an Irish-born priest more than 30 years ago lost his damages claim yesterday in London High Court.

The man, who can only be identified as Maga, said he was abused by Fr Christopher Clonan, who served at the Church of Christ the King in Coventry, over a period of many months in about 1976.

Fr Clonan, from Clonard, Co Meath, fled England to Australia in 1992 when previous allegations against him surfaced. His brother, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, has claimed that the priest died suddenly in 1998.

IDAHO
KLEW

[with video]

By Greg Meyer
LEWISTON - Reports of a connection between the grandfather of the woman charged with the grisly murder of a little girl in northern California and the LC Valley appear to have little substance to them.

Bay Area television stations were making calls to law enforcement and others on both sides of the LC Valley Thursday night and Friday, looking to confirm reports that Clifford Lane Lawless, the grandfather of 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby, had been a pastor at a local church and may have been the subject of a child abuse investigation.

DELAWARE
The News Journal

By BETH MILLER • The News Journal • April 25, 2009

Five more suits were filed this week alleging sexual abuse by three priests who used to serve in the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, including two who taught at Salesianum School. All of the alleged incidents occurred more than 20 years ago, and all but one of the plaintiffs used a pseudonym to file their complaints.

About 40 such cases have been filed since Delaware lawmakers in 2007 passed a law eliminating the statute of limitations in cases of child sexual abuse. The law also opened a two-year window during which cases previously barred by the time limit could be filed. Attorney Thomas Neuberger, whose Wilmington firm has filed most of the cases, said he and his partners probably would be filing cases almost daily in order to meet the July deadline.

Three of the suits were filed in Superior Court in Kent County against Francis G. DeLuca, who served as a diocesan priest for 35 years but was defrocked last summer by Pope Benedict XVI. DeLuca, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to sexually abusing a teenage relative in Syracuse, now has been named by 12 plaintiffs.

DETROIT (MI)
The Detroit News

Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
Detroit -- Allegations of sexual misconduct have resulted in the resignation of the priest serving as pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Royal Oak and St. James Parish in Ferndale.

Kenneth Kaucheck, 62, resigned Thursday and is restricted from public ministry while on administrative leave of absence, according to an announcement Friday by the Archdiocese of Detroit.

An archdiocesan review found substantiation for an allegation received in January about sexual misconduct by Kaucheck with a person under 18. The incident dates back to the early years of Kaucheck's ministry in the Detroit archdiocese, according to a written statement released by the archdiocese Friday.

NEW YORK
Newsday

8:43 PM EDT, April 24, 2009
The cardinal sin of the Catholic Church in America and especially here on Long Island was its failure to protect the children entrusted to its care.

The sexual abuse of boys and girls by the clergy has tested our capacity to forgive. The victims' accounts remain haunting and emotionally wrenching and to them the church's efforts at outreach and compensation, still lacking.

New York State's justice system, however, did not fail those who were abused, and it shouldn't be manipulated now in an effort to punish the church.

UNITED KINGDOM
Injury Board

by Tom Perry

There is a common reaction from people whenever I talk about the sexual abuse that I and other pupils suffered at the hands of teachers at Caldicott boarding school in the 1960s and early 1970s, events which were successfully hushed up. “Ah, but that was then,” they say confidently, “things are different now.”

Really? Are you sure? Well, let’s take the case of Alastair, who was targeted at the age of 11 by a career paedophile at Caldicott and whose abuse was discovered by the matron in 1972 . His parents and those of other boys abused by the same teacher — Martin Carson — were called to the school, in Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire. Carson was dismissed but police and social services were not alerted, apparently “for the benefit of the children”. None of the victims was seen by a doctor, nor any psychologically assessed. Carson later resumed teaching at another private school. (In 2003 he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment after admitting indecent assault and possessing indecent images of children.) Faced with exactly the same events, what is different today? I’ll tell you — nothing. No school in England, maintained or independent, is under any statutory obligation to report alleged abuse to the authorities. This includes the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO), the police or social services. Successive governments and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) have delivered no practical improvements for the abused child for the past 38 years, despite endless child protection rhetoric. ...

A unique combination of events prompted me to find my voice late in life. The mental death of my mother from Alzheimer’s; my son moving towards the age at which I had been abused; the appalling revelations of sexual abuse by clergy in the US that filled the news. And an extraordinary article that I’d read about a lawyer who was the Roman Catholic Church’s principal child sexual-abuse lawyer in Florida, who stopped mid-sentence mid-trial when cross-examining a male complainant and said: “I can’t do this any more, I was abused by my priest when I was an altar boy.” His extraordinary state of denial and years of silence chimed with mine. Mentally, I imploded and became very unwell.

PARAGUAY
BBC News

By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Capiata, Paraguay

One year on since he was elected to office as President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo is making headlines in the country he leads, but for all the wrong reasons.

Newspapers and TV programmes have been dominated by stories of women coming forward to claim they had a child with the former Catholic bishop.

This "political soap opera", complained one of these reports, is "paralysing the government".

Three women have made allegations so far and there were reports in the Paraguay media that there may be more claims to come.

SALINAS (CA)
Contra Costa Times

The Monterey County Herald
Herald Staff Report
Posted: 04/24/2009 02:48:22 PM PDT

A judge this morning took under submission a defense attorney's motion to impose a gag order in the case of a Salinas priest charged with sodomy involving a 16-year-old boy.

Miguel Hernandez, attorney for the Rev. Antonio Cortes, argued prosecutor Rolando Mazariegos was "leaking" inflammatory information to the media. If the reports continue, he said, the case would turn into a "circus" and a change of venue would be "inevitable."

Mazariegos objected to the gag order, saying no information had been released to the media that was not public record or an explanation of the laws at issue in the case. A lawyer for the Salinas Californian, Bruce Owdom, also objected.

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

By CECIL ANGEL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • April 24, 2009

A Roman Catholic priest has been removed from duty after a woman claimed he engaged in sexual misconduct with her years ago when she was younger than 18, the Archdiocese of Detroit announced today.

The Rev. Kenneth Kaucheck, 62, resigned from St. Mary Catholic Church in Royal Oak and St. James Catholic Church in Ferndale after the woman reported the alleged sexual misconduct in late January. The Archdiocesan Review Board shared the complaint with civil authorities and began its own investigation.

This has been the only complaint against Kaucheck regarding sexual misconduct.

TRACY (CA)
The Times (United Kingdom)

Mike Harvey, San Francisco
The community of Tracy, a quiet town where San Francisco's suburbs meet the farm belt in central California, is riven by disgust and disbelief.

Not just because eight-year-old Sandra Cantu was brutally sexually assaulted and murdered there, but because Melissa Huckaby, 28, a local Sunday school teacher, has been charged with the crime.

The alleged killer, the granddaughter of the local minister, is herself a mother - her five-year-old girl Madison was a playmate of Sandra’s. They lived just five doors down.

STOCKTON (CA)
Tracy Press

by Jennifer Wadsworth

STOCKTON — Results of autopsy and toxicology reports on slain 8-year-old Sandra Cantu could so infuriate the public that a judge asked them to remain sealed.

To release the reports would risk “a danger of public outrage” and threaten the Cantu family’s privacy, said San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus at an arraignment today for suspected murder-rapist 28-year-old Melissa Chantel Huckaby.

Huckaby entered no pleas.

STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By The Record
April 24, 2009 5:52 PM

STOCKTON – A judge today ordered the reports from the autopsy and toxicology tests performed on 8-year-old Sandra Cantu to be sealed so Tracy ’s Melissa Huckaby can have a fair trial on charges she murdered, kidnapped and raped the girl.

Ruling on a prosecutor’s motion, San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda L. Lofthus said the potentially inflammatory reports could jeopardize the case for both Huckaby and prosecutors. Lofthus cited the intense media interest while making the ruling.

STOCKTON (CA)
San Jose Mercury News

By Mike Martinez
San Joaquin Herald

STOCKTON — Melissa Huckaby, charged with the killing of Sandra Cantu, sat quietly during her court appearance this afternoon, briefly smiling at her attorney and nodding at the judge when addressed.

The 28-year-old single mother from Tracy did not enter a plea to charges she kidnapped, raped and murdered the 8-year-old girl. Her arraignment was held over until May 22.

The San Joaquin County Superior Court judge sealed Sandra's autopsy report, and Huckaby's public defender officially withdrew his office's request to have Sandra's body removed from a crypt and re-examined by a pathologist.

ORLANDO (FL)
Chicago Tribune

Fernando Quintero | Sentinel Staff Writer
2:06 PM CDT, April 24, 2009
In a small sidewalk news conference this afternoon, activists from a national group representing survivors of sexual abuse by priests released legal documents they say prove allegations of sexual abuse by a former Orlando Catholic cleric.

Court records released by the national organization SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, show that former Orlando priest Vernon Uhran asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege nearly 90 times in a videotaped deposition dated Aug. 8, 2008. The group claims the former priest's refusal to answer such questions as whether he had sodomized and performed oral sex on over a dozen boys proves he is guilty of those crimes.

The group also presented a notarized declaration by a sexual abuse victim's mother which shows Orlando Catholic officials were warned years ago about Uhran.

CLARKSTON (WA)
KCRA

CLARKSTON, Wash. -- An investigation into the slaying of Tracy resident Sandra Cantu has taken FBI investigators to a small church in eastern Washington. ...

Meanwhile, a source close to the investigation said that back in in the mid-'80s there were allegations of child abuse and/or molestation somehow connected to the First Church of God. Lawless was working at the Clarkston church at the time and was questioned regarding the allegations, but nobody was ever charged.

PARAGUAY
AFP

ASUNCION (AFP) — Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo said Friday he would not resign despite claims from three women that he fathered children with them while he was a Catholic priest before taking power.

Lugo said in a televised news conference that he would stay until the end of his mandate in 2013 regardless of "the rumors of instability and conspiracy."

"I ask for forgiveness," he added.

IDAHO
KTVB

11:51 AM MDT on Friday, April 24, 2009

KREM.com

Detectives investigating the murder of a California girl have taken their case to Lewiston, Idaho.

A television station in Sacramento reports authorities have questioned people at the Warner Alliance Church in North Idaho. Police are questioning people about Pastor Lane Lawless.

He is the grandfather of 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby. She is charged with raping and kidnapping 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.

KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

By Stephenie Steitzer • ssteitzer@courier-journal.com • April 24, 2009

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Louis Miller, a former priest in the Archdiocese of Louisville convicted of sexually abusing children for four decades, was denied parole this week.

Miller, 78, won't have another chance for parole and must serve an additional 15 years in prison. He would be 93 years old by the time his sentence is completed in December 2024.

Victims of alleged abuse by priests said they are relieved a two-member board rejected Miller's parole.

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano in Ex Cathedra

Your Catholic Diocese of Orange made national headlines again earlier this week when former Catholic priest Ben Rodriguez filed a civil lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court alleging that Father Gordon Pillon molested him numerous times while Pillon served at La Habra's Our Lady of Guadalupe during the early 1980s. Pillon had already been removed from ministry by his most recent employer, the Diocese of Peoria, for this accusation and another one and currently teaches in Prague.

What none of the news stories mentioned, however, was Pillon's assignment record in the Orange diocese. Careful readings of a priest's service can usually divine whether allegations against a padre are legit or bull--and let's just say Pillon's service in Orange don't indicate a bunch of Bevo.

The Official Catholic Directory, the best tracker of priests in the United States, lists Pillon as first arriving in Orange in 1980* at Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Habra, replacing pedo-priest Sofronio Aranda. Pillon stayed until 1983, when King of the County Pedophiles Eleuterio Ramos replaced him; Pillon moved on to St. Juliana Falconieri, where he stayed until 1986. All those years, he served alongside pedo-priest Michael Pecharich.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Catholic Church is not liable for the sexual abuse suffered by a man over 30 years ago, the High Court has ruled.

He said he was abused as a boy by Fr Christopher Clonan while he served at Coventry's Church of Christ the King. Police believe Clonan died in 1998.

Mr Justice Jack said he was satisfied the essence of the man's evidence was true and that he was sexually abused.

UNITED KINGDOM
Mail

Apr 24 2009

A man who claims he was sexually abused by a priest in Coventry more than 30 years ago has lost his High Court damages claim.

The 45-year-old, who can only be identified as Maga, said he was abused by Father Christopher Clonan, who served at the Church of Christ the King, over many months in about 1976.

The whereabouts of Fr Clonan, who would now be 66, are unknown, although he may have moved to Australia and may no longer be alive.

MINNESOTA
Milles Lacs Messenger

Written by Brett Larson
Thursday, 19 March 2009

When Jeff Athman was in his early 40s, he began a downward spiral that cost him his job and nearly his family. A darkness previously unimaginable overtook him.
He woke up crying, shaking, his mind full of gruesome images. During the day, he was obsessed.

“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t run,” Athman said. “I couldn’t stay awake. I couldn’t be around people. It was continuous.”

He’d start crying at work. He’d fall asleep on the job. At night he’d lie awake, remembering. The memories were worse than nightmares. Gruesome. Brutal. Evil.

“Abuse” is too mild a term for what he was remembering. Jeff Athman was raped. Many times, in several locations, for several years. From the time he was nine or 10 until he was 13 or 14, Jeff was abused — raped — by a Crosier brother. Here. In Onamia.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Marie Rohde of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Apr. 23, 2009

Sister Norma Giannini, an 80-year-old nun convicted of having sex more than 40 years ago with two boys who were her students, was released from jail Thursday morning after completing her one-year sentence.

The abuse occurred in the 1960s while Giannini was principal at St. Patrick's Congregation grade school in Milwaukee. She told an archdiocesan panel investigating sex abuse charges that she believed she was in love with each of the boys.

Sister Norita Cooney, president of the West Midwest Community of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, said Giannini will serve her nine-year probation in Illinois, where she will live with her religious community. Giannini must register as a sex offender in Illinois.

SALINAS (CA)
The Salinas Californian

BY SUNITA VIJAYAN • svijayan@thecalifornian.com • April 24, 2009

The Monterey County District Attorney's Office on Thursday added two felony counts of possession of child pornography against a Salinas priest already accused of sodomizing a 16-year-old boy.

Charges against the Rev. Antonio Cortes of St. Mary of The Nativity Catholic Church in east Salinas now total a combined 15 felony and misdemeanor counts.

Salinas police said Thursday the new charges stem from evidence investigators recovered from a personal laptop confiscated through a search warrant conducted at Cortes' home, on church grounds. Police said they discovered numerous child pornography videos contained in the computer's hard drive.

SALINAS
The Salinas Californian

BY SUNITA VIJAYAN • svijayan@thecalifornian.com • April 24, 2009

The Salinas Californian is opposing a motion for a gag order in the case of a local priest accused of sodomizing a 16-year-old boy.

Lawyers for the Rev. Antonio Cortes of St. Mary of The Nativity Catholic Church in Salinas requested the gag order, which would prevent attorneys and law enforcement officers from discussing the case with the public, including the media.

A hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. today in Monterey County Superior Court in Salinas.

GERMANY
Spiegel

By Peter Wensierski

The German Catholic Church has been sheltering a priest convicted of child abuse for years. Now the pedophile, who refuses to undergo therapy, has hired private detectives to try to get his former victims to retract their testimony.

It was raining heavily in Sonnefeld in the southern German region of Franconia when two men rang Joyce Kaitesi's doorbell one day in March. She quickly opened the door to let them in out of the rain. One of the men asked her whether they could speak with her son about the matter with the parish priest -- a case of sexual abuse that had happened 10 years earlier.

The mother of the abused boy asked the men who they were. "We're neutral parties," the strangers replied.

PARAGUAY
Newsday (Trinidad & Tobago)

Friday, April 24 2009

A PARAGUAY judge yesterday ordered that a boy whom Paraguay President Fernando Lugo admitted fathering while he was a bishop, be given the president’s surname.

According to a report on Los Andes Online, Judge Judith Gauto ordered the last name to be given to Guillermo Armindo, the two-year-old son of Viviana Cheek, 26, the first woman who threatened legal action over the paternity of her son.

Lugo, 58, was catholic bishop for ten years in San Pedro, to about 350 kilometres to the north of Asuncion, from where two of the three women who have thus far came forward claiming paternity of their children reside.

PARAGUAY
Catholic Culture

April 24, 2009
The executive committee of the Paraguayan bishops’ conference has strongly criticized recent statements by fellow Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este, a priest of Opus Dei since 1978 and bishop since 2004. “The executive committees laments and rejects the statements by Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano which imply that there was a cover-up and complicity on the part of the bishops of Paraguay regarding the moral conduct of the then-member of the episcopal college, Bishop Fernando Lugo,” the bishops said in a statement

TEXAS
Austin American-Statesman

By Eric Dexheimer | Friday, April 24, 2009

Today marks the one year anniversary of the arrest of Prakashanand Saraswati, the spiritual leader of Barsana Dham, the Hindu ashram south of Austin. Over the past twelve months, Prakashanand’s case has been winding through the court system at an unusually slow pace, officials said.

On April 24, 2008, U.S. marshals took Prakashanand, who is known as Shree Swamiji to his followers, into custody as he exited a plane at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. He was subsequently charged with groping two teen-aged girls on 10 occasions each between 1993 and 1996, according to a Hays County indictment.

Since then, other women affiliated with Barsana Dham have come forward claiming that the holy man, or his India-based guru, either had sexual contact with them, or solicited it.

KOREA
Joong Ang Daily

Jung Myung-seok, a self-proclaimed messiah and founder of the JMS cult, was convicted by the country’s highest court yesterday of sex crimes against female believers and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday to uphold the Seoul High Court’s convictions of Jung as well as the 10-year sentence it handed down.

Jung was found guilty of raping or sexually assaulting five women during his time on the run in Malaysia, Hong Kong and China from 2001 to 2006.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
WISN

MILWAUKEE -- A nun who served one year in jail on a sexual assault conviction has been released.

Sister Norma Giannini was let out at 3 a.m. Thursday.

She is now on probation for nine years.

ARKANSAS
Pine Bluff Commercial

By JON GAMBRELL
Friday, April 24, 2009

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A lawyer for jailed evangelist Tony Alamo is channeling the same people his client proclaims serve the Antichrist _ the media.

A federal court brief filed Thursday on behalf of the church asks a judge not to seal the proceedings of the ministry's lawsuit against officials with Arkansas' child-welfare agency. In the brief, lawyer Philip E. Kuhn of Lakeland, Fla., argues that the proceedings should remain open to the public and reporters.

Kuhn even cites a press freedom case in his arguments, saying closing the hearings "presents a clear and immediate threat to the fair administration of justice." State officials previously asked U.S. District Court Judge Harry F. Barnes to seal the case as children and parents' names could be released, which they say is a violation of federal health privacy laws.

AUSTRALIA
The Age

Barney Zwartz
April 24, 2009

THE Catholic Church in Melbourne has lifted compensation to victims of clergy sexual abuse by nearly 50 per cent to $75,000.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart decided to increase the limit by $20,000 after a request from the compensation panel that recommends ex gratia payments to victims.

Archbishop Hart told The Age yesterday: "We want to be compassionate. With time, these things need to be reviewed, and that's what we've done."

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Amelia Bentley
April 24, 2009
A former Queensland Anglican priest has been jailed for three years for committing sex offences against altar boys in the early 1980s.

Barry John Greaves, 71, indecently treated three boys aged between 11 and 16, Brisbane District Court was told today.

The offences occurred when Greaves, a former chaplain to Brisbane archbishops Peter Hollingworth and Phillip Aspinall, was a priest at the Boonah Harrisville Parish, south west of Brisbane.

AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

Tony Keim
April 24, 2009

UPDATE: A FORMER senior Anglican Church priest has been jailed for three years for molesting three altar boys more than 25 years ago.

Anglican Canon Barry John Greaves, 71, today pleaded guilty in the Brisbane District Court to seven counts of indecent treatment of boys under 17 and two of indecent treatment of boys under 12.

Senior Judge Gilbert Trafford-Walker was told one of Greaves's victims was molested after he counselled the boy in the wake of the death of his father.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
NewsBusters

By Dave Pierre
April 23, 2009

Check out the following two stories:

1. A former Catholic priest comes forward Monday (4/20/09) to claim that another priest abused him as a teenager nearly 30 years ago. (The accused priest has no other similar public complaints and denies the allegations against him.)

2. A former school teacher was sentenced Wednesday (4/22/09) after pleading no contest to eight felony counts, including having sex with two girls under the age of 16. The man "admitted to having intercourse with the girls, performing oral sex with the teens and taking extremely explicit nude photographs of his victims -- including pictures of him with one of the girls - before sending the images over the Internet."

Now it's quiz time! To which story did the Los Angeles Times devote two generous color photos and a 640-word article? Which story did the Times totally ignore?

AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 24, 2009 - 2:29PM
A former Anglican priest and chaplain to Brisbane archbishops Peter Hollingworth and Phillip Aspinall has been jailed for sexually abusing three altar boys nearly 25 years ago.

Barry John Greaves, 71, abused the children when he was working as an Anglican rector for the Boonah and Harrisville districts, southwest of Brisbane, in the early 1980s, the Brisbane District Court was told on Friday.

The court was told the boys, aged between 11 and 16 at the time, were forced to engage in mutual oral sex and masturbation with Greaves.

MEXICO
Latin American Herald Tribune

MEXICO CITY – Mexican police arrested seven accused pedophiles, one of them a priest, after the discovery of a kiddie-porn ring using the Internet, the capital district attorney’s office said.

Without providing more details, the office said that one of the seven arrested people is a Catholic priest in Xalapa, capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

The investigation was begun last month when Mexico City prosecutors discovered an e-mail containing images in which presumed minors are shown being sexually abused.

DELAWARE
The News Journal

By BETH MILLER • The News Journal • April 24, 2009

Douglas J. McClure, who signed the final settlement papers Tuesday in a $1.5 million sexual abuse civil suit against the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, was found dead Thursday in his recreational vehicle at a campground on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, according to his attorney, Thomas Neuberger.

McClure, 62 of Wilmington, a retired Marine Corps sergeant and a Vietnam veteran, was among the first Delaware abuse victims to make his story public, recounting the abuse he suffered from the late Rev. Edward B. Carley during the 1950s at St. Ann's Catholic Church. He filed suit in 2006, months before lawmakers passed the 2007 Child Victim's Act that eliminated the civil statute of limitations in cases of child sexual abuse.

"Getting this behind me is a bigger deal to me than coming home from Vietnam," he said when the settlement was announced April 8.

TRACY (CA)
KCRA

TRACY, Calif. -- In recent weeks, FBI agents visited a church along the Washington-Idaho border in connection with Melissa Huckaby's family, KCRA 3 has confirmed.

Huckaby, 28, has been charged in the homicide of 8-year-old Tracy girl Sandra Cantu. The girl's body was found in a suitcase pulled from an irrigation pond 10 days after she went missing.

"They were trying to put the pieces of their puzzle together. They were asking about certain people who might be able to lead them to other people. But I do not know exactly what they were looking for," Pastor Bill Creutzberg said by phone.

SALINAS (CA)
The Californian

April 23, 2009

The Salinas Police Department says it is now seeking two felony counts of possession of child pornography against Father Antonio Cortes, 41, of St. Mary of the Nativity Church in Salinas.

Cortes was arrested April 16 and charged with child molestation and providing alcohol to a minor. The fresh charges stem from a forensic search of a personal laptop computer recovered from his residence, police said, and are based on "numerous child pornography videos contained in computer hard drives."

SALINAS (CA)
KSBW

SALINAS, Calif. -- A priest accused of unlawful sexual behavior with a now 16-year-old boy has been charged with two felony counts of possessing child pornography.

The new charges were added after Salinas police found child pornography videos on the Rev. Antonio Cortes' personal computer.

Cortes was arrested April 16 after the 16-year-old walked into the Salinas police station and accused the priest of providing him with alcohol and then molesting him, starting when he was a 14-year-old.

SALINAS (CA)
Contra Costa Times

Prosecutors have charged the Rev. Antonio Cortes with two additional felony charges of possessing child pornography that depicts minors engaged in sexual activity.

Salinas police said the videos were on a laptop computer seized from Cortes' home at St. Mary of the Nativity Catholic Church, where the priest served as pastor.

Cortes, 41, was charged Monday with a felony count alleging he engaged in sodomy with a 16-year-old boy. He is also charged with 12 misdemeanor counts of child molestation, furnishing alcohol to a minor, child cruelty and performing an immoral act before a minor.

PARAGUAY
New York Daily News

BY Harold Emert In Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and Christina Boyle In New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Updated Thursday, April 23rd 2009, 2:56 PM

And you thought Bill Clinton was a horndog.

A third woman came forward Thursday to claim the president of Paraguay, a former Roman Catholic bishop, fathered her child out of wedlock.

Teacher Damiana Moran says the latest love child, a 16-month-old named Juan Pablo after the late Pope, was conceived when she was a church outreach worker.

FLORIDA
Palm Beach Post

By Rhonda Swan
Palm Beach Post Columnist

Thursday, April 23, 2009

It has the perfect ingredients of a television movie: sex, lies and DVDs.

The setting: a poor, rural Florida town about which few care.

The villain: a charming, yet manipulative man of the cloth.

The victims: teenage boys with dreams of escaping poverty.

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

Boston College's Church in the 21st Century Center has pulled together a series of thematic essays reflecting on Catholicism in Boston over the two centuries since the Archdiocese of Boston was established. The essays are collected in a new book, "Two Centuries of Faith: The Influence of Catholicism on Boston, 1808-2008,'' edited by university historian Thomas H. O'Connor. The book is not a comprehensive history of the archdiocese, but rather takes a look at several aspects of the development of the archdiocese, from the French influences on its beginnings, to the role of women and minorities in its ranks, to the role of Catholicism in Boston politics, social services, education and literature.

BC held an event Tuesday to present a copy of the book to Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston; the authors and a variety of faculty and students gathered in the Irish Room at BC's Gasson Hall, under a giant stained glass window of St. Patrick, the patron saint of the archdiocese. ...

In the book, one of the contributors, the Rev. William T. Schmidt, pastor of St. Patrick Church in Stoneham, offers a sober look at the history of parish life in the archdiocese, observing that the sexual abuse scandal caused a "crisis of confidence and trust in the leadership of the Catholic Church" and saying "the long-term impact of this crisis is still unknown.''

PARAGUAY
Telegraph (United Kingdom)

Fernando Lugo, Paraguay's President and a former Roman Catholic Bishop, is facing paternity tests after three women claimed that he fathered their children.

By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent

Mr Lugo, who is known as the "red bishop" and came to power last year, admitted two weeks ago that he was the father of one of the children. But two more women have now come forward to allege that they had children by him, and even his own government has failed to dampen speculation that there may be more disclosures to come....

But Gloria Rubin, Mr Lugo's minister for women, failed to scotch speculation that more women were preparing to come forward. "Clearly they are saying that there are going to be five, six or even 16 children," she said. "If it is true that the president has that many children then the ministry will be at the service of all the women who demand paternal responsibility."

ROME
Enlightened Catholicism

The Miles Jesu Vatican investigation has flown under the radar, but it's conclusion will not. The Vatican has appointed an external superior for the group. This could also be the result for the Legion and for the LCWR.

Miles Jesu is another combination of priestly seminaries and lay apostolates very similar in outlook to Opus Dei and the Legion. It is very orthodox in it's theology and militant in it's lay apostolate. Miles Jesu translates as 'Soldiers of Christ'. ...

After an investigation into Miles Jesu by the Vicariate of Rome and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life started in June of 2007, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome has decided to appoint an external superior over Miles Jesu.

PARAGUAY
Guardian (United Kingdom)

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent

He swept to power as an agent of renewal but Paraguay's bishop turned president, Fernando Lugo, now faces a political crisis and ribald jokes over his power of reproduction.

Three women have come forward in the past two weeks claiming to have had children fathered by Lugo while he was a Roman Catholic bishop, raising questions over his credibility and morals.

Lugo cancelled an important trip to Washington planned for tomorrow to deal with the allegations which have stunned one of South America's most conservative and Catholic countries.

PARAGUAY
Catholic News Agency

Asunción, Paraguay, Apr 23, 2009 / 12:52 pm (CNA).- The executive committee of the Paraguayan Bishops’ Conference issued a statement Wednesday denying it received reports that President Fernando Lugo had fathered a child while still a bishop.

Speaking about Lugo's actions, the bishops said in their statement that “the Paraguayan Bishops’ Conference never received any formal complaint in writing with regard to Bishop Fernando Lugo about the issue of his supposed paternity.”

“If a complaint was made to the Apostolic Nunciature, its handling and definition was under the exclusive competence of the same [office],” they added.

NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

by Hella Winston

Two major haredi organizations came out Tuesday against a bill pending in the New York State legislature that would extend the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse and create a one-year window during which alleged victims could file civil claims, regardless of when the abuse took place.

In a joint press release, Agudath Israel of America and Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, said they would not “object to extending statutes of limitations for criminal proceedings against perpetrators,” but “must object to ... legislation that could literally destroy schools, houses of worship that sponsor youth programs, summer camps and other institutions that are the very lifeblood of the community.”

WISONSIN
Isthmus

Jim Beyers on Thursday 04/23/2009

"Well, the very worst has happened today. Bishop Morlino fired me."

This is the message Ruth Kolpack sent to friends on Thursday, March 12. For most of us, it came as a shock.

For the last 25 years, Ruth had been employed at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Beloit, serving under four pastors and three bishops. Since 1995 she'd been a pastoral associate, working in religious education, liturgy and service to minorities, living out the teachings of our church.

Ruth was fired after a 10-minute meeting with Bishop Robert Morlino, who has headed up the Madison diocese since 2003. She says he asked her to refute her master's thesis, which urges a more inclusive role for women in the church. When she refused, she was fired.

FLORIDA
Injury Board

April 23, 2009 11:27 AM

Joe Saunders

In keeping with April's designation as Child Abuse Prevention Month, Bishop Frank Dewane will offer two masses for sexual abuse survivors. Many bishops have done this throughout the country as part of the Bishop's Conference response to the sexual abuse scandal that has been rocking the Catholic Church since 2002.

While the masses are a gesture, what else will be done to respond to the survivors? Many who were victimized by a Catholic priest when they were young have never returned to church and frankly, aren't ready to do so-some will never do so. I'm hoping this is just one small aspect of an outreach program to victims. Those who've survived such a betrayal of trust and authority need and deserve much more than a mass or two. They need the church authorities, namely the bishop to stand with them on abuse issues. One major step in the right direction would be a real effort at transparency. Make public those secret documents that reveal the coverups, criminal behavior, and the lack of effort to reach out to victims. In some states like New York, the church is actively engaged in trying to stop victims efforts to pursue justice by lobbying against a bill called the Child Victims Act. This is decidedly unhelpful and sends surivors the wrong message.

PARAGUAY
United Press International

ASUNCION, Paraguay, April 23 (UPI) -- For the third time in two weeks a woman has gone public with claims Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, a former bishop, fathered her child.

In the latest case, Damiana Hortencia Moran, a 39-year-old teacher, said she was "deeply in love" with the 57-year-old president, Mercopress reported Thursday. Moran told local media Lugo fathered her 18-month-old son, conceived in 2006 after he had left the Catholic Church hierarchy to run for office.

She worked for the coalition that helped elect Lugo.

PARAGUAY
CNN

(CNN) -- A third woman has come forward claiming that Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo fathered a child with her out of wedlock.

Damiana Moran, a teacher, told reporters Wednesday that she is confident Lugo will recognize the paternity of the 16-month-old boy.

"He has the will to take responsibility as it corresponds to the rights of the child," she said.

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

BY Phillip O'Connor
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/23/2009

Bishop Robert James Carlson arrived in Saginaw, Mich., in 2005 with a reputation as a rising star sent to reel in a renegade diocese.

Carlson — named archbishop of St. Louis on Tuesday — was a big adjustment for the Saginaw Diocese, which over four decades had become what some considered among the most liberal in the country, priests and parishioners there say. ...

"He was sent here with a particular charge from higher-ups and that was to shake this diocese up ... to make sure the practices of the diocese were in conformity with the expectations of Rome," said the Rev. Tom Sutton, who was administrator of the diocese before Carlson arrived.

PARAGUAY
Times of Malta

AFP

Fernando Lugo, a former bishop who surprised the world by winning Paraguay's presidential elections last year, is back in the headlines in a paternity scandal.

A former Catholic bishop, Mr Lugo broke 61 years of one-party conservative rule in his small South American nation when he became head of state in August.

His popularity is now wavering however, after three women claimed that he had fathered their children. In the latest case, a 39-year old daycare centre director said Mr Lugo, 57, is the father of her 16-month-old son.

CALIFORNIA
Monterey Herald

By DENNIS TAYLOR
Herald Staff Writer
Updated: 04/23/2009

Attorneys in two high-profile sexual assault cases asked Superior Court Judge Adrienne Grover to reconsider the amount of their bail Wednesday, but the judge declined to make adjustments in either matter.

The Rev. Antonio Cortes, a priest at St. Mary of the Nativity Catholic Church in Salinas, remains in custody at Monterey County Jail on $750,000 bail while facing 12 misdemeanor counts of child molestation, plus one count each of felony sodomy, child cruelty, providing alcohol to a minor and performing immoral acts before a child.

MICHIGAN
WKLA

A Catholic Priest from Mason County facing sexual assault charges waived his preliminary hearing yesterday in Mason County District Court. Father Johnson Pappusamy was bound over to Circuit Court where he also waived his arraignment. Officials at the court say a notice for a final conference will be sent out within two weeks.

MICHIGAN
Luddington Daily News

LDN Staff -

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Rev. Johnson Pappusamy, who had been a Catholic priest in Scottville and Custer, waived his preliminary hearing scheduled for this morning in 79th District Court.

The case now moves on to 51st Circuit Court.

SALINAS (CA)
The Californian

BY SUNITA VIJAYAN • svijayan@thecalifornian.com • April 23, 2009

The Rev. Antonio Cortes pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon as more than 100 of his supporters looked on in Monterey County Superior Court Salinas.

The 41-year-old parish priest of St. Mary of The Nativity Catholic Church in east Salinas was arrested a week ago after a 16-year-old boy filed a police report alleging that the priest sodomized and molested him and gave him alcohol.

Cortes was taken into custody at the church's office, across from the church grounds at 1747 Second Ave. He is being held at Monterey County Jail on a $750,000 bail.

NEW YORK
Newsday

BY RICHARD B. GARTNER

Richard B. Gartner, a psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York City, is the author of "Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse."

As the New York State Assembly considers two competing bills to extend the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse crimes, astonishingly little has been said about the prevalence, effects or economic and social costs of such crimes. These factors demonstrate the urgent need for a lengthened window for justice, which will help enable victims to heal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about one in five American children is sexually abused. So in a classroom of 25 children, five will be victimized before adulthood.

Abusers prey on the most susceptible, often choosing children already at risk: isolated, weaker, smaller, nonathletic, disabled or from a disadvantaged minority. Victims may have troubled, addicted or physically abusive families, or be separated from their parents. They look to other adults for healing, advice and emotional support. Abusers profess to offer solace while laying the groundwork for victimization.

PARAGUAY
Washington Post

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 23, 2009

The clamor over Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo's behavior is getting louder, one crying baby at a time.

For the third time in less than a month, a woman came forward yesterday saying that Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, is the father of her child.

A single secret out-of-wedlock child by any president would make headlines. But in this heavily Roman Catholic country, the revelations about a man who had sworn chastity vows as a priest has stirred deeper concerns that some say could have serious repercussions for his government.

TRACY (CA)
Tracy Press

by Jennifer Wadsworth

The mother of a girl who went missing in January told police to check out Melissa Huckaby immediately after she heard that 8-year-old neighbor girl Sandra Cantu disappeared late last month.

Lora Polk, 41, came back from work on Jan. 17 to find her 7-year-old daughter gone. Huckaby, 28, took her — along with her own 5-year-old daughter — without permission from the family, Polk said this morning in an interview at the Tracy Press. Polk called police to report the missing girl. Hours later, she took her to the hospital, where doctors say they found muscle relaxers coursing through her 45-pound body.

CALIFORNIA
California Catholic Daily

Sometime on Sunday, April 19, somewhere in Santa Barbara, four women were “ordained” as “bishops” by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests USA. The exact time and place of the event was intentionally kept secret, a spokeswoman for the group said.

“One of the major reasons for not revealing the place is that we wanted a prayerful, quiet, non-media event,” said Womenpriests national spokeswoman Bridget Mary Meehan in an email to California Catholic Daily. “Our focus is not on the bishops ordinations but on servant leadership to the Catholic community.” Meehan was one of the four women “ordained” as a “bishop” on April 19.

NEW YORK
Voice of the Faithful

Voice of the Faithful New York supports the NY Child Victims Act, sponsored by Assemblywoman Marge Markey (Bill No. A02596) and State Senator Tom Duane (S02586). ...

When the State of California instituted reforms similar to those currently proposed in New York, it allowed victims to bring some 1,000 new cases and uncovered 300 previously hidden predators. Identifying more predators means that more children are protected from abuse.

Critics of this legislation contend that it discriminates against private institutions like the Catholic Church by giving public institutions special treatment. Voice of the Faithful New York believes that all institutions, public and private, should be treated with absolute equality, and would be in favor of companion legislation that would suspend the provisions giving special treatment to public institutions under New York State law for the same one-year window.

MEXICO
AFP

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Mexican police arrested seven people, including a Roman Catholic Priest, allegedly involved in a child porn ring that distributed 100,000 pictures and videos of children from around the world, the Attorney General's office has said.

"A priest from Xalapa, Veracruz (eastern Mexico), was among those detained, as well as an IT worker from the foreign ministry," a statement said on Wednesday.

Mexican authorities found files containing a large number of explicit sex scenes between adults and children up to 10 years of age at the ministry worker's house, the statement said.

IOWA
Quad-City Times

Ann McGlynn | Posted: Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A judge is expected to rule soon whether the perjury trial of ex-priest James Janssen will be moved from Scott County.

Janssen, 85, is accused of lying to the court during his nephew’s attempt to collect a $1.4 million civil judgment against Janssen for sexual abuse.

Janssen’s attorney, Michael McCarthy, said during a hearing Wednesday there has been a “super-saturation” of adverse publicity about Janssen. He added that it was “hard to think of a person who’s been more notorious around here.”

EL PASO (TX)
Newspaper Tree

[motion to recuse]

by David Crowder

Posted on April 23, 2009
Lawyers for an El Paso man who was allegedly abused by a priest in the 1960s are asking that the judge who dismissed their lawsuit be recused because he gave money from his political campaign fund to the Catholic Church while the case was pending.

The motion by the anonymous plaintiff in the case, a man in his 50s referred to only as John Doe, was filed Tuesday and seeks to keep County Court-at-Law Judge Javier Alvarez away from the case. (Download copy of motion below)

In January, Alvarez granted the defendants’ motion for a summary judgment, dismissing the three-year-old lawsuit. He did so on grounds that the allegations by a former altar boy at Our Lady of the Light were too old and exceeded the time allowed by the statute of limitations in Texas .

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
The Orange County Register

By SARAH TULLY
The Orange County Register

A gag order is preventing Orange County law enforcement officials from releasing information about arson cases linked to Melissa Huckaby, who is accused of slaying a girl in Northern California.

A San Joaquin County Superior Court judge on Tuesday issued a gag order, instructing all lawyers, authorities and witnesses from speaking about the Huckaby case. The former Orange County resident is accused of kidnapping, raping and killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu in Tracy.

Also on Tuesday, a Tracy Police Department lieutenant told La Palma police officers about the gag order and instructed them to keep quiet about Huckaby, said Capt. Jim Enright of La Palma Police Department. Orange County Fire Authority, which covers La Palma, is also following the gag order, said Capt. Marc Stone, a fire spokesman.

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
The Orange County Register

By MICHAEL MELLO
The Orange County Register

A man who was once a priest himself has sued the Diocese of Orange, claiming he suffered sexual abuse when he was younger at the hands of a priest in his La Habra parish.

The lawsuit charges that the priest harmed Ben M. Rodriguez psychologically, resulting in physical harm later in life, and that the diocese failed to protect Rodriguez from that harm. The lawsuit seeks an undetermined amount of money for treatment and for wages lost and diminished earning capacity.

The lawsuit doesn't name the man, but Rodriguez's attorney, Joseph C. George, identified the priest as Gordon J. Pillon.

PARAGUAY
The News & Observer

Tyler Bridges and Antonia Delvalle - McClatchy Newspapers

SAN LORENZO, Paraguay — Fernando Lugo, the Roman Catholic bishop turned president of Paraguay, risked becoming a soap opera caricature after a third woman emerged Wednesday claiming that he's the father of her child.

The third claim within two weeks shook Lugo's eight-month-old government and left Paraguay buzzing that more women may yet step forward.

The latest news tarnished the storybook tale of a leftist president who unexpectedly shot to power last year after spending years as a bishop challenging entrenched interests on behalf of his poor parishioners.

FLORIDA
Cape Coral Daily Breeze

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, and to raise awareness of the need to protect children and to pray for victims of child sexual abuse Bishop Frank J. Dewane of the Diocese of Venice in Florida will celebrate two Masses. The Masses for victims will be April 24 at Epiphany Cathedral Parish in Venice and April 30 at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Naples, both are scheduled at 12:30 p.m.

OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

By Archbishop John Vlazny
In the midst of the terrible scandal of child sexual abuse within our own church community, particularly crimes perpetrated by some of our own clergy and religious, a rainbow of hope appeared after the storm. Catholic communities, under the leadership of their pastors, became committed to doing whatever they could to protect children from the harm caused by such abuse. Across the nation, including here in our own archdiocese, safe environment programs have been established which assist church workers who are involved in one or another form of youth ministry and also protect the young people themselves who one day may find themselves at risk.

Unfortunately, some of our people still are not so sure about the appropriateness of church involvement in programs which teach youngsters how to be safe. Complaints have come across my desk that we are doing more harm than good. Experts disagree and so do the members of our church’s National Review Board, headed by Judge Michael Merz, a federal judge in Dayton, Ohio. The judge believes that dioceses across this nation who have safe environment programs organized and staffed by professionals have a marvelous opportunity to help the children help themselves and alert adults to recognize abusive or potentially abusive behavior.

PARAGUAY
ABC News (Australia)

A third woman in two weeks has claimed that Paraguay's bishop-turned-President Fernando Lugo fathered her child, intensifying a political scandal that has made him the butt of lewd jokes and even a pop song.

Damiana Moran, a teacher aged 39, told local media that Mr Lugo was the father of her one-year-old son and she was negotiating child support with the President's lawyer.

Two days after going public a second woman, Benigna Leguizamon, 27, filed a lawsuit to get Mr Lugo to take a DNA test to prove he is the father of her six-year-old boy.

KENTUCKY
WHAS

(WHAS11) - It was one of the first major cases in the archdiocese of Louisville sex abuse scandal.

Father Louis Miller was moved from parish to parish, abusing catholic kids.

He's in prison now but had a chance Wednesday to get out.

The Kentucky parole board met Wednesday to decide if former Louisville Priest Louis Miller, the man who sexually assaulted dozens of children over four decades, should be let out of prison.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Examiner

Kay Ebeling
LA City Buzz Examiner

Last week I tried to track down the rest of the documents from Clergy Cases 2007, so I called the Superior Court media office, explained that the cases were moved from one courthouse to another, that “30 bankers boxes” of documents were to be released to the public in January. Will the remaining docs be scanned in with the rest of the JCCP docs, and will we ever have easy access to civil case documents in Room 106 of Superior Court downtown again? Asking the PIO got me no answer to either questial at all.

I'm learning, I have to be more aggressive, just go right up and ask anyone I see. So before the hearing April 20th in Department 308, I asked both Donald Steier defense attorney for the pedophile priests and Tony DeMarco plaintiff attorney for hundreds of the priests’ crime victims, “What is the deposition that the judge agreed to keep sealed? I think it’s with law enforcement, the deposition of George Neville Rucker. The judge ordered it to be returned to the party who provided it. Who is that party?”

What deposition? Both attorneys seemed flummoxed. Which order which judge?

Steier guffawed to me: “There are so many depositions in these cases, you think I remember one more than any other one? I can't remember everything. . . . "

PARAGUAY
Momento 24 (Argentina)

Damiana Hortensia Morán Amarilla, a 39-year-old well known social leader and ex-coordinator of the Social Pastoral of the Diocese of San Lorenzo accused president Fernando Lugo of being the father of her third son.

Contrary to the previous cases, she does not claim anything and said that she makes her situation public only so that the truth is known, because, although for her it is a delicate and very sensitive issue, it is the reality and that sooner or later it was going to go up. “It is the fruit of a relation with Fernando Lugo, but a relation impelled by a big love, of an entire devotion”, declared Damiana in the last hours.

Also, she reported that the most frequent contacts began to take place in the meetings of groups of social and political leaders to form “Civil Resistance”, in 2006.

PARAGUAY
The Canadian Press

ASUNCION, Paraguay — A third woman now claims Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo fathered her child.

The latest is a 39-year-old divorcee who runs a childcare centre.

She says she met Lugo in 2006, after he gave up his church leadership position. She says she named their 16-month-old boy after the late pope John Paul.

PARAGUAY
BBC News

A third woman has claimed that her child was fathered by Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.

The claim comes just days after a woman said Mr Lugo, who is a former bishop, was the father of her six-year-old boy.

Two weeks ago Mr Lugo said he fathered a child but has not acknowledged paternity in the more recent cases.

ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Apr. 22, 2009
By John L Allen Jr

Officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious met April 22 with Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after having been informed weeks earlier that his congregation had begun a “doctrinal assessment” of the women’s organization.

Neither the congregation nor officers of the conference released any statement after the meeting. The Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, confirmed to NCR that the meeting took place, describing it as “very serene,” and said that the officers of the conference “now have all the elements for understanding the nature of this initiative.”

Any further comment, Lombardi said, should come from the sisters as they pass along the information to their members.

NEW YORK
Forward

By Rebecca Dube
Published April 22, 2009.

Two influential Orthodox organizations, Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah – The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, have come out against a New York State bill that would create a one-year window in which child sex abuse victims could sue their molesters, no matter how long ago the abuse happened.

The bill has been a hot topic this year both in the state legislature, where its fate is uncertain, and in Orthodox Jewish communities, which have been rocked in recent years by allegations of sexual abuse against rabbis and yeshiva teachers.

In addition to creating the one-year window for lawsuits, the bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Marge Markey, D-Queens, would also extend the statute of limitations by five years for child sexual abuse. The rationale, Markey says, is that it often takes decades for victims of childhood sexual abuse to process what was done to them and to come forward – especially if they were abused at the hands of a trusted authority figure, such as a priest or a rabbi. Similar legislation in California led to the identification of hundreds of previously unknown sexual predators.

ST. PAUL (MN)
National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children

Date:
Friday, April 24, 2009
Time: 8 am to 5 pm
Location: The Auditorium at William Mitchell College ofLaw, 875 Summit Avenue, St. Paul, MN.
Cost: $100.00 and includes panel discussions and a luncheon addressed by Mitchell alumni Jeffrey R Anderson. ...

Keynote Speaker: Jeffrey R. Anderson
America's pioneering childhood sexual abuse litigator, has represented thousands of survivors and guided legislation, public policy, and public awareness of childhood sexual abuse for nearly three decades.

GREENWOOD (IN)
TheIndyChannel

GREENWOOD, Ind. -- A youth minister was arrested Tuesday on several child sex-related charges involving three teen girls.

Franklin police said Jonathan James Hartman, 29, of Indianapolis, a co-youth minister at the Salvation Army Church in Greenwood, repeatedly had sex with three girls over a period of three years beginning when they were 13.

Last week, one of the girls, now 15, told police that she was pregnant with Hartman's child.

GREENWOOD (IN)
Indianapolis Star

By Jason Thomas
Posted: April 22, 2009

Salvation Army youth pastor in Greenwood has been arrested on child-molestation charges involving three 15-year-old girls.

Jonathan James Hartman, 29, Indianapolis, was arrested Tuesday and charged with one count of child molesting and five counts of sexual misconduct with a minor after an investigation by the Franklin Police Department.

NEW YORK
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

by Rev. Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Founder and President, Road to Recovery, Inc.,
West Orange, New Jersey, 07052

It was very clear during the evening vespers service and installation of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan that he loves his priesthood and the priests with whom he will be working during his tenure in New York. It was very obvious that he was sent to New York primarily to boost the morale of the Archdiocesan priests who were demoralized during the administration of Cardinal Edward Egan. Dolan mentioned his love and support for “his” priests more than any other group, not coincidentally. Dolan has been a seminary rector and authored a book about the priesthood.

We learned from Father Stephen Norton, a Dutchess County pastor and former colleague of mine from the Irish Christian Brothers, an “installation day” commentator on a New York television station, that Dolan has already begun meeting with priests in small groups to assess their needs and determine how best to serve them. We also learned that Dolan will host a barbecue for all Archdiocesan priests in May at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers. Ironically, Father Steve was a weekend associate pastor at a parish in Westchester where one of my many abusers is pastor and I warned him about my abuser. I never heard from Father Steve again.

At the barbecue in May, I hope Archbishop Dolan begins his talk to the priests by saying in his down-to-earth, Midwestern style,

“Guys I have to begin by asking you to cooperate with me on this one. There is still a huge clergy sexual abuse problem going on. The research is clear: ninety percent of sexual abuse victims have not yet come forward. That means that there are some of you out there today who have abused minors, teenagers, and vulnerable adults. There are some of you who are carrying on relationships with women, married or unmarried. And, there are some of you who are engaging in homosexual relationships with each other or others.

SALINAS (CA)
Monterey Herald

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau
Updated: 04/22/2009

A Salinas priest charged with sodomy and child molestation made "damaging admissions" about his alleged crimes on telephone calls taped by Salinas police, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Prosecutor Rolando Mazariegos said the 16-year-old victim in the case placed two "pretext" calls to the Rev. Antonio Cortes. As police listened in, he said, Cortes admitted some of the behavior the boy had reported.

While the admissions were not "full confessions," Mazariegos said, the boy's story was further corroborated in a search of Cortes' living quarters. Among the items seized, he said, were boxer shorts with the colors and designs described by the alleged victim.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY Jose Martinez
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, April 22nd 2009

Two victims of a Catholic priest who pleaded guilty last year to sexually abusing boys have filed a $10 million lawsuit against the perverted man of the cloth.

Mark Lyman and David Landfear, who both live in upstate New York, charge that the Rev. Frank Genevieve preyed on them when they were teenagers during overnight trips to Boston and Manhattan.

"This was a trusted member within my family's social circle and he groomed us to the point where for a lot of years, I felt sorry for him," said Lyman, 44. "Unfortunately, I didn't come forward until I was 38."

NEW YORK
Catholic Culture

April 22, 2009
The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI) and the New York chapter of the National Organization of Women have announced their support for legislation that would lift the statute of limitations in abuse cases for a year. “It is a shame we have to fight against the Church in this,” said NBCI’s president. “It breaks my heart.”

New York State Catholic Conference spokesman Dennis Poust said, “Most legislatures have seen it for what it is: an unfair, bad bill that selectively targets religious and private institutions, and gives a free pass to public institutions where the majority of the abuse occurs.”

PARAGUAY
Catholic Culture

April 22, 2009
Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay-- a priest of Opus Dei since 1978 and bishop since 2004-- said on April 21 that the hierarchy has known since 2004 about the infidelities of then-Bishop Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez, now the nation’s president. “The Church hierarchy knew for years of this misconduct by Lugo, but kept silent. Now there's nothing that it can do.” According to Bishop Livieres, when the nuncio received complaints and confronted Lugo, Lugo offered his resignation.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
The National Survivor Advocates Coalition

The National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC) notes with high interest the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ use of technology in texting the new archbishop’s name, Robert J. Carlson, to any and all who had subscribed to the messaging for this alert.

The Coalition vigourously urges the Archdiocese to use this technology to alert Catholics and all people of good will to danger to children. In short, text the names of those credibly accused in the Archdiocese.

Hailed as a “dedicated to life issues” bishop by the current administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Bishop Carlson was appointed by the Vatican as the 10th archbishop of St. Louis. Carlson leaves his current post as Bishop of Saginaw, Michigan.

BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Stop Baptist Predators

The music minister at Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a high school student.

I felt heartbroken when I saw the news. I guess I still wanted to believe that there might be some church somewhere that would be immune to this scourge. But of course, there’s not.

No church is immune, not even one as full of symbolism as this one.

PINEVILLE (MO)
The Joplin Globe

By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com

PINEVILLE, Mo. — The self-appointed pastor of a Newton County church was assessed 15 years in prison Tuesday for molesting an underage girl and taking advantage of another by photographing her in the nude.

Circuit Judge Tim Perigo sentenced Randall “Danny” Russell, 50, to two 15-year terms on convictions for first-degree child molestation and sexual exploitation of a minor. The hearing was conducted in McDonald County Circuit Court, where the case had been moved on a change of venue. The judge ordered that the two terms will run concurrently.

The pastor of the Acts II Church near Neosho pleaded guilty to the charges in March in a plea agreement that dropped 18 other counts he was facing and limited the length of prison time he could be assessed to 15 years.

CALIFORNIA
CBS 13

Reporting
Ron Jones

ELK GROVE (CBS13) ―

A Sunday school teacher has been charged in the kidnapping, rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl and now other local churches are working to make sure that their employees and volunteers are screened, hoping to prevent child abuse.

Harvest Church in Elk Grove is taking their duty to protect children in Sunday school seriously. Children's Pastor Joyce Baergen says she does not want to open the door to predators.

"Everyone who goes beyond this point in here is an approved volunteer," Joyce said.

PINEVILLE (MO)
Neosho Daily News

By John Ford
Neosho Daily News
Wed Apr 22, 2009, 12:56 AM CDT

Pineville, Mo. -
A rural Neosho self-proclaimed pastor has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of felony first-degree child molestation and child enticement charges.

On Tuesday morning, Randall “Danny” Russell was sentenced to two 15-year terms, the maximum allowed on each of the charges. The terms will run concurrently, or at the same time, and Russell must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence or 13 ½ years according to Bill Dobbs, Newton County assistant prosecutor.

In March, Russell pleaded guilty to a Class B felony charge of first-degree child molestation and a Class B felony count of sexual exploitation of a minor. Russell entered the plea as part of a plea bargain agreement, and was originally charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, six counts of possession of child pornography, a count of second-degree statutory rape, two counts of first-degree sodomy, a count of felony child abuse, two felony counts of child molestation and a misdemeanor charge of child molestation.

PEORIA (IL)
Journal Star

By TIM SAMPSON
Journal Star
Posted Apr 21, 2009

PEORIA — .Two former Catholic priests who served in Peoria are now plaintiff and defendant in a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse.

Ben Rodriguez, who left the priesthood in 2006, is claiming Gordon J. Pillon sexually molested him multiple times as a teenager. Rodriguez and Pillon spent more than a decade serving in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria together.

Pillon was removed from ministry duty in 2006 after Rodriguez made his initial claims of abuse. Now Rodriguez has filed a lawsuit against Pillon in California, where he claims the abuse took place.

MEMPHIS (TN)
The Daily News

BILL DRIES | The Daily News

The last pending civil lawsuit alleging child sexual abuse by a Memphis priest remained alive this week.

Circuit Court Judge D’Army Bailey denied a motion Monday by the Catholic Diocese of Memphis to dismiss the lawsuit filed against it by Norman Redwing. Redwing alleges, in the lawsuit filed last October, that he was abused by the Rev. Milton Guthrie in the 1970s.

The diocese moved for dismissal, citing Tennessee appeals court rulings, including one from another priest abuse lawsuit filed in Memphis. The Court of Appeals held that the statute of limitations on filing such a claim had passed because the John Does in each case should have asked the church about such abuse within a year after their eighteenth birthdays.

SYRACUSE (NY)
WSYR

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - More than a quarter-million Catholics in the seven-county Diocese of Syracuse will have a new spiritual leader.

The Most Reverend Robert Cunningham, who's been the bishop of the Ogdensburg Diocese for the last five years, was named Tuesday to succeed the retiring James Moynihan as bishop of Syracuse.

Cunningham is already speaking out on social, legal and local issues.

At his introductory news conference, the new bishop apologized for a touch of laryngitis, but quickly found his voice in opposition to a pair of bills now before the state legislature. One would temporarily remove the statute of limitations on sex abuse allegations, allowing victims to sue for crimes allegedly committed decades ago.

NEW YORK
Legislative Gazette

Tuesday Apr 21 1:23 PM

By KRISTEN HANMER, Gazette staff writer

Lawmakers and supporters of legislation that would extend the statute of limitations to benefit victims of childhood sexual abuse made a strong showing during a press conference in Albany today.

Also known as the Child Victims Act, the bill (A.2596/S.2568) is sponsored by Assemblywoman Margaret Mackey, D-Maspeth, and Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan. If passed, the legislation would extend the statute of limitations in sexual abuse cases, giving victims five more years to come forward with charges. Under current law, the period begins when a child turns eighteen, but the bill seeks to change that to age 23, giving the victim until age 28 to come forward.

PARAGUAY
Ultima Hora

La Conferencia Episcopal Paraguaya (CEP), negó en la tarde este martes haber recibido formal denuncia y reclamo de paternidad por parte de algunas mujeres en contra del entonces obispo y hoy presidente de la República, Fernando Lugo. Asimismo desacredita al prelado de Alto Paraná, Rogelio Livieres Plano, quien habló del tema.

"La Conferencia Episcopal Paraguaya nunca recibió ninguna denuncia formal por escrito con relación a Monseñor Fernando Lugo referida a cuestiones de su supuesta paternidad", expresa el documento episcopal.

PARAGUAY
Ultima Hora

El obispo de la diócesis de Ciudad del Este, Rogelio Livieres Plano, reveló que la Iglesia Católica ya contaba con denuncias hechas por varias mujeres contra el hoy presidente de la República, Fernando Lugo, y que esto lo obligó a dejar el episcopado.

"Esta es una cosa conocida ya desde hace años... es verdad que también se fueron destapando en el año 2002, 2003, 2004 y todos estos casos de Lugo lo llevaron a irse del episcopado", dijo el monseñor Livieres Plano en un contacto con radio 1000.

PARAGUAY
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

Journalists who cover the president protested outside the Government Palace, demanding their customary Tuesday news conference, which was finally postponed until Friday, Última Hora reports.

President Fernando Lugo, a former Catholic bishop, was hit Monday (April 20) with a second paternity claim, only a week after he admitted to fathering a child while the Vatican considered him to be ordained.

PARAGUAY
MercoPress

A Paraguayan leading opposition senator filed a “ravish claim” before the country’s Prosecution Office involving President Fernando Lugo and Viviana Carrillo who was a minor when allegedly she had sexual relations with the then bishop of San Pedro. Lugo publicly admitted last week having fathered a child, now two year old and named Fernando, with Viviana.

Senator Lilian Samaniego said she was promoting the legal action from her “woman gender” condition and was looking forward to a full investigation into the issue.

“As a woman we can’t let this go by. Our community is demanding an answer and Fernando Lugo has the chance to tell us what happened regarding the events which are attributed to him”, said Senator Samaniego.

PARAGUAY
The Associated Press

By PEDRO SERVIN

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — A Roman Catholic bishop alleged Tuesday that Paraguay's president resigned from his church leadership position in 2004 after at least two women in his parish wrote to a Vatican official that he had fathered their children.

Fernando Lugo, who was elected president last year, was hit with two paternity claims this month. He conceded last week that he is the father of one of the children. Bishop Rogelio Livieres alleged Tuesday that when confronted with the women's complaints in 2004, Lugo said it was "possible" that their children were his as well.

NEW YORK
Newsday

Two competing bills on child sex abuse, and allowing alleged victims to sue their attackers, are pending in Albany. Both have been moved out of the state Assembly's Codes Committee and could come to a vote of the full Assembly.

The legislation sponsored by Assemb. Margaret M. Markey (D- Maspeth) has been adopted three times previously only to die in the then-Republican-controlled Senate. The bill hasn't yet been taken up by the Senate Codes Committee, which doesn't meet this week.

This year, lawmakers are considering a rival bill sponsored by Assemb. Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn). It also has not been taken up by the Senate codes committee.

ALBANY (NY)
WAMC

[audio presentation]

ALBANY, NY
(2009-04-21)

Sponsors and advocates of the "Child Victims Act of New York" rallied today in Albany: Capital District Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

NEW YORK
NOW-NYS

ALBANY, NY (04/20/2009; 0818)(readMedia)-- At a press conference slated for 11 AM on April 21, 2009, at Room 130 in the Legislative Office Building, Albany, NY, the National Organization for Women-NYS will stand in support of legislation to protect New York's children and identify child predators. The key provision is to extend the statute of limitations for child sex abuse.

NOW-NYS President Marcia Pappas said that "California and Delaware have already enacted legislation representing a proven method for identifying the child predators who are hiding among us." "And it's high time," Pappas continued, "for New York State to follow suit. So the National Organization for Women-New York State stands firmly in support of the Child Victims Act (NYS Assembly Bill A2596, Senate Bill S2568), as sponsored by Assemblywoman Marge Markey and Senator Thomas Duane."

TRACY (CA)
Fox 40

April 21, 2009

TRACY - On her first day presiding over the Melissa Huckaby murder case, Judge Linda Loftus issued a gag order barring anyone involved with the case from speaking to the media.

KRON-TV reports Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa was hand-delivered the order from new presiding Judge Linda Loftus, directing the "parties and counsel" away from releasing "information or opinions concerning this case or any issue likely involved."

UNITED STATES
Anti-Catholic League

by David Fortwengler

“Shepherd 1” was prepared for an evening departure to Italy. The last day of Pope Benedict XVI’s triumphant visit to the United States began with a solemn ceremony at ground zero. He then attended an outdoor Mass at Yankee Stadium, the 85 year old, soon-to-be-demolished, baseball shrine. Over 60,000 pre-invited guests wildly greeted the pope at the scheduled event.

He began his talk by again praising the rich history, contributions, and growth of American Catholicism. I believe Benedict genuinely likes our country, especially the freedom of religion that has enabled his to flourish. Most importantly, he also acknowledged that Catholics have full freedom to participate in public life. We all love that about America.

Worn out from his grueling schedule, and from mentioning the scandal, he could only manage one last general reference in paragraph 12.

SYRACUSE (NY)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Because of New York's archaic, predator-friendly child sex abuse laws, the public has learned little of how Bishop Robert J. Cunningham has dealt with child molestation and cover up in Ogdensburg. But there's no reason to assume he'll be any better at protecting kids or healing victims. It's best to err on the side of caution, not complacency.

Liberal or conservative, outspoken or quiet, almost all US bishops still tend to do the absolute bare minimum when it comes to child sex cases, opting to safeguard their own reputations from public damage instead of safeguarding their flocks from real harm.

We urge Catholics, citizens and especially abuse victims, to not confuse a less hostile demeanor or a lower media profile with a more active child safety effort or a more pastoral victim outreach effort. It’s still crucial that anyone with information about clergy sex crimes and cover ups contact independent sources first - police, prosecutors, therapists, support groups - before contacting church staff. No matter who is bishop, child sex crimes should be reported to and investigated by the independent professionals in law enforcement, not the biased amateurs in the church hierarchy.

Beliefnet

Rod Dreher

Ay caramba!:

President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, a former Roman Catholic bishop, was hit with another paternity claim on Monday, just a week after he acknowledged fathering a child while the Vatican still considered him to be ordained.

Mr. Lugo, 57, on Monday did not confirm or deny fathering the second child, now a 6-year-old boy, but read a brief statement promising to "act always in line with the truth and subject myself to all the requirements presented by the justice system."

A few years ago, a Catholic priest in a position to know such things told me that while the big problem the Vatican has finding American priests suitable to be bishops in this country is identifying clergy uncompromised by homosexual activity, in Latin America the problem is finding candidates for the episcopate uncompromised by heterosexual activity, especially of the sort that has successfully produced children.

Similarly, a Vatican official told me back in 2000, I guess it was, that Rome's well-intentioned decision decades ago to start appointing native-born African bishops to lead the Catholic flocks there was being quietly reversed, as so many bishops were violating their celibacy vows. The reason, said this cleric (who was on the task force to deal with the problem), was one of inculturation: in Africa, celibacy goes strongly against the local traditions. He said that it would take many more years of Christianity being practiced there for that sort of thing to work itself out.

NEW YORK
Newsday

BY BART JONES | bart.jones@newsday.com
April 21, 2009

Some survivors of childhood sexual abuse call it their first and perhaps only chance at justice.

A bill sponsored by Assemb. Margaret Markey (D-Maspeth) would suspend the seven-year statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases for a year. That means those who allege abuse -- including three who told their stories to Newsday -- could file civil lawsuits no matter how long ago the abuse took place.

The bill would open the door to lawsuits against all kinds of clergy, coaches, teachers, doctors, Scout leaders, baby-sitters, therapists, camp counselors and members of victims' own families. Incest accounts for by far the largest category of child sex abuse cases -- 40 percent to 50 percent, experts say.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Patriot-News

by DAVID WENNER, Of The Patriot-News
Tuesday April 21, 2009, 5:09 PM
A priest who once taught at Bishop McDevitt High School is named in a lawsuit by a Delaware man who claims he was sexually abused by two priests during the mid-1980s. The Rev. John McDevitt taught religion at McDevitt from 1980 to 1982. He later taught at the Salesianum School in Wilmington, Del., where the Delaware man says abuse happened.

McDevitt has been dead since 1999.

Joe Aponick, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, said there were no complaints against McDevitt during his time in Harrisburg. But the diocese said it takes any claims of abuse by a church employee seriously. It advised anyone who knows of possible abuse by McDevitt to call Kate McCauley, a victim's assistance coordinator, at 703-525-1555.

NEW YORK
Boston Herald

By Associated Press
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

NEW YORK — Two upstate New York men have filed a $10 million lawsuit against a Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to raping them.

Mark Lyman of Stillwater and David Landfear of Cohoes say in court papers filed Monday in Manhattan that the Rev. Frank Genevive abused them between 1978 and 1987, when they were teens.

MINNESOTA
The Catholic Spirit

By The Catholic Spirit
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Ramsey County Judge Gregg John­son ruled April 20 that the Arch­dio­cese of St. Paul and Minneapolis does not have to make public a list of priests who had been accused of sexual abuse.

In addition, attorney Jeff Anderson, who was given the list as part of a lawsuit he has filed for an alleged victim, was barred from releasing the information. The list may be used in the trial, which is to begin June 1, but the names may not be made public until there is a hearing and the court rules on whether the evidence is admissible.

LA HABRA (CA)
Whittier Daily News

By Ruby Gonzales, Staff Writer
Posted: 04/21/2009 03:22:40 PM PDT

LA HABRA - As a teen, Ben Rodriguez alleges he was abused at a local church by a priest he trusted. The same man convinced him to join the priesthood after high school.

Rodriguez is now suing the Diocese of Orange and his former mentor for the alleged abuse.

The lawsuit, filed Monday at Orange County Superior Court, doesn't name the priest who allegedly abused Rodriguez between 1978 and 1981. But the 45-year-old said that between 15 and 18 he was molested by Gordon Pillon, who was then assistant pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in La Habra.

NEW YORK
Newsday

BY JAMES T. MADORE | james.madore@newsday.com
7:04 PM EDT, April 21, 2009
ALBANY - The anguish of a young man unable to sue the Catholic priest who allegedly abused him sexually years earlier has driven Assemb. Margaret Markey to push for a temporary lifting of the statute of limitations on such cases.

The young man, a friend of Markey's three children, went to her Maspeth home several years ago seeking help. Her husband, Charles, a state Supreme Court judge, determined the claims were too old to be pursued legally.

The young man "told us he was sexually abused by a parish priest and it had happened many years ago," Markey said Tuesday. "It turned out he was time barred. . . . I sat there and I said, 'Well, I'm an assemblywoman, I can do something about this.' "

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

[press release on the Vatican appointment of Bishop Robert J. Carlson]

[statement of Bishop Robert Hermann]

[press release from the Diocese of Saginaw]

[biography and curriculum vitae of Bishop Carlson]

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Louis welcomes Most Rev. Robert J. Carlson—Archbishop-elect and tenth bishop of Saint Louis!

At noon today in Rome (5 a.m. CDT), the Press Office of the Holy See announced that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has appointed The Most Reverend Robert J. Carlson, Bishop of the Diocese of Saginaw, as Archbishop of St. Louis. He will serve as the 10th bishop and ninth Archbishop of St. Louis.

Follow the day's events:

1.10:30 am: Watch the press conference online.

2.View pictures of the Archbishop-elect, as he visits various locations in the Archdiocese.

3.Follow the Archdiocese on Twitter for up-to-the-minute postings.

SYRACUSE (NY)
Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse

[Bishop Cunningham's curriculum vitae]

[statement from Bishop Cunningham]

Syracuse, NY – Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a new bishop for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse. Most Rev. Robert J. Cunningham, 65, of the Diocese of Ogdensburg will become the 10th bishop of Syracuse succeeding Bishop James M. Moynihan who has served the diocese since May 29, 1995. Bishop Cunningham will be installed on May 26, 2009 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception located in Downtown Syracuse.

OGDENSBURG (NY)
Watertown Daily Times

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009

OGDENSBURG — Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg Bishop Robert J. Cunningham will become the 10th bishop of the Syracuse diocese, church leaders announced Tuesday. He succeeds Bishop James M. Moynihan, who has served since May 29, 1995.

“Sent by Pop Benedict XVI, I come to teach and preach the word of God; to love you with wholehearted affection and to serve your needs especially as a minister of the Eucharist and reconciliation,” Bishop Cunningham said in a prepared statement from the Syracuse diocese. “I hope to be a source of unity for the diocese.”

Bishop Cunningham became the 13th ordained bishop of Ogdensburg on May 18, 2004. He replaced Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito, who took over the Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
America

Posted at: 2009-04-21 09:18:10.0
Author: Michael Sean Winters

The announcement that Bishop Robert Carlson is headed to St. Louis, which has been vacant almost a year, is welcome news indeed. Like the previous incumbent, Archbishop Raymond Burke, Carlson is not likely to be mistaken for a liberal anytime soon. But, more importantly, he brings a compelling personal story, a commitment and dedicated track record on vocations, and a pastoral sensibility to his role as bishop.

The story may be familiar to you already or soon will be. Carlson says that when he got to Sioux Falls as coadjutor bishop in 1994 he saw the posting as a first step in his ecclesiastical career. Then, he got cancer in 1996. And, the people of God, whom he had viewed just a moment ago as part of a step in his career, brought their faith and their love to him in such a way that when he finally was pronounced cancer-free after proactive treatment at the Mayo Clinic and a visit to Fatima, "That followed a number of years of healing. It removed ambition and the cancer." There are not many bishops who admit such personal tales of their own on-going conversion. It is powerful stuff.

UNITED STATES
The Catholic Spirit

By Catholic News Service
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Pope Benedict XVI has named Bishop Robert J. Carlson of Saginaw, Michigan, as Archbishop of St. Louis. Archbishop-designate Carlson, 64, succeeds Archbishop Raymond Burke, who was named last June 27, to head the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, the Vatican’s highest court.

The same day the pope named 65-year-old Bishop Robert J. Cunningham of Ogdensburg, New York, as Bishop of Syracuse, New York, and accepted the resignation of Bishop James M. Moynihan, 76, from the pastoral governance of Syracuse.

Both appointments and the resignation were announced in Washington, April 21, by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

PARAGUAY
Ex-Christian

[this article is also posted in Spanish]

A very small percentage of Hispanics are non-Catholics. I never was one, and I wrote on my blog the reasons a long time ago. One of the reasons was that growing up I learned about Catholic priests in my country being famously promiscuous. Often it was heard that they chose a special female on an exclusive basis that everybody knew as the “priest’s woman” (la mujer del cura).

Fernando Lugo, the president of Paraguay, it appears, used to be a bishop. And now that he left the priesthood to be involved in politics, at least two women have come forward to declare they had a child by him.

Lovely! Now everybody knows.

BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

The music minister of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was arrested and charged with sexual abuse by force.

We urge this historic church to set an example for other Baptist churches by (1) publicly pleading for anyone with relevant information to contact the police, and (2) proactively reaching out to any other possible victims with an offer of independent counseling.

SALINAS (CA)
Monterey Herald

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY
Herald Salinas Bureau
Updated: 04/21/2009 01:36:43 AM PDT

Dozens turned out in support of the Rev. Antonio Cortes as the shackled priest made his first appearance on child molestation charges Monday.

And throughout the day even more people gathered for vigils outside St. Mary of the Nativity Church in East Salinas, where Cortes has served as pastor since June 2007. Some women cried, others vowed to fast until the priest's name is cleared.

Meanwhile, prosecutor Rolando Mazariego said Cortes' bail was increased to $750,000 because of the "danger to the community." And, in a statement delivered during Sunday Mass, Bishop Richard Garcia asked parishioners to cooperate with the investigation by Salinas police.

PEORIA (IL)
Catholic Culture

April 21, 2009
Ben Rodriguez, a former priest of the Diocese of Peoria ordained in 1991, has accused Father Gordon Pillon-- ordained in 1979-- of abusing him while he was a teenager.

Decades ago, Father Pillon was ministering in the southern California Diocese of Orange, but was incardinated in the Diocese of Peoria in 1993. The two ministered together in four parishes in Clinton and La Salle, Illinois, where Father Pillon served as pastor and Rodriguez as his assistant.

CALIFORNIA
The Californian

BY MARIA INES ZAMUDIO • mzamudio@thecalifornian.com • April 21, 2009

Monday's scheduled arraignment of a Salinas priest accused of child molestation was delayed until Wednesday, but that didn't stop several parishioners outside the courtroom from insisting on his innocence.

"Those are false accusations," said Aurora Bravo, while crying outside the courtroom. "If you went to our church and saw him for what he is, you would know that [accusations] are not true."

The Rev. Antonio Cortes of St. Mary of The Nativity Catholic Church was arrested last week on charges of unlawful sexual contact with a teenage boy.

STATEN ISLAND (NY)
Staten Island Advance

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
By PHIL HELSEL
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Franciscan priest serving at a Todt Hill friary was indicted yesterday in Texas on charges of forcing an adult female relative to service him sexually inside the rectory of the church where he was temporarily assigned last year.

The Rev. Stephen Valenta, 85, a Franciscan priest for more than 57 years who currently resides at the St. Francis Center for Spirituality on Todt Hill, was indicted by a Milam County, Texas, grand jury in the assault that allegedly occurred May 21 at the Rockdale church to which he was on loan.

"She was compelled to perform the act by Father Valenta," said Rockdale Police Lt. J.D. Newlin, who investigated the case. "Basically, she felt she had to do what he told her to do because of his position [with the church]."

SALINAS (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Monday, April 20, 2009

(04-20) 08:18 PDT Salinas, Calif. (AP) --

Monterey Diocese Bishop Richard Garcia has told members of a Salinas parish to trust the justice system and God as the church comes to grips with the sexual molestation arrest of one of their priests.

Rev. Jose Alberto Vazquez-Martin read Garcia's letter to members of St. Mary of the Nativity Catholic Church during Mass on Sunday.

PARAGUAY
Latin American Herald Tribune

ASUNCION – A Paraguayan woman said in a statement published on Monday in a daily newspaper that in 2002 she had a son by President Fernando Lugo, who recently acknowledged legally another child born of relations he had while still the Catholic bishop of the central province of San Pedro.

“What I want is that this gentleman acknowledge my son, that’s all I ask. I’ll wait one day for him, and if he doesn’t take responsibility, tomorrow I’ll file a complaint,” Benigna Leguizamon, 27, told reporters.

“The only proof I’ll have will be the DNA, because I’m mad at him (Lugo) and I burned all the photos of us together,” Leguizamon said.

PARAGUAY
ABC News

By ANDREA MACHAIN
ASUNCION, Paraguay, April 21, 2009

The president of Paraguay, who had already shocked his nation, and even the world, by confessing he had fathered a child with a young girl out of wedlock when he was a bishop, is facing a new paternity accusation.

The scandal may be more shocking than most to rock the political world because President Fernando Lugo was, at the time of the affair, a Catholic bishop and both of the young women were members of his flock.

STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By Scott Smith
Record Staff Writer
April 21, 2009 6:00 AM

STOCKTON - A judge assigned to oversee the trial of Melissa Huckaby, the Tracy woman charged with the kidnapping, rape and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, recused himself from the case Monday without once hearing it.

News of a judicial switch came as the Tracy Press reported that Huckaby was linked to a 7-year-old girl found drugged with muscle relaxers in January.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus will take up the case Friday, when Huckaby's public defender is expected to ask for an order to remove Sandra's remains from the Tracy Mausoleum for a second autopsy.

ATLANTA (GA)
Catholic News Agency

Atlanta, Ga., Apr 21, 2009 / 03:14 am (CNA).- The Legion of Christ and Southern Catholic College (SCC) have signed a memorandum that opens the possibility for the college to become a Legion institution. “We are excited about this development,” Jeremiah J. Ashcroft, president of SCC, said in a Monday statement. “By collaborating with the Legion, we’ll be able to attract students from across North America and develop programs with institutions around the world. This expanded reach and support greatly enhances our ability to achieve our mission to prepare moral and ethical leaders who will enlighten society and glorify God.”

Father Scott Reilly, LC, territorial director for the Legion, said the Legion can accelerate its desire to offer a “greater contribution” to higher education in North America by working with SCC. However, the agreement is “not a done deal yet.”

SPRINGFIELD (MO)
News-Leader

By Dirk VanderHart • dvanderhart@news-leader.com • April 20, 2009

A Springfield man who has sued the Logan-Rogersville School District, his former music teacher, and the former principal of Logan-Rogersville High School over alleged sexual abuse spoke out about the case this morning.

At a press conference outside the Springfield Police Department, 31-year-old Adam Walker said he’s come forward to create awareness about child sexual abuse, and increase scrutiny on former Logan-Rogersville music teacher Bradley T. Barrett. ...

He was accompanied by David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Clohessy noted the Chicago-based organization does not work solely against abuse in churches, but in any institution where trusted adults have the opportunity to prey on children.

BIRMINGHAM (AL)
CBS 42

Reported by: Anna Donaldson

The Huffman High School band director is on paid leave, accused of sexually abusing a student.

Patrick Whitehead was arrested over the weekend, and charged with sexual abuse by force, and sodomy. He's out of jail on a 75-thousand dollar bond.

Whitehead has been with the Birmingham City School System for seven years.

He also serves as a minister of music, at 16th street Baptist Church in Birmingham. ...

There are a couple of bills in the House right now, such as House Bill 810 sponsored by Representative Demetrius Newton. His bill would make it a crime for a school employee to engage in a sex act or have sexual contact with a student, male or female, regardless of age of the student.

CANADA
Northern News Service

Herb Mathisen
Northern News Services
Published Monday, April 20, 2009
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The Assembly of First Nations will be sending a delegation to the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on April 29.

Phil Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said he hopes the pope will issue a statement to address the role the Roman Catholic church played in operating residential schools and the harm it caused to aboriginal students who attended them.

"This will greatly assist the task of healing and reconciliation for survivors, Catholics and all Canadians," Fontaine stated in a press release.

MINNESOTA
Market Watch

ST. PAUL, Minn., Apr 20, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A judge in Minnesota Monday ruled two Catholic dioceses in the state can, for now, keep secret a list of their priests suspected of sexual abuse.

Ramsey County Judge Gregg Johnson's decision in favor of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona came in a lawsuit brought by Jeff Anderson on behalf of an alleged abuse victim, the Star Tribune reported.

Johnson said Anderson is entitled to the list but is barred from making it public as he had intended to do, the Minneapolis newspaper said.

MINNESOTA
WCCO

ST. PAUL (AP) ―

A judge has ruled that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona do not have to make public a list of priests suspected of sexual abuse.

Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul lawyer, was seeking the list as part of a lawsuit on behalf of an alleged abuse victim. Anderson was given the list Monday but is barred from revealing its contents.

CAMERON (TX)
Temple Daily Telegram

by Jeanne Williams | Cameron Writer
Published: April 21, 2009
CAMERON - The Rev. Steven Valenta, a Roman Catholic priest from Long Island, N.Y., was indicted by a Milam County grand jury on second-degree felony sexual assault and third-degree felony prohibited sexual contact in connection with an incident last May involving an adult female family member, District Attorney Kerry Spears said.

Grand jurors issued a direct indictment charging Valenta, 84, with sexual assault in connection with an oral sex incident, and a prohibited sexual contact charge because the incident involved a relative, Mrs. Spears said. The direct indictment means the grand jury heard the case and issued a true bill without the knowledge or arrest of the defendant.

Rockdale Police Lt. J.D. Newlin, who investigated the case, said a Rockdale woman reported to police in December that a sexual assault occurred last May when an interim priest who served St. Joseph Catholic Church for two weeks invited her to come to the rectory where the sexual assault occurred.

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By JEFF STRICKLER, Star Tribune

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona do not have to make public a list of priests suspected of abuse, Ramsey County Judge Gregg Johnson ruled today.

St. Paul lawyer Jeff Anderson is seeking the list as part of a suit he has filed on behalf of an abuse victim and had said that he was going to make the list public as soon as he got it. Anderson still will get the list, but he is barred from revealing its contents.

Lawyers for the church had argued that because church leaders thought the list would remain private, they had included everyone who had been accused regardless of whether the charges were proven. The list still can be used in the trial, but now only those charges supported by evidence can be introduced.

CALIFORNIA
San Jose Mercury News

By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer

ORANGE, Calif.—A former Roman Catholic priest has filed a lawsuit claiming that as a teenager in Southern California he was abused by a priest who was his mentor.

Ben Rodriguez, who left the priesthood in 2006, claims in the suit filed Monday that Gordon J. Pillon molested him multiple times from 1978 to 1981.

SANTA ANA (CA)
Los Angeles Times

A former Roman Catholic priest accused another former priest today of sexually abusing him in the rectory of a La Habra church when he was a teenager.

In a lawsuit filed in Santa Ana Superior Court, Ben Rodriguez, 45, said he was molested numerous times between the ages of 15 and 18 in the priest’s church apartment. On some occasions, the priest gave him muscle relaxants and sleeping pills before the abuse, Rodriguez alleged.

The lawsuit did not name the suspected priest, but Rodriguez identified him as Gordon J. Pillon in interviews and at a news conference today outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. At the news conference, Rodriguez handed out copies of a photograph of himself and Pillon, taken at the younger man’s confirmation nearly three decades ago.

BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen
Monday, April 20, 2009
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) -- A Baptist church that gained national prominence as the scene of a racially motivated bombing that killed four African-American girls in 1963 is now reeling from the weekend arrest of its music minister on charges of sexual abuse.

Police in Birmingham, Ala., arrested Patrick Jerome Whitehead April 18 and charged him with sexual abuse by force and sodomy on a student at a local high school where Whitehead works as band director.

Whitehead also worked as a music minister at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, a shrine of the Civil Rights Movement and host church for the recent New Baptist Covenant southeast regional meeting.

STATEN ISLAND (NY)
Staten Island Advance

by Staten Island Advance
Monday April 20, 2009, 3:00 PM

An 85-year-old priest from Staten Island has been indicted by a Texas grand jury on sex charges, according to a report.

A Milam County grand jury indicted Rev. Stephen Valenta on charges of sexual assault and prohibited sexual conduct, Texas-based News Channel 25 is reporting.

The indictment stems from an incident last May when Father Valenta came to Rockdale, Texas, as a fill-in priest while a local priest was out of state on training, according to the report.

ROCKDALE (TX)
KWTX

Reporter: By Paul J. Gately
Email Address: paul.gately@kwtx.com

ROCKDALE (April 20, 2009)--An 85-year-old priest has been indicted on charges of sexual assault and prohibited sexual conduct.

In 2008, Father Stephen Mary Valenta was sent to St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Rockdale from Staten Island, N.Y., to fill in for the local priest who was sent out of state for training.

The indictment stems from the sexual assault of a woman who police think is a relative during the period when Valenta was here.

TRACY (CA)
Tracy Press

by Jennifer Wadsworth

Melissa Chantel Huckaby, 28, is tied to a report that someone in January took a 7-year-old girl to a park for four hours and brought her back high on muscle relaxers.

The incident was reported on January 17 by a family in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park. Huckaby lived in the same complex, also where 8-year-old Sandra Cantu lived before police found her dead body on April 10. Police arrested Huckaby four days later on suspicion on kidnapping, raping and killing Sandra.

The January report alleges that someone took a 45-pound blue-eyed dark-haired girl to a park. The woman and the child were gone for four hours, from about 1:30 to after 5 p.m., according to the police log. The woman who took the girl drove a purple Kia Sportage, according to the report.

PARAGUAY
Momento 24 (Argentina)

A new parenthood claim was announced today against the president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, who already gave his surname last week to another child fruit of a relation carried out while Lugo was a roman catholic bishop.

Today the claim comes from Benign Leguizamón, a 27-year-old woman who has a son of six and makes sure that he is a son of Fernando Lugo.

“I am 100 % sure that the father of my son is Fernando Lugo Méndez”, affirmed Leguizamón and added: “The whole district of San Pedro knows that this liar is the father of my son”.

PARAGUAY
Trend News (Azerbaijan)

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo said Monday that he would cooperate with the courts to clear up a new paternity claim against him dating back to his time as a Roman Catholic bishop.

Lugo, 57, admitted last week that he fathered an illegitimate who is now 2 years old, in the wake of a legal complaint filed by the boy's mother. The most recent claim refers to a boy who is now 6.

Before becoming president in August, Lugo was a Roman Catholic bishop and therefore under a vow of celibacy.

PARAGUAY
The Associated Press

By PEDRO SERVIN

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Paraguay's president was hit with another paternity claim Monday, just a week after the former Roman Catholic bishop acknowledged fathering a different illegitimate child while still subject to his vows of chastity.

Lugo, 57, did not confirm nor deny fathering the 6-year-old boy, but read a brief statement promising to "act always in line with the truth and subject myself to all the requirements presented by the justice system." He also appealed for privacy, referring all questions about paternity claims to his lawyer.

PARAGUAY
CNN

ASUNCION, Paraguay (CNN) -- A second woman stepped forward Monday to say that Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo fathered a child out of wedlock when he was a Roman Catholic bishop.

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo says Monday he will comply with justice on the latest paternity allegation.

Benigna Leguizamon said Lugo fathered her son in 2002 in the city of San Pedro. She served notice that Lugo has 24 hours to acknowledge paternity or she will take le