Abuse Tracker

WEST VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Judy Block Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511, SNAPjudy@gmail.com

We hope this will be appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court. It’s important that the truth of what happened gets to be aired in open court. And it’s important that suspected child predators not walk free because of legal technicalities.

We know this victim and family. They are very credible and caring. This brave young man and his loved ones should be commended for coming forward quickly and having the courage and wisdom to contact law enforcement. (Many times victims are unable to promptly report their abuse - and are often criticized for that. In this case, however, this brave young victim stepped forward promptly.)

Regardless of whatever happens in the justice system, this victim has taken a key step toward healing himself and protecting other kids.

BELGIUM
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Dorris Outreach Director SNAPdorris@gmail.com 314 862 7688

The ball is now squarely in the court of 10 people.

Belgian Catholic officials now confirm that, just four months ago, Belgian Cardinal G Danneels a man once considered to be a likely candidate for Pope, tried to cover up admitted clergy child sex abuse, by urging a victim to stay silent. What’s worse is that Danneels did this even though the acknowledged predator was still in active ministry around kids and able to molest others.

Nine Belgian bishops, especially Danneels' successor Archbishop André-Mutien Léonard, should now publicly urge the Pope to discipline Danneels. If they don't, they are essentially endorsing Danneels' irresponsible, callous and hurtful actions. Staying silent about child sex cover ups is just as harmful as engaging in child sex cover ups.

The victim was smart for tape recording the meeting. We strongly urge victims to never meet alone with church officials. (Church officials almost never meet alone with victims.) In several instances, after a victim or advocate has met alone with church officials, those church officials claim money was extorted or threats were made. It's inherently dangerous and unwise for victims to meet alone with any church officials about abuse.

GERMANY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Blaine, SNAP President 312 399 4747

A lack of words on paper isn't causing this crisis and more words on paper won't fix it. For starters, every church official who ignored or concealed child sex crimes must be removed. Every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric must be exposed and suspended immediately. Unless and until those two steps are taken, everything else is window dressing.

This is part of the standard public relations playbook bishops use. For decades, nearly every diocese in which a major child sex abuse scandal has emerged has adopted or tweaked written policies. It rarely makes any real difference, other than mollifying some naive parishioners.

The problem isn't inadequate policies, it's a corrupt structure and system, in which bishops exercise virtually limitless power and are accountable to virtually no one.

Just months ago, Belgium's most powerful Catholic official tried hard to keep admitted child sex crimes by a bishop covered up. He tried to guilt-trip and sweet-talk a deeply wounded man to protect the church's image. No policy, regardless of what it says, would have prevented such wrong-doing or will prevent it in the future.

GERMANY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell)

The policy is backwards. It largely implies that clergy sex crimes and cover ups are past tense. They are not. Any bishop's first job must be to stop and prevent current and future child sex crimes.

This is a substantially weaker version of the very weak and only sporadically enforced US bishops' policy. It essentially keeps all of the power and discretion with the same bishops and church structure that has, for decades, ignored and concealed and enabled the horrific assaults on thousands of kids, and still does. There's no pledge of openness or any guarantees that predators will be exposed or suspended from ministry. It's window dressing, nothing more.

Under 'publicity,' there's not even a mention of transparency. The policy calls on church officials to warn one another when transferring a predator but not the public or the parishioners.

BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

Volgens Fernand Keuleneer, de advocaat van Godfried Danneels, heeft de krant De Standaard een karaktermoord gepleegd op de kardinaal. Dat zegt hij in het christelijke weekblad Tertio.

De krant pakte afgelopen zaterdag uit met de transcripties van twee geluidsopnamen die het slachtoffer maakte van het gesprek met Danneels en Vangheluwe. Daaruit blijkt dat Danneels het seksueel misbruik geheim wilde houden tot bisschop Vangheluwe op pensioen zou gaan.

Volgens Keuleneer is er sprake van een gekleurde sfeerschepping. De man zegt dat de transcripties onvolledig zijn. Ook zegt hij dat het gaat om "het toepassen van methodes die met het objectief zoeken naar de waarheid niets te maken hebben". "Dit is karaktermoord", besluit hij.

BELGIE
KerkNet

BRUSSEL (KerkNet/KERK&leven) "Niemand twijfelt aan de goede bedoelingen van kardinaal Godfried Danneels om mensen in nood te helpen. Achteraf beschouwd lijdt het evenwel geen twijfel dat hij een inschattingsfout heeft gemaakt door in te gaan op het verzoek van Roger Vangheluwe, de toenmalige bisschop van Brugge, voor een bemiddelend gesprek met diens neef en familie." Dat schrijft Bert Claerhout, de hoofdredacteur van KERK & leven in zijn wekelijkse column die verschijnt in KERK & leven van woensdag 8 september.

Volgens Claerhout kwam kardinaal Danneels als een hond in een kegelspel terecht. "Geconfronteerd met een getormenteerde familie en niet wetend in welke verwerkingsfase het slachtoffer verkeerde, werd hij met onduidelijke en tegengestelde verwachtingen geconfronteerd. Wie hem beter kent, weet dat Danneels altijd bereid is tot een pastoraal gesprek. Ook in de ontmoeting met Vangheluwes slachtoffer hanteerde hij een uitgesproken pastoraal register."

BELGIE
De Standaard

woensdag 01 september 2010

'Je moet alles in zijn tijdsgeest bekijken', zei Vlaams parlementslid Johan Sauwens (CD&V). Volgens hem kunnen we alleen zo de houding begrijpen die kardinaal Godfried Danneels had aangenomen tijdens dat trieste gesprek met het slachtoffer van bisschop Roger Vangheluwe.

Vrijwel alle katholieke opiniemakers die gisteren in deze krant reageerden op de zogeheten Danneels-tapes, maakten een verwijzing naar 'de historische context', zoals zuster Monica Van Kerrebroeck het van haar kant noemde.

De redenering luidt dan: vroeger (wanneer?) dacht men anders over kindermisbruik. Dat is juist, maar so what? Ook in dat 'vroeger' was pedofilie een zonder meer strafbaar feit. En wat betekent het argument in dit geval, dat tenslotte niet zomaar een incidentje was, maar gaat om systematisch seksueel misbruik gedurende zeker twaalf jaar, dat begon toen het slachtoffer amper een kleuter van vijf was.

BELGIE
De Standaard

woensdag 01 september 2010

In een recht van antwoord beschuldigt de advocaat van kardinaal Danneels De Standaard van karaktermoord. We publiceren hieronder de integrale tekst en een nawoord van de hoofdredactie, zodat de lezer zich een oordeel kan vormen.

Op zaterdag 28 augustus heeft De Standaard een karaktermoord gepleegd op kardinaal Danneels. Uw krant heeft een gedeelte van de transcriptie van de geïmproviseerde en mislukte verzoeningspoging die de kardinaal op 8 april 2010 ondernam met de familie Vangheluwe gepubliceerd. Daarbij heeft De Standaard bepaalde passages in het rood gemarkeerd, en de tekst verder voorzien van uiterst gekleurde commentaar.

Vrijwel iedereen is het erover eens dat aan de kardinaal juridisch niets verweten kan worden. Wij menen daarenboven dat de kardinaal ook vanuit moreel oogpunt correct heeft gehandeld.

GERMANY
The Irish Times

DEREK SCALLY in Berlin

GERMAN CATHOLIC bishops have vowed to report to state prosecutors all suspected cases of clerical child abuse.

Guidelines presented yesterday are the answer of the Catholic Church in Germany to a wave of abuse cases that came to light earlier this year. “The terrible events and experiences of the past months showed us that the guidelines from 2002 were not precise enough,” said Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, a special abuse commissioner of the church.

“Thus, we put the guidelines under critical scrutiny and tightened them up further.”

LANSING (MI)
WLNS

A local man says his life has been a living hell after he realized he'd been sexually abused by a Lansing priest more than 50 years ago. He spoke out about the alleged incident. Gregory Guggemos came forward as that victim. The former attorney got a settlement worth 225,000 dollars earlier this month paid by the Lansing Diocese.

Though the diocese won't admit the abuse happened, Guggemos says the sexual abuse occurred when he lived at Lansings' St. Vincent Orphanage from 1954 to 1955. He says Monsignor John Slowey, who ran the orphanage, is the man who assaulted him. Guggemos says he repressed the memories of what happened for decades. He says it wasn't until 1999 when he read several cases of sex abuse by priests throughout the United States--and visited the orphanage, that memories came flooding back.

Gregory Guggemos, sexual abuse victim: "When I saw his picture, I threw all the papers in the air and started crying uncontrollably. When i saw Slowey's picture, I had an immediate flashback to him, the orphanage, and one incident of being sexually abused. When I saw Slowey's picture and had the flashback, I immediate felt that all the questions, suspicions and fears I had for a number of years that I was sexually abused at the orphanage were confirmed."

GEORGIA
Savannah Morning News

By Dana Clark Felty
A priest formerly in charge of three southeast Georgia Catholic missions has been cleared of charges he sexually abused a child.

The Rev. Bob Poandl was serving as pastor of St. Christopher in Claxton, Holy Cross in Pembroke and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Sand Hill when he was accused June 9, 2009, of sexual misconduct in the early 1990s with a West Virginia child.

The Glenmary Home Missioners, the religious order that operates the three missions, immediately placed Poandl on administrative leave and transferred him to the order’s headquarters in Cincinnati.

INDIA
Times of India

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There seems no end to Church's woes as far as "God's own country" is concerned. After ex-nun Sister Jesmi's tell-all book on the dark side of the convent life, it's now the turn of a former priest to expose what he claims "sexual anarchy among the clergy and the faithful".

The book, 'Here is The Heart of a Priest' by K P Shibu, who left the Vicentian Congregation after 11 years, is autobiographical and slams the "indulgent and licentious life-style of a section of the clergy". Writing about his days with the congregation, Shibu (38) alleges, "Homosexuality and adult films had become a part of their lifestyle... a section of priests and nuns were driven by lust for power and money. Mismanagement of funds was also rampant in institutions under the order."

LANSING (MI)
The Injury Board Blog

Posted by David Mittleman
August 31, 2010

[The following is the text of the prepared statement read by my client at today's press conference]

My name is Gregory J. Guggemos. I am married and my wife and I have 2 sons and 5 grandchildren. I am the person who my attorney Dave Mittleman referred to during his press conference last week who settled my claim for sexual abuse with the Lansing Diocese (“Diocese”) for $225,000.

Today I will be reading to you a prepared written statement outlining the factual background beginning with the events which occurred from June of 1954 through the time the settlement agreement was signed by me and the Bishop for the Diocese. I will not answer any questions when I conclude reading my prepared statement. Any questions must be addressed to Dave Mittleman. I may, at sometime in the future, be willing to answer questions from the media. I ask each of you to respect my position on this issue.

My decision to go public with what occurred to me has been a very difficult one for me and my family to make. We decided to provide the media with this written statement because it is the right thing to do for two primary reasons.

LANSING (MI)
WILX

Reporter: Jamie Edmonds
Email Address: jamie.edmonds@wilx.com

Gregory Guggemos said the past few years have been unbearable.

"When I saw his picture, I threw all the papers up in the air and started crying uncontrollably," Guggemos said. "When I saw Slowey's picture, i immediately had a flashback to him, the orphanage and being sexually abused by him."

He said memories of his sexual abuse at the hands of Father John Slowey, while he stayed at the St. Vincent home for Children back in the 50s, have come back to him as an adult like a flood. It started with a tour of the home back in 2008.

GERMANY
BBC News

The Catholic Church in Germany has issued tougher guidelines on the handling of reports of sex abuse.

The revised rules insist all allegations must be reported to prosecutors in an attempt to prevent cases being covered up.

But critics say the new advice does not go far enough to tackle the issue.

The Catholic Church in Germany and other European countries has been hit by repeated accusations of abuse.

GERMANY
Sydney Morning Herald

Simon Sturdee
September 1, 2010

AFP

Germany's Catholic Church unveiled on Tuesday tougher guidelines on investigating and preventing child sex abuse that it hopes will stop a repeat of the hugely damaging scandals of this year.

"The dreadful findings and experiences of recent months have shown us that the (previous) guidelines of 2002 were imprecise in some areas," said Stephan Ackermann, bishop of Trier, as he presented the new rules.

"It was important for us bishops to make sure that ... the new guidelines prevent cases of sexual abuse being covered up," Ackermann, who was tapped by the German Episcopal Conference to draw up the new code, told reporters.

UNITED STATES
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

August 31st, 2010

Because the reporting on the Vangheluwe - Danneels case is in Dutch, much of the information is difficult to access.

One important piece of background has recently surfaced. Tom Heneghan of Reuters wrote to Austen Ivereigh at America:

What is not said in the transcripts but was reported in the other paper running the transcripts (Het Nieuwsblad) is that the victim was moved to speak out after learning that Vangheluwe had consecrated a deacon who was a child abuser. One of his victims later committed suicide. Vangheluwe’s victim felt this might have been avoided if he had spoken out about Vangheluwe years ago. The victim cannot just accept an apology from his uncle, he feels a duty to do more, but he does not come across as vengeful. At one point early on, he even says to Danneels that if he (D) suggests a coverup is the only way, he might have to learn to live with that. But then he pulls himself together again and says Vangheluwe simply cannot stay in office if the Church is to stand for anything at all.

Ivereigh is backing away from his attempt to soften Danneels action or rather refusal to act. Danneels was caught on tape acting like bishops usually act and will continue to act. And Danneels will suffer no consequences, nor will any future bishop who covers up sexual abuse suffer any consequences, and they know it. Until we get a true reforming pope like Pius V, the hierarchy will continue to tolerate abuse whenever they can get away with it – which is almost always.

BELGIE
RKnieuws

IEPER (RKnieuws.net) - De schandalen in de kerk hebben ook hun vertakkingen in Vlamertinge. Diaken Marc V. werkte ondanks een eerdere veroordeling voor misbruik nog steeds in de Kortrijkse school Ter Bruyninge. Daar wist de directrice tot gisteren niets van een veroordeling, want de man kon een bewijs van goed gedrag en zeden voorleggen. Nu werd Marc V. op ziekteverlof gestuurd.

Ook in de Sint-Vedastusparochie van Vlamertinge wordt de diaken op non-actief gezet. De man werd in de jaren 80 immers schuldig bevonden aan de verkrachting van een minderjarige, die nadien zelfmoord pleegde, maar hij kreeg opschorting van straf. Later werd hij tot diaken gewijd, ook al had de moeder van het slachtoffer daartegen fel geprotesteerd bij bisschop Vangheluwe.

[summary]

A deacon named Marc V. worked in Vlamertinge despite a previous conviction for abuse and he is still working in a school. The school director knew nothing of the conviction until yesterday because the man came with a certificate of good conduct. The man before ordination was convicted in the 1980s of abusing a minor, who later committed suicide, but he was given a suspended sentence. The victim's mother complained to Bishop Vangheluwe but he was ordained a deacon anyway.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

By Jason Brudereck
Reading Eagle

The Allentown Diocese is working with the Vatican to defrock a priest accused of sexually abusing a 19-year-old woman and impregnating her after counseling her at Central Catholic High School.

The process, called laicization, removes a priest from a clerical state, diocese spokesman Matt Kerr said Tuesday.

A lawsuit on behalf of the woman's parents was filed last week in Berks County Court seeking more than $300,000 in damages from the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito, the Allentown Diocese, Central Catholic, Allentown Bishop John O. Barres and the diocese's former bishop, Edward P. Cullen.

LANSING (MI)
Lansing State Journal

Kathleen Lavey • klavey@lsj.com • August 31, 2010

LANSING -- Attorney Gregory Guggemos has identified himself as the man who settled a decades-old sex abuse claim against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing for $225,000 earlier this month.

Guggemos, his voice sometimes breaking with emotion, read a 10-page statement at his attorney's office today. detailing the years-long process of recalling the abuse.

Guggemos says he was abused by Monsignor John Slowey at the St. Vincent home for children while he and three siblings stayed there for portions of 1954 and 1955.

BELGIUM
Catholic News Service

By Jonathan Luxmoore
Catholic News Service

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- A spokesman for Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels said the transcript of an April meeting with a victim of clergy sex abuse has been interpreted out of context.

"There was no intention of any cover-up," said Toon Osaer, spokesman for the cardinal, who retired in January as archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels.

"Seen from today's perspective, the cardinal realizes he was rather naive to think he could help the family in question reach a reconciliation," he told Catholic News Service Aug. 30. "At that moment, however, the family didn't want to make public something they'd kept secret for 24 years."

BELGIE
De Standaard

31 augustus 2010, 20u24

Fernand Keuleneer, de advocaat van kardinaal Godfried Danneels, stelt dat De Standaard karaktermoord pleegde op Danneels.

Lees het recht van antwoord van kardinaal Godfried Danneels morgen in De Standaard

UNITED STATES
Religion in the News

by Andrew Walsh

Even in the hands of relatively buttoned-down practitioners of mainstream American journalism, blogs are megaphones. So Ross Douthat, the New York Times’ conservative columnist, was engaging in conscious hyperbole when his June 9 blog in the Atlantic carried the headline, “The Catholic Church is finished.”

“This was the year when the cover-up of priestly sex abuse, a long-simmering crisis for Catholicism, became something much, much bigger,” Douthat wrote. And, indeed, coverage of the crisis in all forms of media during early 2010 surged to the highest level since 2002.

The surge occurred because the abuse crisis came home to Europe, with scandals convulsing Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. Above all, the coverage focused attention on the Vatican and on high-level church leaders, with a cast of characters including the Belgian police, German Chancelor Angela Merkel, and the New York Times showering the church leadership with very hostile questions about their handling of the crisis over the past 20 years.

MALTA
Times of Malta

Claudia Calleja

It was now the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Malta to conclude “in a timely manner” its investigation into the alleged abuse that took place in a Church orphanage 20 years ago, a top Vatican official said yesterday confirming that his own report into the case had been concluded.

Last June, Mgr Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, held meetings with some of the eight men who seven years ago alleged they had been abused by priests in a home for boys in Sta Venera in the 1980s and 1990s.

His aim was to gather direct information to supplement the work being done on the case by the Curia in the hope that the full investigation would be concluded “expeditiously”.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

By Ben Leubsdorf / Monitor staff
August 31, 2010article tools

A priest who formerly served as a chaplain at Magdalen College in Warner has been charged with sexually touching an 11-year-old girl in northern Virginia.

The Rev. Felix Owino, 44, was arrested in Fairfax County, Va., on July 7 and charged with a single count of aggravated sexual battery, the police said. He is being held without bail and is set to appear Thursday in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, which hears cases involving crimes against children.

The court declined to say if Owino has a lawyer. The battery charge is a felony carrying one to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

KENYA
Mwakilishi

A priest who had served as chaplain at a small New Hampshire Catholic college was arrested in Virginia last month and charged with sexual assault against an 11-year-old girl, two activists organizations said yesterday.

The Rev. Felix Owino was arrested in Herndon, Va., which is about 25 miles west of Washington, D.C. A Fairfax County police spokesman said Owino was considered a longtime friend of the alleged victim's family.

A native of Nairobi, Kenya, Owino served as chaplain of Magdalen College in Warner from June 2005 to October 2008, the college said yesterday. He was a member of the Africa-based Apostles of Jesus missionary worder.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A young lodger killed an 81-year-old vicar in his home and then dismembered his body because of his sexual abuse, Lewes Crown Court has heard.

Christopher Hunnisett allegedly drowned the Rev Ronald Glazebrook in the bath at the churchman's home in St Leonards, East Sussex, in April 2001.

Prosecutor Philip Katz said that Mr Hunnisett, now 26, who denies murder, was going to claim he was trying to stop the vicar sexually abusing him. ...

He told the court: "There is evidence that the relationship between the deceased and the defendant had deteriorated to the extent that the priest wanted the defendant out of his flat and the defendant knew that."

Mr Katz said there was no suggestion of sexual abuse during the original trial and Mr Hunnisett was introducing a "wholly unlikely story" at his retrial.

GERMANY
Earth Times

Trier, Germany - Germany's Catholic bishops have ordered all future allegations of child molestation to be reported to police, said Stephan Ackermann, the bishop in charge of the issue, on Tuesday.

The guidelines, replacing 2002 German rules that gave church officials some discretion whether to call police over unproven allegations, are to go into force on Wednesday, said Ackermann.

The church has faced criticism around the globe that it failed to properly investigate child-sex allegations against church staff, or kept the cases secret, or re-assigned guilty priests to new jobs where children were again at risk.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
WFMZ

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- The Diocese of Allentown has begun the process of defrocking a priest who is accused of impregnating a teenage girl.

Spokesman Matt Kerr said the diocese began putting paperwork together over the weekend for the process known as removal from the clerical state, more popularly known as defrocking.

Kerr said the final decision is up to the Vatican.

Berks County District Attorney John Adams said he won't file charges against the Rev. Luis Bonilla Margarito because the relationship started when the girl was 18.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Canadian Press

By Patrick Walters (CP)

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania has begun the process to defrock a priest whose dalliances with a teenage girl were videotaped by her parents. She later gave birth to a daughter.

But Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams says his office won't press charges against the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito because the relationship started when the girl was 18.

A spokesman says the Diocese of Allentown began putting paperwork together over the weekend for the process known as removal from the clerical state — popularly known as defrocking. The diocesan spokesman, Matt Kerr, says the final decision is up to the Vatican.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Adrian Rutherford
Tuesday, 31 August 2010

A victim of the Claudy bombing has criticised Edward Daly after the retired bishop said the priest accused of masterminding the IRA atrocity deserved a presumption of innocence.

Mary Hamilton accused Bishop Daly of “rubbing salt in the wounds” of Claudy’s victims after he cast doubt on Fr James Chesney’s involvement in the 1972 massacre.

Nine people were killed and more than 30 injured when three no-warning bombs exploded in the Co Londonderry village.

WASHINGTON
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By JESSIE STENSLAND
WHIDBEY NEWS TIMES

Another former altar boy has come forward to accuse a now-defrocked Oak Harbor priest of sexually abusing him 30 years ago.

A 42-year-old former Whidbey Island resident has filed a civil lawsuit in King County Superior Court against the Seattle Archdiocese for alleged childhood sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Barry Ashwell.

Ashwell served as pastor of St. Augustine Church in Oak Harbor from 1978 to 2000. The Archdiocese placed him on administrative leave when a sexual abuse allegation became public through a lawsuit in 2002.

ICELAND
Iceland Review

Almost 50 priests met three women who accused former Bishop Ólafur Skúlason (who died in 2008) of sexual harassment in 1996 in the church Vídalínskirkja in Gardabaer yesterday and listened to their stories.

“It was a valuable experience and I thank these women heartily for speaking with us after all this time and all this silence. They told us about pain and anger and this time the priests didn’t stand and hold long speeches but learnt. I believe we all learnt something and I am extremely grateful for that,” Rev. Sigrídur Gudmarsdóttir of Grafarholt in Reykjavík told visir.is.

Rev. Thórhallur Heimisson of Hafnarfjördur said the meeting had been very emotional. “It was good to meet the women and listen to their stories and hopefully for them to hear how we feel.”

GERMANY
The Local

Germany's Catholic Church unveiled on Tuesday tougher guidelines on investigating and preventing child sex abuse that it hopes will stop a repeat of the hugely damaging scandals of this year.

"The dreadful findings and experiences of recent months have shown us that the (previous) guidelines of 2002 were imprecise in some areas," said Stephan Ackermann, bishop of Trier, as he presented the new rules.

"It was important for us bishops to make sure that ... the new guidelines prevent cases of sexual abuse being covered up," Ackermann, who was tapped by the German Episcopal Conference to draw up the new code, told reporters.

GERMANY
Houston Chronicle

By MELISSA EDDY and KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press Writers
Aug. 31, 2010

BERLIN — Germany's Roman Catholic church introduced new guidelines Tuesday on handling reports of sexual abuse that require prosecutors to be informed of any suspected cases.

The expanded guidelines come in response to hundreds of allegations of abuse at the hands of clergy that emerged earlier this year and rocked the church in Germany — Pope Benedict XVI's homeland.

Stephan Ackermann, the Bishop of Trier who was tapped by church authorities to lead the revision of the 2002 guidelines, said special attention had been given to the issue of involving law enforcement officials.

CONNECTICUT
MN-SNAP

Press Release
For immediate release August 31, 2010
Contact: Paul Kendrick 207-838 1319/

A Fairfield University alumnus will hold a demonstration and hand out fliers on the Fairfield University campus to protest the abandonment of child sex abuse victims in Haiti by Fairfield University sponsored admitted child rapist.

For two and one-half years, Fairfield University has abandoned and ignored the homeless, street children in Haiti who were sexually abused by Douglas Perlitz, former executive director of Fairfield University created and sponsored – Project Pierre Toussaint.

Fairfield University President Jeffrey von Arx won’t even help the victims by donating a measly $2 per day, per boy, to help provide for their basic needs of food, water, safe shelter, medicine and education.

BALTIMORE (MD)
The Examiner

Associated Press
08/31/10 7:10 AM PDT BALTIMORE — A former Catholic school teacher convicted of raping one of his students in the mid-1970s has filed an appeal that he hopes will improve his chances of being released from prison.

A federal judge has ruled that John Merzbacher had ineffective counsel because his attorneys didn't give him a chance to accept a 10-year plea deal before his 1995 trial. Judge Andre Davis ordered that Merzbacher should be offered the plea deal again — but he said a judge "must express a willingness" to go along with the deal.

Merzbacher's appeal seeks to strike down that caveat in Davis' ruling. He says in court papers that it's not likely that a judge "would approve such a plea agreement today."

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Published: 6:27AM BST 31 Aug 2010

Cardinal Seán Brady has faced widespread criticism over his handling of a clergy child abuse scandal, and for his refusal to apologise after a priest was allowed to evade questioning over an IRA bombing.

But he defiantly told an Irish newspaper that he would not be stepping down and that he hoped to attend many of the engagements during Benedict XVI’s historic state visit to Scotland and England in three weeks’ time.

“I plan to accompany Pope Benedict in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Birmingham,” said Cardinal Brady, the head of the church in Ireland.

GHANA
Joy

A first degree felony charge against a randy Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Father Charles Asamoah of Bodwesango, has been dropped as a result of an out-of-court settlement.

The 32-year-old was convicted and sentenced by an Obuasi circuit court to pay a fine of GH¢800 for hacking his lover girl over an issue of infidelity at the St. Louis Parish's mission house.

Fr. Asamoah was convicted after pleading guilty to two counts of causing unlawful harm and threat of death to Janet Dwamena Agyapomaa aka Yaa Kwahu.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

The Catholic Church has got itself in another horrible mess of its own making.

By continuing to cast doubt on the Police Ombudsman's report into the Claudy bombing - and in particular the central allegation that a priest was one of those involved in the atrocity - it stands accused today of being in denial. Indeed, most commentators will see the church's stance on Claudy as reverting to type and adopting the same position as it did when confronted with allegations of clerical abuse of children. It seems that when the church feels itself under attack it retreats into a siege mentality, defending itself only by rounding on its critics rather than addressing the criticisms.

In the case of Claudy, it is clear from the Police Ombudsman's lengthy inquiry that Cardinal Conway agreed with the then Secretary of State, William Whitelaw, to send the priest to a parish in Donegal. The cardinal described his errant cleric as "a very bad man". Why would the church allow civic authorities to brand one of its clergymen as a terrorist, if it did not have grave suspicions about his activities? Why would the priest allow himself to be railroaded out of the province if innocent?

VERO BEACH (CA)
Miami Herald

The Associated Press
VERO BEACH, Fla. -- South Florida investigators are looking for a counselor and former Catholic priest who allegedly planted child pornography on the computer of another former priest.

Alfred Justin Boulerice faces charges of trespassing, tampering with evidence and making a false report to law enforcement.

The investigation began last year, when someone anonymously called police and said they saw child pornography on a computer belonging to Gerald Lamothe. He was arrested and charged, but exonerated in February after an informant told police the pictures were planted.

UNITED STATES/IRELAND
Irish Central

By DARA KELLY, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

A major search is underway for Oliver O'Grady, the elusive Limerick priest who was deported to Ireland 10 years ago after being jailed for sexually abusing two boys. American law firm Manly, McGuire and Stewart now want to serve the defrocked Irish priest with papers for a civil action on behalf of his alleged victims.

The firm has hired a private detective to track down the Limerick man who has been reported to be living in Limerick, Dublin and also Holland, and may now be residing in a hostel in Dublin city center.

Patrick Wall, one of the U.S. representatives of the law firm, is a former Roman Catholic Priest and Benedictine monk, and is an expert on the abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church where he has been consulted on more than 200 cases of clerical abuse in the United States.

MICHIGAN
WILX

A man who says he was abused by a local priest will identify himself at a press conference Tuesday.

That's according to a press release issued by his attorney.

The man is expected to talk about his experience and explain why he believes Michigan's child sex abuse laws need to change.

WEST VIRGINIA
Dayton Daily News

SPENCER, W.Va. — A judge has dismissed charges against a Fairfield, Ohio priest accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy while the two visited a West Virginia church in 1991.

Roane County Circuit Judge David W. Nibert dismissed the charges against The Rev. Robert F. Poandl on Friday with prejudice, meaning prosecutors could not refile the same charges against Poandl. Nibert delayed his ruling for 90 days so prosecutors could appeal to the state Supreme Court.

One of Poandl's lawyers, Anita Ashley, said Monday that Nibert dismissed the case because the accuser had failed to comply with a court order to produce medical records.

SPOKANE (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By JOHN STUCKE
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

SPOKANE, Wash. -- The Catholic Diocese of Spokane is broaching a consequence of its bankruptcy once thought unthinkable - the sale of churches to pay victims of clergy sex abuse.

New claims of abuse that occurred decades ago continue to be filed, approved and paid, draining a special $1 million fund that now needs replenishing as part of the legal settlement the diocese signed to end its bankruptcy.

If the diocese and a select group of parishes fail to raise the necessary new funds, the trustee in charge of carrying out the bankruptcy settlement is duty-bound to begin the foreclosure process to collect the money.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

A young lodger killed an elderly vicar in his own home before chopping up his body because he claimed he had been sexually abused, a court heard today.

Former church server Christopher Hunnisett allegedly drowned 81-year-old Reverend Ronald Glazebrook in his bath and then dismembered his body in 2001.

Together with a friend, Jason Groves, Hunnisett, then aged 17, went on to scatter the retired vicar's body parts at woodland spots across East Sussex.

BELGIE
Nederlands Dagblad

BRUSSEL - De Belgische kardinaal Godfried Danneels heeft geprobeerd de zaak rond de ex-bisschop van Brugge die zijn neefje jarenlang seksueel misbruikte in de doofpot te stoppen.

De Vlaamse kranten De Standaard en Het Nieuwsblad hebben dat zaterdag gemeld. Zij baseren zich op een geluidsopname van een confrontatie tussen Danneels, de bisschop en het slachtoffer.

Bisschop Roger Vangheluwe van Brugge legde in april zijn functie neer nadat hij het misbruik van zijn neef had toegegeven. Eerder had er een gesprek plaats tussen Danneels, Vangheluwe en het slachtoffer. Uit een bandopname die de neef daarvan zelf stiekem maakte, blijkt dat Danneels aandrong op geheimhouding, in ieder geval zo lang Vangheluwe nog niet met pensioen was. De neef wilde dat zijn oom ontslag nam.

BELGIE
Sargasso

“Ah! We kunnen ook, zoals ik al zei vergiffenis vragen en vergiffenis geven, dat is ook nog een mogelijkheid.”
(Kardinaal Danneels in De Standaard, 28 augustus 2010, transcriptie van de Danneels-tapes, geen link)

Je moet maar durven. Op 8 april dit jaar heeft kardinaal Godfried Danneels, tot voor kort de hoogste prelaat binnen de Belgische katholieke kerk, een slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik voorgesteld om te wachten met openbaarmaking tot de dader met pensioen zou gaan: ‘Eigenlijk, monseigneur gaat volgend jaar zijn ontslag geven, eigenlijk zou dat beter zijn dat je wacht.’ Het slachtoffer was notabene dertien jaar lang, tot zijn achttiende, misbruikt door zijn oom, bisschop Roger Vangheluwe.

BELGIE
De Redactie

De advocate van het slachtoffer van de ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe vraagt een duidelijk antwoord van de huidige aartsbisschop André Léonard. Ze ontkent ook dat er een tweede gesprek zou komen, iets wat Godfried Danneels beweerde.

VRT Vrijdag is een opname uitgelekt van een gesprek tussen de voormalige aartsbisschop Godfried Danneels en het slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik door Roger Vangheluwe. In tegenstelling tot wat Danneels enkele maanden geleden beweerde, blijkt uit de tapes dat hij vooral probeerde om de zaak toe te dekken. Hij vroeg het slachtoffer om minstens te wachten tot na het pensioen van Vangheluwe om met het verhaal naar buiten te komen. De neef van Vangheluwe is nu 42 en werd tijdens zijn jeugd jarenlang misbruikt.

BELGIQUE
RTL

La victime de l'ancien évêque de Bruges Roger Vangheluwe a rendu publics les enregistrements pris lors d'une rencontre avec le cardinal Danneels. Il apparaît que l'ancien primat de l'Eglise catholique belge voulait garder le secret sur l'affaire. Ce que nie fermement l'intéressé via son porte-parole.

Dans le cadre de l'affaire des actes d'abus commis par l'ancien évêque de Bruges Roger Vangheluwe, la presse flamande publie ce samedi le contenu d'enregistrements faits par la victime lors de la confrontation en présence du cardinal Godfried Danneels.

BELGIE
Kerknieuws

DI 31 aug 2010 | 08.47

De Belgische kardinaal Danneels heeft via zijn tijdelijke woordvoerder laten weten "dat het nooit zijn bedoeling is geweest om het misbruik door oud-bisschop Vangheluwe in de doofpot te willen stoppen".

Verder laat hij weten dat hij binnen een vertrouwelijke context wilde zoeken naar mogelijke oplossingen. "Op geen enkel ogenblik is er bij het slachtoffer noch bij de familie op aangedrongen het geval 'geheim te houden'en niet naar het gerecht te stappen".

Danneels betreurt het dat de vertrouwelijke gesprekken openbaar zijn gemaakt.

BELGIE
De Standaard

dinsdag 31 augustus 2010

MAART

Het 42-jarige slachtoffer telefoneert naar zijn oom-bisschop, Roger Vangheluwe, die hem misbruikte van zijn vijfde tot zijn achttiende jaar. Hij vraagt een afspraak met zijn oom en vraagt dat ook diens 'overste', die hij niet bij naam noemt, erbij zou zijn.

Het gonst in die periode in de pers van verhalen over misbruik in de katholieke Kerk in andere landen. In zijn eerste paasmis als nieuwe aartsbisschop van ons land verwijst André Léonard naar de recente schandalen rond pedofilie in de Kerk. Die mogen niet in de doofpot, zegt Léonard in zijn homilie. Het slachtoffer vat daardoor na vele jaren van twijfel moed en vindt dat het tijd is om de hiërarchie van de kerk eindelijk ook persoonlijk te vertellen dat zijn oom hem al die jaren heeft misbruikt. Uit schaamte en onder druk van zijn katholieke entourage heeft hij dat nooit eerder gedurfd.

(Priester Rik Devillé beweert dat hij Danneels in de jaren negentig wél op de hoogte bracht van het misbruik door Vangheluwe, nadat een vertrouwenspersoon van het slachtoffer hem het verhaal had verteld. Dat gebeurde zonder het medeweten van het slachtoffer zelf, red.)

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

dinsdag 31 augustus 2010, 12u29

Het Brusselse parket opent een gerechtelijk onderzoek na de lekken over het arrest van de KI in de zaak Operatie Kelk. Dat meldt het parket.

De zaak draait rond een arrest dat de kamer van inbeschuldigingstelling (KI) op 13 augustus uitsprak over operatie Kelk. De inhoud van dat arrest bleef geheim op vraag van onderzoeksrechter De Troy. Maar VTM meldde vorige vrijdag dat het toch inzage had gekregen en ook eerder waren al berichten over de inhoud opgedoken.

Het arrest van de KI sprak zich uit over de huiszoekingen bij de commissie-Adriaenssens, die onderzoeksrechter De Troy had laten uitvoeren in zijn gerechtelijk onderzoek naar kindermisbruik en een eventuele doofpotoperatie daarrond binnen de katholieke Kerk. Het werd achter gesloten deuren uitgesproken en op vraag van de onderzoeksrechter werd de inhoud niet bekendgemaakt.

DES MOINES (IA)
Radio Iowa

by Dar Danielson on August 27, 2010

The Catholic Diocese of Des Moines says thieves were able to electronically steal over $600,000 from one of the organizations bank accounts. Diocese spokeswoman, Anne Marie Cox, says they were notified by the bank on August 17th. Cox says as soon as the learned about the fraud, they closed all the relevant accounts and began looking at recovering the funds.

The F.B.I. is investigating and the U.S. Treasury has been notified, and Cox says it looks as though all the proper procedures were followed and no bank staff or diocese employees are believed to be involved. Cox says they also want to reassure donors they are safe.

Cox says the bank has assured them that no donor accounts that use automatic donation have been compromised. “Law enforcement tells us that we seem to have been victim of a highly sophisticated operation,” Cox says. Cox says they are working to get all the money back.

DES MOINES (IA)
KCCI

The Diocese of Des Moines said Friday that it is missing $600,000 from its bank account.

Officials said criminals illegally obtained its banking information on Aug. 13 and Aug. 16 in order to transfer more than $600,000 of diocesan funds to numerous recipients across the United States.

The diocese was notified for the transfer by Bankers Trust on Aug. 17. Officials said all relevant bank accounts were shut down and the bank immediately initiated the process of recovering funds where possible.

Officials said that as of Friday approximately $180,000 has been recovered.

DES MOINES (IA)
WOI

The Diocese of Des Moines wants its money back after thieves stole more than half a million dollars from their bank accounts. Diocese officials told us they fully expect to get all the money back and hope their misfortunate can help others.

Criminals, possibly overseas, illegally obtained banking information for accounts at Banker's Trust and were able to give $600,000 to recipients across the country.

"Our goal is to help people come closer to god. So the fact that a catholic, service organization like us was robbed, came as a surprise," said diocese spokeswoman Anne Marie Cox. She said between the FBI investigation, Banker's Trust and their insurance carrier they plan to be reimbursed for the total amount stolen. Meanwhile, $180,000 have already been recovered.

DES MOINES (IA)
Des Moines Register

By DAVID ELBERT • delbert@dmreg.com • August 28, 2010

More than $600,000 has been stolen electronically from a Bankers Trust account belonging to the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, the bank and the diocese said Friday.

The thieves are believed to be "a highly sophisticated operation most likely based overseas" who transferred the money "to numerous recipients across the United States on Aug. 13 and 16," the diocese said in a statement announcing the theft.

Bankers Trust alerted the diocese to the fraud on Aug. 17. The bank immediately shut down relevant bank accounts and began a process to recover the funds. "To date, approximately $180,000 has been recovered," the diocese said.

UNITED STATES
The Register (United Kingdom)

By John Leyden

Posted in Crime, 31st August 2010

Scammers who made off with $600,000 after breaking into the bank account of a Catholic diocese claim the funds have been earmarked for the victims of paedophile priests.

Around a dozen money mules were used to loot the funds from an online bank account maintained by the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa earlier last month. The unwitting middlemen in the scams were offered bogus work-at-home jobs by the Impeccable Group, which falsely posed as a reputable New York-based international finance firm.

In reality they were all used to receive funds from a compromised online banking account maintained with the Bankers Trust of Des Moines before transferring this money overseas.

DEUTSCHLAND
sueddeutsche

Trier (dpa) - Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Bischof Stephan Ackermann, stellt heute in Trier die neuen Leitlinien der katholischen Kirche für den Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch vor.

Nach einer Welle von Missbrauchsfällen haben die deutschen Bischöfe die Vorschriften aus dem Jahr 2002 überarbeitet. Die neuen Regeln sollen nicht nur für Priester gelten, sondern auch für Ordensangehörige und Mitarbeiter der Bischofskonferenz.

DEUTSCHLAND
News Echo

Von Dominik Hammes mit Material von dpa

Trier – Bischof Stephan Ackermann, der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, wird heute in Trier die neuen Leitlinien der katholischen Kirche für den Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch vorstellen.

Die neuen Vorschriften stellen eine Reaktion auf die Welle von bekannt gewordenen Missbrauchsfällen dar, die die Schlagzeilen monatelang bestimmte. Sie ersetzen die Regelungen aus dem Jahr 2002 und sollen erheblich strikter ausfallen als diese.

Die Leitlinien sollen nicht nur für Priester sondern auch Ordensangehörige und Mitarbeiter der Bischofskonferenz gelten.

DEUTSCHLAND
domradio

Chronologie zum Thema Missbrauch an katholischen Einrichtungen

Die katholischen Bischöfe stellen heute ihre überarbeiteten Leitlinien zum Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch in der Kirche vor. Seit Mitte Januar erschüttert der Missbrauchsskandal die katholische Kirche in Deutschland. Die Katholische Nachrichten-Agentur (KNA) nennt wichtige Stationen der Entwicklung aus den vergangenen Monaten.

Mitte Januar 2010: Der Leiter des Canisius-Kollegs der Jesuiten in Berlin, Pater Klaus Mertes, informiert in Briefen rund 500 Schüler der „potenziell betroffenen“ Abiturjahrgänge 1975 bis 1983 über mögliche Missbrauchsfälle. Er entschuldigt sich für „ein Wegschauen“ im Lehrerkollegium und im Orden. In den folgenden Wochen kommen zahlreiche Missbrauchsfälle durch katholische Priester und Ordensleute ans Licht. Auch das oberbayerische Kloster Ettal und die Regensburger Domspatzen sind betroffen.

6. Februar: Laut Umfrage des „Spiegel“ wurde in der katholischen Kirche Deutschlands seit 1995 gegen 97 Priester und Laien wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs ermittelt.

GERMANY
The Associated Press

By The Associated Press

BERLIN — Germany's Roman Catholic bishops are releasing new guidelines Tuesday on how to deal with reports of sexual abuse with revisions they say will make it clear that prosecutors should be brought in early to investigate.

The Bishops Conference said in April it would rework its guidelines after the country — Pope Benedict XVI's homeland — was shaken by multiple cases of alleged abuse by clerics.

At that time the Justice Ministry said internal church investigations must not delay or hamper public prosecutors' work.

SEATTLE (WA)
KOMO

By John Discepolo

SEATTLE -- Two men say money and power kept them from being protected from sexual assault as teenagers.

Now they're suing the Boy Scouts of America and its Seattle chapter over the accusations against an assistant scoutmaster.

The lawsuit directs aim at the Boy Scouts of America, claiming it allowed the Mormon Church - the single largest sponsor of scouting - to disregard its sex abuse policies.

BELGIUM
Catholic News Agency

Brussels, Belgium, Aug 31, 2010 / 03:43 am (CNA).- Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium has denied he intended to cover up a bishop’s sexual abuse and said he was “unprepared” for his meeting with a victim who secretly taped their conversation. His spokesman acknowledged the transcripts of the meeting but claimed they do not show enough nuance.

A 42-year-old nephew of the former Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe accused his uncle of sexually abusing him. The nephew made a recording of his April 8 meeting with the cardinal, transcripts of which were published in two Belgian newspapers on Saturday.

According to Reuters, the tapes feature the former head of the Belgian Catholic Church urging the alleged victim to accept a private apology or to wait a year until Bishop Vangheluwe’s retirement before making his accusations public.

UNITED STATES
CathNews

Greg Erlandson decided to write a book on the clergy sex abuse crisis because the secular media kept raising questions about Pope Benedict XVI's handling of cases in their coverage of a new wave of clergy sex abuse in dioceses around the world.

For him, there was a "genuine curiosity about what's going on. ... It wasn't just a bishop in this diocese or a bishop in that diocese, but now it was about the pope and his credibility," said Erlandson, president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor Publishing.

"As I dug into it, I felt there was a big chunk of the story that wasn't being reported and part of it was not getting the perspective" it deserved, he said.

MANCHESTER (NH)
New Hampshire Union Leader

FROM STAFF REPORTS

MANCHESTER – A priest who had served as chaplain at a small New Hampshire Catholic college was arrested in Virginia last month and charged with sexual assault against an 11-year-old girl, two activists organizations said yesterday.

The Rev. Felix Owino was arrested in Herndon, Va., which is about 25 miles west of Washington, D.C. A Fairfax County police spokesman said Owino was considered a longtime friend of the alleged victim's family.

A native of Nairobi, Kenya, Owino served as chaplain of Magdalen College in Warner from June 2005 to October 2008, the college said yesterday. He was a member of the Africa-based Apostles of Jesus missionary worder.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

By Mary E. Young
Reading Eagle

The question of whether the parents of a 19-year-old woman knew she was living with a priest when they filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing and impregnating her remained unanswered Monday.

Jay N. Abramowitch, the parents' Wyomissing attorney, said he could not talk about the specifics of the suit filed in Berks County Court last week.

Also Monday, District Attorney John T. Adams said no criminal charges will be filed against the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito because Reading police determined that the young woman was 18 when the relationship began.

SPENCER (WV)
News and Sentinel

August 31, 2010 - By Staff and Wire Reports

SPENCER - A circuit court judge dismissed charges Friday against an Ohio priest accused of sexual abuse.

Charges against the Rev. Robert F. Poandl were dismissed with prejudice, which means prosecutors could not refile the same charges, by Roane County Circuit Judge David W. Nibert. The ruling was delayed for 90 days by Nibert to give prosecutors a chance to appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court.

The charges of first-degree sexual assault, first-degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a custodian were dismissed because prosecutors had failed to comply with a court order to produce medical records, according to Anita Ashley, one of Poandl's lawyers.

ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

by Michael Clancy - Aug. 31, 2010
The Arizona Republic.

A woman was ordained as a Catholic priest in the Valley on Saturday in the kind of ceremony the Vatican recently condemned as one of the church's most serious crimes.

Elaine Groppenbacher received holy orders from Bishop Peter Hickman of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, one of several liberal Catholic offshoots in the Valley. The ceremony took place at Guardian Angels Catholic Community, which meets in Tempe.

Groppenbacher is the fourth woman to be ordained as a Catholic priest in the Valley.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

By Devon Lash, OF THE MORNING CALL

August 31, 2010

When Mark Rozzi learned a young woman in his own Berks County neighborhood was allegedly involved in a sexual relationship with a priest, it seemed he was 13 again.

At that age, Rozzi said, he was sexually abused by his teacher and priest at Holy Guardian Angels outside Reading. It took decades for him to talk about the abuse. On Monday, joining a small group of protesters outside the Allentown Catholic Diocese headquarters in South Whitehall Township, he encouraged others like him not to wait so long.

"Bad stuff happens to good people," said Rozzi, now 39 and living in Muhlenberg Township. "But you have to keep coming forward, because there are so many victims that are afraid to talk about this."

BELGIE
De Standaard

Niet iedereen was verrast door de onthullingen dit weekend. Volgens PATRICK DE WITTE gaan religie en hypocrisie hand in hand.

In zijn paashomilie van enkele jaren geleden verwees kardinaal Danneels naar de euthanasie van Hugo Claus: 'Men antwoordt niet op het probleem van het lijden en de dood door het te omzeilen.' Sterk, komende van iemand die het probleem van het lijden en de dood in 1996 middels een bypassoperatie nogal een beetje heeft omzeild. Nu ontdekken we echter dat dit staaltje van hypocrisie zich tot zijn huidige faux pas verhoudt als een winkeldiefstal tot moord in koelen bloede. Blijkt dat kardinaal Danneels in de zaak Vangheluwe immers niet enkel zijn verantwoordelijkheid, maar in één ruk meteen ook de basisprincipes van zijn geloof, zijn zelfverklaard levensdoel, zeg maar alles waar hij voor staat heeft 'omzeild'. Dat het uit de wind zetten van een collega en geloofsgenoot voor hem belangrijker is dan de fundamenten van zijn roeping. Dat het leed - waar het katholieke geloof zo hoog mee oploopt - van een pedofilieslachtoffer minder gewicht in de schaal werpt dan de reputatie van een bisschop. Eerlijk, is dit wel nieuws?

BELGIE
De Standaard

31 augustus 2010

De publicatie van het gesprek tussen kardinaal Danneels en het slachtoffer van Roger Vangheluwe in De Standaard werd ook opgepikt door internationale kranten en persbureaus.

‘Belgische kerkleider spoorde slachtoffer aan te zwijgen', titelde de New York Times gisteren. De krant catalogeert de Danneels-tapes onder de ‘meer onthullende documenten in het voortdurende schandaal van seksueel misbruik door geestelijken en de daaropvolgende doofpotoperatie door de Kerk'. Ze neemt uitgebreid letterlijke citaten over uit de Danneels-tapes en stelt vast dat de katholieke Kerk opnieuw in verlegenheid wordt gebracht.

De Britse omroep BBC onthoudt dat het voormalige hoofd van de katholieke Kerk in België gepoogd heeft een slachtoffer ervan te overtuigen zijn verhaal niet publiek te maken.

BELGIE
De Standaard

maandag 30 augustus 2010

Auteur: MARC REYNEBEAU

BRUSSEL - In zijn gesprek met het slachtoffer van bisschop Vangheluwe gaf kardinaal Godfried Danneels nooit blijk van empathie. Met het gesprek wilde hij de bisschop uit de wind zetten en voorkomen dat de zaak publiek bekend raakte. Als dat moest, wilde hij het slachtoffer zelfs intimideren. Dat leert een analyse van wat precies werd gezegd, maar vooral van hoe dat gebeurde.

Tijdens zijn gesprek met het slachtoffer van ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe deed kardinaal Godfried Danneels niet veel moeite om een correcte en rechtvaardige oplossing te vinden. Dat leren de tapes van dat gesprek, waarvan de transcriptie zaterdag in De Standaard verscheen. Maar uit de tapes valt nog meer te leren.

BELGIUM
America Magazine

Posted at: Monday, August 30, 2010
Author: Kevin Clarke

... shortest one act play.

Belgian's Cardinal Godfried Danneels, met with a victim of sexual assault, now 42, and his uncle-perpetrator, Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, in early April. The bishops spoke freely because they did not understand the conversation was being taped and would not be kept secret as so many others like it had. As a result, their conversation provides the most succinct explanation for the complicity and failure of our church in this continuing crisis. From today's N.Y. Times:

Cardinal: "The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait... I don’t think you’d do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.” The cardinal warns the victim against trying to blackmail the church and suggested that he accept a private apology from the bishop and not drag “his name through the mud.”

BELGIUM
Catholic Culture

By Diogenes | August 30, 2010

Today Cardinal Godfried Danneels is in the headlines, with the revelation that he urged a victim of sexual abuse to keep quiet until his molester, another Belgian bishop, was safely ushered into retirement. Speaking through a spokesman, the retired cardinal allowed:

"Looking back I have been naive by going to such a meeting unprepared."

It’s always better to be prepared, as any Boy Scout would tell you. If you’re a high-ranking prelate, getting ready to meet with a man who was sexually abused by a prelate of lesser stature, what should you be prepared to do: (check all that apply)

•Deny everything.
•Call a lawyer.
•Write a large check.

WEST VIRGINIA
The State Journal

The charged stemmed from an alleged sexual assault in 1991.

Sexual assault charges against an Ohio priest have been dropped in Roane County.

Robert Poandl was suppose to go on trial Monday for the alleged abuse but instead the judge dismissed the case.

A 10-year-old boy said he visited the priest at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church Rectory in Spencer in 1991. The victim is now 28.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

OPINION: It is hardly fair to sneer at a new association of Irish priests as a mere clerical trade union, writes DAVID RICE

THE ITALIAN alpine village of Villaretto was drowsing under its blanket of snow when, on January 26th, 1985, the parish priest hanged himself, just before the Saturday evening Mass. He left three farewell letters, one addressed to the altar servers. It read: “Be more friendly and generous with your next priest: do not leave him alone at the altar.”

Those words have haunted me for years, for we do leave our priests alone at the altar and the loneliness of many a priest is a crucifixion.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

JAMES P MACKEY

RITE AND REASON: The concluding article of this series looks at the future of the Roman Catholic Church

NO SINGLE future awaits the billion-strong multitude that presently forms the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. Rather different groupings of this multitude will forge different futures, depending upon reforms initiated and embraced. Or not, as the case may be.

But initially at least, the largest grouping of Catholics is likely to consist of those who remain unconvinced that any substantial reform is necessary; nothing more than a clearance of maverick clerical and religious abusers and dealing with other incidental occurrences of that regrettable ilk.

The welcome and willing leader of this grouping is the current pope, a mere mortal man convinced of his supreme infallible power to dictate what we, all “children of our holy father”, are to believe and practise in life liturgical and moral.

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND, REGISTER CORRESPONDENT 08/30/2010

Paul Vitz is the senior scholar at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and professor emeritus of psychology at New York University. He is also an adjunct professor at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Washington.

His interests include how the religious relates to psychology, and he has published Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, Faith of the Fatherless: the Psychology of Atheism and Sigmund Freud’s Christian Unconscious.

Vitz recently spoke in the Washington, D.C. area at a seminar about seminary formation. The seminar was organized by the Institute for the Psychological Sciences.

How much has psycho-spiritual formation changed?

Two things are happening. The way in which psychology has been used in the past has been reliably harmful because of the biases of those using psychology, particularly with respect to sexual issues. The psychologists often used to push a secular and liberal agenda as well as a secularized and liberalized way of approaching character and personality issues.

WEST VIRGINIA
The Charleston Gazette

By Andrew Clevenger
The Charleston Gazette

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A Roane County Circuit judge has dismissed all charges against a Catholic priest from Cincinnati who was accused of molesting a 10-year-old boy in 1991.

Robert F. Poandl had been scheduled to go to trial on Monday. On Friday, Judge David W. Nibert dismissed all charges against Poandl, including first-degree sexual assault, first-degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a parent, guardian or custodian, with prejudice, meaning that they cannot be re-filed.

In January, a Roane County grand jury indicted Poandl, charging the 68-year-old priest with molesting the alleged victim at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Spencer in August 1991.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
WFMZ

Karin Mallett | Reporter

Posted: 5:40 pm EDT August 30, 2010

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- A support group for victims of abuse by priests wants others to know they're not alone.

On Monday, the group urged victims to come forward and said there may be a connection to a priest who was named in a lawsuit filed in Reading just last week.

They stood in front of the offices of the Allentown Diocese.

BELGIE
KW

Brugge - Aartsbisschop Léonard moet reageren op de rol van kardinaal Danneels in het uitgelekte gesprek met het slachtoffer van bisschop Vangheluwe. Dat zeggen de advocaten van de neef die jarenlang werd misbruikt door de bisschop. Velen vinden de aanpak van Danneels ongepast want zonder veel medeleven voor het slachtoffer.

Aartsbisschop Léonard wil niet veel kwijt over de zaak. Alleen dat de teksten voor zich spreken en dat het niet zijn taak is om daarover te oordelen. Toch verwachten de advocaten van het slachtoffer een duidelijker antwoord van Léonard, dat wat gebeurd is echt fout is en dat de kerk afstand neemt van doofpottechnieken.

BELGIE
Trouw

(Novum/AP) - Het voormalige hoofd van de Belgische rooms-katholieke kerk Godfried Danneels heeft erkend dat hij geen gesprek had moeten hebben met een slachtoffer van seksueel misbruik. Bovendien had hij niet moeten suggereren de zaak stil te houden totdat de geestelijke die het misbruik pleegde met pensioen zou gaan.

Het gesprek, dat Danneels op 8 april voerde, werd in het geheim opgenomen door het nu 42-jarige slachtoffer en werd afgelopen weekend gepubliceerd in twee Belgische kranten.

Sinds de publicatie van het gesprek ligt de 77-jarige Danneels zwaar onder vuur. "Hij beseft dat de hele benadering, zoals dat toen ging, niet de juiste was", aldus de woordvoerder van Danneels. Danneels zou onvoorbereid zijn en hebben 'geïmproviseerd'.

BELGIUM
National Catholic Reporter (United States)

by Tom Roberts on Aug. 30, 2010 NCR Today

Some will be surprised at the revelation that Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium urged a victim who was abused by his uncle, a bishop, to remain quiet, accept a private apology and allow the bishop to retire and not “drag his name through the mud.”

Secretly made recordings of meetings among the cardinal, the victim and the perpetrator leave little room for Danneels to explain his way out of his own words. He didn’t call the police, he didn’t immediately seek removal of the bishop, he didn’t act immediately to find out whether there had been other victims.

One press report termed the leaked recordings “ some of the most damaging documents to emerge in the scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church.” That may be a bit of overstatement. But what the recordings underline is the fact that when church leaders are caught in their own words – in depositions, letters, memos, directives, in the tens of thousands of pages, for instance, archived at bishopaccountability.com – the true nature of the scandal is bared. The deepest part of it, that part which refuses to go away with countless pro-forma apologies and programs, has little to do with sex and much to do with a culture that sees itself above accountability.

VERO BEACH (FL)
Sun-Sentinel

By Lamaur Stancil, TCPalm.com

VERO BEACH —
Police have put out warrants for a man who may have planted child pornography on a former priest's computer last year.

Alfred Justin Boulerice, 29, has warrants for five counts of trespassing and one count each of tampering with evidence and making a false report to law enforcement. Boulerice, who previously lived in the 1700 block of Fifth Court in Vero Beach, is wanted in the ongoing investigation, which initially resulted in 33 child porn possession charges against Gerald Lamothe. The state dropped all charges in February, but his attorney said the ordeal strongly affected Lamothe.

"This still hangs over him," attorney Robert Stone said Friday. "The warrants go further toward exonerating him. But not everyone is going to believe him until someone is arrested."

WEST VIRGINIA
Cincinnati Enquirer

By Dan Horn • dhorn@enquirer.com • August 30, 2010

A Catholic priest in Fairfield will not face a trial on child molestation charges this week after a judge dismissed the case and barred prosecutors from filing the charges again.

The sexual abuse and sexual assault charges against the Rev. Robert F. Poandl arose last year when a man claimed Poandl abused him in 1991 while the priest was working at a West Virginia church. The man said the abuse occurred when he was 10.

Poandl, a priest with the Glenmary Home Missioners, has been on administrative leave for more than a year and is living at the religious order's home in Fairfield.

PENNSYLVANIA
CBS News

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (CBS/AP) A 41-year-old priest who was allegedly caught on videotape having sexual relations with one of his 18-year-old female students now stands accused of fathering the young girl's baby.

The parents of the high school senior suspected Rev. Luis Bonilla Margarito, an ex-chaplain at Reading Central Catholic High School, and their daughter were having sex in the basement of their home.

They decided to take legal action after they say a hidden video camera recorded a sexual encounter between the couple in November 2009 confirmed their suspicions.

WEST VIRGINIA
WLWT

SPENCER, W.Va. -- A judge has dismissed charges against a priest accused of sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy while the two visited a West Virginia church in 1991.

Roane County Circuit Judge David W. Nibert dismissed the charges against the Rev. Robert F. Poandl on Friday, but delayed his ruling for 90 days so prosecutors could appeal to the state Supreme Court.

One of Poandl's lawyers, Anita Ashley, said Monday that Nibert dismissed the case because the accuser had failed to comply with a court order to produce medical records.

BELGIUM
The Associated Press

By RAF CASERT (AP)

BRUSSELS — The former head of Belgium's Roman Catholic Church has acknowledged that he should not have held a meeting with a victim of serial sexual abuse and suggested a cover up until the offending bishop retired.

The April 8 meeting that retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels held was secretly taped by the victim and the conversation was published in two newspapers over the weekend.

Since the tapes' publication, Danneels, 77, has faced fierce criticism for his suggestion that the sexual abuse be kept secret and that the victim should consider forgiving the bishop, his uncle, as part of seeking closure.

BELGIUM
LifeSite

By Hilary White

BRUSSELS, August 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Recordings have revealed Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a victim not to reveal 13 years of sexual abuse at the hands of the cardinal’s friend and colleague Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, the recently retired bishop of Bruges.

“The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait,” the cardinal is heard saying. Danneels warned the victim against trying to blackmail the church and suggested that he accept a private apology from the bishop and not drag his name “through the mud.”

The victim responded, “He has dragged my whole life through the mud, from five until 18 years old,” and asked, “Why do you feel sorry for him and not for me?”

BELGIUM
The Christian Science Monitor

By Robert Marquand, Staff writer / August 30, 2010

A former Belgian church leader privately urged a victim of sexual abuse to remain silent this past spring, at a time when the Vatican was denying the scope and scale of a pedophile scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church to its core.

.The April 8 conversation, captured on tapes published this weekend and confirmed by church authorities as genuine, offers a rare glimpse into a transaction between church officials and victims in what has been described as a widespread practice of hushing pedophile cases.

Cardinal Godfried Danneels is heard telling the victim, a nephew of Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, “The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait… I don’t think you would do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.”

BELGIUM
America Magazine

Posted at: Monday, August 30, 2010
Author: Austen Ivereigh

The British media are today running a story (as is the NYT) from the weekend's Belgian press that the former Archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, sought to persuade the victim of abuse by a bishop to stay quiet.

On 23 April -- see my post here -- that bishop, 73-year-old Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges for more than 25 years, suddenly and spectacularly resigned, admitting that while still a priest, and for a while while he was a bishop, he had sexually abused a young man in his "entourage". The move left everyone around him reeling. The bishop is currently in a monastery, keeping silence, while police investigate.

It transpires now that two weeks before that shock resignation, on 8 April, the victim -- it turns out to be the bishop's nephew, an unnamed 42-year-old -- went to see Cardinal Danneels, 77 (pictured), who retired in January this year. The victim secretly recorded the meeting, the transcripts of which were published at the weekend by two Flemish-language newspapers.

BELGIUM
Los Angeles Times

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

August 30, 2010

Reporting from Brussels — The former head of Belgium's Roman Catholic Church acknowledged Monday that he was wrong to have urged a sexual-abuse victim to stay quiet until after the bishop who repeatedly molested him over a span of 13 years could retire.

The statement by Cardinal Godfried Danneels came after secret tapes of a meeting between him and the 42-year-old victim were published over the weekend in two newspapers, causing an outcry in this predominantly Roman Catholic country.

"The whole approach … was not the right one," Danneels' spokesman, Toon Osaer, told the Associated Press on Monday.

BELGIUM
National Catholic Reporter (United States)

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM -- Audio recordings leaked to the Belgian media this weekend reveal Belgium's Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a sex abuse victim not to make public that his abuser was his uncle Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges, Belgium. The recordings show Danneels pressuring the young man not to force Vangheluwe to resign.

Vangheluwe eventually did resign April 23. He had served as bishop of Bruges for more than 25 years and was 73 years old.

A spokesman for Danneels told NCR that the cardinal did not comment about his meeting with the nephew and Vangheluwe, during an earlier press conference, because "he assumed that it was a confidential conversation to be kept within the family."

BELGIQUE
Lalibre

Jacques Laruelle

Mis en ligne le 30/08/2010

Le cardinal avait conseillé à la victime de l’évêque de Bruges de se taire un an. Il avait voulu le convaincre d’accepter un pardon plutôt que d’exiger une démission.

Le cardinal Godfried Danneels a-t-il tenté de convaincre le neveu de l’évêque de Bruges de garder le silence sur les abus sexuels commis par son oncle? A-t-il vraiment tout dit lorsqu’il s’est exprimé, le 24 avril dernier après la démission de Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, affirmant qu’il n’avait jamais voulu "étouffer l’affaire" ?

Le compte rendu de l’entretien, que le cardinal Danneels a eu le 8 avril avec la victime et son oncle, publié samedi in extenso par "De Standaard", éclaire d’un nouveau jour ces questions. Et l’image du cardinal Danneels en ressort passablement écornée. Dans cet entretien, enregistré à l’insu du cardinal, il conseille clairement à la victime d’attendre la retraite de l’évêque de Bruges, programmée dans un an, avant de parler. Plutôt que de démission de l’évêque, le cardinal propose le pardon.

UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune

By Sheila O'Brien

Would someone in Rome formally excommunicate me, please? I want to be excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church because walking away will break my heart.

My grandparents left Ireland with nothing but their vibrant faith. They and my parents brought my siblings and me to a baptismal font and promised to guide us to Christ. And, they did that by word and deed. They taught us to love the Gospel and challenged us to live that Gospel at all costs. I love the Mass, Catholic social teaching, the scores of nuns who built the church around the world, the dedicated priests and people who love God with all their hearts and bring that love to the world. It is my life, the center of every experience, the filter for reality.

But, the headlines continue — more pedophilia, more stonewalling by the bishops, more "norms" from Rome protecting perpetrators. Now, it is a "crime" of the church to attempt to ordain people like Mother Teresa or St. Teresa of Avila — women. And, the hierarchy, who have arguably hidden crimes and criminals, who will not open the books so we can see where our money has gone and who always claim the moral high ground, have grouped ordaining women with pedophilia.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Paul Donovan
The Guardian, Monday 30 August 2010

Pope John Paul II was seen as the great communicating pontiff, a man who went out from the Vatican to engage with the world. The message was clear and the symbolism spot on: remember him kneeling to kiss the ground when he came to the UK during the Falklands war in 1982? The present pope, Benedict XVI, could not be more different. A scholarly man who made his way as the previous pope's enforcer in the Vatican, he is not a natural communicator.

Benedict XVI's regime has seen several PR disasters: the Regensburg address in 2006, which was widely interpreted as an attack on Muslims, then the suggestion that saving humanity from homosexuality was as important as saving the rainforest, and the decision to pardon Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying British bishop. ...

However, the mishaps experienced so far by the present pope and his media team slide into insignificance when compared with the potential damage that mishandling of the international child abuse scandal could wreak. Earlier in the year, PR weaknesses were exposed as abuse cases were uncovered in America, Germany, Austria, Holland, Ireland and Belgium.

Abuse appeared endemic in the operation of the church. The global media sensed blood as the crisis seemed to move closer to the pope himself. The first response from the Vatican was to try to shoot the messenger, accusing the media of dishonest reporting. The stories were said to be part of an "obvious and shameful" campaign to "damage" Pope Benedict "at all costs".

As the crisis gathered momentum, there were unhelpful contributions from Father Rainero Cantalamessa, the preacher at the pontifical household, who compared attacks on the pope to antisemitism, and from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the college of cardinals, referring to "petty gossip". Finally, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, suggested a link between paedophilia and homosexuality. Against this background, the first visit of a pope to Britain as a head of state was announced.

UNITED KINGDOM
Digital Journal

By R. C. Camphausen.

London - Timed to be active during Pope Benedict's four-day trip to England and Scotland, campaigners for the Catholic Women's Ordination campaign (CWO) will use London buses for ads that read 'Pope Benedict - Ordain Women Now!'

Having learned a lesson from the earlier atheist campaign to use posters on buses to disseminate their views, a religious lobbying group known as Catholic Women's Ordination (CWO) will have a multipronged campaign that includes posters on London's public bus lines.

UNITED KINGDOM
CNN

Barring women from being Catholic priests is not the result of sexism 2,000 years ago, it's because women cannot fulfill a basic function of the priesthood, "standing in the place of Jesus," a leading British Catholic thinker argued Monday.

"This teaching is not at all a judgment on women's abilities or rights. It says something about the specific role of the priest in Catholic understanding - which is to represent Jesus, to stand in his place," argued Father Stephen Wang in a statement sent out by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.

BELGIUM
Channel 4 News (United Kingdom)

By Channel 4 News
Updated on 30 August 2010

Secret recordings reveal a senior figure in the Catholic church pleaded with a sex abuse victim to delay going public about his ordeal until the 73-year-old bishop who had abused him resigned, writes Jonathan Rugman.

The self-confessed abuser was 73-year-old Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges (pictured right), who was forced to resign in disgrace earlier this year after his nephew accused him of abuse from the age of five to 18.

But the apparent cover up goes even higher up the Catholic Church than that: to the Bishop's former boss, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the ex-head of the Church in Belgium. He was secretly taped in April - before the Bishop resigned - urging the victim not to go public.

MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

By Tricia Bishop, The Baltimore Sun

Convicted child rapist John Joseph Merzbacher has filed an appeal to close a loophole in a recent court ruling that requires he be given a fresh chance at freedom, despite his four life sentences.

On July 30, federal court judge Andre M. Davis ordered that a court must now offer Merzbacher a 10-year plea deal that his attorneys never properly presented before his 1995 trial, violating his constitutional rights. But Davis added one seeming caveat that has Merzbacher nervous.

"Before Merzbacher gains full relief, a judge of the [Baltimore] circuit court must express a willingness to carry out the undertaking," Davis wrote in a memorandum opinion accompanying his order.

WEST VIRGINIA
WCHS

All sexual assault and abuse charges against a Cincinnati priest have been dismissed by a Roane County circuit judge.

Judge David Neibert ruled it was unfair to priest Robert Poandl that the prosecution could not produce some medical records of the alleged victim in the case.

Poandl was scheduled to go on trial Monday in Spencer after he was indicted in January for the 1991 crimes against a young boy---who is now 28-years-old.

Roane County Prosecutor Josh Downey disagrees with the judge's ruling. “The state actually asked to go ahead with trial. The state didn't think the records were relevant,” Downey said. “The state asked that the matter be continued. The judge didn't do that.”

IRELAND
Irish Central

By MARY CATHERINE BROUDER, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, August 30, 2010

There it was again. The cool sting of rejection, like an unexpected slap across the face.

I’d just met with a potential financier for a documentary film I’ve been working on with my sister, and after he viewed the product of our eight months of hard labor, he had brushed it off with a few words.

‘I don’t know how to say this... it’s just not what we’re looking for.’

An edit room never felt so cold. I looked at the hundreds of soundbites on my Final Cut timeline scornfully, for not proving they were worth their salt. And down at my hands, for the same. My sister and I are both from America the land of can do -- in Ireland it’s can’t do it seems--especially where the church is concerned.

The film is about the life and death of an Irish missionary priest who was murdered less than a year ago in Africa. It’s not finished; the purpose of the meeting was to determine whether this representative of a film funding program was interested enough in the story to send me to abroad to investigate the brutal circumstances of the priest’s death.

ORANGE COUNTY (CA)
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano, Mon., Aug. 30 2010

I'm glad that Joelle Casteix--sex-abuse survivor from the Diocese of Orange's grubby employees and its most-prominent critic--is getting more and more attention, even if Orange Coast's profile of her in this month's issue is a blatant rip-off of my two-year-old Casteix profile, down to posing her as a Catholic saint. But the article is a whitewash--not of Casteix's great activism, but in how the magazine pains itself to reveal anything about the rottenness in Marywood and its apologists. For crying out loud, it didn't even publish the name of Casteix's abuser--why? Afraid of the pervert suing you? We'll do it--THOMAS HODGMAN THOMAS HODGMAN THOMAS HODGMAN. We'll even post the sicko's picture after the jump.

And that was probably one of the smaller problems with writer Patrice Apodaca's piece.

​To wit:

*Apodaca mentions Casteix's feud with Red County blogger Matt Cunningham but doesn't mention why Casteix and nearly everyone else calls him a church apologist: because he furiously spun for pedo-priest protector supreme John Urell and released the names of sex-abuse victims online. Hmm, puts Casteix's anger into context, no? Oh, and the online posting? Was published on Orange Juice--cite your sources!

WEST VIRGINIA
WSAZ

UPDATE: 8/30/10 @ 9:15 a.m.

ROANE COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- All sexual abuse and assault charges against a priest from Cincinnati who was expected to go on trial Monday have been dropped.

Reverend Robert Poandl was indicted on the charges in February.

Police in Cincinnati say a 28-year-old man came forward and claimed that Poandl molested him on a trip to Spencer back in 1991 when he was just 10 years old. At the time, Poandl was filling in at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church Rectory in Roane County.

According to Roane County Prosecutor Josh Downey, the judge dismissed the case late Friday afternoon.

ALBANY (NY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312-399-4747)

Our hearts ache for anyone who saw, suspected or suffered Garcia’s crimes. We hope they will find the courage and strength to come forward, call police, get help, expose wrong doers, protect others and start healing. We especially hope they will seek out independent sources of support and healing, like therapists and self help groups like ours.

Bishops claim they’re screening candidates for ordination more carefully these days, to try and weed out sex offenders. If what Albany church officials say is true – that this cleric molested before he officially became a deacon – it’s clear that such screening, if it’s happening, is far from perfect.

POLAND
The Cutting Edge

Michael Parenti
August 30th 2010

When Pope John Paul II was still living in Poland as Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, he claimed that the security police would accuse priests of sexual abuse just to hassle and discredit them. (New York Times, 3/28/10). For Wojtyła, the Polish pedophilia problem was nothing more than a Communist plot to smear the church.

By the early 1980s, Wojtyła, now ensconced in Rome as Pope John Paul II, treated all stories about pedophile clergy with dismissive aplomb, as little more than slander directed against the church. That remained his stance for the next twenty years.

Today in post-communist Poland, clerical abuse cases have been slowly surfacing, very slowly. Writing in the leading daily Gazeta Wyborcza, a middle-aged man reported having been sexually abused as a child by a priest. He acknowledged however that Poland was not prepared to deal with such transgressions. “It’s still too early. . . . Can you imagine what life would look like if an inhabitant of a small town or village decided to talk? I can already see the committees of defense for the accused priests.”

BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

De publicatie van de geluidsopnamen van het gesprek tussen kardinaal Godfried Danneels en de man die jarenlang seksueel werd misbruikt door de ex-bisschop van Brugge, Roger Vangheluwe, werpt een kwalijk licht op de zogeheten doofpotpraktijken die de Kerk worden aangewreven. Het gesprek vond plaats enkele weken voor het schandaal- Vangheluwe op 24 april aan het licht kwam.

Uit die conversatie blijkt dat het slachtoffer ook bij de kardinaal sterk heeft aandrongen op het ontslag van Roger Vangheluwe. Maar kardinaal Danneels wierp tegen of het niet beter zou zijn om te wachten met de eis tot ontslag totdat de bisschop over een jaar met pensioen zou gaan. Ontluisterend. Die tussenkomst wekt meer dan de indruk dat de kardinaal in eerste instantie vooral bekommerd was om de schade te beperken die het instituut Kerk zou oplopen dan om empathie en mededogen met het slachtoffer dat jarenlang werd misbruikt. Kardinaal Danneels speelde in dat gesprek een veel ingrijpendere en dominantere rol dan de minimaliserende versie die hij daar later zelf over gegeven heeft.

BELGIUM
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

Roger Vangheluwe was a priest when he began sexually abusing his five-year-old nephew. The abuse continued even after 1984, when Vangheluwe, at age 48, became bishop of Bruges.

The boy’s family pressured the boy to remain silent to preserve the bishop’s career. The bishop gave the family money (source of money unspecified). As he grew up, the boy was filled with anger.

Over the years, the nephew — who still does not want his name used publicly — channeled his rage into creating art: giant screaming images in gnarled wood or a montage of a boy being crushed by a mattress. (NYT)

In 1996 Father Rik Devillé told Cardinal Godfried Danneels about the abuse.

… he said, the cardinal listened impatiently, glancing frequently at his watch. Weeks later, Father Devillé received a letter from the cardinal. “Stop making unfounded public accusations against the church and its functionaries if you don’t have proof,” it read. (NYT)

(Danneels now claims to have no memory of this incident)

BELGIUM
Belfast Telegraph

Leaked tapes of Belgium's Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a victim not to reveal he was sexually abused by a bishop are some of the most damaging documents to emerge in the scandal rocking the Catholic Church worldwide.

On the tapes, made secretly by the victim and published in two Belgian newspapers at the weekend, the former primate of Belgium is heard exhorting him to accept a private apology or wait one year until the bishop retired before making his case public.

The meeting took place on April 8, at a time when the Vatican was under fire for allegedly covering up similar abuse cases in other countries.

IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Cardinal Sean Brady has insisted he will not resign.

Speaking in Ennis, Co Clare, the Archbishop of Armagh quashed rumours circulating in clerical circles that he had offered his resignation to Pope Benedict.

According to some Church sources, Ireland’s Catholic Primate travelled to Rome before Easter to tender his resignation.

IRELAND
Catholic Culture

August 30, 2010
Cardinal Seán Brady of Armagh has denied reports that he has tendered his resignation to Pope Benedict. “This is not true about my resigning,” the primate of All Ireland said on August 29. “I am not resigning.”

Cardinal Brady’s credibility has been badly damaged by the widespread discussion of an old report showing that in 1975, as a young priest, he persuaded two young men to sign an agreement promising that they would not report the misconduct of a notoriously abusive priest.

BELGIE
De Morgen

28/08/10 07u57

Onderzoeksrechter De Troy moet alle dossiers teruggeven die hij in beslag nam bij de commissie-Adriaenssens. Waarom dat zo is? We hebben er het raden naar. Dat alleen maakt Operatie Kelk en de juridische afhandeling ervan tot een absoluut dieptepunt in de werking van justitie. Het is een regelrechte schande.

Het onderzoek van De Troy wou nagaan of de kerk zich had gedragen als een criminele organisatie, of ze op een georganiseerde manier had belet dat ernstige pedofiele misdrijven werden vervolgd. Omdat de onderzoeksrechter en de speurders oordeelden dat die afweging toekomt aan justitie en niet aan een private commissie, namen ze de dossiers in beslag, wat zorgde voor een vertrouwensbreuk tussen de commissie, die de logica van de hulpverlener hanteerde, en de onderzoeksrechter, die in een juridische logica zat.

BELGIUM
The Associated Press

BRUSSELS — A spokesman for the former head of the Belgian Roman Catholic Church says his boss has acknowledged being "naive" in attending a meeting with a victim of an abusive bishop.

In that meeting, retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels suggested keeping a sexual molestation case secret until the bishop retired. The victim had taped the meeting and the conversation was published in two newspapers over the weekend.

Danneels spokesman Toon Osaer says Danneels was unprepared for the meeting. After the tapes' publication, he has faced criticism for his suggestion the abuse be kept secret.

MANCHESTER (NH)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT
Holding signs at a sidewalk news conference, concerned Catholics & clergy sex abuse victims will urge
-- a New Hampshire college to reach out to anyone hurt by a recently-arrested predator priest,
-- New Hampshire's bishop to do likewise (via his diocesan website and parish bulletins), and
-- college students and staff to ask peers and colleagues if they saw, suspected or suffered sexual misdeeds by the priest, and, if so, to immediately contact police and prosecutors.

WHEN
Monday, August 30, 1:00 p.m.

WHERE
Outside the Catholic diocesan headquarters (chancery), 153 Ash Street, in downtown Manchester NH

UNITED KINGDOM
Protest the Pope

The diverse groups who support this campaign have many different reasons for not approving of the State Visit to the UK by the Pope in September 2010. They all however share the following view:

•That the Pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with many adherents in the UK, is of course free to enter and tour our country.
•However, as well as a religious leader, the Pope is a head of state and the state and organisation of which he is head has been responsible for:

1.opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of AIDS
2.promoting segregated education
3.denying abortion to even the most vulnerable women
4.opposing equal rights for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people
5.failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation.

ROME
Chiesa

by Sandro Magister

ROME, August 30, 2010 – The changing of the guard that is taking place at the top of the Vatican congregation for religious is making the heads of the Legionaries of Christ, the heirs of their disgraced founder Marcial Maciel (in the photo), even more nervous.

The prefect of the congregation, Cardinal Franc Rodé, who was their last major protector, is in fact being replaced for reasons of age. The name of his successor is not yet known. Meanwhile, however, the new secretary of the congregation has already been appointed.

He is Archbishop Joseph Tobin, born in the United States to a family of Irish descent, with pastoral experience among Spanish-speaking Catholics, previously the superior general of the Redemptorists, founded in the eighteenth century by Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

maandag 30 augustus 2010, 05u31

Auteur: Martin Tytgat

Unaniem was de lof voor Godfried Danneels toen Rome hem in 1980 benoemde tot kardinaal. Koos de paus niet voor het grootste talent dat de Belgische Kerk toen bezat? Maar de manier waarop Danneels handelde in het schandaal-Vangheluwe gooit zijn positieve imago aan diggelen.

Dat Godfried Danneels in 1980, al kort na zijn benoeming tot bisschop van Antwerpen, de nieuwe aartsbisschop van Mechelen-Brussel werd, verraste weinigen. Voor zowat iedereen was de keuze van paus Johannes Paulus II niet meer dan logisch, want de oudste van de zes kinderen van de Kanegemse hoofdonderwijzer stond bekend als bijzonder intelligent en gold zonder meer als het grootste talent dat de Belgische Kerk op dat ogenblik telde.

Na zijn studies in Leuven en Rome en zijn priesterwijding in 1957 schopte Godfried Danneels het al op zijn 26ste tot geestelijk directeur van het grootseminarie van Brugge.

BELGIE
vandaag

Kardinaal Godfried Danneels stuurde op 23 april een persbericht uit waarin hij uitdrukkelijk stelde dat hij het seksueel misbruik door ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe niet in de doofpot wilde steken. Geheime opnames van een gesprek op 8 april tussen Danneels en het slachtoffer bewijzen het tegendeel.

Op 8 april vond in de abdij van Steenbrugge een verzoeningspoging plaats tussen Vangheluwe, Danneels, het slachtoffer S. en diens familie.

Van die gesprekken werden geheime opnames gemaakt. De inhoud daarvan raakte afgelopen weekend bekend. Uit de letterlijk uitgetikte tekst van dat gesprek wordt meermaals duidelijk dat kardinaal Danneels de affaire met de mantel der geheimhouding probeerde te bedekken.

Gesprekken op 8 april.
Deel 1: gesprek tussen Danneels en het slachtoffer.

Deelnemers: Godfried Danneels (GD)
Slachtoffer (S)
Roger Vangheluwe (RV)

BELGIE
De Standaard

maandag 30 augustus 2010

Auteur: Mark Eeckhaut

BRUSSEL - 'Het is nooit te laat om toe te geven en te zeggen ''Het spijt me'', maar kardinaal Danneels blijft het licht van de zon ontkennen.'

Van onze redacteur

Christine Mussche, de advocate van het slachtoffer van ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe, begrijpt niet hoe kardinaal Godfried Danneels ook vandaag nog altijd kan blijven beweren dat hij enkel een bemiddelende rol heeft gespeeld in zijn gesprek met de misbruikte neef van Vangheluwe.

BELGIE
RKNieuws

LEUVEN (RKnieuws.net) - Een botsing tussen de goede wil van de bisschoppen en de Belgische rechtsorde. Dat is volgens rechtshistoricus Laurent Waelkens van de KU Leuven het dieperliggende probleem in de huidige malaise tussen kerk en gerecht over de aanpak van kindermisbruik. Hij duikt in de geschiedenis en werpt in het christelijk weekblad Tertio een blik op de toekomst.

De Brusselse Kamer van Inbeschuldigingstelling heeft een arrest geveld over de rechtmatigheid van de huiszoekingen in de Operatie Kelk, waarin waarschijnlijk beslist werd in hoeverre de meegenomen stukken mogen worden gebruikt voor het onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik door priesters. Veel belangrijker dan de communicatie rond dit arrest, is dat het gerecht degelijk en volgens de democratische regels oordeelt. Zo’n degelijk oordeel schijnt op komst te zijn. De uitputting van procedureregels toont alvast aan dat justitie goed bezig is.

BELGIE
HLN

Socioloog Jan Hertogen, één van de slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik binnen de Kerk die bij de commissie-Adriaenssens aanklopten, vraagt in een brief aan de procureur des Konings van Brussel formeel de onmiddellijke teruggave van zijn dossier. Dat meldt Hertogen vandaag in een omstandige mail over de zaak.

Commissie
Zijn dossier was één van de 475 die onderzoeksrechter Wim De Troy op 24 juni in Leuven bij een huiszoeking bij de commissie-Adriaenssens in beslag liet nemen. "Gezien mijn dossier, dat ik aan de Commissie gericht heb met de verzekering van vertrouwelijke behandeling, tegen mijn wil en deze van betreffende commissie werd weggenomen, vraag ik de onmiddellijke teruggave ervan, hetzij aan de commissie hetzij rechtstreeks aan mij, gezien de voormelde Commissie haar werkzaamheden gestaakt heeft", aldus Hertogen, die zich volgens de brief op 5 augustus burgerlijke partij stelde.

IRELAND
Limerick Leader

Published Date:
30 August 2010

By Anne Sheridan
THE SEARCH is again on to find a Limerick priest who was deported to Ireland 10 years ago after being jailed for abusing two boys.

The American law firm Manly, McGuire and Stewart, want to serve defrocked priest Oliver O'Grady with papers for a civil action on behalf of alleged victims.

In their quest to find the 65 year-old from Limerick city the firm hired a private detective to track him down.

UNITED KINGDOM
Sydney Morning Herald

A 15,000 bus poster campaign aimed at persuading the Catholic Church to ordain women will be launched on Monday.

The posters with the slogan Pope Benedict Ordain Women Now! will run on London buses on city centre routes for four weeks.

The campaign by the Catholic Women's Ordination (CWO) group will coincide with the four-day visit next month of the Pope to Scotland and England.

WEST VIRGINIA
Metro News

A Catholic priest is scheduled to go on trial beginning today in Roane County.

Cincinnati Priest Robert Poandl allegedly sexually assaulted and abused a boy when Poandl was at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church Rectory in Spencer in 1991.

Investigators say the victim and his family had travelled to
Spencer to visit Poandl.

Catholic News Agency

Kathy Vestermark

It has been announced that the Vatican is preparing to release an update to the 2001 norms established to deal with allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy. In essence, the Vatican is simply putting on paper what has been in practice since 2001 in relation to these norms. However, at the same time, while updating this particular portion of the norms, they also decided to address the issue of attempted women's "ordination." Both matters, sexual abuse of minors by clergy and invalid attempts to ordain women, fall under the classification of "delicta graviora," the most serious crimes against Church law.

Does this decision by the Church to measure these two issues under the same category show an insensitivity, or even misogyny, toward women? Is the Church equating women with sex offenders?

This is what many women who disagree with the teachings of the Church on the male-only priesthood would have you believe. But theirs is a shallow argument based on a desire to grasp for power, and subordinate sacred tradition to modern politics. Their claims of "misogyny" in no way prove any level of disrespect for women by the Church. Rather, their treatment of the issue is where the disrespect lies.

PHILIPPINES
Catholic Culture

August 30, 2010
A priest credibly accused of abusing a minor in a Kansas diocese remains in active ministry in the Philippines, according to press reports.

In May, the Diocese of Dodge City announced that Father Orestes Huerta had been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Bishop Reynaldo Evangelista of Boac says he will not remove the priest from ministry “based on hazy and unverified reports from the Internet.” Father Huerta is currently not assigned to a parish, but works in the chancery office.

AUSTRALIA
CathNews

A woman who alleges her two daughters were abused by a priest in Victoria has written a book about her family's experience with the Church over the case.

In Hell On The Way To Heaven, written by Ms Chrissie Foster in collaboration with ABC journalist Paul Kennedy, the author alleges the Church shielded the late priest despite an earlier letter of apology acknowledging the findings by the Church's investigator that the cleric had raped both the children, reports the Herald Sun.

One of the girls, Emma, died of a drug overdose in 2008 after years of drug addiction and mental illness caused by the abuse while a primary school student, said the report.

BELGIUM
CathNews

The contents of leaked video tapes of a Belgian cardinal urging a victim not to reveal he was sexually abused by a bishop have been published in two Belgian papers.

The tapes, made secretly by the victim, show the former primate of Belgium, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, asking him to accept a private apology or wait one year until the bishop retired before making his case public, Reuters.com reports.

A spokesman for Danneels denied the once popular archbishop of Brussels wanted to cover up the case, which led to the sudden resignation of Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, 73, later that month. But the tapes from a meeting on April 8 have him arguing for silence.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

GORDON DEEGAN

THE CATHOLIC Primate, Cardinal Seán Brady, yesterday said that the vast majority of people with whom he works and meets support him.

Asked if he retained the confidence of the Catholic faithful in Ireland, after revelations confirmed his role in canonical investigations into abuse perpetrated by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth in 1975, Cardinal Brady said: “I retain confidence of priests and people in my own diocese. Okay, there are some people that will disagree, but the vast majority of people, as far I can see, who I work and meet with support me.”

He added: “They know that these situations are not easy to handle.”

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

zondag 29 augustus 2010

Auteur: Werner Rommers

Kardinaal Danneels is helemaal 'van de kaart', aldus zijn woordvoerder. Dat zijn gesprek met de misbruikte neef van de Brugse bisschop Vangheluwe gisteren werd gepubliceerd in onze krant en onze zusterkrant De Standaard, is hard aangekomen. 'Danneels is serieus van slag, maar hij blijft erbij dat hij de zaak niet in de doofpot wilde steken.' Werner Rommers

De commentaren van lezers op de website van onze krant liegen er niet om. De voorheen zo populaire kardinaal Danneels, ook bij niet-gelovigen, krijgt het ene na het andere verwijt naar zijn hoofd geslingerd nu woordelijk uitlekte hoe hij een slachtoffer van misbruik toesprak. 'Hoe haal je het in je hoofd om aan iemand die dertien jaar lang misbruikt is geweest als oplossing te suggereren dat hij best vergeeft en vergeet', schrijft iemand vol afkeer.

Danneels zelf beseft blijkbaar ook dat de manier waarop hij de misbruikte neef van de Brugse bisschop te woord stond, extreme reacties losmaakt bij de mensen. 'Hij is zwaar aangeslagen door deze heisa', zegt zijn woordvoerder Toon Osaer. 'Hij voelt zich in een heel ongemakkelijke positie gemanoeuvreerd, nu dit vertrouwelijke gesprek publiek is gemaakt. Het heeft hem serieus van slag gemaakt.'

BELGIE
Katholiek Nederland

Hilversum (Van onze redactie) 29 augustus 2010 - Kardinaal Godfried Danneels betreurt het dat de gesprekken met de neef van bisschop Roger Vangheluwe in de krant staan. Dat heeft Danneels' woordvoerder Toon Osaer gisteren meegedeeld aan de VRT.
Bandopname

Vangheluwe trad in april af als bisschop van Brugge nadat hij had toegegeven dat hij zijn neefje jarenlang seksueel had misbruikt. Eerder had er een gesprek plaats tussen Danneels, Vangheluwe en het slachtoffer. De neef wilde dat Vangheluwe opstapte als bisschop. Hij maakte zonder dat zijn gesprekspartners het wisten een bandopname. Daaruit blijkt dat Danneels aandrong op geheimhouding, in ieder geval zolang Vangheluwe nog niet met emeritaat was.

Discretie
Osaer: "Het gesprek is tot stand gekomen in een vorm van discretie, die toch altijd geprobeerd is te bewaren. Het was trouwens een eerste gesprek en er was een vooruitzicht dat er een vervolg zou komen. Dat is belangrijk om eventjes te onderstrepen."

BELGIE
De Standaard

maandag 30 augustus 2010

Auteur: MARC REYNEBEAU

BRUSSEL - In zijn gesprek met het slachtoffer van bisschop Vangheluwe gaf kardinaal Godfried Danneels nooit blijk van empathie. Met het gesprek wilde hij de bisschop uit de wind zetten en voorkomen dat de zaak publiek bekend raakte. Als dat moest, wilde hij het slachtoffer zelfs intimideren. Dat leert een analyse van wat precies werd gezegd, maar vooral van hoe dat gebeurde.

Van onze redacteur

Tijdens zijn gesprek met het slachtoffer van ex-bisschop Roger Vangheluwe deed kardinaal Godfried Danneels niet veel moeite om een correcte en rechtvaardige oplossing te vinden. Dat leren de tapes van dat gesprek, waarvan de transcriptie zaterdag in De Standaard verscheen. Maar uit de tapes valt nog meer te leren.

BELGIE
De Standaard

maandag 30 augustus 2010

De Danneels-tapes illustreren de oude binnenkerkelijke cultuur, waarin het instituut primeert op de mens, schrijft RIK TORFS: 'De kardinaal, die ik als mens weiger te veroordelen, is een exponent van dat aloude systeem.'

From hero to zero. Is dat het lot van kardinaal Danneels? Lang was hij een held. Hij communiceerde vlot en hanteerde een taal die iedereen begreep. Nederland keek jaloers naar ons. Zo een kerkleider hadden zij niet. Iemand die de polarisatie wist te vermijden en niet zonder enige zin voor humor verzoenende taal sprak, een bruggenbouwer tussen Rome en de provincie. Natuurlijk is de kardinaal verbaal erg goed. Maar ten diepste blijft hij een traditionele kerkleider, zich bedienend van de typische strategieën die de kerk in West-Europa op de rand van de afgrond hebben gebracht. Ik zeg dit zeer ongaarne. Wat nu gebeurt, heb ik gedurende een kwarteeuw voorspeld en beschreven. Toch vind ik het verschrikkelijk, uit liefde voor die verdomde kerk die ik niet in de steek laat, vandaag gelijk te halen.

Wat valt op in de transcriptie van het gesprek tussen de kardinaal en het slachtoffer van Roger Vangheluwe? De stijl natuurlijk. Zet u, zeg ne keer. In die begroeting schuilt paternalisme dat zeer intimiderend werkt. Met die woorden begin je een ondervraging, doch torpedeer je een gesprek. Zo ging dat, vroeger, toen het gesprek met een bisschop nooit een gesprek van mens tot mens, een gesprek tussen gelijken was. De vreselijkste woorden gaan niet altijd over de grond van de zaak, ze kunnen in een begroeting zitten.

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

By PATRICIA MONTEMURRI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests leafleted massgoers at Detroit's Blessed Sacrament Cathedral Sunday, calling for local Catholic leaders to be more forthcoming about priests -- dead or alive -- who've been credibly accused of molesting minors.

"We were trying to inform the parishioners that abuse does occur and we want to give parents warning signs," said Matt Jatczak, 31, a legal assistant from Livonia, who has started a SNAP group for the Detroit area, www.snapdetroit.org.

Five group members stood outside Blessed Sacrament, the archdiocese's mother church, to catch parishioners after the 11 a.m. mass. They want Archbishop Allen Vigneron to urge any possible victims to come forward by visiting churches where abusive priests have worked; and to make information about the accused priests — such as with photos and listings of past parishes — more easily available.

BELGIUM
The New York Times

By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: August 29, 2010

PARIS – The former leader of Belgium’s Roman Catholic Church urged a victim of serial sexual abuse by a bishop to keep silent for a year, until the bishop – the victim’s own uncle – could retire, according to tapes made by the victim last April and published over the weekend in two Belgian newspapers.

The tapes, which church authorities have verified as accurate, are among the more revealing documents in the continuing scandal of sexual abuse by clerics and subsequent cover-ups by the church in Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other countries. And having a record of a cardinal’s entreating an abuse victim to keep his silence is another embarrassment for the Roman Catholic Church.

Cardinal Godfried Danneels, 77, who had retired as the archbishop of Brussels in January after 30 years, met with the victim, now 42, and his uncle, Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, 73, on April 8 to press the victim to accept either a private apology or to wait until the bishop retired, according to the tapes.

BELGIUM
Reuters

Tom Heneghan

“Why do you feel so sorry for him and not for me?” — Victim of sexual abuse by a Belgian bishop to Cardinal Godfried Danneels.

The transcripts of two meetings between Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels and a man sexually abused by the disgraced former bishop of Bruges make for sad reading indeed. Two Flemish-language newspapers, De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad, published the texts on Saturday after the victim provided them with his secret recordings of the sessions. My analysis of the case is here.

Apart from the exchanges they reveal, the transcripts are sobering because of the context of the meeting. It took place on April 8, at a time when the series of clerical sexual abuse revelations that began in Ireland the previous year was tearing through Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria like a tornado. Pope Benedict had issued an unprecedented apology to the Irish for the scandals only shortly before. Church leaders all over were vowing to end the Church’s culture of secrecy and put the victims’ welfare above the defence of the clergy. If there was any time to simply say, “OK, he has to go. We have to report this,” this was it.

It’s a sad end for the career of a leading Catholic cardinal, a grandfatherly man who spent 30 years as primate of the Belgian Church and stepped down last January amid wide popular support (except from conservatives who denounced him as too liberal).

CHINA
Global Times

Global Times [02:10 August 30 2010]

By Jia Cheng
A Taoist priest accused of raping a female follower and evading tax has stepped down from the People's Political Consultative Conference in Chongqing and as the deputy head of the Chinese Taoist Association.

The association said in a notice on its website that Li Yi had submitted his resignation to protect the reputation of Taoism.

The China News Service (CNS) reported Saturday that Li also resigned from the Chongqing People's Political Consultative Conference.

BELGIUM
Catholic Church Conservation

INTERVIEW PART 1

Participants:
Godfried Danneels (GD)
Victim (S)
Roger Vangheluwe (RV)

The victim enters the room. There is some buzz back and forth. (...)

RV: It is suggested that S first speaks a moment with the Cardinal.

S: I thought it would be the other cardinal?

RV: We have only one cardinal, right?

S: But yes, we thought it was going to be the archbishop.

RH: But you still put questions to the Cardinal? (...)

Roger Vangheluwe goes outside.

ALBANY (NY)
WRGB

August 29, 2010

Courtney Mahan
The Albany Diocese has permanently removed a local deacon from the ministry on grounds of sexually abusing a minor.

Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany acted on the recommendation of the Diocese’s Sexual Misconduct Review Board to permanently remove Deacon Angel Garcia.

It’s believed Garcia sexually abused a minor in the early 1990’s prior to his training and ordination as a deacon.

Garcia has served as a deacon at the Church of the Holy Family in Albany, formerly St. Patrick’s, and as a chaplain at Greene Correctional Facility.

ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times Union

Published: 12:03 p.m., Sunday, August 29, 2010

ALBANY -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany announced Sunday that it has removed a deacon from active ministry after determining there were reasonable grounds to believe he sexually abused a minor in the early 1990s prior to his training and ordination as a deacon.

A diocese news release said that the removal of deacon Angel Garcia was made on the recommendation of the diocese's Sexual Misconduct Review Board. Garcia has served as a deacon at the Church of the Holy Family on Central Avenue in Albany and as a chaplain at Greene Correctional Facility. Garcia is now banned from officiating at any sacraments and from wearing clerical garb in public.

The diocese statement said Garcia denies inappropriate contact with any youth.

BELGIUM
rthk

29-08-2010

The Roman Catholic church in Belgium has admitted that its former head tried to persuade a man to delay making public that a bishop had sexually abused him as a child.

The Church confirmed the accuracy of transcripts published in Belgian newspapers of a meeting between Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the victim, and the bishop who abused him.

BELGIUM
Press TV (Iran)

Roman Catholic Cardinal Godfried Danneels held a meeting with Bishop Roger Vangheluwe and the individual claiming to have been abused on April 8, advising the alleged victim to delay making a public statement.

The victim secretly recorded the meeting and sent the transcripts to Belgium's De Standaard newspaper.

"It might be better to wait for a date in the next year, when he is due to resign," the Cardinal is heard as having said on the tape, according to a BBC report.

BELGIUM
Lez Get Real

08/29/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire

As priest and bishop, Roger Vangheluwe abused a victim who finally came forward close to the end of Vangheluwe’s career. Rather than reporting it to the authorities, or making it public, Cardinal Godfried Danneels made a deal with the bishop. Cardinal Danneels would keep the allegations secret until after Bishop Vangheluwe retired a year later. In the end, the bishop retired two weeks later and expressed sorrow for abusing his victim for years.

The revelations come as word of a secretly taped meeting between the Cardinal, the Bishop and the victim has surfaced.

BELGIUM
Reuters

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - Leaked tapes of Belgium's Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a victim not to reveal he was sexually abused by a bishop are some of the most damaging documents to emerge in the scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church.

The tapes, made secretly by the victim and published in two Belgian newspapers on Saturday, show the former primate of Belgium exhorting him to accept a private apology or wait one year until the bishop retired before making his case public.

Their meeting took place on April 8, at a time when the Vatican was under fire for allegedly covering up similar abuse cases by priests in other countries and shocking abuse claims dominated the news in several European states.

UNITED STATES
The JC

By Simon Rocker, August 26, 2010
Training courses for strictly Orthodox nursery school teachers have come under renewed attack because of material relating to child abuse.

Opponents have circulated a letter from the Rabbinical Council of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations warning of the danger of NVQ courses.

But Hindy Lew, manager of Vista Education and Training, one of the institutions which runs NVQ courses for the Charedi community, said: "The way we teach it, there is no reason for people to be agitating against it."

The letter appears similar to one issued in March last year signed by the secretary of the Rabbinical Council, Rabbi David Halpern: the latest copy obtained by the JC, however, has its date blotted out.

KANSAS
Lawrence Journal World

By Shaun Hittle

August 29, 2010

New statements from Catholic Church officials fail to verify the status of a former Kansas priest who was “credibly accused” of sexual abuse.

Orestes Huerta, a Catholic priest who served temporarily in the Dodge City diocese, was named by church officials last May as one of three priests who had worked in the diocese and had “credible” allegations of sexual abuse of minors made against them.

In July, a Journal-World article revealed that when Huerta left the United States, he returned to the Phillipines, where he remains in active ministry with the Diocese of Boac.

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Steve Meacham
August 28, 2010

RODNEY POPLE'S painting is meant to be provocative. A headless Roman Catholic cardinal towers over the interior of one of Venice's baroque churches, surrounded by images of the Virgin Mary's innocence.

But in the cardinal's lap - echoing the classic pieta pose of the crucified Messiah - is an altar boy, his genitals partly exposed as he offers his own innocence to the figure of religious authority.

Yes, it's Blake prize time again. Australia's foremost award ''for contemporary religious and spiritual art'' is in its 59th year and worth $20,000 to the 2010 winner. And Pople, a veteran painter, sculptor and photographer, is this year's main talking point.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

SP.A-justitiespecialist Renaat Landuyt gaat het parlement vragen een 'onafhankelijke parlementaire onderzoekscommissie' op te richten naar het seksueel misbruik binnen de Kerk.

'Het moet een soort waarheidscommissie worden, bestaande uit tal van experts die ervoor zorgen dat de slachtoffers zowel juridisch als psychisch op de best mogelijke wijze worden bijgestaan', aldus Landuyt. 'De parlementairen die deel uitmaken van de commissie moeten er ondertussen over waken dat deze waarheidscommissie in alle onafhankelijkheid kan werken.'

BELGIE
RKNieuws

BRUSSEL (RKnieuws.net) - Kardinaal Danneels ontkent dat hij de zaak Vangheluwe geheim heeft willen houden. Dat heeft zijn woordvoerder vandaag verklaard naar aanleiding van berichten in de Corelio-kranten.

De kardinaal heeft het slachtoffer nooit gevraagd de zaak geheim te houden of om niet naar de commissie Adriaensens, die seksueel misbruik in de Kerk onderzocht, te stappen, aldus de woordvoerder.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

Het eerste gesprek (gesprek één) gaat tussen kardinaal Danneels en het slachtoffer. Bij het tweede gesprek (gesprek twee), dat enkele minuten later plaatsvindt, zijn ook Roger Vangheluwe zelf en familieleden van het slachtoffer aanwezig.

Gesprek 1

'Dus ik ben mijn hele jeugd misbruikt geweest van mijn nonkel Roger. Seksueel en nu nog altijd geestelijk, en ik vind dat ik daar iets moet mee doen, dat ik de plicht heb om dat te melden aan een hogere instantie', begon het slachtoffer zijn onderhoud met kardinaal Danneels.

'Ik geef de verantwoordelijkheid aan jullie, ik kan er niet over beslissen, ik heb die last op mijn schouders en ik wil van die last verlost zijn en die last aan jou geven. Dat is mijn bedoeling,' veruidelijkt hij zich.

Wanneer het slachtoffer zegt dat het aan de Kerk is om het nieuws al dan niet bekend te maken, reageert de kardinaal: 'Eigenlijk, monseigneur gaat volgend jaar zijn ontslag geven, eigenlijk zou dat beter zijn dat je wacht.'

BELGIE
vandaag

Er moet een nieuwe commissie komen die de dossiers van kindermisbruik door geestelijken behandelt. Als het van minister van Justitie Stefaan De Clerck (CD&V) afhangt, wordt die opnieuw geleid door Peter Adriaenssens.

Vrijdag bleek dat de huiszoekingen bij de commissie Adriaenssens, die in juni ontslag nam, onwettig waren. Het gerecht mag die dossiers niet gebruiken en moet alle documenten terugbezorgen. De Clerck wil niet dat het een doofpotoperatie wordt en pleit voor een nieuwe commissie.

"Peter Adriaenssens heeft zeer goed werk geleverd en genoot veel geloofwaardigheid. Het zou zeer goed zijn dat hij, indien mogelijk, opnieuw een binnenkerkelijke commissie zou leiden. Die moet er hoe dan ook komen. De Kerk moet intern verantwoordelijkheid blijven opnemen", aldus de politicus.

BELGIE
Gazet van Antwerpen

Zo'n 30 mensen die in het verleden seksueel misbruikt werden door een priester tekenen cassatie aan tegen het arrest van de Brusselse kamer van inbeschuldigingstelling over operatie Kelk. Dat bevestigt advocaat Walter Van Steenbrugge, die de belangen verdedigt van een groep slachtoffers.

Op 13 augustus werd beslist dat alle dossiers, die eind juni bij de commissie Adriaenssens in beslag werden genomen, uit het dossier van onderzoeksrechter Wim De Troy verwijderd moesten worden en weer neergelegd bij de griffie. Tot vrijdag bleef dat arrest geheim.

BELGIE
de redactie

Kardinaal Godfried Danneels heeft geprobeerd om het seksueel misbruik door bisschop Roger Vangheluwe geheim te houden. Dat blijkt uit een gesprek dat Danneels had met het slachtoffer van Vangheluwe. De krant De Standaard publiceert vandaag de neerslag daarvan. Het slachtoffer had het gesprek opgenomen en heeft de tape aan het gerecht gegeven.

Op 8 april was kardinaal Danneels aanwezig bij een ontmoeting tussen bisschop Vangheluwe (kleine foto) en de neef die dertien jaar lang door de bisschop was misbruikt. Tijdens die bijeenkomst drong de neef aan op het ontslag van zijn oom.

Belga Vandaag publiceert De Standaard een transcriptie van de ontmoeting tussen Danneels en het slachtoffer (Vangheluwe en de familieleden van het slachtoffer waren pas enkele minuten later aanwezig bij het gesprek).

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

zondag 29 augustus 2010

Kinderpsychiater Peter Adriaenssens, voorzitter van de ondertussen opgedoekte commissie naar misbruik binnen de Kerk, wilde gisteren niet uitgebreid reageren op het gesprek tussen kardinaal Danneels en het slachtoffer van de Brugse bisschop Roger Vangheluwe. 'De tapes spreken voor zich', zegt Adriaenssens. 'Meer wil ik daar niet over zeggen om het gerechtelijk onderzoek niet te bemoeilijken.'

Hij stelt wel enigszins cynisch vast dat Danneels geen enkele keer tijdens dat gesprek het slachtoffer wees op het bestaan van de commissie-Adriaenssens, die het seksueel misbruik binnen de Kerk onderzocht, 'terwijl wij op dat moment al aan het werk waren'.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

'Het gesprek van kardinaal Danneels met het slachtoffer van bisschop Vangheluwe doet ernstig vermoeden dat de Kerk ook andere gevallen van seksueel misbruik onder de mat heeft geveegd zonder in te grijpen.' Dat zegt Christine Mussche, de advocate van het slachtoffer van Vangheluwe.

De advocate beklemtoonde gisteren dat haar cliënt, de 42-jarige man die vanaf zijn vijfde dertien jaar lang door Vangheluwe werd misbruikt, het gesprek niet had opgenomen om het nadien aan de media te kunnen geven. 'Hij wilde voor zichzelf en zijn familie eindelijk een bewijs hebben dat Vangheluwe ten overstaan van een overste het misbruik bekende, nadat hij eerder nooit zijn verantwoordelijkheid had opgenomen. Daarom heeft hij dat gesprek begin april opgenomen. Pas toen de Kerk enkele weken geleden de man als een geldwolf afschilderde die Vangheluwe om zwijggeld had gevraagd, heeft hij ons verteld over die opname. Hij voelde die uitlatingen aan als een lastercampagne van de Kerk aan zijn adres. Wij hebben die opname meteen aan het gerecht bezorgd.'

NEW JERSEY
Philadelphia Inquirer

By Allison Steele
Inquirer Staff Writer

The Diocese of Camden plans to consolidate five more Roman Catholic churches into two new parishes, according to a statement on the diocesan website.

The changes, set to take place Sept. 29, will affect about 5,500 families in Gloucester County, according to the statement by Bishop Joseph Galante.

Forming St. Clare of Assisi Parish will be St. John the Evangelist in Paulsboro, St. Joseph in Swedesboro, and St. Michael in Gibbstown, according to the statement. The seat of the parish will be at St. Michael.

BELGIUM
BBC News

The former head of the Catholic Church in Belgium tried to stop a victim of sex abuse from going public with their story, Church officials have confirmed.

During a meeting in April, Cardinal Godfried Danneels advised the victim to delay a public statement until the bishop who abused him had retired.

Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was also at the meeting, admitted to the abuse in April and resigned.

COLORADO
Denver Post

By Megan Nix
Posted: 08/29/2010

My oldest brother was ordained a priest this year. My friends and family and I strung banners, made wax paper luminaries, ordered 95 pizzas. We found a pinch-hitter when the bartender bailed an hour before the 300-person reception, and reconfigured the Christmas lights that burnt out after an hour of taping them to the ceiling and walls. When a friend's nine kids needed something to do, a coyote appeared just in time for them to chase him off the property towards the mountains.

Details are always distractions, though. Between the food and the decorations and the kids screaming after the animal, I considered the implications of my brother's calling — solitude, obedience, poverty — and I thought about what other people think of priests right now: prayerful, lonely, inclined towards abusing children.

In a recent article, "The Myth of a Catholic Crisis" a Penn State non-Catholic, Philip Jenkins, explains just how extreme (and misplaced) this mindset and anti-clerical propaganda have become.

BELGIE
De Standaard

Ook na het uitlekken van de tapes ontkent kardinaal Danneels dat hij de zaak-Vangheluwe wou verzwijgen. Dat liet hij ons gisteren weten bij monde van zijn woordvoerder, Toon Osaer. 'Kardinaal Danneels blijft erbij dat hij met zijn deelname aan het verzoeningsgesprek binnen de familie en het suggereren van mogelijke wegen daartoe nooit de bedoeling heeft gehad om de zaak in de doofpot te stoppen.'

Op zijn persconferentie van 24 april heeft de kardinaal gezegd dat hij 'vooral geluisterd heeft' naar het slachtoffer. Nu blijkt dat hij zelf ook een paar 'oplossingen' heeft gesuggereerd?

'U zegt dat uit het bandje zou blijken dat hij het slachtoffer ertoe heeft aangespoord om te wachten om met het verhaal naar buiten te komen tot de bisschop met pensioen zou gaan, om op die manier geen publiek schandaal te veroorzaken. De kardinaal geeft toe dat hij dat inderdaad als oplossing heeft gesuggereerd, maar dat was alleen maar in zijn rol als bemiddelaar.'

BELGIE
De Standaard

zaterdag 28 augustus 2010

Het eerste gesprek (gesprek één) gaat tussen kardinaal Danneels en het slachtoffer. Bij het tweede gesprek (gesprek twee), dat enkele minuten later plaatsvindt, zijn ook Roger Vangheluwe zelf en familieleden van het slachtoffer aanwezig.

Gesprek 1

'Dus ik ben mijn hele jeugd misbruikt geweest van mijn nonkel Roger. Seksueel en nu nog altijd geestelijk, en ik vind dat ik daar iets moet mee doen, dat ik de plicht heb om dat te melden aan een hogere instantie', begon het slachtoffer zijn onderhoud met kardinaal Danneels.

'Ik geef de verantwoordelijkheid aan jullie, ik kan er niet over beslissen, ik heb die last op mijn schouders en ik wil van die last verlost zijn en die last aan jou geven. Dat is mijn bedoeling,' veruidelijkt hij zich.

BELGIUM
Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The former head of Belgium's Catholic Church suggested to a sexual abuse victim it would be better to delay a public statement on the case until the bishop involved resigned in 2011, a Church spokesman said on Saturday.

Jurgen Mettepenningen confirmed transcripts in Belgium's De Standaard newspaper of a meeting Roman Catholic Cardinal Godfried Danneels held with Bishop Roger Vangheluwe and a sexual abuse victim of the bishop in April 2010.

"It is true this meeting and conversation took place, and that the transcript is correct," Mettepenningen told Reuters.

NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

Posters depicting the Pope as a paedophile and Prophet Muhammad as a suicide bomber have been hung around Auckland in an advertising campaign.

Already, they appear to have caused outrage: some have been ripped down.

The series of four posters, headed "Religion is Garbage" also depict Jesus Christ as "Hole E Christ" and Destiny Church's Bishop Brian Tamaki as "Brainwashin' Brian".

UNITED STATES
National Alliance to End Sexual Violence

Policy Summary

The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV) believes that polices formulated to manage sex offenders must have as a primary goal the prevention of future sexual victimization. Such policies must hold sex offenders accountable while providing support and safety for victims and their families. The National Alliance supports proposals which are grounded in research, include collaborative approaches which are multi disciplinary and multi agency based, and are assessed critically and routinely to ensure their effectiveness. The National Alliance strongly encourages and supports primary prevention policies and practices which we believe will ultimately reduce sexual victimization by perpetrators.

Problem Statement

States and communities across the nation are developing measures to manage adult sex offenders with the express purpose of increasing safety for victims and communities. Unfortunately, not all measures currently being enacted do, in fact, increase safety. Some put communities at higher risk, while others create a false sense of security. In addition, community education is critical in the effective management of sex offenders, yet is often not a strong component of management policies. ...

!CAUTION!

Victim and community measures to manage sex offenders ordinarily only address convicted sex offenders. However, research shows that the vast majority of sex offenders are never reported, let alone tried and convicted.

Contrary to the popular myth of “stranger danger,” children and youth are far more at risk of sexual abuse from adults they know. The same holds true for adults victims of sexual assault. Research shows that the vast majority of sex offenders know their victims, yet measures are generally designed to address situations in which the sex offender is presumed to be a stranger to the victim.

ILLINOIS
Lez Get Real

08/28/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Early this summer, the congregation at St. Malachy Catholic Church refused to accept as their priest Reverend Vien Van Do. The priest, who is originally from Vietnam, was rejected because in 1999, a lawsuit was brought against him and the Peoria Diocese by a couple from Monticello. According to the suit, Do had molested the woman. The records of the settlement were sealed after Do and the Peoria Diocese settled the case in Peoria County Circuit Court in 2002.

St. Malachy’s in Rantoul, Illinois had never had a priest changed over an internal rebellion. According to Phillip Warner, one of the church trustees and a member of the church since 1943, “It’s the first one they’ve ever changed.” Do was appointed to the parish by Bishop Daniel Jenky, the head of the diocese. The parish learned of the changes in May, and Warner began holding parish meetings soon there after. The result of the meetings was a set of letters sent to the bishop.

Warner has also stated “There was enough local people that had issues about [Do]. People in Thomasboro and Ludlow, where he had been before, also had issues.” Do has had nothing to say publicly about the change.

BELGIUM
KOLD

BRUSSELS (AP) - Roman Catholic Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium offered to keep a sexual molestation case against a bishop secret until the bishop retired, an official said Saturday.

Toon Osaer, Danneels' spokesman, confirmed a report in Saturday's De Standaard newspaper about a secretly taped meeting that Danneels held on April 8 with Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe and the bishop's sexual abuse victim.

Osaer told the VRT television and radio network that Danneels told the victim the case against Vangheluwe could be kept quiet until the bishop retired as scheduled a year later.

ILLINOIS
The News-Gazette

Sat, 08/28/2010 - 8:00am | Lynda Zimmer

RANTOUL – The Rev. Vien Van Do, a Catholic priest rejected as the pastor for a Rantoul church, remains a pastor of three parishes north of Peoria.

Earlier this summer, the St. Malachy Catholic Church congregation balked at accepting Do and instead now has the Rev. Steven Bird as pastor. Opposition was centered around a 1999 lawsuit in which a Monticello couple claimed Do, a native of Vietnam, had molested the woman, a former church secretary.

The suit against Do and the Peoria Diocese was settled in Peoria County Circuit Court in 2002. Details of the settlement were not made public.

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

James Campbell From: Sunday Herald Sun August 29, 2010

THE Catholic Church denied a pedophile priest sexually abused two young sisters more than a decade after the man was jailed for attacking children over a period of 50 years.

The denial came despite an earlier letter written to the girls' parents by Cardinal George Pell, apologising for the priest's crimes and acknowledging the findings by the church's investigator that the cleric had raped both the children.

The revelations are contained in a new book by Chrissie Foster, a mother whose daughters were abused by Oakleigh priest Father Kevin O'Donnell in the 1980s and 1990s.

TOLEDO (OH)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT
As parishioners leave mass, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will hand out fliers about two Catholic school staffers who recently resigned because of a scandal. The leaflets will blast five Toledo Catholic officials who kept quiet for months about suspected sexual misconduct by a parochial teacher (even after state education officials disciplined him).The fliers will also urge Toledo’s bishop to
-- fire each of them,
-- explain and apologize to parents for their recklessness and secrecy, and
-- aggressively seek out other school students and staff who may have seen, suspected or suffered the teacher’s misdeeds or his supervisors’ cover ups, and urge them to call police.

WHEN
Sunday, Aug. 29, at 11:30 a.m.

WHERE
Outside Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral, 2535 Collingwood Blvd. in Toledo, OH (419 244 9575, http://www.rosarycathedral.org/)

VERO BEACH (FL)
TCPalm

VERO BEACH — Police have put out warrants for a man who may have planted child pornography on a former priest’s computer last year.

Alfred Justin Boulerice, 29, has warrants for five counts of trespassing and one count each of tampering with evidence and making a false report to law enforcement. Boulerice, who previously lived in the 1700 block of Fifth Court, Vero Beach, is wanted in the ongoing investigation, which initially resulted in 33 child porn possession charges against Gerald Lamothe. The state dropped all charges in February, but his attorney said the ordeal strongly affected Lamothe.

“This still hangs over him,” attorney Robert Stone said Friday. “The warrants go further toward exonerating him. But not everyone is going to believe him until someone is arrested.”

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Saturday August 28 2010

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin's speech in Italy on Tuesday went a long way towards confirming what so many of us had suspected: that he is losing the battle for reform of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and that he knows it.

It is nothing short of tragic that a man of such human and intellectual qualities should confess to discouragement. Tragic not only for him, but for a country that has lost faith in its institutions. All institutions need constant reform and renewal, and the alternative to reform is not the preservation of the old system but its inevitable decline.

One may say, with much truth, that the church has brought its woes upon itself, and that the rot set in a very long time ago. No need to look back over the history of two centuries and more -- one modern example will suffice.

BELGIUM
Expatica

The former head of the Belgian Catholic Church, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, sought to hush up the sexual abuse of a minor by the former bishop of Bruges, reports said Saturday.

The Flemish dailies De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad published transcripts of recordings made by the victim of a confrontation on April 8 with Roger Vangheluwe in the presence of Danneels, who has been under investigation for shielding predator priests.

According to the recordings, Danneels tried to convince the victim to accept an apology or at least not make his allegations public until Vangheluwe retired a year later.

BELGIE
de redactie

Het gerecht mag geen gebruikmaken van de dossiers die bij de commissie-Adriaenssens in beslag zijn genomen. Bij de zogenoemde Operatie Kelk zijn zware fouten gemaakt. Dat meldt Vtm en is ons bevestigd.

Op 24 juni werden bij de commissie 475 dossiers rond seksueel misbruik in de kerk in beslag genomen.

Twee weken geleden velde de Brusselse kamer van inbeschuldigingstelling een oordeel over de geldigheid van de huiszoekingen bij het bisdom in Mechelen en bij de commissie, de Operatie Kelk. Dat besluit werd echter op vraag van onderzoeksrechter Wim De Troy niet openbaar gemaakt, ondanks herhaaldelijk aandringen.

BELGIQUE
rtbf

27.08.10 - 20:17

D'après VTM, la justice doit rendre tous les dossiers saisis à la commission Adriaenssens. De grosses fautes auraient été commises lors de l'opération Calice. Une information non confirmée par le parquet qui se refuse pour l'instant à tout commentaire.

L'opération calice était une opération dans le cadre d'un dossier relatif à des abus sexuels présumés sur des enfants au sein de l'Eglise. Des perquisitions avaient été menées le 24 juin dernier. La chambre des mises en accusation a rendu il y a deux semaines un arrêt dans cette affaire.

Mais le juge d'instruction qui a mené cette affaire, Wim De Troy, a refusé que l'on divulgue le contenu de cet arrêt.

BELGIE
NOS

De Belgische kardinaal Danneels heeft wel degelijk pogingen gedaan om seksueel misbruik in de doofpot te stoppen. Volgens de Vlaamse krant de Standaard gaat het om de zaak Vangheluwe. Deze bisschop misbruikte zijn neef jarenlang.

De neef heeft zijn oom later een aantal keren gevraagd om zich terug te trekken als bisschop. Naar aanleiding daarvan heeft kardinaal Danneels met de neef gepraat en hem gevraagd de zaak te laten rusten in het belang van de kerk.

Geluidsopnames
De neef van Vangheluwen heeft in het geheim geluidsopnames gemaakt van dit gesprek, journalisten van de Standaard hebben het bandje mogen beluisteren. Met toestemming van de neef is een transcriptie van het gesprek in de krant gepubliceerd.

BELGIE
vandaag

Kardinaal Godfried Danneels probeerde het seksueel misbruik van bisschop Roger Vangheluwe stil te houden. Dat blijkt uit het gesprek met het slachtoffer van Vangheluwe.

De Coreliokranten pakken zaterdag uit met de transcriptie van twee geluidsopnamen die het slachtoffer zelf maakte van het gesprek met Danneels en Vangheluwe. Daaruit blijkt dat Danneels het schandaal geheim wilde houden tot de bisschop een jaar later op pensioen zou gaan. Nochtans heeft de kardinaal dat altijd ontkend.

Het slachtoffer, de neef van de bisschop, is zelf naar buiten gekomen met de geluidsopnames omdat hij naar eigen zeggen het slachtoffer is van een lastercampagne door de Kerk. Die bevestigde namelijk dat Roger Vangheluwe zijn neef jarenlang geld heeft gegeven. Het slachtoffer heeft daar naar eigen zeggen nooit om gevraagd, maar vroeg altijd om het ontslag van Vangheluwe.

BELGIE
Het Nieuwsblad

zaterdag 28 augustus 2010

Maart 2010 Het 42-jarige slachtoffer telefoneert naar zijn oom, bisschop Roger Vangheluwe, die hem misbruikte van zijn vijfde tot zijn achttiende jaar.

Hoe kardinaal Danneels probeerde het schandaal-Vangheluwe geheim te houdenHij vraagt een afspraak met zijn oom en vraagt dat ook diens 'overste', die hij niet bij naam noemt, erbij zou zijn.

Het gonst in die periode in de pers van verhalen over misbruik in de katholieke Kerk in andere landen.

IRELAND
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

IRELAND’S CATHOLIC bishops have “a long history of a lack of unity” the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said, according to an English translation of the address he delivered in Italian at Rimini last Tuesday.

He was speaking there to the annual gathering of lay group Comunione E Liberazione (Communion and Liberation). A translation of his address is now available on the Dublin archdiocese website, dublindiocese.ie.

Titled John Henry Newman: Faith and Reason – the Ireland of Newman, the Ireland of Today , it is an approximately 3,000-word reflection “not only on the period and the work of Newman in Dublin, but also on the lessons which we can learn for Irish Catholicism today from Newman’s thought and activity”.

HOPKINTON (MA)
MetroWest Daily News

By David Riley/Daily News staff

Posted Aug 28, 2010

A Hopkinton man recently charged with sexually assaulting a Worcester teen was barred from his work as a traveling minister in the 1970s after an earlier allegation of child abuse, current and former members of his religious group said.

George Scandalis, 67, had been a minister for a Christian fellowship that goes by no official name but is informally known as the Two-by-Twos, the Workers, the Truth or the Christian Conventions.

Barry Barkley, who coordinates some of the ministry's activities in the Northeast, said members told Scandalis no later than 1979 to cease his work after a claim of child abuse in Massachusetts.

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

James Campbell
From: Sunday Herald Sun August 29, 2010

IT IS tempting sometimes to think that we know everything we can know about the scandal of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

After all, the issue has been loudly canvassed on and off in the media for years - most recently in 2008 when the Pope visited Australia for World Youth Day.

And there comes a point with all grievances when the public, having grown bored with victim groups' endless tales of woe and their apparent refusal to move on, grows weary of their whingeing.

Sometimes, though one knows that great wrongs have been done, a reaction can set in and one starts to wonder whether the complaints may not be overblown.

SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat

An official report on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in Ireland includes a 61-page section on an unnamed priest whose history matches Patrick Joseph McCabe, who is accused of molesting six boys in Dublin between 1973 and 1981.

McCabe, 74, has also been named in two lawsuits by Humboldt County men who allege the former priest molested them in Eureka in the 1980s.

The Murphy Report, commissioned by the Irish government and released last year, says an Irish archbishop asked former Santa Rosa Bishop Mark Hurley to accept a "troublesome priest" in 1983 and that Hurley agreed.

SAN ANTONIO (TX)
KENS

by KENS 5 staff

A priest living in San Antonio will pay $500,000 to settle a sexual abuse lawsuit.

In 1985, William Mueller was a former principal at a high school in St. Louis, Missouri, when the assault took place.

Mueller also has been named in multiple lawsuits in Texas, Colorado and Missouri.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

A priest formerly assigned to Central Catholic High School is evidently living with the 19-year-old former student whose parents have filed a lawsuit claiming that the priest is the father of their daughter's child.

On Friday an Associated Press reporter knocked on the door of the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito's apartment in Norristown.

A woman answered, identifying herself as the teen named in the lawsuit. She declined to comment. Bonilla was not seen.

ALASKA
Fairbanks News-Miner

by Amanda Bohman / abohman@newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — Three Roman Catholic bishops of Alaska are in Nome this weekend visiting with elders and the homebound and conducting healing services for sexual abuse victims.

Fairbanks Catholic Diocese Bishop Donald Kettler held a prayer service at St. Joseph Church Friday, the first of three healing activities planned during the weekend.

Kettler was joined by Archbishop Roger L. Schwietz from Anchorage and Bishop Edward J. Burns of Juneau.

On Friday, the bishops visited the diocese’s radio station KNOM for an interview and visited elders, some to receive the sacraments and to visit. Later, they attended a meeting of the King Island Council in Nome and held an evening prayer service.

UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Evening Post

By Stef Hall
Published on Sat Aug 28

A former lawyer subjected to years of abuse at a Preston Jesuit run school has spoken of his long journey ahead after the Court of Appeal threw out a bid by the Catholic Order to overturn a ruling it was liable for the treatment he endured.

Patrick Raggett, 52, and formerly of Duchy Avenue, Fulwood, said the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of the late Father Michael Spencer at the former Preston Catholic College between 1969 and 1976 severely affected his personal relationships and his career as a City lawyer in later life and intends to sue the former governors.

Mr Raggett, whose mother was a secretary at St Gregory’s Catholic Primary school in Deepdale and dad was in the RAF, said he had a ‘golden’ childhood and had done well at school until, in 1969, he went to the college, which “the Jesuits ruled with a rod of iron”.

BELGIUM
IOL

August 28 2010

Brussels - The former head of the Belgian Catholic Church, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, sought to hush up the sexual abuse of a minor by the former bishop of Bruges, reports said on Saturday.

The Flemish dailies De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad published transcripts of recordings made by the victim of a confrontation on April 8 with Roger Vangheluwe in the presence of Danneels, who has been under investigation for shielding predator priests.

According to the recordings, Danneels tried to convince the victim to accept an apology or at least not make his allegations public until Vangheluwe retired a year later.

DENVER (CO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For more information:
David Clohessy of SNAP 314 566 9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com,
Attorney Adam Horowitz 305 931 2200, ahorowitz@sexabuseattorney.com

A Denver judge is letting a clergy sex abuse case involving a Catholic priest move forward, even though church officials tried to get it tossed out.

On Wednesday, District Court Judge Michael Martinez denied a motion by a Denver-based religious order to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a 49-year old man who reports having been sexually abused by Fr. Mark Matson in the mid 1970s at St. Andrews Seminary, a Catholic boarding school in Denver for boys. At the time, the boy was 15-16 and Matson headed the school.

While staying in the dorms as a prospective student, the victim, identified only as John Doe, was fondled by Matson. After he enrolled, Matson continued to fondle him throughout the school year, and Matson eventually raped the boy while he was unconscious.

MISSOURI
Columbia Daily Tribune

By T.J. Greaney

Friday, August 27, 2010

A Columbia man who says he was sexually abused by a Catholic brother in 1985 has won a $500,000 court order.

Earlier this month, a St. Louis County judge ordered Brother William C. Mueller, 71, to pay the penalty in a civil suit stemming from accusations that he abused Bryan Bacon, 40, of Columbia. The abuse is alleged to have occurred when Bacon was a 15-year-old sophomore at St. John Vianney High School in St. Louis.

Bacon — now an attorney with the law office of Van Matre, Harrison, Hollis, Pitzer and Taylor — said he doesn’t expect to see a penny of compensation from the ruling and will not attempt to collect it from Mueller.

COLORADO
Westword

By Michael Roberts, Fri., Aug. 27 2010

​Fresh developments in two cases involving alleged child molesters from religious backgrounds with a past in Colorado.

This week, a judge declined to toss a lawsuit against Father Mark Matson, who's accused of molesting a teenage boy at a Denver boarding school circa the '70s. And William Muller, a Catholic brother targeted in a multi-million-dollar judgment in Pueblo two years ago was ordered to pay $500,000 by a St. Louis court in a separate case.

Attorney Adam Horowitz, based in Miami, represents the plaintiffs in both actions; he specializes in working with alleged child-sex abuse victims, focusing on accusations against the clergy.

NEDERLAND
Radio Nederland

Volgende week komt advocaat Bob van der Goen met een eerste eis tot schadevergoeding aan een priester. Het is de eerste R-K geestelijke van de 'tenminste tien' priesters die zo'n eis tegemoet kunnen zien. Zo meldt Van der Goen in Dagblad De Limburger. Van der Goen treedt op namens meerdere slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in de Rooms-Katholieke kerk.

Voorzitter Bert Smeets van de Stichting Mea Culpa bevestigt dat er zeker claims komen tegen geestelijken. Aanstaande woensdag komt advocaat Van der Goen namens de stichting en andere slachtoffers met namen en feiten naar buiten.

'Vanaf nu gaan we er keihard tegenaan,' zegt de advocaat tegen De Limburger. 'We hebben tientallen getuigenverkaringen voor gevallen waarin zeker tien geestelijkene betrokken zijn geweest. Daarom zullen we spoedig instellingen personen om wie het gaat sommeren hun aansprakelijkheid te erkennen. Daarna kunnen we via de rechter de eis van schadevergoeding formuleren.'

ITALY
National Catholic Reporter (United States)

by John L Allen Jr on Aug. 27, 2010 All Things Catholic

Friends and foes alike of Pope Benedict XVI concur that he's got an image problem. Where they place the blame for it may differ, but the fact itself seems clear: From a PR point of view, this is a pontificate defined by its train wrecks.

Cataloguing those train wrecks is the burden of a valuable new book by two of the best Italian vaticanisti going: Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale and Paolo Rodari of Il Foglio, both of whom also operate widely read blogs -- "Palazzo apostolico" for Rodari and "Sacri palazzi" for Tornielli. Their work is titled Attacco a Ratzinger: Accuse e scandali, profezie e complotti ("Attack on Ratzinger: Accusations and Scandals, Prophecies and Plots"), published in Italian by Piemme.

The book came out in Italy on Tuesday, and one hopes an enterprising publisher in the States will bring out an English translation quickly. (Let me volunteer here and now: I'd be happy to put together a preface introducing the book, and its authors, to an English-speaking audience.)

PENNSYLVANIA
Lebanon Daily News

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press Writer
Posted: 08/27/2010

ALLENTOWN, Pa.—A Pennsylvania couple secretly videotaped a Roman Catholic priest having sex with their teenage daughter in the basement of their home and are now suing, saying he got her pregnant.

The lawsuit alleges that the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito carried on a sexual relationship with a teenage girl while he was the chaplain of Reading Central Catholic High School and she was a senior there.

The girl's parents became suspicious and installed a camera in their basement. The lawsuit says the camera recorded the couple having sex in November 2009. The Diocese of Allentown removed Bonilla from his post after he acknowledged an "inappropriate relationship."

PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

By Tracy Jordan, OF THE MORNING CALL

A Roman Catholic priest allegedly seduced a 17-year-old girl while she was a senior at a Catholic high school in Reading into a sexual relationship that resulted in her giving birth at age 19, according to a civil lawsuit filed by the parents in Berks County Court.

According to the lawsuit, the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito was removed as chaplain of Reading Central Catholic High School and pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Reading after the parents secretly video-taped him having sexual intercourse with their daughter in the basement of their home in November 2009.

By then, she had graduated from high school and had turned 18 years old, but the lawsuit alleges the sexual relationship began when she was still in high school. The lawsuit says her parents allowed their daughter to meet with the priest for counseling because she had severe mental health issues as a result of a prior sexual abuse by another adult male.

MICHIGAN
South Bend Tribune

By SHERRY VAN ARSDALL
Tribune Staff Writer

A once well-known pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Niles, the Right Rev. Monsignor John Slowey, who died in January 1983, was named in an accusation of sexually molesting a boy decades ago in the Lansing area.

Kalamazoo diocese spokeswoman Vicki Cessna confirmed that Slowey was the pastor in Niles from August 1966 until his death in January 1983.

Cessna said there have been no other allegations of molestation by Slowey in the Diocese of Kalamazoo.

CALIFORNIA
Orange Coast

The way Newport Beach molestation survivor Joelle Casteix sees it, the Lord eventually will deal with those in the Roman Catholic Church who tolerate and shield abusers. In the meantime, she’s busy reminding anyone who’ll listen who they are and what they did.

By Patrice Apodaca

Sunday Mass is under way at St. Angela Merici Catholic Church in Brea. It’s barely 10 a.m. and the temperature already is in the mid-80s, but inside the sanctuary the air remains cool as the priest preaches to the faithful that God is always present.

Outside on the hot pavement, Joelle Casteix waits. As Mass concludes and the church empties, Casteix quietly approaches departing worshippers and hands them fliers accusing Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown of shielding clerics accused of sexual misconduct and failing to warn parishioners of alleged molesters in their midst. “Please HELP US Keep Kids Safe and Protect Victims,” the fliers exhort.

Most of the churchgoers accept the handout silently and move on. Some deposit the fliers in a nearby trash can. A few ask questions and offer support. One woman repeatedly tells Casteix, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.” The woman goes back inside, then moments later a church representative emerges. His tone is polite but firm as he cautions Casteix to stay off church property, and it’s tough to miss that he outweighs her by about 100 pounds. She takes a step back, checks to see that her feet are planted on the public sidewalk, and murmurs, “They always send the biggest guys out to deal with me.”

MASSACHUSETTS
The Pilot

BRAINTREE -- In two separate and unrelated incidents, two priests of the Archdiocese of Boston were laicized after voluntarily requesting to leave the priesthood following allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

The archdiocese announced on Aug. 20 that Robert P. Beale and Dennis A. Keefe are "no longer in the clerical state" in a statement released by spokesman Terrence Donilon. As a result of the laicizations, the two men will not receive any monetary support from the archdiocese nor function in any way as a priest except offering absolution to the dying.

The decision was made by the Vatican.

CALIFORNIA
Herald (Ireland)

Friday August 27 2010

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa in California is facing a second lawsuit from a man claiming he was sexually abused as a child by an Irish priest.

The lawsuit filed in Sonoma County Superior Court said that Father Patrick McCabe had abused the plaintiff almost weekly during most of 1983.

It claimed that diocese officials knew Fr McCabe had been accused of molesting children in his native Ireland before he was assigned to St Bernard's Church in Eureka.

CALIFORNIA
AlterNet

The current news that is exploding around the globe concerning the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is staggering. The top two hierarchy figures representing the Catholic Church are now being held accountable for their implications in the cover-ups and mishandling of child sex abuse scandals. The Pope, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, and Cardinal Levada of San Fancisco, are now being busted for their own misdeeds. But many people are unaware what occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area a few years ago, before Cardinal Levada left the Bay Area to become the highest ranking US figure to have ever been placed in the Vatican. Cardinal Levada, formerly the Bishop of San Francisco, was promoted in 2005 to be the “Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith”, the office historically known in the past as the office of the General Inquisitor. The Inquisition was responsible for the torture, rape, and burning of countless innocent women and children, accused of being “Witches”.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Malachi O'Doherty's take on the Claudy scandal was like the curate's egg — good in parts.

Wherever he got the report of my address at an Ulster Vanguard meeting, he would be wiser to contextualise it rather than dismiss it as “an absurd notion”.

Sadly the actions of James Chesney were well known. I discovered this when Jill Knight told me of a parliamentary visit in Northern Ireland.

While in Coleraine RUC station they saw his picture among others wanted for questioning. Enquiring why he had not been arrested, they were told that the bishop had removed him from the jurisdiction.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

His defence of the church’s decision to help bomber priest, Fr James Chesney to escape justice shows Cardinal Brady is lost in moral maze, argues Malachi O’Doherty

Thursday, 26 August 2010

What more could Cardinal Conway have done?” This question was voiced by Cardinal Sean Brady when faced with the charge that the Catholic Church had colluded in helping a priest suspected of murder to evade prosecution.

Well, it is an important question and it is important that Cardinal Brady should show himself well able to answer it, if indeed there was some measure, taken or not taken by his predecessor, which disgraced his office.

For Cardinal Brady is himself under criticism for having concealed crime. He, like Cardinal Conway, was notified of crimes committed by a priest. He was told of the abuse of children by Fr Brendan Smyth.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The governors of a Jesuit-run school must face a £5m action from an ex-pupil who claimed he was sexually abused.

Preston Catholic College has lost an appeal against a court ruling which gave Patrick Raggett, 52, of west London, the right to claim damages.

Mr Raggett alleged he was assaulted regularly over a four-year period.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

By Holly Herman
Reading Eagle

A Muhlenberg Township couple filed a lawsuit in Berks County Court on Thursday, accusing the Allentown Diocese of failing to prevent a former Central Catholic High School priest from impregnating their 19-year-old daughter.

The parents, whose names are being withheld by the Reading Eagle, are seeking more than $300,000 in damages, according to the suit filed by Jay N. Abramowitch of Wyomissing.

The following also were named as defendants: the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito, Bishop John O. Barres and former Bishop Edward P. Cullen.

PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic Culture

August 27, 2010
A lawsuit filed against the Diocese of Allentown alleges that Father Luis A. Bonilla Margarito, while a parish priest and high school chaplain, had a relationship with a high school student that resulted in the birth of a child. The parents of the recent high school graduate claim that school officials did nothing after they expressed their concerns that the priest and their daughter were spending too much time together.

SCOTLAND
Scotsman

Published Date: 26 August 2010
By Stephen McGinty

ON the evening of 22 March 1973, the deputy chief constable of Glasgow police knocked on the door of the presbytery of Our Holy Redeemer church in Clydebank and asked to speak to Bishop Thomas Winning.

• Left, John Sweeney was cleared by the courts after being found 'not proven'. Above, The Scotsman tells of the priest's suspension in 7 May 1973. Top, Caroline Renehan is led away from court to start a five-year prison sentence for her involvement in the plot. Near right, St Teresa's Church in Saracen Street in Possilpark where Father Bartholomew Burns was based before fleeing to Ireland. Far, right, Cardinal Thomas Winning was shocked by the revelations.

In the study of the future Cardinal, the senior officer broke disturbing news: an arrest warrant had been issued for a priest in the Glasgow diocese in connection with IRA terrorist activities.

IRELAND
National Secular Society (United Kingdom)

The emergence of the truth about the Claudy bombing in 1972 and the almost certain involvement of a Catholic priest Fr. Chesney has been much commented on.

It seems Fr Chesney was a well-known republican and his direct involvement with the IRA was long suspected by the authorities. After the Claudy bombs — in which nine people died — the finger of suspicion fell inevitably on Chesney.

But such was the hair-trigger sensitivity of ‘the Troubles’ at that time, the authorities feared what the arrest of a Catholic priest would do to an already seething atmosphere.

So, the state, the police and the Church colluded to cover up Chesney’s involvement. As with so many other wrong-doers within the church, he was moved from one parish to another where he continued his nefarious activities unchallenged. Now the Scotsman reveals a similar story of another Irish Catholic priest who was sent to Scotland but rapidly became involved in terrorist activities. Once more, the Church ensured that he escaped unpunished.

UNITED KINGDOM
Fleetwood Weekly News

Published Date: 27 August 2010

The governors of a Jesuit-run school in Lancashire have lost an appeal against a court ruling which gave a former City lawyer the right to pursue a £5 million damages action against them.

Patrick Raggett, 52, of west London, claims he was subjected to years of "insidious" sexual abuse by a teacher at Preston Catholic College.

He alleges that, while he was naked, Father Michael Spencer - who died in 2000 aged 76 - measured him "to chart his growth", filmed him performing exercises, photographed him and touched him inappropriately

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Friday August 27 2010

THE Government must disclose all that is known about controversial vaccine trials carried out on children in the care of the State in past decades.

Our initial reports centred on Mari Steed, now aged 50, and three others who are to take legal action in the US courts against a multinational pharmaceutical company, on whose behalf the trials were conducted.

Ms Steed was subjected to the trial in the Sacred Heart Convent in Bessborough, Co Cork, when she was between nine and 18 months old, without her mother's consent.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Paddy Doyle

Friday August 27 2010

I can still smell iodine and surgical spirit as if it was under my nose as I write these words

IN recent weeks, new investigations carried out by the Irish Independent have raised the question of whether or not children placed in industrial schools were subjected to vaccine trials by multinational drug companies.

This issue has been put to one side since the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, under the chairmanship of Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, was prohibited from including it in its original terms of reference.

Following a successful court hearing taken by doctors named as having taken part in the experimental vaccination, the issue was allowed to fade into the background.

I was 'sentenced to be detained' in St Michael's Industrial School for Junior Boys, Cappoquin, Co Waterford, in 1955, following the deaths of both my parents within a five-week period of each other.

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Patricia McDonagh

Friday August 27 2010

THE Government was told about secret vaccine trials at least six years ago but has refused to investigate them ever since.

The Irish Independent can reveal that the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline -- the firm that was behind controversial vaccine trials on children in state care during the 1960s and 1970s -- handed over records relating to the tests to a child-abuse inquiry in 2004.

The revelations have piled pressure on Health Minister Mary Harney to launch an independent probe into the contents of the documents.

The Department of Health admitted last night that its officials have been "in discussions" with the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse about what to do with the records.

DAVENPORT (IA)
Quad-City Times

The Diocese of Davenport has moved past bankruptcy, clergy abuse scandals and the most difficult economic times in 70 years to reach what some believed was an unattainable

$22 million capital fundraising goal.

The feat was announced Thursday. The capital campaign officially began in January, but significant work on it was accomplished in 2009.

“No one enjoys asking people for money, but we had a good approach, and we were well received,” Mike Bauer said. Bauer, the retired president and chief executive officer of Quad-City Bank & Trust, chaired the capital campaign.

ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post

A cleaner who worked in a synagogue was indicted by the Jerusalem District Court on Friday on charges of sexual abusing at the place of worship minors between the ages of eight and thirteen. The suspect has also been charged with sodomy and attempted sodomy.

The accused, 45-year-old Gil Dvash, allegedly offered the boys money to help him clean the synagogue and would then engage them with sexual behavior. During the police investigation, Dvash admitted to officers that he committed some of the acts alleged to have taken place between the years 2006 and 2008.

NEDERLAND
Nederlands Dagblad

Vrijwilligersorganisaties die met kinderen werken, kunnen met behulp van een nieuwe handreiking eenvoudig beleid ontwikkelen om seksueel misbruik te voorkomen. Jantje Beton en enkele gemeenten stellen het gebruik van de handreiking al als eis voor subsidie.

UTRECHT - ,,De meeste clubs die met kinderen werken, denken niet na over het voorkomen van seksueel misbruik. Dat onderwerp wordt pas urgent voor een bestuur als het fout gaat. Maar dan is het ook direct goed fout. Verenigingen moeten daarom echt geholpen worden beleid op te stellen dat seksueel misbruik kan voorkomen'', zegt Marco van Westerlaak, bestuurslid van de Vereniging Nederlandse Organisaties Vrijwilligerswerk (NOV). De vereniging heeft samen met het ministerie van Justitie, NOC*NSF, Scouting Nederland en Movisie een handreiking om seksueel misbruik te voorkomen opgesteld voor organisaties die met kinderen werken.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Houston Chronicle

ST. LOUIS — A priest who was a former principal at Vianney High School in St. Louis has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit by a former student who claimed he was sexually abused.

Officials with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, say Brother William Mueller will pay damages to Bryan Bacon. Bacon previously reached settlement with the Marianist Province of the United States, the St. Louis-based order that operates Vianney.

Mueller is now in his 70s and lives in San Antonio.

TULSA (OK)
Tulsa World

[bishop's letter]

By BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer
Published: 8/27/2010

The Diocese of Tulsa's Diocesan Review Board has not been able to substantiate allegations against a Claremore priest who was accused by a Denver man of abusing him 32 years ago.

The Rev. Paul Eichhoff will stay in his position as pastor of St. Cecilia's Catholic Church in Claremore.

His accuser, Paul Weber, told the diocese early this year that in 1978, when he was 9, he and two other boys were molested by Eichhoff at St. Mary's parish in Brookside.

NEDERLAND
RTV Utrecht

SOEST - Advocaat Van der Goen uit Soest komt volgende week naar buiten met de namen van katholieke priesters die betrokken zouden zijn bij seksueel misbruik. Hij zegt in het AD genoeg bewijs te hebben uit de monden van ruim 40 slachtoffers.

De juridische 'openbaring' volgt op een verklaring van de Commissie Deetman, die het seksueel misbruik binnen de Katholieke Kerk onderzoekt.

[summary]

Lawyer Van der Goen of Soest said he will next week disclose the names of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse. He said the AD has enough evidence gathered from more than 40 victims.

UNITED KINGDOM
Channel 4

By Channel 4 News
Updated on 27 August 2010

.A 52-year-old can go ahead with his court case against a Jesuit school where he claims he was abused. Channel 4 news hears that child abuse cases are often tried outside the legal time limit.

Patrick Raggett claimed he was subjected to years of sexual abuse by a teacher at Preston Catholic College in Lancashire, which has since closed down.

He alleged that he was measured "to chart his growth" while he was naked, filmed performing exercises, photographed and touched inappropriately by Father Michael Spencer, who died in 2000 aged 76.

UNITED STATES
Beliefnet

Mark D. Roberts

Yesterday I examined a passage from 1 Corinthians 6, which instructed Christians to avoid solving their problems in secular court. Let me quote that text again before suggesting some practical implications.

When you have something against another Christian, why do you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter, instead of taking it to other Christians to decide who is right? Don't you know that someday we Christians are going to judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, can't you decide these little things among yourselves? Don't you realize that we Christians will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disagreements here on earth. If you have legal disputes about such matters, why do you go to outside judges who are not respected by the church? I am saying this to shame you. Isn't there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these arguments? But instead, one Christian sues another--right in front of unbelievers! To have such lawsuits at all is a real defeat for you. Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated? But instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your own Christian brothers and sisters. (1 Cor 6:1-8)

In our time of history, this may be one of the most counter-cultural passages in all of Scripture. It's not news that we live in a highly litigious culture. People sue each other right and left for the most trivial things. It's a given in our society that you should never "accept the injustice and leave it at that." Rather, we are taught to press every possible advantage for the sake of gain, even if that means suing a fellow believer in court. (Photo: Of course Paul never knew that one day there would be a Judge Judy!)

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/markdroberts/2010/08/how-not-to-solve-conflicts-among-christians-part-2.html#ixzz0xoEzZz6x

AUSTRALIA
Lez Get Real

08/26/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire

Father Murray Alexander Moffat will be spending a total of three months in jail after admitting to sexually abusing a young girl from 1978 to 1980. The Ipswich priest was assistant priest at Sacred Heart Church in Booval when he molested a girl who was twelve at the time. The abuse ended when she was fifteen. Rather than admitting that he was wrong, he made the decision to attack the victim of his abuse.

According to Moffat, she encouraged it, and even kissed him first. In a taped conversation he stated “I made a mistake – you invited me. . .I should have said now but I didn’t. I thought you wanted me to do that. . .You were special to me.” According to Crown Proscecutor Sarah Farnden, the priest told the girl that she instigated the behavior, but it was “his mistake to allow her to do that.”

Farnden has also stated that the priest was allowed to regularly spend time with the girl in her bedroom, and in 1980, the girl recalls being driven by her father to see an industrial fire at Bundamba with Moffat sitting in the front passenger seat and her behind him. Apparently, at the time, Moffat reached back and molested her.

AUSTRALIA
9 News

By Jay Savage, ninemsn

The mother of two girls whose lives were destroyed by a pedophile priest says she believes the Catholic Church is still in denial about sexual abuse within its ranks.

Chrissie Foster's daughters Emma and Katie never recovered from the abuse they suffered at the hands of Father Kevin O'Donnell next to their Melbourne primary school between 1988 and 1993.

Tormented to the end, Emma died holding the teddy bear she received for her first birthday after overdosing on medication in 2008.

SANTA ROSA (CA)
Times-Standard

Ashley Bailey/For the Times-Standard
Posted: 08/27/2010

A second man is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa, alleging in a complaint filed Thursday that he was repeatedly molested as an 11-year-old by a former priest at St. Bernard's Parish in Eureka in 1983.

The suit, filed in Sonoma County Superior Court by the 38-year-old “John Doe 77,” alleges that the church committed fraud and acted negligently when it placed priest Patrick Joseph McCabe in the Eureka parish from 1983 to 1985, knowing that McCabe had been deemed a pedophile and without warning parishioners. The suit seeks unspecified damages to compensate the plaintiff for psychological and emotional injuries, as well as reimbursement for medical and mental health expenses.

According to the suit, the diocese “had a duty to not hire and/or retain McCabe, given McCabe's dangerous and exploitive propensities.”

ICELAND
Iceland Review

Recent events have shown that the Church of Iceland is a stagnated institution which takes itself too seriously and believes to have rights that supersede the law.

When Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs Ragna Árnadóttir asked the church to make a nine-percent cutback to help the nation cope with the economic difficulties it’s going through, its executives flatly refused, saying they would only make a five-percent cutback.

Bishop of Iceland Karl Sigurbjörnsson has admitted that the church failed in the case of three women who accused his predecessor of sexual harassment in 1996.

IRELAND
Irish Central

By MOLLY MULDOON, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Friday, August 27, 2010

An Irish priest has called the Vatican’s selection process “secretive and greatly imbalanced”.

Fr Paddy Byrne from Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow hit out at elective powers in Rome over the secrecy surrounding the upcoming appointment of the new bishop of Kildare and Leighlin.

The Carlow priest is the youngest in the diocese and writes a weekly column for the Carlow Nationalist newspaper. In his column this week he acknowledged that he was cynical and deeply frustrated by the no change mentality that continues to govern in Rome.

MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Staff reports | Posted: Friday, August 27, 2010

A man who claimed a repressed memory of alleged sexual abuse by a Vianney High School teacher has agreed to settle with the priest for $500,000.

Under the settlement terms filed with St. Louis County court earlier this month, Brother William Mueller, 71, of San Antonio, will pay Bryan Bacon damages for child sexual abuse and battery.

Bacon had already settled part of the suit with the Marianist Province of the United States, a St. Louis-based order that operated Vianney.

CALIFORNIA
The Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

CIVIL ACTIONS by two Californian men have been initiated there against former Dublin Catholic priest Patrick Joseph McCabe (74) who is already the subject of 10 warrants issued in the Irish courts for his extradition.

He was remanded in custody in California this month pending the full extradition hearing which is likely to take place this autumn.

One of the civil cases in California claims that Mr McCabe repeatedly molested a then 11-year-old boy at a parish at Eureka, California around 1983.

IRELAND
The Independent (United Kingdom)

By Jerome Taylor, Religious Affairs Correspondent

The number of priestly ordinations in Ireland has dipped below England and Wales for the first time in living memory, new figures reveal.

The recruitment crisis is a clear indication of how low the church has sunk in a country that once used to export Catholic missionaries to all corners of the globe and often provided Britain with a significant proportion of its priests.

According to new figures released by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ireland, just 16 men are due to start training for the priesthood this autumn, less than half the 39 that signed up for the priesthood last year. In the 1980s Ireland would regularly draw more than 150 new recruits to the priesthood every year.

COLOMBIA
RCN Radio

Por: RCN Cali
El sacerdote Rodrigo Carvajal Vargas, que tenía una relación con dos mujeres hace varios años, renunció al cargo eclesiástico que ejercía, dimisión que hizo ante al Arzobispo Coadjutor de la Arquidiócesis de Cali, Monseñor Darío Monsalve.

El alto prelado de la iglesia católica calificó esta situación como dolorosa y vergonzosa y anuncio que se abrió un expediente para escuchar a las personas implicadas para hacer los descargos e identificar el tipo de falta en las que incurrió como la relación de concubinato y tomar las decisiones canónicas que fueran necesarias.

El padre Carvajal Vargas, tenía una relación con Noelia Quintero, hace tres años y quien fue la sacó a la luz pública esta situación y también vive hace 20 años con Blanca Lucía Vélez, quien no se ha pronunciado sobre el hecho.

COLOMBIA
Colombia Reports

A 73-year old Cali priest was forced to resign after one of his two girlfriends exposed she had sexual relations with the father.

High church officials told Spanish press agency Efe on Thursday that priest Rodrigo Carvajal Vargas had handed in his resignation note on Wednesday.

The priest was forced to leave his post at the La Merced church after one of his lovers took to the public that the supposedly abstaining church official had had sexual relations with her for three years, while living with another woman for twenty year without the church noticing.

SANTA ROSA (CA)
Taiwan News

By JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press
2010-08-27

A man who claimed he was sexually abused as a child by an Irish priest filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa _ the second such alleging the church knew the priest was facing abuse charges in Ireland, but failed to warn the parish.

The lawsuit, filed in Sonoma County Superior Court, alleged that Rev. Patrick McCabe abused the man almost weekly during most of 1983, when McCabe was assigned to St. Bernard's church as associate pastor. The alleged victim, who was 11 at the time, attended the school attached to St. Bernard's in Eureka, California.

McCabe's attorney and the diocese's spokeswoman didn't immediately return calls Thursday.

SANTA ROSA (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer

(08-26) 17:00 PDT SANTA ROSA -- A second man has sued the Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Diocese, claiming that he was molested by a priest sent from Ireland to work in California in the 1980s despite having been the subject of boys' complaints in his homeland.

The plaintiff in the latest case, a 38-year-old Eureka man who filed suit Thursday, said he first disclosed the alleged abuse to an ex-girlfriend several years ago but had never said anything to police or church officials.

He decided to sue, he said, after reading quotes from church officials in response to the arrest of Patrick Joseph McCabe, 74, earlier this month for allegedly sexually assaulting six boys in Ireland from 1973 to 1981.

CANADA
Western Catholic Reporter

DEBORAH GYAPONG
CANADIAN CATHOLIC NEWS

OTTAWA - Catholic women must use their gifts to address the systemic problems that have led to the Church's global sexual abuse crisis.

That's the message Dr. Nuala Kenny, a retired pediatrician and Sister of Charity, brought the Catholic Women's League's (CWL) 90th national convention here Aug. 9.

"As long we think clergy sex abuse is the individual sin of an individual offender or the individual sin of mismanagement on the part of bishops, we are not going to learn about why," Kenny told 600 delegates packing a downtown hotel ballroom.

SANTA ROSA (CA)
The Press Democrat

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A second Humboldt County man has sued the Santa Rosa Catholic Diocese alleging he was repeatedly molested in the 1980s by a former Irish priest who had been designated as a pedophile.

The suit, filed Thursday in Sonoma County Superior Court, accuses the diocese of negligence and fraud for hiring the Rev. Patrick Joseph McCabe and failing to disclose his misconduct to parishioners in Eureka.

The alleged victim is a 38-year-old Humboldt County man who served as an altar boy at St. Bernard Church, where McCabe was assigned to serve by former Santa Rosa Bishop Mark Hurley, who died in 2001.

OKLAHOMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, executive director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com)

In a short, terse letter, Tulsa Catholic officials today notified a clergy sex abuse victim that they are “not able to substantiate” his report of childhood sexual abuse by Fr. Paul Eichhoff, so Eichhoff will remain as pastor of a Claremont/Claremore church, despite allegations of child sex abuse leveled against him by two different men, neither of whom filed lawsuits.

(For copy of the letter, contact Barbara Dorris at 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com; or view it here)

GERMANY
U.S. Catholic

By Jonathan Luxmoore, Catholic News Service

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- Germany's Catholic bishops have approved new guidelines for handling claims of sex abuse by church personnel to facilitate cooperation with law enforcement bodies.

The guidelines, in preparation since February, were approved by the bishops' permanent council at a meeting in Wurzburg. A statement from the German bishops' conference said Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, who was appointed in February as the church's point-man for abuse claims, will present the guidelines at a news conference Aug. 31.

The new guidelines will replace 2002 guidelines and are expected to be expanded to include all church personnel, not just clergy.

NEW JERSEY
Roxbury Register

By MIKE CONDON
Editor

ROXBURY TWP. – Long-time parishioners of St. Therese Roman Catholic Church in Succasunna were left reeling, and with very little information, following a blanket statement at mass on Sunday, Aug. 22 informing them that a large sum of church money was missing, and that the matter was being investigated by authorities.

And at the center of the investigation, according to authorities, is the parish’s long-time former priest, Father Joseph Davis, who seems to be, at least somewhat, of a mystery himself.

The Rev. Robert Hooper, the temporary administrator of St. Therese Church, which is located on Main Street, Succasunna, read the following statement during mass last weekend.

AUSTRALIA
The Queensland Times

Felicity Caldwell | 27th August 2010

AN IPSWICH priest will spend the next three months in jail after admitting abusing a young girl.

Murray Alexander Moffat was an assistant priest at Sacred Heart Church at Booval when he sexually abused the girl from 1978 to 1980 – when she was aged between 12 and 15.

Ipswich District Court heard the victim, now aged 43, confronted Moffat last year while wearing a police wire and he admitted the abuse.

UNITED STATES
Anti-Catholic League

by David Fortwengler

Tonight Bill Donohue and the Catholic League will be holding a rally in New York City to protest the decision by officials from the Empire State Building, a privately held company, not to light the tower blue and white on the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birthday. Donohue claims his organization exists to safeguard religious freedom rights and free speech rights for Catholics. The truth is that those rights are fiercely protected in our country; they are not being threatened, they are not in jeopardy. Because Catholic rights are not under attack bloviating Bill justifies his existence by criticizing non-Catholics for exercising their rights.

Why would he consider the lack of blue and white on a private building in any way a denial of Catholic rights? The fact he has obtained a permit to protest the ESB’s decision proves that none of his protected freedoms are being denied. I do not question his rights, only his motives and methods. When questioned by Catholic journalist Raymond Arroyo of EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) Bill was asked what the motive could be for the ESB’s decision. He responded, “Blatant anti-Catholicism.” The purpose of the Catholic League is not to defend rights that are already constitutionally protected, it’s purpose is to deflect and deny any disagreement or criticism of the church by labeling it as prejudiced or biased. ...

Sadly, the long term goal of many Catholic apologists like Donohue is to discredit the facts about the scandal, the Catholic hierarchy's negligence, the lack of accountability, and to pretend secular societies outrage is merely a result of victim’s groups, attorney’s, and the media’s anti-Catholicism. The litany of excuses of minimizations include, it’s in the past, others have done it, the issue lacks perspective, most priests are good priests, why is it on the front page, and the church is a victim of an unjust attack. Thankfully, history will record the truth. The only question now is how much more truth will be revealed.

LANSING (MI)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Barbara Dorris Outreach Director 314 862 7688

We applaud the brave Lansing area victims of predator priests who are coming forward to expose terrible crimes. We hope their actions will help each of them in the long, tough recovery process that follows heinous childhood victimization. And we hope their courage will inspire others who have been violated to reach out, get help, expose predators, protect kids, and heal more.

The bishop's claim that charges against Slowey can't be "substantiated" is baloney.

There's an easy way for bishops to get at the truth in child sex allegations: disclose them, and urge anyone with information that could prove or disprove the accusation to come forward. That's essentially what bishops have promised - to be "open" about child sex cases. That's clearly what bishops could do - they have websites and PR staffs and parish bulletins and diocesan newspapers. But that's still what bishops virtually never do, preferring instead to quietly settle cases behind closed doors and hope that the crimes and cover ups remain covered up.

PEORIA (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by David Clohessy Executive Director of SNAP 314 566 9790

Today, a judge sided with Catholic officials who want clergy sex abuse and cover up records kept sealed.

Today, Peoria's bishop wins and Peoria parents and parishioners lose.

Secrecy protects only those who commit or conceal child sex crimes. It hurts victims and endangers kids. It leaves parents in the dark about information that could be used to safeguard their kids.

SAN ANTONIO (TX)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will
-- disclose a new ½ million dollar judgment against a San Antonio child molesting ex-cleric,
-- discuss a $4.6 million child sex and cover up lawsuit settlement last fall with Texas Catholic officials involving a different predator, and
-- beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered the pedophiles’ crimes or misdeeds to get help, call police, expose wrongdoers, and start healing.

They will also prod San Antonio’s archbishop to explain and apologize for his secrecy about both allegations and settlements.

WHEN
Thursday, Aug. 26, at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE
Outside the Catholic headquarters (chancery office), 2718 West Woodlawn, in San Antonio

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

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will disclose and discuss a highly unusual $500,000 court order against a notorious serial child molesting cleric who
--- is accused of drugging and sexually abusing dozens of boys in three states,
--- has never before been deemed guilty in court, and
--- still walks free today.

The victims will also
---blast his church superiors for “mean-spirited” legal tactics and
---beg others who saw, suspected or suffered his crimes to call police.

WHEN
TODAY, Thursday, Aug. 26, 1:30 p.m.

WHERE
Outside Marianists headquarters 4425 West Pine Blvd. (near corner of Newstead Ave.) in St. Louis’ CWE

MICHIGAN
The Injury Board Blog

by David Mittleman
August 26, 2010

[The following is the text of the prepared statement I read at yesterday's press conference.]

At the outset, we should all show our appreciation to a brave, smart, and persistent victim. He is brave because it is not easy for those who have been molested to report such unspeakable crimes. He is smart because he didn't go it alone and sought independent help from a lawyer. And he is persistent because I was at least the third or fourth lawyer who looked at his facts. He was told by others that, in Michigan, “even if true, you can't hold the church accountable because of Michigan's anti-victim laws that shield pedophile priests, scout masters, and the like.”

But this victim is a friend of mine as well as a client. I believed him and, while I told him “I can't make you better, I can't undo what has been done to you, and I can't do to the priest what he did to you,” we can try against odds to get you compensation. And we did receive a significant settlement.

ICELAND
Iceland Review

The Church Council has asked the primary committee of the church convention to prepare proposals for an investigative committee to review the church’s work methods and reactions in regard to allegations that former Bishop Ólafur Skúlason committed sexual violations.

The proposals shall be submitted at the next church convention on November 13, Fréttabladid reports.

Pétur Hafstein, president of the church convention, said the committee’s members will be completely independent from all of the church’s institutions and the state’s ministries.

UNITED KINGDOM
London Evening Standard

Jackie Annesley
26.08.10

I was baptised a Catholic, educated at a convent and spent my childhood inventing sins for the confessional box, so the road to renouncing my Catholicism has been a long one.

But even as a recent disbeliever, the news this week that a Catholic priest was a terrorist behind an IRA car bomb in Northern Ireland that killed nine still shocked. It follows the cover-up of clergy sex crimes and the Vatican's misogynist pronouncement last month that ordaining a woman a priest is as sinful as abusing a child. So much for all God's children (John 1:12-13).

The seemingly trivial turning point for me came during my father's funeral several years ago, when the Catholic priest began eulogising about Eric. Dad's name was Alexander. As our muted sobs almost gave way to incredulous giggles, the undertaker was forced to go up to the altar to remind the priest, fond of the drink, of the name of the deceased.

CHICAGO (IL)
YouTube

[video presentation]

At the 2010 SNAP [Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests] Conference in Chicago, IL [July 30 - August 1] Judy Jones was honored and recognized for her ceaseless efforts on behalf of victims of clergy sexual abuse. These are Judy's remarks at the award meeting. Judy is the Associate Midwest Director of SNAP and can be reached at: snapjudy@gmail.com .

IRELAND
Irish Independent

By Eimear Ni Bhraonain

Thursday August 26 2010

A PRIEST has criticised the secrecy surrounding the appointment of the new Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin.

Popular Bagenalstown curate Fr Paddy Byrne (36) attacked the Vatican's selection process.

The Carlow priest -- the youngest in the diocese -- said he had "no confidence" in the process, which he described as "secretive, non-consultative and greatly imbalanced".

He urged Catholic Church leaders to "get their hands dirty" in the name of Jesus.

IRELAND
Telegraph (United Kingdom)

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 26 Aug 2010

Politicians and victims’ families said the church hierarchy should have gone far further, after it admitted it was “shocking” that a priest was involved in the Claudy atrocity, but insisted it “did not engage in a cover-up”. ...

The Catholic Church in Ireland, led by Cardinal Seán Brady, has already been accused by many, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, of losing “all credibility” over its failure to stop child abuse by priests and to bring the guilty to justice.

Sir Reg Empey, the outgoing leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, said: “The statement made by Cardinal Brady is, unfortunately, entirely inadequate.

AUSTRALIA
Seeking Media

A gay Catholic priest has revealed that up to half of priests, both gay and straight, are sexually active.

"I have not been able to keep my vow of celibacy," the priest says, speaking exclusively to DNA Magazine's Nick Cook in the current issue.

"Sometimes I need to be held and cared for - and I enjoy the sex.

"I know that for a large part of the world it means I'm not a good priest, but without it I'd be a worse one."

LANSING (MI)
Lansing State Journal

Kathleen Lavey • klavey@lsj.com • August 26, 2010

The Catholic Diocese of Lansing confirmed Wednesday that it paid $225,000 to a man who says he was abused by a priest in the 1950s at the St. Vincent children's home.

The settlement was signed July 27 by the man and on Aug. 11 by Bishop Earl Boyea, leader of the 10-county diocese. It was paid on Aug. 17 by a diocesan insurance policy.
The agreement is the second incident made public this week regarding alleged abuse decades ago by priests who have since died.

On Monday, Boyea said he believes the Rev. John Martin, a priest at St. Isidore in Laingsburg from 1941 to 1966, abused at least a half-dozen boys in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Martin died in 1968.

LANSING (MI)
Detroit Free Press

BY PATRICIA MONTEMURRI and CHRIS CHRISTOFF
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

The Catholic Diocese of Lansing was rocked Wednesday by revelations about another deceased priest, accused of sexually molesting a boy decades ago.

After the alleged victim refused a confidentiality agreement and accepted a settlement of $225,000, Lansing Bishop Earl Boyea acknowledged that the diocese paid the money this week to a man who said he was abused in the 1950s by Msgr. John Slowey, who led Catholic Social Services of Lansing.

David Mittleman, a lawyer for the victim, said his client says he was about 5 or 6 years old when he was molested by Slowey at the St. Vincent orphanage, where the man and his siblings were placed from June 1954 to March 1955. Slowey died in 1983 at age 68.

UNITED STATES
Healing and Spirituality

Dr. Jaime Romo

Dr. Kathy Jordan co-wrote “Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life” with Fred Mandell Ph.D. Kathy is a psychologist, coach and Reiki energy healing teacher who integrates her expertise in creative skill-building and mind/body practices to help people create more meaningful and joyful lives. She specializes in providing strategies for midlife women as well as survivors of abuse, trauma, and chronic illness to live creatively despite difficult challenges. See her website for more information.

JR: I loved your book, ‘Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent yourself at any stage of life.’ Please give readers a glimpse into it.

KJ: My co-author Fred Mandell and I met about 8 years ago at a time when we were both up to our earlobes in personal change. I was living in Boston, the epicenter of the Catholic Church clergy sexual abuse scandal. The non-stop media coverage triggered flashbacks to my experience of sexual abuse by a priest when I was in high school more than 30 years earlier. I had kept that experience a deep dark secret and was for the first time getting some professional help to deal with the impact of the abuse on my whole adult life.

NEDERLAND
omroep

Advocaat Bob van der Goen uit Soest onthult volgende week de naam van een Limburgse geestelijke die betrokken was bij seksueel misbruik in de katholieke kerk. Dat meldt Dagblad De Limburger. Het is de eerste van 'tenminste tien' priesters, van wie Van der Goen een schadevergoeding zal eisen. De jurist behartigt de belangen van onder meer de gedupeerdengroep Mea Culpa van Maastrichtenaar Bert Smeets.

NEDERLAND
de Volkskrant

UTRECHT - De commissie-Deetman, die seksueel misbruik in de rooms-katholieke kerk vanaf 1945 onderzoekt, wil ook meldingen die bij media zijn binnengekomen betrekken bij het onderzoek. Voorzitter Wim Deetman heeft in een brief aan een aantal hoofdredacties gevraagd ‘om kennis te mogen nemen van meldingen waarover deze media beschikken’.

De hoofdredacties van NRC Handelsblad en de Wereldomroep, die nauw samenwerken in een journalistiek onderzoek naar seksueel misbruik in katholieke instellingen, bevestigen dat ze een brief van Deetman hebben ontvangen. Adjunct-hoofdredacteur van NRC Hans Steketee denkt niet dat zijn krant aan het verzoek van de ex-minister zal voldoen: ‘Net zo min als we meewerken aan politieverzoeken, denk ik niet dat we gegevens die we als journalist hebben vergaard, gaan doorspelen aan Deetman.’

ITALIA
Avvenire

«Ex cattolicissima Irlanda». Diarmuid Martin l’ha descritta così, «senza ambiguità». L’arcivescovo di Dublino ieri al Meeting ha parlato del Paese di John Henri Newman, il cardinale filosofo dell’Ottocento che sarà beatificato a Birmingham il 19 settembre, ma soprattutto di quello di oggi, diviso dallo scandalo dei preti pedofili. Il primate venuto da Roma - Martin è stato segretario del Pontificio Consiglio Giustizia e Pace ed è arrivato a Dublino nel 2004, quando il "caso" era già esploso - ha usato proprio l’espressione «senza ambiguità» per riproporre la sua lettura dei fatti, rafforzata dalla lettera del Papa ai vescovi irlandesi contro le «ingiustizie del passato».

«Va sottolineato senza ambiguità - ha scandito - che lo scandalo dell’abuso sessuale di bambini da parte di sacerdoti e religiosi in Irlanda è veramente uno scandalo e non un’invenzione dei media». E ancora: «Le vittime sono state derubate del Dio che cercano ma i fedeli si sentono spesso derubati della loro Chiesa e si sentono traditi dalla loro Chiesa». L’arcivescovo ha negato di essere stato indebolito dalla decisione vaticana di respingere le dimissioni di Raymond Field e Eamonn Walsh, i due vescovi accusati da un rapporto governativo di aver insabbiato casi di pedofilia, ma ha precisato che la maggioranza del popolo di Dio la pensa come lui: «Sono i fedeli di tutte le età che sono scandalizzati dal fatto degli abusi, ma soprattutto dalla maniera in cui orribili abusi di bambini e adolescenti furono trattati dalle autorità ecclesiastiche».

NEDERLAND
NRC Handelsblad

Rotterdam, 25 aug. Ruim negenhonderd slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik binnen de kerk hebben zich de afgelopen maanden gemeld bij de onderzoekscommissie van oud-minister Wim Deetman. Dat heeft Deetman gezegd in een interview met de Volkskrant dat dinsdag is verschenen.

Volgens Deetman hebben slachtoffers diverse redenen om naar de commissie te stappen, en wil niet iedereen een schadevergoeding. „Er zijn slachtoffers die alleen hun verhaal willen doen en willen dat het onderzocht wordt. Er zijn veel mensen die hulp en begeleiding willen”, aldus de oud-minister.

Ook daders hebben zich bij de commissie gemeld, aldus de commissievoorzitter. Hij benadrukt in het interview dat daders er goed aan doen zich te melden.